HTC Touch (2nd generation)

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The HTC Touch consistently appears in our monthly Top 5 handhelds feature since its launch. This means it's selling well among the shops and operators surveyed, which in turn implies that it's a popular PDA-phone. Thus, it didn't come as a surprise when HTC recently announced an updated version of Touch with a couple of enhancements.

The Touch now comes in two additional colors, burgundy and white. In addition, HTC has doubled its memory so it now comes with 128MB RAM and 256MB ROM. These changes have prompted us to give it a review score of 7, up from the original 6.8. Read on to find out why.

Editors' note:

This article was adapted from the original HTC Touch review with updates to reflect the hardware and software modifications made to the new Touch.

Update: We have concluded the battery life tests. Head on over to the third page for the details.

Update (17/12/2008): HTC released a new version of TouchFLO which adds new functions to this product. We tried it out and have detailed it in a Crave blogpost. This review and the original score given do not take the new interface into account, so head on over to the blogpost if you want to find out more.

Design
Without a doubt, the Touch is one of the most attractive PDA-phones to date. It has a soft-touch finish throughout the front and back, and a minimalist design with curves not unlike that of a smooth pebble. Its most unique design feature is the flush LCD. Unlike most other PDAs, the screen on the Touch does not sit slightly lower than the front surface, but is level with it to accommodate the device's TouchFLO interface--which we will discuss at length in a moment. While attractive, one possible disadvantage of this design is that screen films applied for protection may be a tad unsightly, especially the high-quality ones which are usually quite thick.

	The new Touch is available in four different colors.

The appeal of this PDA-phone is also due to its size. It is very slim at just 13.9mm, certainly one of the slimmest Windows Mobile devices with a touch-sensitive display. In comparison, the O2 Atom Life, another very popular model with a similar form factor, is 18mm thick. This also restricts the amount of space available for buttons.

On the front, there are only a directional pad and two buttons for calling and hanging up. Aside from those, a volume rocker and a camera shutter key are found on either side of the Touch. These two, as well as the expansion card slot, power key and a single USB connector, are all found along the silver strip that runs around the four sides of the Touch.

Unlike most phone devices, the Touch does not have its SIM card slot in a position that requires battery removal to access. A cover on its right side opens to reveal both the SIM slot and microSD slot. With much difficulty, this cover can be opened with the battery cover at the back still on. However, the diagrams that show you which way to insert the cards can be seen only when the back cover is off, which leads us to infer that removing the back is a necessary step when switching cards. And even though you can remove or insert a SIM card without touching the battery, the device still turns off automatically when you do that--which makes any reason for not having the SIM card under the battery moot. This part of the Touch is certainly awkward and needs not to be repeated in future models.

Tags: HTC Touch, Microsoft Windows Mobile, SIM Card, High Tech Computer Corp., O2 Plc.

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