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HTC Dream

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By John Chan
Feb 23, 2009

The HTC Dream was first launched last year as the G1 with operators in the US and Europe. As of now, it's still the only handset on the market which runs on the Google Android OS. We've finally gotten our hands on a unit meant for Asia. Here's a look at how it stacks up against the wide choice of touchscreen mobile devices available in our region.

Design

The dimensions of the Dream are 117.7 x 55.7 x 17.1mm with a total weight of 158g including the battery. While this may seem pretty hefty, you do have to bear in mind that it has a slide-out QWERTY keyboard, so it should be compared with devices such as the HTC Touch Pro and i-mate Ultimate 9502 rather than slim lightweights like the iPhone.

The Dream is encased entirely in a matte-black finish. Unlike in the US where it is also offered in white and bronze, this is the only color available in Asia at the moment. The buttons on the front face of the Dream are all located below the screen in a section that's slightly tilted upward. This looks a little strange at first but it does make the device distinct from the wide range of Windows Mobile devices made by HTC. Aside from the Menu, Home and Back buttons which are required to navigate the OS, there are also the Call and Hang Up keys for phone calls. A trackball is found in the center of this entire portion, which allows you to scroll and navigate pages. This is similar to what you will find on most BlackBerry devices starting from the Pearl and Curve series.

This tilted part is the only front portion of the Dream that does not move when pushing up the slider to expose the QWERTY keyboard. This blocks the right thumb and takes some getting used to. The layout of the keyboard is a five-row one with dedicated number keys at the top. The keys are small but distinct and make for good typing. Keyboards hidden under sliding screens are usually too flat for comfort but HTC has managed to make those on the Dream sufficiently tactile and we were able to type pretty well on them.

Like many of HTC's touchscreen products, the Dream comes with only a single mini-USB port. This is meant for charging, syncing and connecting a wired headset, which means you need an adapter to plug in your favorite 3.5mm audio headphones. A microSD card slot is available on the bottom left side of the device. This is cleverly hidden and can be accessed only when the keyboard is exposed.



Tags: HTC Touch, Google Android, Keyboard, touch screen, High Tech Computer Corp.
 
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