By Damian Koh
03/11/2008
URL: http://asia.cnet.com/reviews/mobilephones/0,39051199,43946546p,00.htm

HTC has enjoyed relative success recently with several of its Touch series handhelds, but it has been almost a year since we had a new smart phone from the Taiwan-based company. The previous offering was the S730 which came with both a numeric keypad and a slide-out QWERTY keyboard.

Design

Aside from improved technical specifications, the new S740 sports several distinct design changes from the S730, one of which is a shorter width (43.4mm on the S740 compared with 51mm on the S730). This makes the new S740 look more like a remote control than a phone. The S740's screen also slides out to the right (instead of left as seen in the S730), similar to the Touch Pro, to expose the full QWERTY keyboard.

The edges of the S740 are generally not as rounded, following more closely to the design philosophy of the Touch Diamond and Touch Pro. To put it into perspective, the S740 occupies almost the same footprint as the Nokia E51 as you can see from the picture on the right, but comes with a thicker 16.3mm profile, which is inevitable due to the QWERTY keyboard.

Ergonomics-wise, the numeric keypad and the QWERTY provides a decent tactile feel, though our thumbs felt a little stretched when typing on the elongated four-row keyboard. The screen is also flush with the surface of the phone. That actually helps to give the S740 a more streamlined feel consistent with the Touch series. Our beef with the glossy, mirror-like front is that it's a huge fingerprint magnet, from the 2.4-inch QVGA screen right down to the keypad. The only time you'll see it free from smudges is when you first remove it from its box.

When we reviewed the Touch Pro, we commented on the increase in number of keys on the QWERTY which made certain actions more convenient. One of these was the Ctrl button which allows the user to cut, copy and paste text the same way they would do on a PC. We are glad to see this implemented on the S740, too. We also like the numerous shortcut buttons on the keyboard for quick access to the messaging functions.

The navigation cluster comes with the usual left/right softkeys, Home, Back, Call and End buttons. The circular directional pad pulsates in white when there's a new text message in your inbox or when it's plugged in to the charger. These buttons work fine generally, though we did find the more important Call and Hang up controls a little too tiny.

The back cover on the earlier prototype unit that we had came with a glossy surface. That has been replaced with a soft-touch matte finish, something which we like. Like the Diamond and the Touch Pro, the back has a prism-like motif. The SIM card and microSD expansion card slots are found directly behind the screen. The problem here is that the microSD media goes under the SIM card, so you'll need to remove the latter to get to the flash media.

Elsewhere on the device, you'll find the camera shutter on the right edge, volume keys on the left, power button at the top and a mini-USB port for syncing, charging and connecting to a wired headset at the bottom.

Features

Enhanced features on the S740 include a higher-res 3.2-megapixel camera with fixed-focus lens (no onboard flash, though), faster Qualcomm MSM7225 528MHz processor, GPS with support for Assisted-GPS and 256MB RAM (four times that of the S730). Of course, the standard suite of connectivity features such as quad-band GSM radios, HSDPA, Wi-Fi and Bluetooth are also available. The phone doesn't support 3G video calls, though, which is a real pity.

The S740 runs on the Windows Mobile 6.1 Standard edition with a rotating panel interface. This allows the user to access their appointments, call records, text messages, emails, weather updates, Internet browser, music player and settings directly from the standby menu. New features on the 6.1 Standard include the improved Home screen, easier initial setup, threaded SMS and new Internet Explorer Mobile. Click here to find out more. When you slide open the S740, the onboard accelerometer rotates the display to landscape orientation and an Action Menu with shortcuts to the messaging functions and Live Messenger appears.

Other features like push-email and productivity apps like Microsoft Office are standard fare. Additional preinstalled applications are a little on the barebones side, though. Our review unit didn't come with any navigation software, so we installed Google Maps on the device. We also downloaded the Opera Mobile 9.5 browser. Both programs worked as expected with the A-GPS giving us a lock on our position at under 30 seconds.

Performance

256MB of RAM and a 528MHz Qualcomm processor are plenty for most tasks. The device responded fast enough and we didn't notice any significant lag even when the screen switched from portrait to landscape, and vice versa. The 1,000mAh battery gave us slightly under three days of use which included making calls, sending text messages, using the navigation features, browsing the Web and syncing over-the-air with our Exchange server. The S740 has a rated talktime of 4 hours and slightly over nine days on standby.

Voice quality was good without any complaints, though we did wish the onboard speaker was a bit louder. As mentioned, the S740 doesn't support 3G video calls, so if it is a must-have feature, this WM handset is not for you. Without autofocus, our pictures turned out hits and misses. The rule of thumb here is to shoot further away from your subject. Where image quality is concerned, don't expect anything other than snapshot quality from the camera module.

Conclusion

The most pressing question here is what a dual-keypad device like the S740 can offer that its competitors can't. The answer is really up to the individual. During our review, we ended up using the numeric keypad most of the time because the width of the keyboard made it tiring to type for extended periods. The S740 may be a decent upgrade from the previous model, but with the number of QWERTY smart phones now available in the market, alternative choices are aplenty. Plus the price of the S740 isn't a deal breaker, either.