HTC Touch 3G Windows Mobile smartphone

Hot on the heels of the Touch Viva - the budget Touch - comes the 3G version. Smaller, neater, and with more features, including - of course - 3G connectivity, Assisted GPS and a 3.2Mp camera, this is the next stage up the Touch ladder. HTC Touch 3G HTC's Touch 3G: compact and stylish Like the Viva, the layout resembles …

[Anonymous Coward]

More than likely not

In before bitching about Windows Mobile and the futility of putting a nice UI on top of it.

[Anonymous Coward]

@"What's Not To Like"

cue a lot of people complaining that it's Windows Mobile rather than some nonexistant Linux distro...

Looks like a good phone! It'll do anything that you'd want & its software can easily be expanded when you find something it doesn't do.

[Anonymous Coward]

Must try harder!

Don't mean to be a grumpy old man here, but I was genuinely interested to read this review, with questions like 'how does the TouchFlo interface integrate with WM?', 'Is WM really usable with just a touchscreen interface?', and (perhaps most importantly when one has fat sausage fingers), 'Just how usable IS the keyboard on screen?'. Unfortunately, none of these were answered - it really seemed more like a rundown of the feature list than a review. Booo!

[Craig Wallace]

mmm

likey

[Thomas Bottrill]

@AC

Based on my Touch Pro, the UI allows touch-friendly access to certain parts of WM. There's a program quicklaunch, which I guess is designed to replace the start menu, and there's a touch-friendly comms manager. Opera is obviously designed for Touch phones, and replaces Internet Explorer for proper HTML pages (since Opera Mobile is detected as a desktop Opera, you'll probably need to use IE for WML pages).

Having said that, for some things you do need to go through the standard WM interface. The WM UI can be used with fingers, as the HTC phones guess what you're actually trying to click on, but it's still a lot easier with a stylus.

As for the keyboard, the on-screen one on my Touch Pro is quite good to use with fingers, but it does take up half the screen. I'm also not sure what resolution the Touch 3G is at, as the older Touch phones and the Viva are at smaller resolutions than the Diamond and Pro.

[Daniel Hunt]

@AC (Must try harder)

Most of the reviews on this site are like that, unfortunately. I can tell you, however, that I've had the HTC Touch HD for the past week, have fat fingers, and find it a dream to use.

The UI could use alot of work, but where TouchFlo is visible, it's just fine.

Pity about the ugly MS apps, but hey, it's not the end of the world.

[Anonymous Coward]

Never mind the features ...

... will this kill the iPhone or not?

There's only one way to find out ...

[Danny]

sticking with my omnia

Give an omnia some hacked firmware so you can alter the widgets and stick flashlite 3 (and 2 for the widgets) and its a winner. Very happy with mine - far better than the G1 crap I had on trial.

[Giles Jones]

@Must try harder!

I'd wait for the next release of WM where they've redesigned the interface completely.

There's some capable hardware for WM phones, they're just sadly let down by the UI which has been around largely unchanged for a good 8 or 9 years now.

All these launchers and front ends do try to lessen the futility, but once you have to leave it you can forget trying to use your fingers.

It's not just Microsoft with this problem, Symbian needs a good deal of updating too. S60 touch seemed a step forward but they still kept support for the stylus!

Personally I'd rather see Symbian die out and leave us with WM, iPhone and Android.