Jun 23

touchAfter my previous post on HTC Touch Viva , I got few more time to play with htc’s touted Touch Flo experience. To cut the chase short, I will say this it makes the Windows Mobile experience a much nicer one to say the least. To my understanding the Touch Flo 2D interface is a shell to customize the windows mobile OS underneath and it gives a good account of itself, as soon as i switched to the default windows interface I was confused and even getting some basic things done became a pain.

The HomeScreen with its weather screen, message screen,photo contacts, program shortcuts, gallery access, media player access makes it much easier to use and also much more touch friendly. The message screen displays the most current message but a nice scroll bar enables us to scroll through the other messages from the home screen itself. The photo contacts enables us to keep our most frequent callers on the homescreen and with a option to sms them included. The program shortcut screen is a great way to place shortcuts to access our most often used app.

And one more example is the screenshot which I have shown, giving a easy finger touch friendly access to some main phone functions.

Going by this, Touch Flo 3D in HTC’s Hi-end devices should be a treat to work with provided the hardware has enough oomph to power it up.

written by Vignesh \\ tags: , ,

Jun 18

When my friend who previously owned a Nokia 5800 suddenly downgraded to a HTC Touch Viva I was surprised (his 5800 seemed riddled with software and display problems). But he is not a power user so he was happy enough to get a Viva. But mind you is hardware and software wise very much similar to HTC Touch (which I posted about few months ago).

HTC_viva

Retailing at aroung 13,500 bucks (280$) its almost 2000 bucks cheaper than HTC’s own Touch. Built in a glossy gun metal gray plastic it is slightly slightly bulky when compared to Touch, but very acceptable for a smartphone. When I played around it for few minutes, I was surprised to see its almost or much faster than Touch (might be its only few days old) and it carried a 8GB micro SD card but the file manager and phone’s general operation seemed very fluid.

If you want to know more about its capabilities you can read my post on HTC Touch here.

written by Vignesh \\ tags: ,

Apr 02

htc_touchWhen one of my friends asked me to suggest a entry level windows smartphone , I suggested HTC Touch Viva or HTC Touch, mainly because of their internal memory being 128 MB RAM & 256 MB ROM so that the phone isn’t as laggy as the Asus P320 which I have posted about earlier. And he bought a HTC Touch (Model No.: P3452) , I got to play with it here are some points I took from it,

  • Its very handy (measuring 99 x 58 x 13.9 mm & weighing 112g) and the matte finish makes it look extra smart.
  • The Home Screen customized by HTC touch flo interface was a nice ‘Touch’ making the phone easier to use hiding the clutter of windows mobile 6.0
  • When I read a spec that it had 3 speakers and I didn’t see it on the phone I thought its music qualities would be iffy…BUT when I played a song through the headphones it was rocking.
  • The 2.8″ 240 x 320 TFT screen was nice and crisp
  • The network reception and sound quality was good so making it a Nice phone to start with
  • The 2.0 Mpx camera was OK, should suffice for the occasional snaps
  • Office stuff like EMail, Office Suite, PDF reader are all standard and works well
  • Connectivity wise GPRS/EDGE, Wireless LAN, Bluetooth, USB should be enough in India
  • Even though the Touch Flo interface is good in some parts I wasn’t able to use the finger swipes to work for me
  • A FM radio would have been nice
  • The mini usb jack must be used for connectivity, charging and for the headphones making it quite cumbersome. A dedicated 3.5 mm audio jack would have been nice
  • Priced at Rs. 15,750/- (310$) with 1 additional stylus, 1 GB micro SD card, pouch, screen protector, stereo earphones, mini-usb cable its 2000 rs costlier than HTC touch viva. Basically both are same minus the exterior looks.

So those who want to step into the world of windows mobile can try either the Touch or Viva….

written by Vignesh \\ tags: , ,