Ideal Gadget

It has been 3-4 months & I’ve lost TOUCH with the cyber world. Liew must’ve thought I died or something (sorry!!). The truth is I’ve been so caught up with work that by the time I got back from work I’m so tired couldn’t even TOUCH the “ON” button of my desktop (excuse… excuse…). Anyway, I’ve a new love of my life! Yes… the hottest topic of the year… the rival of iPhone - HTC TOUCH. Tested through for more than a month already and I still haven’t got tired of it (believe me, I can get tired of a new phone in a week!).

Physical 1st Impression: Sexy, sleek, slim, cool. Black rubbery matte surface (somehow I don’t like this much although it has the benefit of preventing slips), can fit into your pocket without bulging out, fit the palm of a lady, minimalist design (only 5 buttons & 1 slider control for volume). The only uneasy thing is… the buttons. They seems to look like a dummy’s - not mold-fit, they’re loose.

Specifications: Triband, dimension 99.9 x 58 x 13.9 mm; 112 g (very light!), screen 2.8″, handwriting reckon, 5-way navi, TouchFlo system (more on this later), 64 MB RAM, 128 MB ROM, 201 MHz (learning how to overclock this, heheh…)

Connectivity: GPRS, EDGE, WiFi, Bluetooth, (No 3G), MiniUSB that triples as a sync port, charging & audio jack.

System: Win Mobile 6 Pro, Pocket Office, PDF viewer. If you’re a PDA user I think I don’t need to explain much. The system is basically just like any other WM OS except that in WM6 you have several advance improvement in

Accessories/Camera: 2MP 1600 x 1200 pixels. Camera has a lot of functions, but eats up a lot of RAM. 1GB MicroSD included, a stereo headphone, Li-Ion 1100 mA (sustainable for a bout a day & a half - & I do a lot of calls & WiFi).

Input System: U can choose to use the stylus or your own finger (TouchFlo). It’s basically a system where you get to slide your fingers in order to browse or pan the page. Very useful when browsing the web or looking for a contact number. Even though I suspect that the multi-touch system in the iPhone is more superior than the TouchFlo but it’s a good start for HTC to come up with this technology that enables you to interact with your PDA using just the fingers. But you really have to put a pressure when using the TouchFlo.

What I love most: Sleek & cute (just like me! Hehehe). Easy browsing, though the limitation to handwriting reckon (no QWERTY) limits me at first.. but human learn to adapt & I did within the first 2 weeks. Turned out awesome as well! I can now browse through the net while on the go, or downstairs, or waiting for the taxi… I can also read all the 4 GB e-books I have stored, listen to Buble singing his heart out, take razor-sharp picture when I’m down at the storage warehouse inspecting all the goods & inventory, open up the excel sheet & view it in the meetings. In short, I can play, work & sleep with this PDA phone. It TOUCHES my life.

What can be improved: RAM! My God.. I’m having trouble launching applications due to memory insufficient. Hah! They better do something quick about this. Other than that it’s probably the bugs when lauching the Audio Player because sometimes it gets turned off by itself. I’ve faced with this a few times already.

The Rival & The Little Sister: Although I’ve expressed that the TouchFlo might be inferior to the multi-touch system in iPhone, I would still choose this HTC Touch over it (not because of the price!) because of the functions. iPhone stresses too much on audio/video playing and more like an advance version of iPod. Not much develpement has been done on its application for work. By the way HTC Touch II is on its way to our shore! I’ve seen it used by DoCoMo & here’s the sneak preview! Looks exactly like this model but with enhanced feature of a slider keypad & 3.5G support along with an extra VGA camera at the front!

For more info on this product, save yourself by going to HTC Touch Microsite.