HTC Touch (Eat Your Heart Out iPhone)

Well, it’s been several years since I would have considered myself a phone-whore, but now I can clearly remember why I used to be.  Of course, by phone-whore, I am referring to the fact that I used to buy a $300+ phone every single year because of the advances in technology and all of the cool new tools and goodies that came with it.  It all started with the Star-TAC.  I paid $350 for that thing.  Hard to believe when you look back.

Anyway, when I met my wife, I kinda stopped being such a kid and I eventually stuck with my Treo 650 for about 4 years.  It was a great phone and I really had no reason to get rid of it.  After a while though, I started losing reception and missed calls and dropped calls like crazy.  I had also just gotten into this freakin’ car accident and had completely covered the Treo in my blood so I thought it was a good idea and a good time to upgrade.

Well, this was the first phone I had every actually bought without researching.  I randomly decided to stop by the Sprint Store and saw the HTC touch.  I knew nothing about it, but it caught my eye and eventually took my full attention.  I played with it for no more than 5 minutes before they called my name, and I was already sold.  I didn’t actually “play” with it, I simply checked the specs and some of the control panel options and networking options and I all of a sudden couldn’t live without it.

The sad thing is that the next day I was floored by all of my concussion issues and I literally could not physically walk to go get my phone, let alone find the desire or any more interest in it.  It sat on the counter uncharged and unused for 5 or 6 days.  I didn’t even check for missed calls, let alone play with it or set anything up. 

Well, needless to say, I eventually picked the damn thing up and fell back in love.  It was a little difficult to start using because it was my first Windows Mobile phone and it was the first phone packed with all these goodies.  When I finally started figuring things out and using it like I should be using it, I couldn’t figure out how I had gone so long without a new phone and why I hadn’t known more about this one.

There’s still a LOT I’m not using on it and a lot that I don’t know about it.  I don’t even know how/where to get free apps for it yet and I don’t know of any hacks or anything, but here’s what I know and what I use:

It’s 4 oz.  It’s so much lighter than the Treo.  Seems weird, it’s only 2.5 oz lighter, but you can really tell.  It’s also  1 oz less than the iPhone.  It’s a half inch shorter than the Treo and iPhone and it’s about the same thickness of the iPhone (almost .5″ less than Treo).  It’s the same width as both.  This isn’t necessarily a GOOD thing because you lose screen real-estate compared to the iPhone, but it’s better on the pocket-space/purse-space if you’re a chick.

The Battery life really suffers compared to the others, especially the iPhone.  I have a AC/DC power charger though so I almost always have it externally powered.  It’s USB powered too, so when I hook it to my PC, I’m getting charged as well.  Not sure if the iPhone is. 

There’s a measly 152MB of built-in memory which is a big step up on the Treo, but it’s about 7.9 GB short of the iPhone.  However the iPhone is stuck at 8 GB, where the other two use SD slots.  The Touch uses microSD.  I have a 2GB in there now and that’s plenty for now.

It has Bluetooth like the others, but I had never really used the Bluetooth stuff on the Treo before.  I already have everything running with Bluetooth now and I absolutely love it.  Bluetooth deserves it’s own post though.  This version of the phone (CDMA) can’t use WiFi, which kinda sucks.  The iPhone can.  The Sprint people told me it could, so that bugs me even more, but then again, that’s something I don’t think I’d use that much.  EVDO is fast enough for what I do methinks.

It uses Windows.  Not PALM… not APPLE.  I’m not THAT much of a Widows fanatic, but I despise the other two greatly, so I’m thrilled to have Windows Mobile 6.  It’s also got built in GPS.  Sprint hasn’t come up with the software for this yet, so you can’t really use it unless you pay for the proprietary Sprint services.  Oh well, I’ll have this for a while and I’ve heard that this will be release 1st quarter (Sprint peeps said that).  Can’t wait, but the Map features in Windows Live are awesome enough without it.

So anyway, enough with the comparisons.  There are goods and bads as compared to the others, but this is what makes me love the phone regardless of why I did or didn’t do this on my Treo and regardless of whether other phones do this or not:

It’s my first Windows Mobile phone for starters.  I love that fact how this seamlessly integrates with all of my Office tools at work and home, mainly Outlook.  This is the first time I’ve ever been completely synched.  I have integrated all of my contacts from all of my email services (gmail, hotmail, yahoo, work and home) into my phone and then back to each of the sources.  My contact lists are now all the same.  They’re not truley synched, but I can synch them manually when I want, but the bottom line is that my phone as ALL of my contact info and so does my laptop’s Outlook.

Aside from that, I also have all of my email integrated into the phone now.  So now, when I get hotmail, gmail, work, comments from here, text messages, or Instant Messages, I know right away.  I also have all of my personal calendars and work calendars synched.  I know that sounds trivial, but the further along in my career and the further along in my family life (The older I get), the more I will live and die by these features.  I haven’t been late to a meeting and or doctor appt and I haven’t forgotten that I need to do this or that after work, etc.  I’m excited now when the alarm rings and says “Wake up, you have an 8:00 this morning”.

I love the touchFlo.  For those that don’t know, this is something that iPhone has and seems to do well.  It’s really nothing more than a flash way to browse.  For instance, you slide your finger up and it pulls up a menu, or you slide right and left to scroll through pictures or you slide it in a circle to zoom in and out.  There aren’t many buttons on this phone, so this helps make things easy to navigate without scrambling through menus.

I love the way Windows Live Search works.  I’ve always been a Google Maps mark but this map software for the phone is awesome with the driving directions and the way you can navigate and zoom on the turns and destinations.  I love the Sirius player I installed to DEATH.  Since my car has been in the shop for 25 days and still has 10 to go, I’ve been using my phone to listen to Howard and Bubba on Sirius on the ride to work.  I love Sprint TV, but not nearly as much as the Slingbox mobile software where I can actually control and stream my physical components at home (I can power on and watch my cable or Replay TV on my phone…  freain’ awesome). 

I love the mini USB.  It’s nice and easy to hook up to the PC.  It comes with a splitter so you can power it and use the headphones at the same time (the headphones are USB too).  There is an adapter for a 1/8″ headphone jack too.

I don’t like that Sprint has “disabled” the GPS, or that they haven’t done whatever they need to do for us to use the GPS chip on non-Sprint software.  I don’t like there isn’t a keyboard option like what I’ve seen on the iPhone where the numbers get larger when you press them so you can make sure you’re hitting the right key before release your finger.  I also don’t like that there’s no WiFi and I don’t like that I don’t know anything about the new features and hardware on the phone so I can’t use it for more stuff :-)  For instance, I don’t know how to use it as a modem for my phone (without paying for the Sprint add-ons) and I’m struggling to figure out  how to synch via Bluetooth dongle.  I think that’s an ActiveSync issue though, not my phone.

All in all, I love the phone, as you can clearly infer from my comments and I’m not biased in any way other than the fact that I didn’t like Palm’s OS and I don’t like Apple :-)  Really though, the phone is great.  I strongly recommend it for anyone.  I got it for $250 after rebates and would have paid more for it.  Do your research though unlike I did.  I would have still gotten this, I’m sure, but there’s plenty of info out there.  Enjoy.