This phone, which came out in June 2007, measures 99.9 x 58 x 13.9 mm, weighs 112 gms, making it one of the smallest touch screen phones available, and boasts a handsome curved design. Its display measures 2.8 inches diagonally, with 65K colours and a resolution of 240 X 320 pixels. The highlight of this handset, however, is the TouchFlo technology on which the display stands, which allows a user to switch screens by finger swipes.As with most other touch screen phones, the display of the HTC Touch, covers pretty much the whole of its front. A five way navigation button sits just beneath the display, flanked on both sides by tiny Call and End buttons. The right side of the Touch houses a camera activation switch, and a microSD slot. A volume rocker and a mini USB port reside on its left, and the power button sits right on top. Finally, the phone's speaker and camera lens are located at the back.
The HTC Touch runs the Windows Mobile 6 Professional Edition, providing the complete Microsoft Office Mobile suite, which entitles you to view and edit Word, Excel and PowerPoint documents. The embedded Direct Push technology assists in real time synchronisation with Microsoft Exchange server, for sending and receiving messages. Be that as it may, the small on-screen keyboard isn't a pleasure to use, and may cause some annoyance. Also, the TouchFlo screen has been found to be low on sensitivity, which means you may have to press down firmly for certain options. Apart from this, even the finger swipes have failed to bring up intended screens more than once. Occasionally, response times have been a source for concern too.
Other features include, smart dialing, voice commands, and text and multimedia messaging. It supports Bluetooth 2.0, and has EV-DO support. The address book can hold practically unlimited entries, with upto 12 numbers for a particular contact, with email, screen name, etc. You also have options to link a photo to a contact, and also one of 15 polyphonic ring tones. To call a friend, just tap his photo on the display, and the call is under way. Call quality has also been found to be pretty good.HTC has added the Audio manager which basically acts like a music player sporting large buttons for on-screen use. It supports all the usual file formats that one would expect in a standard Windows Mobile 6 device.
Coming to the camera, the Touch has a 2 megapixel camera with a self-portrait mirror. It has a 5X zoom and provides a choice of five resolution settings and 4 quality settings. Video recording capabilities include support for MPEG4, Motion JPEG, or H.263 format. The results, sadly, are a bit on the poorer side. Images are not high on clarity, and videos experienced some quality concerns.Users give the phone a just above average rating with some of them even, saying it has exceeded their expectations....a mixed response there. Ofcourse, that depends on what their expectations were ;-) The Touch has been rated for approximately 4 hours of talk time and up to 10 days of stand by time.
