HTC Snap review

I have just replaced my HTC Touch Diamond with a HTC Snap.  I have been using a Touch Diamond for over a year and haven't really been that pleased with it.  Looking back on the review I wrote on it over a year ago, I can see that my initial impressions weren't far off the mark.

My initial impressions with the HTC Snap couldn't be more different.  The unit boots up quickly and is very responsive to use.  I love the QWERTY keyboard - I have had Blackberrys in my work life on a couple of occasions and this is about as close to a Blackberry as you are going to get for a Windows Mobile (6.1) device.  However, the keys are still a little close together for me, but it is still pretty good.  Even some of the Blackberry like UI features (e.g. inserting a capital letter after a fullstop) are present.  About time!

The battery life seems pretty good for a 3G device and in normal use I find it will go 3 days between charges.  Obviously battery life depends on usage, so your mileage may vary.  The GPS works well with Google maps (preinstalled on the device) and if you are a big Facebook user, I recommend downloading the Windows Mobile version (you will find it here).

The overall build quality is great- it feels robust and the matt black finish works really well.  The screen is bright and clear (if a little small compared to some other devices these days).  It locks/unlocks very easily and considerable thought seems to have gone into the UI to make it even more usable.  Somehow all the features that you need are right at your finger tips.  The email was easier to set up and internet connectivity was a breeze. 

I did have a HTC S620 which was the 2G predessor to this device.  I loved it, but unfortunately it had an accident (let's just say it suffered severe water ingress!).  This is a great replacement for the S620 and I feel relieved now that I have retired my Touch Diamond.

Garmin 60CSx

The first Garmin handheld unit that I bought was a GPS12XL and it must have been more than ten years ago. At the time, I remember connecting it to AutoRoute running on a laptop and being amazed while watching the moving map in the car (with all the kit sat on the passenger seat). At the time, it felt like a gadget worthy of James Bond! Today, all that kit comes in a piece of hardware so small that you can attached to your windscreen with a rubber sucker!

Well, ten years on and I have bought my second Garmin unit (I lent the 12XL to someone and never got it back!). Thinking about it, I have bought a number of devices recently with GPS built in (a car, a camera, a watch), but this is the first (well, second) dedicated GPS handheld that I have bought. And boy, how the technology has improved!

First off, the power up and location time is amazing. No more hanging around, waiting for the device to find it's location. It locates itself in under 60 seconds. No doubt this is longer if you have moved significantly distances between using the unit, but in normal use it is stunningly quick.

Great reception. Even under trees. In open ground, I am frequently picking up 9 satellites simultaneously at full signal strength. Thanks to the responsiveness of the unit, you can see the signal strength dip when under a tree canopy, but this has little effect on the unit (it does seem to reduce the accuracy slightly). With EGNOS enabled, the device's accuracy is usually reported as +/- 2M (under cover this gets reduced to +/- 3M).

Barometric altimeter. You need a signal from at least 4 satellites to be able to provide an estimate of altitude and GPS devices are notorious for not being great at providing height readings. Not too much of an issue if you are using it for marine use, but if you are using it for outdoor activities, this can be much more important. Anyway, the inaccuracy of GPS altitude readings are solved with the 60CSx by using barometric readings instead. These work well and the unit will provide graphic display of the readings (you can also configure the device to use GPS altitude rather than barometric altitude, if necessary).

Great User Interface. I read the quick start guide, played with the unit and then read the instructions. As they say, we all else fails read the instructions! But I haven't needed to with this device. For me, the Garmin UI is becoming like the Nokia UI for mobile phones - the UI that everyone is familiar with and the benchmark against which other devices are compared. The device is very configurable and the software includes functionality for geo caching, parachuting and marine usage.

Great battery life. The unit takes 2 AA batteries and it meant to last up to 10 hours. Well, I have been using mine for about 4 hours and it still displays full battery strength. I suspect that I will get more than the rated 10 hours. When connected via a USB cable, the unit is powered via USB rather than it's batteries which is another neat feature.

Rugged form factor. The device feels great and handles well. The rubber grip around the base of the device makes it easy to use with gloves on and the device looks robust. The unit is water resistant to 1M and the battery compartment has a full gasket. If you are a marine user, you might want to attach a float to it since I suspect it will not float on it's own!

And the downsides.....

Well there aren't that many really and these are more of a nit pick that anything.

The default map is a bit ho hum. This is not a biggie for me since I use it in conjunction with a map. However, the device has great display capabilities and the default map does not do the device justice. Sure, you can buy additional maps (they are installed on the MicroSD card that will be found under the batteries), but it just feels like a missed opportunity.

Is that karabiner loop strong enough? You can see this in the photo and it is just a loop in the soft rubber that covers the top of the unit and aerial. Although the device isn't heavy, I bet that it wouldn't take much to break the karabiner loop. I am not so worried about breaking the loop as I am in losing the device itself.

All in all, a fantastic device and all for around £230. If you are into Geo Caching, then this device has to be on your list.

HTC Touch Diamond - Great concept, almost a great product

But not quite. It has some great design features, but it has too many flaws for it to consider great.

First things first. If you are going to set high user expectations (and then you allow you Marketing department to overhype them), you had better deliver. Unfortunately, the HTC doesn't. The main problem is that the user interface (called TouchFlo 3D) does everything, but flow. The user interface stutters on occasion leading to a number of false selections and while it has some great ideas, it is just to fiddly in practice to be workable.

There are some really cool features:

• Putting the phone face down when ringing mutes the ringer. Nice design as it mimics exactly the action that I perform when my phone rings in meetings. Would I have guessed that it would work this way? Probably not. I guess that's what makes it a cool design that no one would ever guess.


• It s possible to reject a call and have the phone automatically text the caller that you will ring them back when free. Not sure if this is a new feature of Windows Mobile 6.1, but either way it is a cool feature.


• The phone going into vibrate mode when in a meeting according to your calendar. Nice.


• Rather than using strokes on the navigation tabs, press on the active tab and (while keeping the pressure on) move our finger to the left or right until the relevant icon is selected. Stroking the main screen, just selects the previous or next icon depending on the direction of the stroke. This makes the touchscreen interface much more usable.


• It is very easy to set up multiple email accounts – I have two setup – outlook for my corporate email, and POP3 access for my CompuServe account


• Threaded SMS messages really help keep track of conversations. Again not sure if this is specific to this phone or Windows Mobile 6.1, but either way still a neat feature.
  Envelope views for new emails. I find this surprisingly useful and quick to use. I frequently get a couple of hundred emails a day and this is a quick way to browse them.
  

But there are a number of negatives:

• The keypad disappears when you are in a call. This is NOT useful when you are trying to navigate your voicemail using touchtones – you make the call, then the keypad disappears. It can take a few seconds to get it back – press the button on the top of the phone followed by the keypad icon in the icon tray – by which time, your voicemail has timed out! I can’t find any settings to control this. Argh!


• The user interface is not smooth enough. For example, when trying to scroll down a long list of options, it is not unusual for the list to stop all of a sudden as it is presumably thinking about displaying the next part of the list. But what makes this even more frustrating is that the phone will often then select the option currently in viewing when the list halted. Argh! Pressing the back key sends you to the top of the list, where you start the whole process again! The Back key should send you back to where you were in the list before the option was selected, NOT the top of the list (which would be the equivalent of pressing the Back key twice!).


• Some of the icons and buttons are too smaller. Who is these designed for? Squirrels? For example, the OK button in the top right hand corner of many of the standard Windows Mobile dialogs is too small for most adult (human) fingers. Now, since these are standard WM dialogs, I am a little sympathetic. Where I have a bigger issue (and bone to pick!) is where these are custom UIs that have been developed. For example, if you set up more than one email account, you end up with buttons for the different accounts on the main Mail screen. You can only really access these using the stylus.


• Why didn’t they package the device with some GPS software? Even it is were only a trial version. It is like buying a car with world class speakers installed by default, but no radio! What good is half a solution? Installing demo GPS software would have demonstrated the capability of the device much better. I found myself checking the specs on the outside of the packaging to see if it really did GPS! After all, there was nothing on the device that would indicate it. And surely, a percentage of those folks who use the trial software would have purchased the full product?

In short, cool features are great, but you need to get the basics right. Maybe an update to the software will make all the difference, on the other hand, maybe the problems are down to a more fundamental limitation of the phone's hardware. Hopefully, HTC can work it out.