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HTC Touch Pro video review

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Though they are similar in so many ways, I feel that the HTC Touch Pro is a much more accomplished phone than the Touch Diamond. It may be thicker and heavier but it provides a much more valid alternative to the iPhone, and that is simply due to its brilliant keyboard. Battery life is disappointing, true, and it's also expensive - £500 (SIM free) is an awful lot of money whichever way you look at it, and means that you're unlikely to get it on a reasonably-priced contract (£30 or cheaper) for less than £200. But if you can stomach the high price and must have a phone with a keyboard, the HTC Touch Pro is very hard to beat. Read full review

Overall

8/10

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By Jonathan Bray
Reviewed 26 August 2008
Updated 26 May 2011

Price as reviewed

free/subscription

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Video Review
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7 Photos

Reviewed by Jonathan Bray
26 August 2008

Read the full HTC Touch Pro review

Awards

HTC Touch Pro details

Performance: 8/10
Value: 7/10
Features: 10/10
Design: 8/10
Overall: 8/10

Price as reviewed

free/subscription

Manufacturer

HTC

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SilentShark1

1:27 AM on 27 August, 2008

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The latest Diamonds ship with the latest ROM, which is every bit as smooth and quick as the Touch Pro's ROM, so that argument is gone now. I got mine last week and it was fully up to date.

You could argue that it should have been sorted before it went on sale, and I'd agree with that. But it's not something to hold over the Diamond any more.

Basically you now have to choose between if you want a keyboard or not, and if you're prepared to pay the price for it.

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garygatter

7:55 AM on 27 August, 2008

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Sounds like the perfect phone but I think I will still wait for the android; due next month?

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ilovethemonkeyhead

9:40 AM on 27 August, 2008

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HTC should have released this phone first...

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Manni

2:23 PM on 27 August, 2008

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So HTC Touch pro with VGA screen, HSDPA 7.2mb, VGA front camera for 3G video calls, 3.2MP camera with flash, autofocus and VGA video recording, the best keyboard on the market, Opera 9.5, 288mb of Ram, 512mb of ROM, unlimited RAM extension through up to 32gb SDHC cards, replaceable 1340Mh battery, bluetooth PAN (can be used as a wireless 3G modem with a laptop), unlocked SIM, Bluetooth with AD2P EDR, MMS AND copy & paste, gets the same score (9) for features as iPhone 3G with Half VGA, HSDPA 3.6Mb, no VGA front camera, 2MP camera with no video recording, no flash and no auto-focus, no hard keyboard, no replaceable battery, no bluetooth PAN, no memory extension, crippled bluetooth (no AD2P), locked device, no MMS and no copy and paste?

Frankly, TrustedReviews have lost all credibility from a technical point of view. We can debate over design (subjective) and performance (depends what you do with your phone), but from a feature point of view, this is plain ridicule. If you give 9 to the iPhone 3G (which was not justified as it was old technology repackaged in a cheaper - but still well designed and very easy to use - handset), it's a joke not to give 10 to the Touch Pro, which is one of the most fully featured (if not the most fully featured) phone available on the market today. Granted, it's not for everyone even with Touch 3D, some people don't like WM6.1 or will find the design chunky (although it's smaller than the iPhone 3G with a bigger resolution), but from a feature point of view... Come on!!!!!!!! Again, I have nothing against Apple (a great company) or the iPhone (a fantastic, well designed, groundbreaking when it was first released, consumer phone), but I am tired to read reviews from supposedly educated people pretending that a well designed phone that does easily what most people need from a phone is better than a state of the art, fully featured, slightly less easy to use but amazingly more powerful and versatile smartphone. Finally, regarding value, let's look at the total cost of ownership between an iPhone (which cannot be bought without an expensive contract through O2 only, say 30/month for 600mn and 500 texts, plus £159 for the 16GB iPhoine). That's £789. A Touch Pro with a Combi 30 with WebnWalk at T-Mobile (Vario IV) is likely to be around £50 more expensive, a bit more if you factor the 16Gb SDHC. If you buy a sim free Touch Pro now, and add a SIM only + mobile internet from 3 which you can leave whenever you want for a betterdeal, it's likely to be LESS expensive than the iPhone 3G. So even your value score is flawed, because you're comparing Apple with oranges (sorry, couldn't resist).

Now Jonathan, I have to apologize to you because apart from the value score which I would discuss (there is no phone on the market that does as much, so that deserves a markup), your review is great (including the feature score!), and I wouldn't argue with it if it wasn't following the ludicrous recent review of the Apple 3G.

To SilentShark: the keyboard of the Pro is not the only difference with the Diamond, the battery capacity (almost 40% bigger) and the possibility to add unlimited memory through SDHC are two BIG differences for professional users.

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OliverLevett

4:58 PM on 27 August, 2008

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Hehehe...

Unfortunately for some of my arguments, this review is less biased towards the iPhone than the Omnia review, but:

Features? This phone has the best technology on the market (apart from the camera, but even 3.2MP is better than the iPhones 2.0MP, and it can take videos!), a higher clocked processor than the iPhone, a hardware keyboard and things like copy/paste and MMS. If the iPhone can get 9/10 for its crap camera, lack of hardware keyboard and lack of the (IMHO of course) essential Copy/Paste, this should get about 20/10!

Value:

On a £30 a month, 18 month contract from somewhere like eXpansys (resold T-Mo contract), this can be got for £141.99, and with a 8GB microSD card costing around £20, you can get the Raphael, with the same ammount of memory as the 8GB iPhone 3G, with better specs, on a much better contract (700 minutes, unlimited texts, unlimited data) for £60 more upfront. Now, isn't that better value than the iPhone? (oh, and because of the way eXpansys sell contracts, it'd be SIM unlocked as well, so no chance of damaging it in the same way as you have to do with an iPhone to unlock it. And, there will also be a SIM unlock for not very much money provided by the excellent people at XDA-Developers.)

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OliverLevett

5:00 PM on 27 August, 2008

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"the keyboard of the Pro is not the only difference with the Diamond, the battery capacity (almost 40% bigger) and the possibility to add unlimited memory through SDHC are two BIG differences for professional users."

Apart from the keyboard, RAM, battery and memory card slot, the Raphael and Diamond are identical. (Same radio hardware (radio ROMs are interchangeable), same USB interface hardware - yes, it may be possible to get TV out on the Diamond! - same everything!

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OliverLevett

5:01 PM on 27 August, 2008

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I do agree with the recommended badge though! :D

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JayWerfalli

6:53 PM on 27 August, 2008

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@Manni - we listen, and we agree. 10 for features.

However, as reviewers, we have to consider many factors that may affect the scoring. An example might be a product loaded with features that have been implemented very badly (or perhaps don't even work properly or reliably). You could argue that the design or usability score would be affected, but should it really score highly for features just because it has loads of them, regardless? Or should there be scores for each feature, and then another for each sub-feature...?

I will also add that the "scores debate" has been one that has been rumbling on in the publishing industry for as long as I can remember, and it's a debate that is typically fuelled by how we all interpret the meaning of a score, as well as the methods used to portray them. You have star ratings, percentages, bar charts, one score, scores out of 5, scores out of 6, scores out of 10 etc, but personally I think we do our best to keep things tight here at TrustedReviews - and, unlike some sites, we do listen and even act on some of our reader comments! ;)

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Manni

7:37 PM on 27 August, 2008

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@Jay: thank you for the 10.

Regarding the way features are implemented, I totally agree with you. Apart from a 3G performance problem with T-mobile only (which hasn't released the Vario IV for this reason), the Touch Pro doesn't seem to fall in this category. On another hand, the iPhone, with poor 3G performance, incomplete bluetooth, etc...

Regarding scores in the publishing industry, I used to be a professional journalist (in France), so believe me, I hear you and agree with you. Again, I was not saying that the rating for the touch pro was wrong. It was just unfair compared to the overrated iPhone. I've been reading - and enjoying - Trusted Reviews for a few years (it's my homepage!), and your review of the iPhone 3G was the first time I felt let down by one of your - talented - reviewers. I hope it's not related to the fact that you now have new owners, because if Trusted Reviews has lost its independance and objectivity, I'll have to find another homepage...

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Adam7ef

8:57 AM on 28 August, 2008

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Never mind the great features, a review with 'ameliorated' in it deserves 10/10.

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