HTC Touch Viva - HTC Touch Viva

Apart from the slow data download speed, the Viva actually feels relatively zippy in use no doubt thanks to its reasonably fast 201MHz OMAP 850 processor. It's not too shabby for a budget handset in terms of storage space either, as it has 256MB of ROM and 128MB of RAM onboard. You can supplement the storage space further with MicroSD cards, although to get at the card slot you have to remove the battery so cards aren't hot swappable.


HTC has used an 1100mAh lithium-ion battery on the Viva, presumably because it was banking on the lack of 3G making the handset less power hungry. However, it wasn't exactly a marathon runner during our test period, as we found with medium usage of the core functions we had to give it a recharge every day and a half.

Verdict

It's difficult to see who the Touch Viva is really aimed at. The lack of stereo headphones seems to indicate that the handset isn't being targeted at consumers, but then again the absence of 3G is likely to put off business users who want decent browsing speeds on the move. And that's the main problem with the Viva, despite its low price tag we think most people are going to find that it just doesn't have the right line-up of features to appeal to them.