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HTC Touch Pro Review

Author	Jonathan Bray
Published	26th Aug 2008
Manufacturer	HTC
Supplier	SuperGPS.co.uk
Price	£499 inc VAT SIM Free. From Free on Contract
Latest Price	Click here

Design
Features
Performance
Value
Overall

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So what makes the Touch Pro so much better than the Diamond? The answer is simple - its keyboard. This slides out from underneath the screen with a silky smooth action, to reveal one of the best keyboards I've used on a smartphone ever. It has a full five rows of keys, including a dedicated row for numbers (no fiddly function key button combinations here). It has a CTRL key, its own TAB key, plus separate buttons for CAPS, comma and full stop. It's not only well-laid out, it's also responsive - much more so than the keyboard on the HTC TyTN II - and the keys are large enough and separated from each other by just enough space that you'll be up to speed on it in minutes.

A nice touch here is that when you pop the keyboard out, TouchFlo 3D presents a special, landscape launcher screen with a simple array of shortcuts on it to Email, Messages, Bookmarks, Web Search, Calendar, Tasks, Notes and Contacts. It doesn't simply try to shoehorn the TouchFlo 3D home page in.

Of course you do also get TouchFlo 3D's touchscreen keyboards as well - a full-sized QWERTY effort, number pad and "compact keyboard" which consists of a QWERTY layout where letters are arranged two per "key", and these work well. But once you've used the keyboard, you'll wonder why people put up with entering text on a touchscreen, no matter how good that touchscreen may be.

There are other differences between the Touch Pro and the Diamond apart from the keyboard, of course. The backplate, still adorned with diamond-like facets, is covered with soft touch plastic instead of gloss black, for instance. This makes the phone feel much nicer hold, and you don't have to keep polishing the fingerprints off it. The sliding keyboard does add to the thickness of the Touch Pro - it's 18mm thick, which is about the same as the TyTN II. It's clearly not as pocketable as the Touch Diamond, but this is ameliorated by more rounded corners, and it really doesn't feel that big once you've stowed it in a pocket.

The Pro feels much more responsive out of the box than the original Touch Diamond did. You can use it without wanting to throw it across the room every five minutes, and without having to take the life of your phone in your hands by upgrading the ROM. TouchFlo 3D with its attractive animations and touch controls is much more usable as a result, and whizzing through the various screens (email, text messages, settings and so on) using the icon track at the bottom of the screen is extremely effective. But it is worth pointing out that you'll still have to get the stylus out regularly - the alarm clock settings (bizarrely) still require the tapping of tiny check-boxes, as do most other settings screens - and there's still the odd pause here and there.

Neither does this phone have the 4GB internal storage of the Diamond. There's 288MB of RAM and 512MB of ROM for storage, which is a bit on the mean side considering how expensive it is, but it does at least have a microSD slot (the Diamond has no means of adding to its storage) so you can add as much as you like.

Latest 4 of 16 Comments

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Zeigler said on 2nd September 2008

Any word on which networks will carry this phone, and when? I've not come across anything concrete, and one article even stated that the Pro will be available to business use... more

Manni said on 5th September 2008

@John Griffin: I guess if you're all the time in the US you should buy the US version, otherwise Edge while in the US should be enough for the occasional trip? The good people at XDA developper are working to see if it's a hardware limitation, or a firmware limitation to limit grey import until the US version is released as it has been the case for other devices, in which case a radio/rom upgrade will solve the problem.
@Zeigler: T-mobile should carry their version, the Vario IV from October, Vodafone will carry the Touch Pro "untouched" in theory from the 7th of September (but that may get pushed back again, check their business site). O2 should release it as well, but I don't have any details.
I have received my Touch Pro a week ago, and here are my comments (as some of you will probably move from a Tytn II, I compare it when applicable):
- It's not as big as it looks on the pictures, definitely smaller and lighter than the Tytn II (and of course than the iPhone), fits easily in a pocket, amazing when you think it has an integrated keyboard. Yes, it's a bit thick, but frankly, I'm very happy with the form factor.
- I really like Touch 3D (once you get how to use it which takes a little while), so thanks to Apple for causing HTC to make progress in the human interface department. Not iPhone smooth but a step in the right direction.
- Opera is fantastic on a full VGA screen
- The keyboard is even better than the Tytn II, although I miss the tilting mecanism
- Great screen, but could be slightly more sensitive to touch and a bit more visible in direct sunlight
- Not great reception with T-mobile in 3G (calls get cut off, connection drops), hopefully a new radio should help (there is already one at XDA which apparently makes the situation better if not perfect), that's probably why T-mobile UK has still not released it. I don't mind too much as I'm most of the time on 2G to save battery and only switch 3G when needed, but it's still a downside. From what I hear reception is good on other networks.
- Good voice quality during calls but loudspeaker not loud enough, should be fixed with a rom update
- Wifi radio gets a weaker signal than my Tytn II (Vario III), but is mostly useable. I'm a bit disappointed in this area, let's hope they find a way to improve it.
- SIM card slot and SDHC memory slot less accessible than on Tytn II, but at least they're both there!
To make up for this, I do lots of things things that I wouldn't be able to do (yet?) with an iPhone 3G:
- My Motorola S9 BT stereo headset works beautiffuly and seamlessly with AD2P for films, music, tomtom directions and phone calls
- Coreplayer plays VGA divx beautifully
- I can watch my freeview channels, a DVD, a recorded program, or satellite TV when I'm away with my Slingbox
- TomTom 7 works beautifully in VGA
- I record Video in 30fps as well as 3MP pictures, sometimes even use the LED as a flashlight with a nifty little utility
- I use Softmaker Office 2008 daily (a fully featured office suite), which allows me to create, open and modify Office documents (Word, Excel, Powerpoint) without losing any formatting, with the added comfort of a hardware keyboard.
- I don't send any MMS (who does?), but find comfort in, the fact that if I wanted to, I could!
- I do a lot of copy and paste however!
- I've got lots of music, films and maps on a few SDHC card and enjoy the unlimited storage space (soon up to 32gb per card)
- If I wanted to, I could even do powerpoint presentations or watch a film on an external VGA screen, but frankly, I'd rather use a laptop for that...
So all in all, I mostly agree with the final ratings of the review, except the value (and hence the overall, which is unfairly brought down by value).
Thanks to TrustedReviews for being fair play though!

@John Griffin: I guess if you're all the time in the US you should buy the US version, otherwise Edge while in the US should be enough for the occasional trip? The good people... more

stratoscar said on 20th October 2008

Jonathan I think you have missed the point here, Iphone its gre8 design easy to use phone but its far behind as far as features and technology is concerned. I hope producers will n... more

Tim Sparling said on 10th March 2009

Have had this device given to me at work. We have been after push email/calendar for a while and to this end the touch pro is fantastic. Easy to setup and does'nt miss a beat ... more

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