HTC Touch review

HTC's Touch is the first Windows Mobile 6 smartphone we have seen. It's also HTC's attempt to pre-empt the launch of Apple's iPhone; like Apple's latest gadget, the Touch has a touchscreen interface.

The Touch is the best-looking Windows Mobile smartphone yet. It fits in the palm of your hand and is slimmer than most phones. It is almost all screen, with only a small directional keypad and tiny call answer and end buttons.

The phone runs Windows Mobile 6, but HTC has heavily customised the home screen. It's dominated by a clock, and there are large shortcut buttons for the local weather and a customisable application launcher. The Touch's main trick is its TouchFlow interface, which is designed to be used with just your finger. Running your finger across the screen from bottom to top launches TouchFlow. The first screen has large icons for music, photos and videos. Running your finger from left to right rotates to display your contacts. Doing this again shows an application launcher, with shortcuts to messaging, the web, calendar and tasks.

The TouchFlow interface works beautifully and means you don't have to use the stylus for common tasks, but it doesn't go far enough. TouchFlow icons launch the standard Windows Mobile applications, most of which aren't finger-friendly. The Calendar application's buttons are too small for finger operation, and the keys on the onscreen keyboard are far too small to press without the stylus. It's a shame that HTC didn't include its own keyboard application with larger keys.

TouchFlow does bring some improvements to the standard applications. Scrolling through lists of contacts, web pages or documents is easier than using the standard scroll bars. You can put your finger anywhere on the screen and flick it to start scrolling and tap the screen to stop it. The TouchFlow interface appears to put a strain on the phone's resources, though, as Windows Mobile 6 runs fairly sluggishly.

The video playback application is a simple front end for Media Player, but the audio playback program is a big improvement. You can choose songs by artist, album and genre, and you don't need to use the stylus. The supplied headphones are clear but have little bass and a proprietary connector, so you can't use a different set.

The Touch uses Pocket Internet Explorer, which is a reasonable browser but fairly slow at loading complicated web pages. Setting up network connections is simple thanks to the third-party wireless network manager. The phone takes data connection data from the SIM card, so setting up GPRS internet access is refreshingly simple. The phone doesn't support 3G data, unfortunately.

HTC's Touch is a gorgeous smartphone, and the TouchFlow interface is a big improvement. It's not perfect, though, and having to use the stylus for some inputs is annoying.

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