Both the HTC Touch Dual and the Samsung F700 have characteristics of the regular Touchscreen phones these days. While the Samsung F700 is strikingly similar to the iPhone from Apple, the HTC Touch Dual relies on new and improved touchscreen sensibility as compared to the Touch (which was its predecessor incidentally).

Touchscreen aspects

The Samsung F700 seems to have captured the imagination of most people as it promises a host of functional features within its tiny and limited space. Inspite of the screen being a puny 2.78 inches it offers both a virtual touch screen Keyboard and a single hardware key that opens up a plethora of shortcut menus. If you do not like using the hardware key you could make use of a blinking square at the middle that also allows access to regular shortcut options like your browser, music player, main menu, messaging and the like. The TouchFLO relies on its sensitive and superior TouchFLO screen which promises more of an intuitive and responsive behavior compared to the HTC Touch.

Ergonomics and design

Both the F700 from Samsung as well as the Touch Dual from HTC are ergonomically designed. Both are extremely lightweight while easily fitting into the palm of one’s hand. The hardware keyboard of the Touch Dual can prove to be a tad small thus hampering on the usability aspect. However the Samsung F700 seems to excel in this department as well! The sliding QWERTY keyboard is a neat trick. It is hidden right under the hood and when slid to the left shows itself up for use! The spring-loaded functionality helps sliding to be a fluid function. However unlike the Touch Dual which only relies on touch screen as its highlight, the F700 from Samsung has cleverly enabled alternatives to help transition non-touch screen users too!

Thus although the F700 lacks a regular alphanumeric keyboard, it makes up for this via an onscreen version of the same. Plus the onscreen keyboard also has a haptic feedback mechanism that allows you to feel a vibratory pulse each time you press on a character. The absence of a stylus in the F700 can work against or for it depending on user preferences. While most people prefer a handy stylus as an alternative to just finger touch sensibility, the absence of one can mean having one less accessory to lose!

Aesthetic sensibility

The F700 probably lacks significantly in one aspect – the glossy finish it sports. While it certainly looks great, on the maintenance front this can pose to be an issue. The relatively matte finish on the Touch Dual makes it a more robust design in comparison. The F700 can be very prone to scratches and damage on its surface.

Wi Fi connectivity

Both the Samsung’s F700 as well as the Touch Dual are devoid of Wi Fi connectivity. This can go against both phones as users these days look for Wi Fi as an essential feature in their phones.

Pros: The F700 has superior touchscreen sensitivity just like the Touch Dual but tends to edge out the Touch Dual in terms of its alternatives to a regular hardware keyboard. The smart QWERTY sliding keyboard is another definite plus point of the F700 as compared to the Touch Dual which doesn’t have QWERTY functionality in its keyboard.

Cons: Glossy finish – makes maintenance difficult. Prone to scratches. Lack of Wi Fi in F700 another disadvantage.

The Apple iPhone is available for $689.89 at ElephantCellular

The HTC Touch is available for $428.00 at ElephantCellular

The HTC Touch Dual is available for $579.89 at ElephantCellular

The Samsung F700 is available for $559.89 at ElephantCellular

tagged: Touchscreen, Keyboard, QWERTY, Touch, HTC Touch, TouchFLO, Touch Dual, F700, iPhone, Wi-Fi, Samsung, Apple

Posted by Elin | No Comments »

The HTC Touch seems to be one of the series of touch friendly devices in the market today. Unlike the iPhone which responds to a human touch for proper operation, the HTC Touch is also responsive to a stylus. This makes operability that much easier on the whole.

Chic design
The design of the HTC Touch is extremely sleek while also being very lightweight. Using various The phone comes in two colours currently wasabi green and black. Encased in a heavy black elegant gift box, the phone is extremely elegant and chic looking. The grip and ergonomics of the phone are fairly comfortable what with the unique soft rubbery finish as is typically found in the T-Mobile Dash. With a matte black coating the phone also has a neat looking chrome strip encased on the sides, thereby further adding to its elegance.

The chrome trim as well as the encasing on the phone is made of plastic. With no sharp edges and a curvy design to it, the HTC Touch feels naturally comfortable in the hand. Measuring just around 13.9 mm and weighing just 112 grams this phone is definitely the most lightweight and small phone amongst the Windows Mobile compatible phones today. Below the display unit you would find a directional pad that operates in 5 directions. There’s also a neat volume slider as well as two softkey buttons on the directional pad. Without any voice command activation button or OK keys, the HTC Touch manages to pack in a very minimalist design.

Innovative and slick features

The HTC Touch promises a brand new swipe action mechanism. When you move your finger from below to the top you bring up a cube that is 3 sided. You can navigate from left to the right or vice versa. The first cube face allows you to assign images to your contact list which makes it easy to bring out pictures of your favourite people and just select whichever option you choose – either call or send an SMS. The Keyboard is still rather small and sending SMS by typing can be rather difficult so the stylus comes in handy while entering textual messages. The second face is actually an application launcher while the last face is dedicated to multimedia functionality.

It contains a music player, videos as well as photo storage features. Currently if you wish to bring the screen into landscape mode you would need to manually edit the settings instead of using a swiping gesture to change it. The phone also comes with 3G capability that brings in a broadband speed in the range of 300 to 600 kbps. The operating system being used in the HTC Touch is the Windows Mobile Professional version 6 and comes with GSM/EDGE functionality. Inspite of being so small in size the HTC Touch manages to pack in Bluetooth, WiFi, QVGA resolution facility, as well as a camera with 2 megapixel capacity.

Fantastic call performance

The overall call quality of the HTC Touch is truly remarkable and the Voice Speed Dial employs usage of voice tags instead of voice recognition systems. This is fairly accurate and works in conjunction with Bluetooth headsets as well as car kits.

Final verdict and outlook

Unlike the feature rich PDA phones in the market today which are fairly bulky and heavy, the HTC Touch promises a lightweight, chic finish. While the small keyboard maybe a bit of a disappointment, the phone compensates for it with a handy stylus and handwriting recognition mechanism. On the whole this is a great phone to have if you are looking for style and functionality in one package.

The HTC Touch is available for $428.00 at ElephantCellular

tagged: 3G, Keyboard, Touch, HTC Touch, Touchscreen, Windows Mobile Professional, PDA

Posted by Elin | No Comments »