PDA's on Cricket: My HTC Vogue a.k.a. Sprint Touch Review

[berry_lthird]

Greetings, all!

Before I go forward, I must state briefly that I have owned almost every major flagship handset Cricket has had in its lineup. My OEM Cricket handset history includes:

--Kyocera KOI, Sider Remix, and Xcursion
--Motorola RAZR and KRZR
--Nokia 6265i

All of these are decent to excellent handsets, and are about as good as you are going to get from Cricket stock.

Not satisfied, I moved on to the HTC Apache a.k.a. Verizon xv6700 and Sprint PPC6700 Pocket PC's (I owned both models). Obviously, neither of these PDA's are offered by Cricket, but with Cricket's unlimited data services, these handsets made excellent candidates to "hijack" onto Cricket service with all data services including WAP, MMS, and Java working flawlessly.

And it's nice to know you have a device small enough to fit in your shirt pocket which is basically equivalent to a handheld computer--Microsoft Office notwithstanding--that you can send and receive calls on.

Mind you; before I ever owned a PDA, I had my heart set on an iPhone. So I finally get my grubby paws on one, but after owning it for less than a month, I am bored with it and ready to move on.

I can say with the utmost confidence that after experiencing the HTC Apache series for myself, the iPhone sadly lacks in comparison. Sure, the iPhone is a sexy little device that is sure to get you noticed, but it is all fluff and charm and no substance. In fact, it's shamefully feature-lacking, with no provisioning for MMS (picture messaging), no video or camera settings whatsoever, and no removable media. (What's doubly sad is that it took communities of hackers on their own initiative to add all of the features that Apple should have in the first place. But I digress.....)

But therein lies my conundrum: While I am blown-away by the functionality of the HTC Apache series, I am in lust with the form factor and sexiness of the iPhone. The HTC Apache is quite literally a brick in comparison, form-factor-wise.

So my choices to upgrade were the HTC Titan series (a.k.a. Sprint Mogul and Verizon xv6800, etc.) or the HTC Vogue series (a.k.a. Sprint or Alltel Touch). The former series has the venerable slide-out keyboard, touchscreen, and more buttons and widgets that your average airplane cockpit. The latter, on the other hand, is small, svelte, and is an exercise in minimalism.

When I first saw a Touch for myself at a local Sprint store, I could not believe how tiny the unit was. But the real question was: Could this be the device that usurps the sleek and sexy form factor I had been seeking with the iPhone?

I wouldn't know until I chanced to purchase a Sprint Touch, and I did just that. I drove all the way from my home in Dayton Ohio to a seller in Louisville Kentucky and back--just over 300 miles round trip. And after owning my Touch for the past few months I must say--if I ever had to do it all over again, I would have driven twice as far!

The first thing I realized when holding the Touch is that it is actually smaller than I thought--even after having played with one at a Sprint store: You can't appreciate how small and thin the device is until you hold it and use it.<--Note the emphasis on the word "use".

The amazing thing is, for a device so thin and small, it packs all of the amazing features of the HTC Apache series and MORE, because it is natively based on the Windows Mobile 6 Professional platform--no hacks needed--that's just how it comes! That means fully-working bluetooth A2DP right out of the box. Stereo over bluetooth, bluetooth FTP and OBEX, and even Internet sharing over bluetooth all come standard with no need for registry hacks or patches.

One of the things I was worried about was a lack of a physical keyboard: All of the Touch's keyboard input must be done on-screen. This is the one place where user intervention must prevail: The standard Microsoft on-screen keyboard is far too tiny to be used without the stylus, and HTC's OEM keyboard is nice, but it defaults to some proprietary non-QWERTY layout. I had to experiment with several different keyboard layouts before I found one that works for me, but only having to search and find a registry hack to default to HTC's 40-key input mode. Now I am able to type proficiently without the use of the stylus.

The Touch is clean and elegant in design with very few hardware buttons. I really don't miss any of the external buttons, either--but then--extra buttons was never a problem for me as I could always find some peripheral use for them. The only real button I depend on is one to activate Microsoft's Voice Command utility, which I assigned to the single camera button on the lower right-hand side of the unit.

More surprising is the soft, "rubberized" feel of the phone's finish. I never have the feeling that I'm going to drop the thing. It fits nicely in hand.

Even more impressive is the sensitivity of the touch screen. While navigating around, I found it obvious that the screen was designed for use with the thumb rather than the stylus, which is too small to be of practical use anyway and is there as more of a novelty than as a convenience. Even with my big, awkward fingers, I find it a breeze to whisk around through my day-to-day activities with my phone. But like I said: I'm not against a myriad of extra hardware buttons, but with the Touch, I don't really miss them, either.

Like my HTC Apache PPC's, I can't get enough of playing with this device--not so much its features--but how it looks and feels. It never ceases to amaze me how small and solid HTC made the Touch.

My biggest gripes are lack of a flash for the 2.0 megapixel camera, which performs mediocre at best, and lack of Wi-Fi. I miss being able to network to a local wireless LAN for Internet access speed, file sharing, and remote desktop control. I never used the infra red port on my Apache series phones, so it's not missed here.

I'm also not pleased with the lack of a standard headphone jack: You have to use a proprietary HTC headphone adapter that plugs into the unit's USB port. But don't be fooled--the headphone output is NOT over USB. Instead, HTC has taken liberties to add extra pins in the center of the port to make finding audio output accessories a pain.

Because of these lacking features, I'm willing to admit that the HTC Titan series are actually a better platform overall than the Vogue series. I could easily see myself owning the Verizon xv6800, which I prefer stye-wise over the garishly ugly Sprint Mogul. However, it is the aesthetics and diminutive form factor of the Touch that give it its edge for me.

So even after owning the Sprint Touch and Apple iPhone side-by-side, I must say that the Touch puts the iPhone to shame, and anyone who can't admit that is only stubbornly begrudging their allegiance to Apple's evangelianism.

Pros:
--Sleek, elegant form factor
--Ruggedized housing with solid feel
--Enhanced touchscreen
--Windows Mobile 6 Professional pre-installed
--Zippy performance
--Working bluetooth A2DP out-of-box
--Amazing sound quality
--Excellent battery life (for me, anyway)
--Cool "Touch Flo" interface adds a "wow factor" to the phone

Cons:
--Lack of hardware keyboard
--Lack of Wi-Fi
--Lack of camera flash
--Tiny stylus
--Battery cover must be removed to access the TransFlash slot
--Proprietary audio adapter needed for audio output

Though the Touch comes standard with a screen protector, I recommend the purchase of a third-party, more durable solution. You should also get a carry case for it.

The unit is rugged, however: I have carried it in my pocket unprotected on dozens of occasions and there is barely any visible sign of wear. But you don't want to risk your investment.

Lastly, because the dwarfish stylus is so laughably tiny, I went ahead and purchased a third-party stylus almost as a novelty that I can use as an ink pen as well.

[Mrcricket23]

Very nice looking phone indeed, so you got everything to work MMS, WAP and brew on this one? your the man

[berry_lthird]

Very nice looking phone indeed, so you got everything to work MMS, WAP and brew on this one? your the man

No--I owe that to Blee of Howard Forums!

[Mrcricket23]

Wow i just looked the price up, this sure is a high dollar phone $499

[berry_lthird]

Wow i just looked the price up, this sure is a high dollar phone $499

Yep! Got mine for $200 though, so it was worth the 300+ mile drive.

They are still new and very popular, so finding a good deal on one may be difficult to do at this time.