Qwerty Smartphones: Best Buys Among the nine smartphones reviewed on the previous pages, there are no duds, and in fact the standard is generally very high. Whether you favour the BlackBerry, candybar style or like you have a keyboard that can be pulled out for occasional use and tucked away the rest of the time is a matter of personal preference, so neither …
You mentioned it runs windows 6.1 but HTC have a ROM update on their site which brings it up to date with the latest 6.5 OS.
Although a v7 update will never be available (officially at least) as it doesn't meet the multi-touch requirement for it.
Had mine about a year and love it.
As the owner of a Touch Pro2 since more or less it launched, and I have to say it absolutely rocks. Some of the little functions such as instant hands-free by placing it face down on a table make life so much easier.
As a note to the reviews - the Touch Pro2 now runs Windows Mobile 6.5, NOT 6.1 as stated; HTC has been shipping 6.5 Touch Pro2 devices for a few months now and any older devices can get an upgrade from HTC's website free-of-charge (and it includes an upgrade to HTC's Sense interface to v2.5 too now as well). Maybe El Reg can update the review to include this fact - the new WM6.5 interface should knock the review % up by a couple of notches.
More than happy to recommend this device as a very solid all-rounder not just for business but for anyone wanting to have a top notch smartphone.
If you're using smartphones, there's a pretty good chance you want to use them for business - and that means being able to deal with Office documents and PDFs. No mention of that here. Email's probably the killer application for a keyboard smartphone...how much discussion of that in the article? Not a lot. How about the web browser? Any good? Dunno, I'll have to find out elsewhere.
In short, all we're offered is an opinion on the keyboard, maybe a few words about the screen, and a fleeting mention of unusual features. Abso-fraggin'-lutely nothing comparing smartphone features. Could I use this article as a basis to choose my next smartphone? Not a chance.
Fail.
...do phone manufacturers persist in neglecting us Qwerty lovers? A few years ago I had Nokia 9500's and 9300's which were and still are IMHO the DB's in terms of keyboarded devices of the 21st century. Why do they not generally give us dedicated number pads? Not everyone needs or wants touch!
I am writing this on a Touch Pro2 as it is the best keyboard of the bunch at the moment - great versatile phone - and a number row too! But why have manufacturers (looking at you Nokia) ignored the clamshell 2 screen form factor which is so versatile without the need for waiting for a screen to redraw?
Which manufacturer will reclaim the keyboard high ground? Kudos to HTC for the TP2 but there is a huge hole in the current marketplace waiting to be filled!
i got my nokia e63 last year and am loving it.
I am not a business user of the phone, just your normal "send a billion texts and emails"
as its on 3, and i get an unlimited (read as limited to 3000 texts) and unlimited web (read as limited to 3GB per month) for 15 quid and the phone was free it was exelent value for money.
only a few bits are missing from the phone, GPS, but you can but a bluetooth gps addon for about £50 and a few extra million pixels on the camera.... the photos are pritty poor realy.
the only bit that really pisses me of is the Nokia PC suite software.there is no linux version and It wont run under wine... i miss being able to send sms via my netbook ever since i upgraded to ubuntu NBR from windows.
I would not hesitate to upgrading to the E72 but there will proberbly be an updated version before its time for my free upgrade !!!
Mines the one with the nokia club menbership card in the pocket !!!
El Reg keeps raving about HTCs. It's like all those car journalists test-driving cool cars - they don't have to live with them.
I got an HTC Touch Pro last year - great reviews etc. At first, marvellous indeed. Till you discover that locking the screen drains the battery in 3-4 hours, that it crashes all the time, gets dog slow...
Oh yes it does a lot and you can have a lot of fun in the first week with it.
After that you have a brick.
And guess what. Mine has now DIED. Completely. It's not the even battery. It's the phone. My first EVER mobile phone to actually DIE. The other day it managed to start, and I swiftly put all the data I could salvage onto the memory card.
HTC? Good for journalists having a good try for a couple of weeks. Ownership? Never.
The Touch Pro that you're so madly harping about wasnt included in this review, so it would seem to me that either you're retarded or you just simply picked a bad place to rant about HTC.
If its any consolation, from what heard about the Touch Pro, it was pretty bad. I think HTC realized that pretty quickly as the Touch Pro had a short production life.
I've owned several HTC phones, the Dash, the Wing, the Mogul, the Tilt and the TytN II, all of them were decent, but they all had their shortcomings. in owning and using those phones, it was easy to see HTC progressing and maturing as each new rendition was released. Yes they were improving but at the same time it looked like their engineers just didnt get it, then they released the Touch Pro 2. It's the closest any manufacturer has come to making the perfect phone. The only thing i dislike about it is HTC's bolt on interface, Touch Sense, i absolutely hate that thing, fortunately it can be turned off quite easily. the WM6.5 upgrade rounded the phone out nicely.
People have been bellowing about Windows Mobile for quite a while, and i just dont get it, its the most open platform on the market, you can make WM6.5 do anything you want it to, at least with the Touch Pro 2 anyway.
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