Rix Bits

In my previous post re: the Touch Pro, I talked pretty bad about the Touch Flo 3D (TF3D) software, and about the little zoom wheel on the phone.  I think I may have used the word “useless” for both of them.  I’ve come to learn that perhaps that’s too strong of a word.  :)  Although they still have a long way to go before they get a glowing review from me, I’ve found some subtle benefits to these two Touch Pro features:

TF3D Music Player vs. Windows Media Player:  For a while I ignored the music player that was part of the TF3D, and instead used the default Windows Media Player (WMP) for listening to music.  But I’ve found that there are two distinct advantages to the TF3D music player that I didn’t realize until I really gave it a good try.  Check this out:

- An equalizer/Audio Booster:  comes in handy when I want to make the bass hit a little harder.  Besides that, there’s a full-blown equalizer that you can tweak, or choose from the standard presets like Jazz, Rock, etc.

- A better Library experience: Whenever I add a new song to my phone, I have to manually update the WMP library in order for the song to appear in the list for me to select it.  Not so with the TF3D player.  As soon as it’s in my storage card, it’s automagically in the TF3D player Library.  Nice. 

- Bigger buttons:  Also, the Library itself is easier to navigate thru, thanx to smooth finger panning action, and bigger fat-finger style buttons:

  
(TF3D vs WMP)

The fatter buttons are extremely useful when looking for a song while driving…. I mean, while drinking a can of Sprite.  ;-)

The disadvantage to the TF3D player – it doesn’t respond to my voice commands.  The WMP seems to be the default player used when I issue commands like “Play Stevie Wonder” to play all the Stevie Wonder songs I have on my phone.  Using the voice commands obviously makes finding music while driving a much better and safer experience. :)

The Zoom Wheel:  A friend of mine once asked me if my phone was able to zoom in on web pages like the iPhone does.  My response was that it zooms with a double-tap like the iPhone, but that’s it.  Actually, I was wrong.  Not only does it double-tap zoom, but the Zoom Wheel also works in Opera to zoom in on a page.  This can be compared to iPhone’s multitouch finger swipe gesture for zooming, tho I prefer the Zoom Wheel because iPhone’s method insists that you use two hands rather than just one thumb.

 

So, here’s my initial
view of a webpage:

 

 

 

 

Here’s the view after a
double-tap:

 

 

 

 

And here’s the view after zooming in with the wheel (it’s just coincidence that it happened to zoom in on these words – I’m not trying to drive a point home or anything):  :-)

 

 

Notice that the words wrap.  Also, I find this comes in handy when I’m trying to click a small hyperlink.  Instead of trying to get precise with my finger pressing, or trying to use my fingernail for pinpoint accuracy,  I can just just make everything big and fat-finger the sucker!

As it turns out, there are a few other places where the Zoom wheel can be used (some of these are even documented in the manual – go figure!):

• Viewing photos (obviously)
• To forward or rewind during a song with the music player
• To zoom while using the Camera
• To change the size of text on-the-fly (like when reading e-mail or text messages).  This is my favorite use.
• to scroll up/down in a list on certain apps

So, looks like had I not dug a little deeper into my phone’s functionality, I might have missed out on some pretty nice features.  What can I say – you learn something new every day (hopefully).  Maybe those guys over at HTC actually know what they’re doing after all.  :)

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I upgraded the storage card memory in my Touch Pro from 1 gig to 8 gigs. Nice!

Before the days of tiny micro storage, I was walking around with all the thumb drives pictured below. The drives in this picture total 6 gigs of memory – I’ve now replaced them all with something no bigger than a dime!

I bought my 8 gig microSD card local for $29. I haven’t seen the 16 gig card in the US (the Touch Pro supports up to 16 gigs), but I think I saw one online from the UK. I’m good with my 8, tho… for now. ;- )

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Well, I’ve upgraded my phone. For the past two weeks I’ve been using and adjusting to the HTC Touch Pro from Sprint, trying to see if I like it, or if I need to take advantage of the 30-day money-back guarantee. I’ve got a lot friends who have the Mogul, so I thought I’d write something up to say how I feel about the Touch Pro (6850) in comparison to the Mogul (6800). With that said, this review is specifically for Mogul users, and I’m not gonna spend time talking about the specs (you can read about that here), nor will i be talking about how HTC’s 6000 series phones are so much better than other phones like the iPhone, for instance. (insert devious giggle here)

In general, I like the new phone, and would recommend the upgrade. There are improvements in lots of areas, and the improvements far outweigh the shortcomings. So, based on my previous post, this post could also be called “The HTC Touch Pro is… Awesomer!” :)

I’m gonna talk about my experience in the following areas:

Software

Pros: The Touch Pro has a September 2008 version of the ROM with WinMo 6.1. This is definitely a better version than the last Mogul ROM. Although it introduced at least 1 stupid glitch (no standard word completion), it fixed a lot of other issues. In general it feels more stable, and I’m sure the extra hardware is helping that as well. They built-in a lot of software functionality that I was previously installing separately (picture mail, voice commander, scrolling/panning).

And they’ve added a lot of goodies also (see below). One of the nicest goodies is a choice during sync – you can use ActiveSync, or just treat your phone (with storage card) like a flash drive. Perfect for grabbing a few MP3’s before you get in the car (which by the way has me now using my phone more as an MP3 player than i did with the Mogul).

Cons: They could have left the TouchFlo 3D software off of this phone. I mean, I know what they were trying to do: put some fancy eye-candy software on the phone to make your friends envy your new phone, and to make you feel like you’ve got an iPhone-ish interface. But I don’t need that. In fact, the TouchFlo interface is so useless I went ahead and re-installed my SPB Mobile Shell software; I still prefer it over the fancy stuff. I've found that there are others that agree.  [updated]

Hardware

This, my friend, is the key area that made me want to buy the phone in the first place (ie Pro’s), and is also the area that made me initially not want to buy the phone ever (Con’s):

Pros: The major value this phone brings is in a whopping increase in memory – any current Mogul user will probably salivate over the screenshot shown here. This is the #1 reason why I even considered this phone. As Forrest would say, “that’s all I’ve got to say about that”.

Also, although I don’t have official data just yet, it ‘feels’ like the power management on this phone is better. I think I’m getting maybe 50% better battery life out of this thing than I was with the Mogul. It also feels like it charges faster as well.

Finally, one kool hardware feature that I haven’t yet explored is the TV-out capabilities (I need to first buy the cable to do it). Imagine playing YouTube videos from your phone onto your friend’s TV, or just demonstrating the phone in general on a TV. But mostly, this is probably useful for showing PowerPoint presentations from your phone – this is a way to get your non-techie colleagues to awe at your greatness, and fellow-geeks to covet you. :)

Other subtle hardware benefits:

• the D-pad has a better feel, especially for the push-select
• ergonomics of the phone are nice
• video screen looks beautiful
• screen auto brightens/dims (which probably helps the battery life), and looks better in sunlight than the Mogul does

Cons: My major problem with this phone was/is (haven’t decided yet) the lack of hardware buttons. Certainly taking away all the buttons adds to the sleek sexy feel of the phone. But me – I had tricked out all my buttons to do some amazing 1-touch kind of things on my Mogul (as I describe in the latter part of my other post). I really felt that those extra buttons were so useful that it wasn’t worth an upgrade. I’m starting, tho, to learn how to live without them, and the SPB Mobile Shell software is certainly helping me break my addiction. So, maybe this isn’t so bad after all.

Another con is that the little scroll wheel on the D-pad is pretty useless. It’s mainly for zooming in on pictures, and that’s about it. Why not make it useful in other apps as well? Perhaps they’ll do so in future versions of the software, but for now, that scroll feature is just another piece of eye candy like the TouchFlo software. [updated]

Finger-friendly

Pros: One of the main things that makes this new phone ‘feel’ good is the solid finger functionality. With the Mogul, I had bought some SPB software to enable things like finger panning and scrolling, but now that feature is built into pretty much every app. And it works much smoother than it did on the Mogul, especially in Opera Mobile, probably due to the beefed-up processor and memory. And they also size up the text throughout the phone areas to support this finger-friendly experience.

Another benefit is in the area of 1-hand action, which comes in handy while I’m driving holding a can of Sprite (as I’ve heard Jeff & Josh say). :) The on-screen keyboard on the Mogul was only useful if you wanted to pull out the stylus, where as the Full and Compact on-screen QWERTY keyboard on the Pro finally makes thumb typing a reality. Again, I had bought software on my Mogul for better 1-handed typing, but now it’s built-in. This is mostly useful for quick text messages where I just need to say a couple of words – you’d be amazed how often that scenario comes up. For full-blown emails and stuff, tho, I obviously am still using the slide-out keyboard.

Cons: I think I might need to do a registry edit to increase the sensitivity of the screen. Every now and then I need to press something twice before I get it, or I have to make use of my fingernail rather than just my finger for more precise presses.

Goodies

Here’s a quick list of goodies that they threw in on the Pro. This is not a comprehensive list – it’s basically the list of things that I think are actually useful (so you won’t, for example, see the TouchFlo software on this list):

• Built-in Voice Commander ($40 value)
• YouTube app
• Bluetooth FTP and Explorer
• Sync vs Disk Drive option
• Built-in picture mail
• Opera web browser
• RSS Reader (Newsbreak; $20 value)
• A few new games, including the geo-sensitive Teeter
• Sprint Radio
• Business Card reader (WorldCard Mobile; $25 value)

So, in general, Yes this is a great phone, and an improvement over the Mogul. Besides all the specifics I’ve laboriously explained above, in general the Touch Pro just ‘feels’ like a better phone (from a Mogul user perspective). And that, certainly, should be the first step for a phone maker in getting you to buy the latest and greatest thing – get me to ‘feel’ like I’ve bought something better than what I had. For lovers of WinMo, I think this phone makes Windows Mobile shine the way you always wished it would. There are still quirks, of course. And there’s still a need to stay friends with the software gurus at SPB and PPC Geeks and XDA Developers - but nevertheless, a worthy new addition to your mobile computing toolset.

Happy Moofing! :)

Update: 12/24/08 – Review Part 2: Music Player

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