When I first played with Touch Diamond a few months back, I started hating HTC for what it did with the much touted TouchFLO 3D interface. It was slow and sluggish but thankfully, HTC managed to sort it out with a firmware update.
Now keeping aside my past experiences I recently got the chance to play with the Touch Diamond’s QWERTY variant, Touch Pro and I’ll confess, I was pretty much impressed with the device.
Touch Pro is available in some countries for quite some time but the phone was launched only a month back in India. The phone is also known as T7276 which is sold exclusively by Idea Cellular in India.
The Packaged Content includes the device, earphones, charger, manual and a DVD.
Here are the official specs:
Processor: Qualcomm MSM7206A 528 MHz
Operating System: Windows Mobile 6.1 Professional
Memory: ROM: 512 MB; RAM: 288MB
Dimensions: 102 mm (L) X 51 mm (W) X 18.05 mm (T)
Weight: 165 g (with battery)
Display: 2.8-inch TFT-LCD flat touch-sensitive screen with VGA resolution
Network: Quad-band GSM/GPRS/EDGE; Europe/Asia: 850/900/1800/1900 MHz (Band frequency and data speed are operator dependent.)
Device Control: TouchFLO 3D; Touch-sensitive navigation control
Keyboard: Slide-out 5-row QWERTY keyboard
GPS: Internal GPS antenna
Connectivity: Bluetooth 2.0 with EDR; Wi-Fi: IEEE 802.11 b/g; HTC ExtUSB (11-pin mini-USB 2.0, audio jack, and TV Out in one)
Camera: 3.2 megapixel color camera with auto focus and flash light
Audio: Built-in microphone, speaker and FM radio with RDS
Battery: 1340 mAh Rechargeable Lithium-ion or Lithium-ion polymer battery
Talk time: Up to 419 minutes for GSM
Standby time: Up to 367 hours for GSM
Expansion Slot: microSD memory card (SD 2.0 compatible)
First Impression:
The first impression it gave me was of a brick than a phone. To accommodate the QWERTY keypad, HTC has made the Touch Pro almost 7 mm thicker and heavier by 55 grams. However, every apprehension seems to disappear as soon as you hold the device.
Design:
Touch Pro’s design is pretty much similar to Touch Diamond albeit with some alterations. The phone still carries the glossy front but the glossy rear from Touch Diamond has been replaced with matte finish in Touch Pro. The front sports a beautiful 2.8-inch VGA screen, four buttons and a D-Pad. Top of the phone has the Power button while the bottom has mini USB slot for charging and earphones. The right side has a place for the stylus at the bottom and the left side has volume controls.
The smooth horizontal slider reveals the USP of the phone – the 5-row QWERTY keyboard. Overall, the phone design is good and does not give a small hint of cheap build quality.
Keyboard:
HTC has managed to cram up a decently sized keyboard in a size of not more than 102mm. Typing on the keyboard takes a little time to adjust but once you’re all set, everything is a breeze. However, users with large fingers may find the keys a bit difficult to adapt.
TouchFLO 3D:
For the uninitiated, TouchFLO 3D is a visual interface developed by HTC which sits atop the Windows 6.1 OS. Unlike the original TouchFLO, TouchFLO 3D starts with the phone itself and is generally a one-stop solution for all your needs. The Touch Pro’s TouchFLO 3D integrates the Home Screen, Favorite Contacts, SMS, E-mail, Internet, Photos/Videos, Music, Weather, Phone Settings and a Program menu to add different apps for faster access. The TouchFLO 3D is fast and responsive but at times it showed signs of lagging when 2-3 applications were running in the background.
Camera:
Touch Pro features two cameras – front for video calling and the rear for video recording and photography. The rear one sports a 3.2 megapixel lens with autofocus, flash and can shoot still pictures, videos and panoramic images.
The lack of a dedicate camera key on the phone is really disappointing as you need to use the touch-sensitive D-Pad. The navigation pad first locks in the focus on the subject and then clicks the picture after hitting the center button.
Don’t expect anything extra ordinary from the camera. It produces good photos under day light conditions with images being viewable on a computer screen. They are not print worthy though.
Memory:
Touch Diamond sported an out of the box internal memory of 4GB in addition to its 256MB of ROM. But this time, HTC has let off the memory and gives 512MB ROM to the users. They can further expand the memory as per their liking via a microSD memory card.
Internet:
Internationally, Touch Pro connectivity options include EDGE, 3G and Wi-Fi but the Indian version comes without a 3G radio. I mostly surfed on a Wi-Fi network and it was one of the best internet experiences I’ve had on a WinMo phone. Touch Pro’s screen, keyboard and Opera browser makes a killer combination. Though Touch Pro comes pre-installed with Opera 8.65, I installed the Opera Mobile 9.5 Beta. The rendering of the webpage was almost PC-like and the UI of Opera looked great on its VGA screen.
Another thing I tried out was the customized YouTube application. It’s a nice addition to Touch Pro’s multimedia arsenal that lets you surf the whole YouTube from the application itself. However, one glitch I would like HTC to address is auto rotation of the app while sliding on the keyboard. The app, irrespective of the user’s orientation uses the portrait mode to surf through the videos and initiates the landscape mode only while viewing videos.
Battery:
Touch Pro sports a strong 1340 mAh capacity battery. A moderate usage like cellular calling, Wi-Fi and other multimedia features lasted for around 1.5-2 days.
Price:
I believe if this phone was launched prior to iPhone 3G in India, it would have been retailing below Rs. 30,000. A good example is its true sibling, Touch Diamond which started off with a Rs. 27,500 price tag when it was launched by Airtel. However, with the iPhone 3G entering the Indian market, below 30k pricing of high-end smartphones was a thing of the past as a new price niche was created by Apple. Touch Pro’s also not an exception to this phenomenon as network locked (with Idea Cellular) Touch Pro goes for Rs. 34,900 ($741). That’s a bit cheaper than the network unlocked Touch Pro being sold on Amazon US.
Pros:
Good Build Quality
VGA screen
TouchFLO 3D
Keyboard layout
Cons:
Price
Bulky
No TV-out cable bundled
Score:
Nice review Kunal… Is that the customized Youtube page you were mentioning? Quite similar to the Youtube Mobile web page.
@Rahul: Yes.
Hi Rahul,
Are you sure about the 3G connectivity for the phone being sold in India ? if you look at the specifications on the cover box, it is not mentioned under connectivity. Yes I know currently in India we dont have the 3G network but just wondering whether the mobile is “future proof”. I am not sure why this was missed..havent seen much info about it on the net. Also wondering whether it can be rectified with a firmware update. would you happen to have any info on this ?
@Girish: Thanks for pointing this out, I have corrected it. The international version does carry the 3G radio but the Indian variant does not. This move seems to be in the line of Touch Diamond, which also did not have 3G when it reached India. The firmware update might be able to solve this, but I don’t think that will come anytime soon.
Hi Rahul,
Where can I get the TV out Cable ?
Hi Kunal Gangar,
Where can I get the TV out Cable for hTC Touch Pro. ?
@Shaju: You can buy it from any authorized HTC reseller.
hi, i have a question. If it comes bundeled with Idea then it must be unlocked for other sims?? And i dont think u can rectify the 3g issue . As its a hardware and not software. I have even checked with TAEL rom makers, they say it cannot be made 3g.. Thats why i recently sold it out for 14 k.
dear sir
i want change the clock i mean 24h to 12h.it’s possible in htc touch pro t7276 ? reply pls. thank you.
i have my mobil hanging no dispaly not working
no antivirous in my system