Dan East

I recently evaluated the HTC Touch Vogue (US Cellular branded CDMA phone) for a few weeks. I tried my best to get this phone to a state so I could use it as my primary phone, and I just about succeeded. However, in the end, the hardware simply had too many handicaps conspiring against it.

As with all devices, there are two distinct components that combine to produce the overall functionality and user experience of the device: hardware and software. As far as the software goes, I tried pretty much everything available. I experimented with Google’s Android, but eventually ended up with the most cutting edge version of Windows Mobile available – 6.5 running HTC’s TouchFlo shell in place of the default Windows home screen. Of course Windows 6.5 isn’t officially available for this device (nor is Android for that matter), but obviously it can be done. I found a good commercial 3rd party SIP (onscreen keyboard) that worked really well, and if it weren’t for that the device would have been a complete non-starter. Typing with a stylus is a ridiculous notion in this day and age.

So as I’ve already mentioned, the hardware was the ultimate reason for doing away with the device. In some ways it was simply inadequate, while in others it was poorly designed. Here are the specific hardware deficiencies I encountered.

• Touchscreen. The touchscreen is designed for stylus use, plain and simple. It can be used for finger input, but the accuracy and sensitivity is poor compared to devices specifically designed for touch input.  Typing on the device can be quite frustrating, and there is little tolerance for error.  Again, the 3rd party SIP I utilized (in compact QWERTY mode) helped tremendously with its word prediction and completion, but it still doesn’t compare to typing on better touchscreen phones, like the iPhone or HTC Touch Pro 2.
• Screen size. The screen is relatively small compared to most touchscreen phones. That makes finger typing on the onscreen keyboard even more difficult, because the keys are smaller.
• Display quality. The visual quality of the LCD display is rather poor, particularly when it comes to viewing angle. Colors shift in hue, and black areas appear grey, if the display is not viewed straight on. In fact the problem is so bad that if the device is held in landscape orientation then each eye will perceive black regions as different shades of grey, resulting in a shimming sort of appearance which is quite annoying.
• No standard headphone jack. This is a major pet peeve of mine. Devices capable of playing mp3s, videos, and streaming video and audio from services like YouTube and Pandora should have a headphone jack. Period.
• Volume control. The design of the volume control on the side of the device is terrible. Instead of a rocker type control with an up and down button that provides good tactile feedback, the touch uses a sort of slider that moves up or down and springs back to the center when released. It is difficult if not impossible to get a feel for when the volume control is triggered up or down, since there is no good tactile feedback. With a standard push button volume control the user can push up or down any number of times to get an explicit number of steps up or down with the volume. That is very clunky with with the slider.
• Buttons. The same design issues affect the other buttons on the device. The side buttons are totally flush with the case, making them difficult to locate by touch. The standard Call and End Call buttons on the front of the device are diminutive in size, especially considering their importance and frequency of use.
• Indicator LEDs. At the top center of the device is the earphone speaker. The opening for the speaker is a small circle, about the diameter of a pencil. Recessed about a millimeter is the grill which covers the speaker. Behind this grill is hidden, and I literally mean hidden, the indicator LEDs. Their light is dim, obscured by the grill, and can only be seen when staring at the phone straight-on. Other phones, like Blackberries, put the indicator along the top edge, so it can be seen from as wide an angle as possible, even when the phone is in a holster at the waist. My hunch is some designer (not engineer) liked the aesthetics of combining the speaker and the indicator, and totally chose form over function.
• Battery cover. The entire back half of the phone slides off to reveal the battery. There is no release mechanism, and the cover slides off with little resistance. In fact, it came off in my hand while talking on more than one occasion. Low impact drops, like off the bed onto a carpeted floor, onto the floor of the car, etc, nearly always results in the back cover falling off. And if the back cover comes off, the battery will fall out too. Significant drops, like from waist height, always result in the phone seemingly exploding into pieces – back cover, battery and stylus all go flying on impact.
• Micro SD slot. This phone represented a first for me. After dealing with the absurd hiding places a dozen other phones obscure their SD slot, the HTC Touch was the first that I had to consult documentation to find the slot. Yes, it is that strange. At first I feared I was breaking the phone, as the entire right side is snapped off to reveal the slot. The one minor upside is that the SD card can be accessed without removing the battery, which can’t be said for most Blackberries and many other phones.
• Light Sensor. Nothing can be said about the light sensor, because there isn’t one. I found this one of the most annoying things about the device. At night the screen would be too bright, so I’d go through several menus and options and darken the display. Then in daylight the screen couldn’t be seen at all. This was a real problem, and compared to my Blackberry Pearl, which seamlessly and automatically adjusted to the ambient light, it was like night and day.
• Battery Life. Even with a brand new battery (which my carrier, U.S. Cellular provides for free), the phone seldom would last a whole day of just normal smartphone use. There simply aren’t enough amp-hours in that little battery to feed the demands of the phone.

None of the above issues could be worked around in a satisfactory way.  Perhaps a case would have kept the back cover on.  That is the only remedy that comes to mind to address any of the problems I experienced with the phone.  Simply put, it was poorly designed, and gives the impression of a late 1990’s Pocket PC with phone connectivity grafted in.

So what is the upside? The main thing I liked about this phone was that the GPS worked really well.  I’m not sure it is quite as good as my Garmin handheld GPS, but it was close.  Perhaps the GPS stood out to me because that is one thing that never did work right on my Blackberry Pearl – I think I got the GPS to actually lock in on my position 3 times over the course of 2 years on that phone.

The other upside is that these phones can be bought unlocked for $50-$80 on ebay, which is a pretty good deal.  I can think of all sorts of uses for a general purpose PDA with cellular connectivity and GPS for such a low price.  However, as a primary use, mission-critical cell phone and PDA, the HTC Touch is simply inadequate across the board.  It is hard to believe that the HTC Touch and iPhone hit the market within months of each other, because the Touch seems like it is hardware from an earlier era and generation of smartphone hardware.