This article is more than 1 year old

HTC Touch Dual smartphone

Good to see HTC back on track

Hardware changes continue inside with the Touch's 201MHz chip replaced with a 400MHz unit, while on-board flash memory has been upped from 128MB to 256MB. All this combines to make the Windows Mobile 6 OS and HTC add-ons run considerably more smoothly than on the Touch. Storage memory has also been doubled on the new handset, from 64 to 128MB.

The final major change from the Touch is the loss of Wi-Fi along with the addition of 3.6MB/s HSDPA 3G. The argument as to whether or not this is a good or a bad thing could go on forever. Yes, Wi-Fi is always good to have, especially if you are using Skype or the like, but it sucks the battery dry in no time at all and could be argued to be just a little superfluous in this day and age of ever-increasing 3G HSDPA coverage and speeds. Give a choice between the two we would take 3G any day - but equally we are at a loss as to why HTC decided to remove the wi-fi when it is still available on the original Touch.

HTC Touch Dual Windows smartphone

Wi-Fi has been dropped in favour of 3.6MB/s HSDPA 3G

Otherwise the specifications, for good or ill, of the two handsets are pretty much the same. You get the same two-megapixel camera on the Dual as on the Touch; a pretty horrid example of the breed that is about as much use as a glass cricket bat (though in all fairness the iPhone's camera is if anything worse). Both handsets lack a dedicated headphones jack, something that is really starting to get right up our nose, especially when the supplied mini USB phones are pretty poor fare. Again as per the Touch you get a Micro SD slot good for cards up to 8GB, though on the Dual the slot has been repositioned and access much improved. You also get the same decent little non-extending metal stylus that slots away nicely into the top right of the handset.

The slide mechanism is a two trick pony; as well as accepting any incoming calls the slide also launches a rather handy list of seven commonplace 'new' functions you may like to perform. Just touch the relevant icon to create a new sms, mms or email message or add a new contact, appointment, note or task.

Under the hood the Touch Dual uses Windows Mobile 6 Professional, about which enough has already been written elsewhere. Grafted onto the Windows OS is HTC's own TouchFLO touchscreen interface, and rather nice it is too.

Sweep your finger up the screen from the HTC logo and the TouchFLO cube opens up. The cube has three sides, accessed by 'spinning' the cube with a left or right finger sweep. One side allows direct access to your music, photos and video via the HTC Media Manager, which for those of you not paying attention at the back means you never, ever, have to use the wretched little Windows Mobile Media Player.

More about

More about

More about

TIP US OFF

Send us news


Other stories you might like