HTC Pure Smartphone is a Solid Alternative to the IPhone 3GS
What's in a name? A few months ago, this smartphone was known as the HTC Touch Diamond 2. Now, it's called the HTC Pure ($150 with a two-year contract from AT&T). Rebranding aside, the handset improves significantly on its predecessor, the Touch Diamond, with better specs, a more sophisticated design, and the new features supported by Windows Mobile 6.5. Unfortunately, the phone lacks multimedia panache while retaining WinMo's trademark sluggishness.
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The HTC Pure looks sleek and classy despite being relatively inexpensive. Measuring 4.3 inches by 2.1 inches by 0.5 inch and weighing 4.2 ounces, the Pure is slightly bigger and beefier than the Touch Diamond. Rectangular with rounded corners, it's well-shaped for your hand and your pocket.
The handset's design is fairly minimalist, with four hardware buttons (Talk, Windows Start, Back, and End/Home) running beneath the display. A touch-sensitive zoom bar, similar to the one on the HTC Touch Pro 2, sits between the buttons and the display. The bar enables you to zoom in and out of Web pages with a flick of your finger; and in my hands-on tests, it worked quite well. The Power button sits at the top of the phone, and the large volume rocker is located on the left spine. Like many HTC-manufactured phones, the Pure carries a proprietary headphone/charging jack, which means that you'll have to use an adapter if you want to plug in your own headphones.
Overall, holding the phone felt great during long conversations, with no discomfort. Call quality over AT&T's 3G network, however, disappointed me. I heard a distracting hiss during most of my calls; and on some calls, voices sounded faint and distant.
A 3.2-inch WVGA touchscreen (a nice upgrade from the Touch Diamond's 2.8-inch display) with an 800-by-480-pixel resolution dominates the face of the phone. Am I spoiled by multitouch technology? I felt that I had to push harder on the screen to get a response--not a very intuitive arrangement. Even so, I definitely noticed Windows Mobile 6.5's enhanced support for touchscreens; navigating through the interface was much more pleasurable than on older WinMo phones.
The software keyboard felt a little cramped, but it was serviceable for short messages. The haptic feedback is a nice touch, however, and it did make typing a little more comfortable. If you're looking to use your phone for messaging and e-mail, you might want to consider the HTC Tilt 2, which has a full QWERTY keyboard and is coming to AT&T within a few weeks.
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Everything BlackBerry with tips, news and reviews from our mobility expert Al Sacco.
