Tom Cruise? Nope, it is Touch Cruise, a GPS smartphone from HTC. It has a 2.8 inches display which gives a resolution of 320x240 pixels or 65k colors. The display is bright but isn’t as good as HTC Diamond. The LCD tends to go blank when seen in bright sunlight. We had problems checking out maps when in the car and had to turn to voice based directions for help. If the display was a bit bigger, it would have been better for map viewing. Just like other HTC phones, this model too has TouchFlo 3D which lets you browser through applications like e-mail, Web browser, multimedia and contacts. This handset is GPS-centric and hence comes with Map search and geotagging app. You get a lot of options for entering text – full QWERTY, compact QWERTY, Block Recognizer, phone keypad, etc. The built in accelerometer turns the orientation of the keyboard when you tilt the phone. We mostly used the phone in landscape mode but found that the keys were cramped  [...]

HTC Touch Diamond2 is a successor to the HTC Diamond phone and comparing the two phones, this one has a bigger and sharper touch screen, the TouchFlo interface has been improved which is great for navigation. Another significant improvement is presence of 5 mega pixel camera on this phone. The display of the phone is 3.2 inches big and has a resolution for 480x800 pixels. both the size of the display and the resolution is excellent for browsing through the web and watching videos. The quality of the screen is really great, images look bright, text can also be read easily. The display has built in accelerometer which changes the orientation from portrait to landscape. Though this feature is not available for all features, it is there when you need the most for applications like video, photo, e-mail and web pages. The TouchFlo 3D interface, though looks the same on the outside, has some changes for better user experience. For example you get  [...]

Google is proud of its latest offering, the Nexus One and with the downright sexy looks and high end features, we think Google are right when they said that the phone is not only a superphone but also a phone and web’s meeting place. The highlights of the handset include AMOLED display, super fast Snapdragon processor, Android 2.1 interface and never before seen feature of noise cancellation for calls. The voice dialing features have also been improved on the handset. However, it has some drawbacks like the unimpressive music player, applications can be stored only on the internal memory and no multitouch or tethering. The phone doesn’t have support for Outlook calendar syncing. But still we will call this phone an amazing piece of work from Google owing to the features inside. The phone is available as a CDMA model under T-Mobile’s service (Verizon Wireless will roll out its own version in early 2010) and you can buy it as an unlocked  [...]

HTC Magic aka Google Ion is the second Android phone after the T-Mobile G1 and given what the G1 had to offer we were excited about what the next Android phone had in store for us. We were waiting rather impatiently for this phone and pounced on it as soon as it arrived in our test centers. This phone still has the user friendly intuitive interface and has lots of features on the inside. It does improve a lot on the previous G1 but still has a lot to be desired. The display of the gorgeous screen is 3.2 inch big and you get a 480X320 pixel resolution which gives you great photos, graphics and colors on the screen. You can adjust backlighting time and brightness on the device. You get three home screens for placing your icons for the applications that you use the most. You will have to swipe your finger across the screen to access these pages. Ion lets you add any number of icons to a page. The touch screen interface of the device was quite  [...]

HTC Ozone from Verizon Wireless will directly compete with HTC Snap from Sprint and T-mobile. Both the phones have similar features however we think this phone is the winner among the three owing to the lower price. The phone also feels better in the back. The face of the phone has a cheap plastic feel but in the back the phone has a smooth soft touch finish which feels good in the hands. The QVGA display of the phone is 2.4 inch big and gives a resolution of 320X240 or 64000 colors. The handset is 4.5 inches big, 2.5 inches wide and weighs about 0.5 inches. The display of the phone could have been bigger and sharper. We will somehow compromise with the display size since this is not a touch screen phone. Below the display are two soft keys, back button, home button, and toggle button with OK key in the center. The talk button is also the shortcut key for voice recorder. The OK button could have been a bit thicker because it is a bit difficult  [...]

T-Mobile Dash is a bit outdated we have been seeing it since 2006 and it is time that the phone was taken of the shelves now. T-Mobile thinks otherwise though and they are here with a revamped version of the device which looks promising owing to the superior finish on the outside. The QVGA display of the Dash 3G is 2.4 inch big and has a resolution of 320X240, 65000 colors. The phone isn’t touch screen but there is not much to complain. With a screen as small as this, using touch screen interface would have been very hard. RIM Blackberry Curve 8900, which is in the same range, has a 480X320 pixel resolution and the superiority of the video and images is clearly seen. This handset has a smaller screen, so you will have to scroll loads while reading messages, e-mail or web browser. Browsing is made easier with the trackball navigator which is extremely easy to use. Around the trackball there is end and talk buttons, 2 soft keys, back button and  [...]

HTC is not a new player in the mobile phone market. It has been around for a while and has been churning out great looking phones one after the other. The Android is here and HTC has jumped the bandwagon to make phones driven on those OS. Barring a few like HTC Alltel, we find all of HTCs phones very attractive. We were a bit overwhelmed to find that the home screen of the phone had seven pages for the menu. You don’t really need this much for the menu. You scroll back and forth by swiping your finger left or right. You can add shortcuts and widgets and you can change the wall paper of the home screen. There are a couple of widgets and you get more on the Android Market but we were really pleased with the widgets that were there in the phone like Twitter widget which give a live stream of tweets. We have been familiar with ‘scenes’ feature of HTC phones, it just like ‘themes’  [...]

HTC touch 2 has given us great phones in the past and they have been super hits in the market too. They have great touch screen, good music player, camera and lots of other features that you look in a camera. The design of HTC phones is almost more or less the same (except for the HTC Snap) but we never get enough of those sleek sexy devices. We found this to be one of the best phones ever from HTC but all this also comes at a slightly higher price. The phone is 4.57 inches tall, 0.68 inch deep, 2.33 inch wide and weighs about 6.6 ounces. The phone is comfortable to hold in hand and the slider layout is awesome but it makes the phone a bit thick. The display WVGA touch screen 3.6 inch big and has a 480x800-pixel resolution, 65k color. The display size is awesome and you will get what you expect which is great video quality for playing games and videos. The screen is bright and vibrant, great for viewing text and photographs. The bigger display screen would also serve you better  [...]