HTC Aria (AT&T) – Good mid range smartphone

Sum and Substance:

Thumbs Up:

Compact design, feature rich device, run on Android 2.1 OS and has HTC’s Sense UI. 5 megapixel camera, Bluetooth, GPS, with support for 3G and Wi-Fi networks.

Thumbs Down:

Smaller display gives a smaller keyboard, no flash for the camera, non-market apps cannot be installed.

Inside the Trunk:

Technology: GSM

Band: GSM 850/900/1800/1900 (Quadband)

Phone design: Candy bar

Caller ID: Yes

Other features: GPRS support, USB, AGPS, EDGE, Proximity sensor

The Whiz Kid Speaks:

HTC Aria is 2.3 inches wide, 0.47 inches deep, 4.6 inches high and weighs 4.6 oz. Wireless Interface options include IEEE 802.11b/g, Bluetooth 2.1. Additional features include GPRS support, USB, AGPS, EDGE, Proximity sensor, microSD card slot, Touch screen. The phone is based on Android 2.1 OS, Messaging/data features include Instant messages, Text messages, Multimedia messages (MMS), HTML Browser, E-Mail.

The rated talk time of this phone is 360 minutes. The handset has 384 MB RAM / 512 MB ROM, it is powered by Qualcomm MSM 7227, 600 MHz processor. The camera has a five megapixel resolution with autofocus. The screen is 3.2 inches big and has a resolution of 320 x 480 pixels.

Razzle Dazzle:

Smartphone makers are going big these days, they are largely concentrating on making bigger smartphones. However, HTC Aria is a welcome change from all this. This handset is just 4.6 inches tall, 2.3 inches wide, 0.5 inch thick and weighs about 4.6 ounces. The downside is that you don’t get the big display screen but this phone will now easily slip in to your pocket with the small shape.

Inside Dope:

AT&T said that they would be introducing an AT&T phone at CES 2010 and they have now come up with HTC Aria. The design is quite similar to HTC HD Mini and it based on Android 2.1. The feature set is all there and you also get to use HTC Sense’s user interface. This is not the most powerful Android mobile phone in the market right now and if you yearn for power, you might want to skip this phone for Samsung Captivate – which will be arriving soon. AT&T has also blocked third party app downloads which is another bummer. However, the Aria is a good mid range smartphone and it is better than AT&T’s other Android phone, the Motorola Backflip. This phone will cost you $129.99 after a $100 mail in rebate and you have to sign a two year service agreement. We think that the price is a bit high for the feature set it offers but it is not outrageous.

HTC Aria has a 3.2 inches screen with resolution of 320×480 pixels. This is a bit small considering what other smartphones are offering HTC has made this for mid range smartphone users. So small screen is not that disappointing. The display may not be the sharpest but you still get a bright and clear view of the screen. The real estate too is adequate for most of your tasks. The touch screen is capacitive and it has a pinch to zoom feature that lets you zoom in and out by pinching the screen, just like iPhone. You can use this to magnify the screen. The keyboard is a bit cramped and hence we will recommend you to use the accelerometer and put the keyboard in landscape mode for better typing.

HTC Aria has seven panels for the hone screen and you can fill them up with all the shortcuts and widgets that you want. You can also assign different ‘Scenes’ to different screens. There are options like social, travel, play and work. There is no support for live wallpapers though.

HTC Aria has four touch sensitive buttons below the screen – optical joystick, back, home and menu. On the right there are no buttons but you do get a volume rocker on other side. On the top, there is a 3.5 mm headphone jack and power button and on the bottom, there is the microUSB port. The SIM and microSD card is located beneath the battery compartment. The are screws on the back cover but still it can be easily pulled off. If you take off the entire plastic shell, you will see that the phone is all yellow inside. HTC Aria comes with USB cable, AC adapter, 2 GB microSD card, reference material and wired stereo headset.

HTC Aria is rich in features. The cell phone runs on Android 2.1 and you also get the benefits of HTC Sense user experience. HTC, however, has not announced an upgrade to Android 2.2 Froyo yet. Rumors say that the company is closely working with Google along with its partners for this. We are expecting the updates to arrive somewhere later this year.

Being an Android phone, HTC Aria gives you all the standard goodies like Google Maps Navigation, Google Talk, Gmail, QuickOffice and YouTube app. There are a few extras like Footprints, Peep, and Twitter app. AT&T products like MobiTV, AT&T Family Map, AT&T Radio, Yellow Pages Mobile, and AT&T Navigator are also there. All these services come at a price though. For instance, you will have to pay $9.99 a month for the AT&T Family Map.

You can visit the Android Market for more apps but the service provider doesn’t let you download any of the non-Market applications. AT&T did this with Motorola Backflip too and it is quite frustrating since there are a lot of good third party apps out there.

Nitty Gritty:

HTC Aria is a good Anroid smartphone aimed at midrange users. Our only gripe was that third party app installation is blocked.