HTC Snap – Alltel – A Smartphone For Messaging
Sum and Substance:
Thumbs Up:
Inner circle feature for e-mail sorting, GPS, good call quality, QWERTY keyboard.
Thumbs Down:
Bad speaker phone quality, unattractive looks.
Inside the Trunk:
Technology: WCDMA (UMTS) / GSM
Band: WCDMA (UMTS) / GSM 850/900/1800/1900
Phone design: Candy bar
Caller ID: Yes
Other features: GPS
The Whiz Kid Speaks:
The display of the phone is 2.4 inch big and gives a resolution of 320 x 240 pixels. Beneath the display there is a full QWERTY keyboard. The phone is not touch screen based unlike most HTC phones. For wireless interface there is Wireless Interface
IEEE 802.11b, Bluetooth 2.0 EDR, IEEE 802.11g. For messaging there are features like GPRS (General Packet Radio Service), EDGE (Enhanced Data Rates For Global Evolution), Internet Browser, HSDPA (High Speed Downlink Packet Access) and Java applications.
The HTC Snap runs on Microsoft Windows Mobile 6.1. The phone has 1500 mAh – Lithium ion battery which has talk time of about 510 minutes and stand by time of 480 hours. The music player of the phone can play formats like AMR, AAC, MP3, WAV, QCP, WMA, AAC +, MIDI and eAAC+. Behind the phone there is a 2 MP camera.
Razzle Dazzle:
The design of the HTC Snap is quite unHTC like. HTC has been known to making phones which are all touch screen based except for a few physical buttons at the bottom. While we liked that design more that this one, we don’t know why HTC made a phone like this. It is not attractive looking at all, it would be geeky to carry this phone around.
Inside Dope:
HTC is not known to making phones like this, we miss the old design of touch screen and a few buttons underneath them and we would like to request HTC to get that design back.
The display of the HTC Snap is 2.4 inch big and has a resolution of about 320 x 240 pixels which are both much less compared to what we have known HTC for. But the screen is bright and text and photos are clear on this screen. The screen makes up for a very small space on the top of the phone and rest is all hogged by the QWERTY keyboard and the buttons above it.
The keyboard has taken a lot of space on the HTC Snap and hence it is quite spacey. The keyboard is quite easy to type, the number buttons are highlighted in white color against the black keys. You can type and browse for a lot of time on this keyboard, it is not all cramped.
Above the keyboard there are the call and call end keys, home button, back button and two soft buttons. There is a four way direction button with an OK button in the center.
The HTC Snap is dual mode phone and it can support both GSM and CDMA networks. So you can run this phone on CDMA network while you are in US and GSM for traveling abroad. There is a SIM card slot for this. But the phone doesn’t support international 3G networks so all you get is EDGE. The phone also has Wi-Fi.
There are features on the HTC Snap such as speakerphone, smart dialing, text and multimedia messaging, conference calling and speed dial. There is no limit for storing contacts in the phone book as long as you are not out of memory space. A single entry can take multiple numbers, IM screen names, e-mail addresses and birthdays. The phone also supports attaching a photograph to a contact so that his face flashes when he is calling. You can group you friends together on this phone and assign a unique ID to the group or individuals.
The HTC Snap also supports POP3 and IMAP connectivity so you can set the phone to deliver you e-mails from your client. The HTC Inner circle feature prioritizes your e-mails according to the importance that you assign to them.
The inner circle feature, as the name suggests allows you to set a number of people who are important for you for e-mail communication. When you press the inner circle button only the individuals selected by you in the inner circle will be shown on the display. You can make your inner circle by going through the list of contacts and choosing the ones that you want. It can be a bit boring to choose if you have a big list but there is a search option too. There is no limit to how many people you can set in your inner circle.
The HTC Snap comes with a 256 MB internal memory and you can put in more through the microSD expansion slot. There is a two mega pixel camera behind the phone which took photos better than ones expected from a two MP rated camera. But we would have liked a 3.2 MP rated camera. The music player of the phone is good, HTC is known to have good music players and this one too lived up to the expectations. The player can play formats like AMR, AAC, MP3, WAV, QCP, WMA, AAC +, MIDI and eAAC+. The phone has a video player but watching videos on such as small screen was a passable experience. The phone runs on Microsoft Windows Mobile 6.1 OS.
We tested the HTC Snap for call quality and it was the finest ever. Voice was crystal clear and sounded just like a landline. Our friends too reported similar results. They were quiet pleased with the quality of the call. Speakerphone quality was not as good, the sound distorted a bit when pushed to the highest level but the volume is loud enough and you won’t complain even in noisy environments as the sound is quite clear.
The HTC Snap is powered by 528MHz processor which is pretty fast and we didn’t have any lags with opening applications. The HTC Snap battery can last for about five hours of talk time which is amazing and the stand by time is about 480 hours. You can also access applications from Alltel like RealTone JukeBox which is for ringtones, Alltel Pocket Express, Alltel Navigation which is for voice-guided directions you can always download more from the store.
Nitty Gritty:
This is phone made for people who need to access e-mails on the go and is essentially a messaging phone. We thought the design was a bit boring but this makes a great buy since it is cheap for the features it offers.
