Swedish Tech Report

I have been playing with the european version of the HTC Touch Pro 2 and I have to say it has truly provided me with a great experience. First im going to talk about the only downside that I have found so far with this unit and that is the weight. This may just be me but personally I would like to see a lighter version of it, but perhaps that is something that we will see in the Touch Pro 3?:-)

Now leat’s get on to the good parts about the unit. The shape of the unit is really nice. They have created a unit that will make you feel like you are holding an egg in the palm of your hand. There is not much buttons on the front of the unit if you compare it to earlier versions similar to the first Touch Pro.

Personally I was kind of bummed that the Touch Diamond 2 got a 5 Megapixel camera, but the Touch Pro got only a 4.3 megapixel camera. To be honest I do not think there is much of a difference between these two. The Touch Pro 2 takes really good pictures that will make you really happy. Might say even that these are good enough that you will keep these as a memory for the days that you just want to look back. There will be a more extensive report on the camera and how it works.

One thing that I am glad that HTC have keept from the earlier is that when you remove the stylus you will notice that the unit itself turns on. One of those small things that I am happy that HTC has thought off.
Alot of us will probably remember the older days when you slide the keyboard out and there was a distinct lagg between switching from portrait to landscape. There is no such lagg on this unit. Either when switching from portrait to landscape or portrait to tilting. Good times

This the report after couple of days of use. Expect a more lengthier report this Sunday

Yesterday I got the Touch Pro 2 from HTC and I have been playing with it on and off for the last 24 hours.  It is one of those units that you do not want to put down. At first sight it has a really clean look but one thing I have noticed about is that they have not only done this one the outside they have also done a clean look on the inside of the device. They have replaced the default Windows Mobile start menu with one of their own that allows more of a customising options. Every line htat you can see allows you to have three different shortcuts in each, with up to 10 lines possible with three shortcuts in each.

What I personally like with it is that you are not forced to pull out the stylus but you can acutally use a finger to scroll down without any trouble, in my case I use my thumb since I have found it to give me hte best possible experience.

The second thing that I really enjoy with this device is the tilting factor. They have reintroduced the tilting shape that they had in the days of the Tytn 2/Tilt.  It owkrs really excellent and feels solid. Not what I would expect in the beginning because I feared that it would be lose nad not really have steady position. The screen is great. One thing I have enjoyed with it is watching Youtube videos with the help of the builtin player.  The only thing that I wish they would add would be a 3.5 mm headphone jack. Then it could become a great multimedia phone.

I have been using the HTC Snap as my main unit for the last week and for each day that has gone by I have been enjoying the experience more and more. The batterylife is getting better all the time. The first day the batterylife was terribe and did not last for more then 12 hours, but now instead I have batterylife of 48+ hours. This with five email accounts installed on the device:

• Two Swedishtechreport email accounts
• Two Gmail accounts
• One hotmail accouint

What impresses me with this device and it’s batterylife is that in the background I still run twitter all the time in the background. It is an impressive device.

The operating system is responsive. I have a 16 GB  MicroSDHC card installed on my device and it works excellent all the time. I have around nine applications installed on my device currently at the moment and eight of these are onto the memory cards.  This for me feels like a great setup for me.

One software that I actually enjoy is the Inner Circle Software.It allows me to keep email from friends and family sorted into one software. Personally I do not feel the need to make a power version of this software they have already made a great software for the Snap. The only thing I would like to see added is customising the software. All users do not keep the standard Windows Mobile themes and do it in a more light color. It would be nice If we could add these same features to the inner circle software.

One thing that I really enjoy with this device is the screen. Today we actually had good weather in Gothenburg with a blue sky and not a single cloud on the sky. Loving it basically. I could read emails and call people without any trouble at all. I am planning on tomorrow to record a video about it if we get good weather.

I am really enjoying the experience with it so far.  It really allows me to use my device as my messaging device of choice. It is suprisingly easy to choose between different email accounts. The roller ball is a great utility for a messaging device. I like that when you are in a dark enviroment it lights up like a christmas tree.

So far I am really enjoying this experience with the Snap. Leat me know if you have any comments in the comment section below.

I have been using ok more of playing with the HTC Snap for the last couple of days:-). Immediately when I picked it up from the box I noticed how small it is. Something that really suprised me. The picture does not do it justice. It is actually not that much bigger then my HP IPAQ Voice Messenger which alot of us would consider to a be a small and portable smartphone , but back to the Snap. The keyboard is a good keyboard. The keys are well rounded and allows you to easy press each of the keys at once but what I always used to in the beginning and still do is that I would press the tab interface instead of pressing the A button.

The battery lasts 24 hour without any trouble for me right now. This is with 3 imap accounts pulling emails at every 30 minutes , alot of twittering and the ocasional web browsing. If you want to follow my twittering you can go to http://www.twitter.com/smicael and see my random thoughts. It was different in the beginning when the battery lasted me only for around 10 hours tops but what I found out when recharging the units the first days was that you have to charge it and use it and the battery will become better over time. It took around five chargers for me until I was able to fully use my devices to it’s potential. Right now it lasts me around 24 hours.

To be honest when I first saw that the camera was a 2 Megapixel camera I immediately thought meh….. This one can not fun to use, but it has actually suprised me positive. I can for the first time use a phone camera and be happy except for the one that I have on my Touch HD that just simply rocks.

One thing that is new for me and that suprised me is the roller ball which allows you to control oyur device without any trouble. One thing that I like is that when you load up Internet Explorer it actually allows you to use the roller ball as a mouse to allow you to easier control your device when you use Internet Explorer. Another good example with is when you are in the programs folder you can actually scroll to the right, scroll down and left without any trouble.

To quote the famous sentence I am loving it.

A cool program that they have included is the inner circle program which allows you to select five of your contacts and get emails from them right into this software at first I thought that it would be nothing for me but what actually suprised me is that it is a really nice software to use. I have sister who lives in Miami and relatives living in Switzerland this allows me to direct these emails into this software. The only thing that I would like to see is that they make a version of this software for power users. That would be fun and make the unit more interesting for the power users out there.

I really like the rubber coating on this device. It allows you to keep it firmly in your hand but at the same time you can also inside know that your device is protected and if you drop it there will not be that much of damage on the device. One word awesome! Or to quote Shawn Spencer from the tv series Psych it’s f for freaking awesome.

There is always those people out there that complain about Windows Mobile and stability on the device. I have been running Twikini, email software (both the standard Windows Mobile and the inner circle), Internet Explorer, and much more in the background for the last 24 hours and the device has not acted up on me once. It has worked and chugged along great for me during my usage.

This is a part of the how I use my Windows Mobile based devices. Leat me know if you have any questions in the comments below.

After upgrading the ROM on my device I decided that I wanted to give it a fresh new look but I did not want to give Touch FLO3D on my device. Over at XDA they have alot of different themes for the  HTC Touch HD ‘Blackstone’. After playing with this them I have noticed that it works just aswell as when I had the original Touch Flo 3D Layout from HTC on it. Awesome feeling.

It was easy to install. What I did was to download the CAB file from XDA-Developers and install it onto my device. Quick reboot and later it was installed without any trouble.

After using my Xperia for a while I feelt the itch to use another device. I wanted to use a device which had a big screen and allowed me to use mobile internet as it’s best. After a couple of days of use I realised that this device just feelt to slow. I checked the HTC website and saw that HTC offers a newer ROM then what I had on my device.

The first thing I did after the ROM upgrade was syncing. To see if it was just as slow after I loaded up all my contacts, task, calendar items and notes. No problem after syncing it. The second step was was to load the apps that I use daily; SBSH News GoTouch, Facebook WM Client, Twikini and Astraware Bejewelled.

So far so good. The next step was to install my personal email accounts and Swedish Tech Report email accounts. It took a while for it to download all of the emails for these accounts. Just in my personal Gmail account I have over 16638 emails. After doing this I have had no issues with my Touch HD. It has worked extremely well for me for the latest three hours.

Check the manufacturer’s website of your device to see if there is a new ROM update availible for your device. Right now my Touch HD feels like a completly new device.