More HTC Touch Pro Review

So, continuing on my Touch Pro exploration:

In case I didn’t mention it before, you should note that the Touch interface *mostly* works. That means that using the on-screen keyboard or keypad for dialling or typing, is responsive enough that you can use it without thinking – unlike the Kaiser, where you had to allow both for inaccurate tapping, and lag. Here, typing a number in on the screen is a pleasure, and works fine.

Where it doesn’t always work is in swiping – it’s tricky to get it to interpret the movement correctly – such as scrolling down an inbox, and ending up opening an email instead. It can make navigating a pain, when compared to my much-missed jogwheel. Trying to get to a specific point in a document or web page is also a question of endless flicking the screen, or digging the stylus out for the scroll bars. However, it is still slightly better than the Kaiser at this.

Nice Little Feature

If you plug in something to the mini-USB connector, you get this helpful little pane pop up.

Which one shall I use today?

It’s genuinely useful -touch Internet Sharing, and that’s all you need to do – it effectively runs a macro that opens the usual Internet Sharing app, and selects Connect for you – and hey presto, your laptop is connected!

Keyboard

I’m just about used to the keyboard after a couple of days. The one major remaining annoyance is the SMS button – accidentally press it while typing, and your email will be saved to drafts, and you’ll be flicked back to the SMS screen. Getting back to your email is a long journey…

There’s also a bug: if you choose to use T9 mode when using the touchscreen (which is actually very usable!), then it’ll also be enabled for the keyboard (which is not at all usable). Want to have the best of both worlds? Tough! You’ll have to manually change the input settings each time you switch from one to the other.
(This bug’s reminscent of the Hermes, where using the keyboard while in a call was impossible because it was locked in DTMF-only mode. It seems HTC just didn’t get to these finishing touches…)

Ergonomics
- The stylus makes a return to the right side of the keyboard and phone body – good news for all those righties who had

to reach across for the Kaiser. The magnetic action is also quite nice, but again, the slightly insensitive touchscreen means you have to put a bit of effort behind your prodding
- Speaking of prodding, the slightly insensitive touchscreen (am I too used to the iPod Touch?) makes clicking links in Opera a pain. Stab, stab, and stab again, until you manage to get on the link, and the page opens.

- The Touch Pro defaults to a ‘large font’ for all menus – I assume on the assumption that they expect you to use your finger rather than a stylus. For the most part, it is a good choice – unless the menu is larger than the screen height. In that case, I found that some apps strangely automatically scroll the menu downwards, and you have to grab it and wrestle it back up to the option you wanted (using too-small up and down arrows). Your instinct is to scroll through it by flicking your finger – again, like an iPhone would allow – but it won’t work.

Touch-Wheel

Now, this is the worst one… I learnt the other day that the Touch Pro actually has an Apple-style rotary touch sensor around the D-Pad.  Yep – you heard right – you can actually spin your finger around the rim of the button, and it’ll sense that and act accordingly.

Wow! An alternative to the jog dial!! Excellent! So – you can scroll up and down lists, web pages, contact databases, at lightning speed, right?

No.

What you can do… is Zoom In, and Zoom Out.

Zoom In…… and Zoom Out.

On a couple of applications.

Now – if I had to zoom in and out more frequently that I had to scroll – which is every email, web page, screen that I look at – then this would be great. But I don’t. I need to scroll, and HTC seem to have completely wasted this (probably quite expensive) little add-on.

Zoom In....

...and Zoom Out...

So – I guess that’ll be fixed on the next model…

However - overall, I’ve already grown quite used to having the Raphael around. The responsiveness when typing on the screen or switching Portrait-Landscape is pleasant. The looks and solid feel ARE nice… I’m already wondering if I’ll dislike having a Hermes as my backup phone….

Revo Blik Radiostation Review continued…

Well, I’m still playing around with the Radiostation, and have a few more comments to add…

Has it revolutionised my life yet? Well – I do have it on most of the time; it’s nice to have sound on, and I’ve been trying various stations on and off over the last few days. A friend who speaks Italian came round yesterday, so I put on a few Italian stations, which reminded us both of the times when we were over there – which was not quite revolutionary, but still very nice.

On the downside, I’ve still not tuned in to a station on any medium (DAB, FM, WiFi) that impresses with sound quality. I think that could be the stations in the case of WiFi, and I know DAB is much lamented, but I would have thought FM would be better. However, playing some MP3s from my PC, with the Radiostation plugged into my surround system, isn’t bad.

The buttons still annoy – a design where they could be laid out more intuitively, rather than all being identical, would have been preferable.

Also – I’ve been playing BBC Podcasts this morning, but found that after a while (15-45 minutes), one will pause, disconnect, and then restart… from the beginning. I’m hoping there’s a fast forward, or a config to store the last position (nope, I’ve still not read the manual), because otherwise, this is an absolute pain for anyone who regularly listens to podcasts.

Actually, they could have a fast forward/rewind – operated by jogdial, a’ la iPod. They could tune using a Jogdial.. select using a jogdial… Do away with every identical button on the damn thing and replace them with just a jogdial!

And.. that’s my thoughts on jogdials.

So – good. But not great.

Aliph Jawbone 2 (New) 30 second review

Only had it 12 hours so far, and my thoughts (using it with an HTC TYTN II):

• Beautifully small and light
• Fits very comfortably on my ear – slides on easily, and I really can wear it all day. It’s lighter than my previous favourite, the HBH-610 fitted with an HBH-65 ear loop.
• Mike noise reduction seems at least as good – made a phone call from the train, and the called party had no complaints
• Cool looking, not overstated, very cool LED
• Received sound / speaker sound is at least as bad as the old one – quiet and scratchy, but not as tinny. Apparently this varies by device, so might be better with a Blackberry, etc.
• Charger is very similar to the first Jawbone’s but the magnetic attacher is much easier to use; no more headset-wrestling as you’re trying to detach it.

Also – I remember some complaints on other reviews about having to push the rear (NoiseAssasin) button so hard you have to surgically remove the headset from the ear canal. Top Tip to avoid this: the documentation is misleading – it seems you have to push against the side fascia of the headset, at the rear, but that’s just because all their diagrams are ’side-on’ views. The button’s actually on the end of the headset - so you should press on the end, not on the side, for this button.

It’s a very nice, practical, wearable headset – so far. My two big gripes are:

• Speaker sound still isn’t great
• Only practically usable with one device; you have to repair to use another.