HTC Touch Pro2 Smartphone

Well, my wait is over. I have the replacement in hand for my trusty T-Mobile MDA. (Actually I had been using my Cingular 8125 unlocked on T-mobile, but its the same phone, The Wizard, just the 8215 has a much better keyboard). I'm not going to get over the top detailed as I've only had this a week, but here is my.....

First impression: Solid. This unit has some weight to it. The color is some sort of tan, brown, chocolate color. I don't really care about phone colors, but this one has a nice two tone finish.

While standing in the T-Mobile store with just 1 of 2 they had in stock, the first thing I did was slide it open. This is easy to do with one hand and you can assign cool sounds to the open and close action of the display.

I have seen reviews where people time the speed of the display change. I have not found this view switch speed to be of any issue. By the time I am ready to read or type, the display is changed.

Hardbutton placement:

One drawback I see when opening the display is the location of the volume buttons. They are located on the left upper side of the unit, and my left thumb sometimes turns the volume down when holding the unit to slide it open.

Another issue I run into is when holding the unit with the display  tilted up. I find myself turning the display off because the power button is located on the top, and when grasping in landscape mode in order to use the keyboard, the inside portion of my left index finger rests against the power button. And my right thumb will activate whatever option is available when holding the unit to tilt the display up. But these handling methods are just part of the learning curve in my opinion, once I pay attention when opening the keyboard and using the tilt, these issues are resolved.

Keyboard:

This is a great, solid keyboard. The keys are spaced apart enough and I never find myself hitting more than one key at a time. The response is great too. There is a solid click and feel to each key press. The keyboard has a series of function and shortcut keys that speed up the navigation process. Examples are quick links to the communication manager, SMS, email and more. Tiny LEDs light up as well to indicate what ALT or shift mode is active. And of course each keyboard letter lights up for easy low light typing.

Display:

Sharp! Colorful! Smudgey! Now my hands are pretty clean, I don't eat BBQ then use my phone. But this display sure gets smudges fast it seems. I have resorted to using my shirt to clean it at times, but thats probably not a good idea. The bottom of the display has a zoom control, which comes in handy with photos and such. Below that are more hardbuttons that are Phone, home, (no ET jokes) a back arrow and phone end. The phone end seems to work as a home key as well.

Touch Navigation:

This feature is OK with your finger, and great with the included stylus. Response time when changing icons on the home page is quick enough. I will not go a great deal into Windows Mobile features, but access to them on this phone is painless. From time to time though, there is a lag when changing icons, but it seems I cause that by flying through the options, not something I would do during normal use. There is the feature of auto scrolling the screen if the current view supports it. With a flick of your finger or stylus you can navigate between the menu choices, scroll a web page, email or SMS list, scroll photos and more. It works pretty good, with just a few times when it would not respond.

Camera:

Its a 3.2 megapixel and I have found that its pretty typical to cell phone camera qualities, though it does have much better low light performance than my 8125 has. There is still ghosting in low light conditions and there is no flash. There are plenty of options in the photo manager to change file size and quality. It also records video with a good frame rate. Windows mobile features easy methods to email, save and use photos as contact pictures.

Sound:

The speaker is loud and clear. Playing music, though not Hi-Fi, can still be heard clearly with no distortion to speak of. I have heard worse speakers on large LCD monitors. Next to the camera lens on the back is an audio mute button to, well, mute.

Connections:

All your standard methods are there. Bluetooth, wifi, 3G, USB to PC. No infrared anymore though. I have yet to try the tethering and internet sharing feature. The WIFI is solid and was easy to setup with my WPA2 protected U-Verse residential gateway. Good range from 3 floors up as well. 3G is 3G and all my 3G features seem to respond fast, like getting the weather, email, and such. 3G Speedtests show it to be in the same range as most other 3G carriers and phones. Syncing with Vista 64 has been painless as well. The only thing I don't like is the non-standard USB cable. Its not a typical mini usb, it has a right angle on the mini connector so the dozens of small and midsize usb cables I have for everything else won't work with this. I have to remember to bring this cable with if I need to sync or charge on the go.

On screen keyboard:

I have used this side by side with an iPhone, and for some reason I am able to fly almost error free using the Touch Pro 2 as opposed to the chaos that takes place when using the iPhone. Not sure why.

In summary, I bought this phone outright from T-Mobile without a contract. I know that 4G is coming soon and I don't want to be locked into a T-Mobile account. But for now this phone does a good job of replacing my trusty 8125. Soon I will be installing several apps when I get my microSD card, such as Netremote from Promixis and a CCTV camera viewer from Geovision.

On a bad note, as much as I have babied this, I managed to cause a 1" scratch in the screen. I'm pretty annoyed with myself on that.

Oh, and it works good as a phone too.