About a month ago I purchased an HTC TyTn (Hermes/ATT 8525) from Rogers Wireless here in Canada. The phone cost $250 CDN with a 3 year contract.. very very very long I know, compared to American standards, but I just created this account about 2 years ago.. so the discount was quite nice.  Usually the phone retails with Rogers for $399 CDN with a 3 year contract with a mandatory data/voice plan that must total $75-80 (either a $40/$40 or a $75 combined plan), but I was able to get the phone without the required plan.. which is really nice especially since the phone now requires an additional 3 year contract for the data plan alone!

The phone has been around for well over a year for the rest of the world, but just arrived on Rogers Wireless this summer after a very long delay.  I’ve played around with the phone for 2 weeks now, and there are many features that I love, and many features that bug the heck out of me. I have created a list of things I loved/hated about the phone.

What I liked about the phone:
*The ability to expand the memory via external memory card is a neat idea.. since many phones.. even in this day and age don’t have the ability to expand memory
*It has a pop-out qwerty keyboard for easier access to typing emails/etc.. which came in quite handy
*Since I got it for quite a bit cheaper than most people would.. that’s always a plus.
*It has wifi.. and I currently have it set to “Wifi only”, so that if I want to browse the internet or check email, it will use a Wifi connection.. compared to using a data plan/paying for data access.. it’s hell alot cheaper.. plus the speed of the wifi connection is quite decent for me.
*Also with Wifi.. I was able to install Skype so when I am in an area with low GSM signal or outside of Canada… all I need is a Wifi connection and I can make cheap outbound calls.
*The screen is touch based.. which is pretty neat on its own… however it usually requires for the provided stylus pen to be used (or a pen in general) to use it to the full advantage.
*I have put a few videos on the phone and played them back in full screen.. they have turned out decent quality.
*The speaker volume (internally/speakerphone) are very loud.. which is a plus when you are in a loud environment.
*I just upgraded the OS on the phone and it includes Windows Live Messenger.. which is in some ways similar to the PC version of the software.. has ability to send voice clips, use display pics and send files to friends.. which is neat.
*It is easy to install programs such as Opera internet browser or any other 3rd party software or games to play around with on the phone.
*You can charge the phone through USB if you want to.. which can be handy.

What I didn’t like about the phone:
*While a QWERTY keyboard is nice, it’s a bit of a hassle to use just to type “cya” since it has to slide out.
*The Internet Explorer browser provided with the phone is decent for light browsing, but it’s pretty oldschool compared to Opera and the Safari Browser on the iPhone.. but it gets the job done.. but even Opera still needs work itself
*It’s a pain to close applications, when you think you close an application… chances are that the application is still open.. you have to go in a task manager to manually close running applications.
*Windows Live Messenger adds the entire Messenger contact list to the phone book.. so when you want to call/text somebody.. it is usually a hassle to look for a non-Messenger contact, you cannot disable Messenger from adding the contacts to the address book or anything either.
*The camera application is a bit tricky to use… it takes a bit of time to get the hang of
*The quality of the camera itself is low end webcam quality, at best.. the camera in my Motorola v635 takes much better pictures.. and the phone is a few years older.
*It would have been awesome if HTC included a numeric keypad on the outer portion of the case itself, since it’s near impossible to drive and dial a number at the same time.. not that I do that or anything. The Telus Mobility equivalent of the phone has this option.
*When running high resource applications.. watching a video can sometimes be difficult.. with the video/audio being scrambled/choppy at times.
*There is very little support for Flash Player on this phone, Flash Lite is available for the phone, but I was unable to view flash based videos on sites such as Youtube, although Youtube does now have a site optimized for mobile phones at http://m.youtube.com now.
*There is very little user interface customization of the phone itself.. you can customize it with a few various themes and change the wallpaper.. but the wallpaper also appears on the start menu, which makes it look tacky and hard to read.
*When a call ends, the phone application requires manually closing for it to be closed.. HTC made this phone seem as if it’s a PDA first and a phone second because of things like this
*If you want to plug in your phone to a PC, you must use Activesync.. which is a bit of trash itself and annoying.. and if you are on a non Windows machine.. tough luck.. unless if you want to pay $$$ for a (sometimes) craptacular 3rd party solution.
*Screen smudges easily.. but almost any phone screen does that
*It is very easy to lose the stylus pen.. and I already have done that! It costs $20 or so for a 3 pack of stylus pens itself.. they should have atleast included one more stylus because they’re so freaking small.
*MPG videos are hard to play on the device.. Windows Media Player refused to play them.. but played WMV files fine.. well of course
*There’s an annoying bug for my Outlook Mobile mail… every time I connect to the internet to receive email, any email that’s currently on the phone will be automatically deleted
*Battery drains very easily while using Wifi, and sometimes attempts to connect onto Wifi networks that I don’t want to connect to
*I have installed Opera on the phone.. however it’s junk.. yet still better than Internet Explorer
*When texting.. the phone always sends you a message saying that the text message has been sent.. which is annoying, and when a text does arrive.. it’s sometimes intrusive
*Last but not least.. the phone has hand writing recognition.. so if you want to write out a sentence then have it convert to plain text.. it’s pure crap.. imagine that Simpsons episode where one of the bullies wrote “Beat up Martin” on the oldschool Newton PDA and it converted it to “Eat up Martha”, it’s EXACTLY like that.. I can print legibly and it will still write “to” when I actually wrote “!”

I am currently enjoying this phone and will probably use this phone for atleast two years unless if severe problems occur. The phone has yet to give me any problems that cause the phone to be unstable to the point that requires for the battery to be removed. It is a bit heavy for a phone, and could have been improved in some areas, but at the same time I use the phone almost as much as I use my computer, which is a first for me.  While this phone was just introduced on Rogers, there are rumours that the HTC TyTn II is planned to be coming to the Great White North in only a few weeks time!