When the iPhone came out, a lot of people wondered if anything could compete. Honestly, for some time, nothing could.

But back on June 5th, 2007, HTC announced the Touch. Immediately, everyone said it could possibly be an iPhone killer. I thought so, Indi (LaIndia aka Triple B) thought so, and many other people thought so as well.

Well, I am here to tell you if it is an iPhone killer or not; I have been testing it out for the past 2 weeks, and I love it. Before I tell you if it is an iPhone killer or not, read my review and go to a Sprint store and an Apple store to test them both out for yourself. I will say this: if you just recently entered into a contract with a Phone company, I totally believe the Touch is worth breaking your current contract in order to switch to Sprint and get the HTC Touch.

Now let me stop the rambling and get on with the review.

For those of you who haven’t seen my Unboxing of the HTC Touch for Sprint post, check it out, so you can see how the HTC is packaged and what comes with the device. For those of you who don’t want to see, I will just say that HTC took a page out of Apple’s book when it comes to packaging a product. It was done elegantly and reminded me of how my 4th Gen iPod was packaged.  It was very classy on HTC and Sprints part to package the phone like they did.

When I first held the phone in my hand back in August and again in September, I remembered it being light weight and thin. When I heard Sprint was going to have the Phone, I began to worry a bit. I thought it may get a bit thicker and heavier. For example, the Cingular and T-Mobile version of the HTC TyTn is thinner and lighter in weight than the Sprint version. So, I was a bit worried that the HTC Touch for Sprint would be heavier and thicker than what I saw back in August and September. It wasn’t; in fact, it felt a little lighter, but that may be because the ones I saw in the past were in cases or attached by a security cable to a display.

I was pretty happy to see that it kept its form factor and light weight. I also like the feel of the phone. Those of you who have held any HTC phone in the past know they have a silky smooth feel to them, and HTC continued that with the Touch.

The HTC Touch runs Windows Mobile 6 Professional, and HTC seems to have tweaked the hell out of the OS. They have added so many cool features: weather on the home screen, TouchFlo (allows you to flip the screen with the flick of your finger), and picture dialing. Sprint takes advantage of these features to the fullest. Many times you see a Service Provider disable certain features, and Sprint has done that in the past on some phones. It seems that Sprint left the HTC touch alone. The only thing they did was add their OnDemand, SprintTV, and Sprint Music Store software to the phone. All of which have worked flawlessly for me.

I am sure you are all wondering how the navigation is on the phone. Well, there are three ways to navigate the phone: one is with the stylus, the second is the navigation pad on the bottom of the Touch, and the third is the ole mighty finger.

Navigating with the stylus and the navigation pad is self explanatory. You tap where you want to go, or you scroll until you get where you want to go. Using your finger is not that much different than using the stylus. The only real difference is your finger is thicker, longer, and attached to your hand.

Taping here and there and navigating with your finger is easy. The device is responsive, and it kind of felt like navigating on a Tablet PC. For example, if you held your finger down on an application or a contact name a menu would come up. This happens in the same way the properties menu pops up on a Tablet PC when you hold down the stylus.

The TouchFlo feature is really cool too. You swipe your finger up-or-down or side to side to flip between screens. The screen itself is also not overly sensitive. If your finger swipes across it slightly, it won’t register. You kind of have to apply a little pressure for any swipe to register. You can also use the stylus for TouchFlo.

The only problem I really had with using my finger on the Touch was typing a text message or email. Why? Because the keyboard keys when using the full keyboard are very small. However, after a day or so, I got used to it and was able to type like a pro on it. You can also set the Touch to have a 20 Key keyboard. Each button has 2 letters and 1 number or symbol. It uses T9 to basically guess what word you want to write, and it’s pretty accurate. There is also a regular 9 key keyboard with 3 letters, 1 number, and/or symbols similar to what you would find on a standard phone. Overall, typing on the touch isn’t that difficult. Once you become accustomed to it, it just gets easier. If you are into messaging, Sprint gives you a free messaging program on the touch that allows you to communicate with your friends on AIM, Live Messenger, and Yahoo. The communication is instant. However, I recommend you have an unlimited data plan.

Something cool about receiving text messages and instant messenger messages on the Touch is, when you receive the message a little prompt comes up with who sent the message, the subject of the message, and some to all of the message depending on how long it is. I thought this was pretty cool because normally you have to go into your messages to view the message and find out who it’s from.

You don’t have to type on the screen to write a message; there is also a block recognizer and a letter recognizer, so if you know the Block Alphabet or if you want to entrust the letter recognizer, you can use the stylus or your nail to write the message.

But hey, the ability to use your finger to navigate isn’t the only cool thing about the Touch. You can use it to make phone calls. Dialing a number is easy. You just tap the phone icon on your screen and dial the number, or click contacts and select the contact you want to call by tapping on their name. The sound quality is great, I was a little disappointed with the speakerphone volume. It sounds clear, but I wish it were a bit louder. Here in NYC, there is a lot of surrounding noise, and sometimes you need the speaker phone. In this city, the Touch Speaker phone is drowned out by the surrounding noise. Hopefully someone will come out with some tweak that can boost the volume a bit.

The Touch also has a 2.0 Megapixel camera which delivers pretty decent pictures. The camera settings are easier to configure than on previous HTC devices. I also like the picture gallery the Touch has. There is also an album feature that allows you to drag a picture off the screen to the right or left so that the previous or following picture can be seen. You can also do a 180 degree swipe on the picture and change the view from portrait to landscape mode and vice versa. 

You can use it as a MP3 player and Video Player. You can add up to 4GB of storage with a microSD card. I know there are 8GB microSD cards available, but I do not have one to see if the Touch supports 8GB. The manual didn’t say if it did or not, but it handled the 4GB.

The sound quality for music was great. It was not as good as the T400, but good nonetheless. I really had no complaints about that.

The Video quality was good as well. However, the Sprint TV video seemed a bit pixilated, but I blame that more on my signal strength I had when watching SprintTV.

Speaking of signal strength, I constantly had 4 bars or more where ever I was, and the data speed Sprint offers is 10 times faster anything T-Mobile or Cingular offer. Browsing the web, downloading programs, music, and movies on the touch was fast. So, many props go to Sprint for the speedy network. In fact the Sprint Network rocks especially in the NYC area, I have T-Mobile and Cingular phones and for the week of October 20th, service was with both Cingular (at&t) and T-Mobile, Sprint was rock solid.

The phone’s beautiful, sleek, and elegant design is perfect for anyone, even if you are in a corporate setting. The phone also hides the microSD card under the siding of the phone. It took me a while to figure out how to open it and to get it in.

Is the HTC Touch an iPhone killer? The simple answer is no, but it comes pretty damned close. Close enough that most people may find the HTC touch more appealing than the iPhone. Both phones certainly have their own advantages and disadvantages. I personally like the Touch more than the iPhone and so does Indi who has hidden the review sample Sprint sent me and won’t give it back.

Just because the HTC Touch isn’t an iPhone killer doesn’t mean I do not like the HTC Touch more than the Apple iPhone. I do I like the HTC touch more than the iPhone and like the iPhone more than my HTC S620 pro.

My only complaint about the Touch is the OS it runs, Microsoft needs to tweak Windows Mobile so that you can use it with your fingers more efficiently, right now the version of Windows Mobile the Touch is using in my opinion is configured for a Stylus. For example X buttons in the far corners are sometimes impossible to tap on with your finger. So Microsoft work on that please!!!

Overall, the HTC Touch is a fantastic phone, and I use the word fantastic rarely. It’s powerful; it’s fast; it’s affordable, and it offers a lot of features that every user wants. For that, we award it our 5 Start Must Have award. Seriously, I must have this phone. I am seriously considering switching from T-Mobile to Sprint right now just so that I can get it.

The HTC Touch is available at Sprint Stores, Online, or over the Phone and will run you $249 dollars with a 2 year contract and $100 dollar Mail in Rebate. So head on over to Sprint.com.

Get this phone....point blank.  Use your office apps and exchange server!  Forget the iphone its great for kids, but real work will get done on this.  The touch interface is great.

I’ve had the Sprint Touch for a few days now.. LOVE IT!!!! Many of my friends have Iphones, and are a bit jealous of the features my phone has.. I find that kind of funny, because the Touch costs half the price of the Iphone..  The Sprint Music store is simply amazing, and it’s sooo fast.  If you want to download music straight to your phone guys, with lightning fast speed, you can’t beat Sprint’s music store.  Sprint has Itunes beat in the wireless music arena.

I had to download a mod to be able to view YouTube, BUT, it works GREAT and Sprint’s network is fast enough to stream YouTube FLAWLESSLY.. Try doing that on the Edge network… I was able to download a 20MB movie clip in 8 minutes… That’s fast!!!

Pictures, TV, Music, Radio - All work amazingly!!  And the phone is fast, it never lags from menu to menu, and I honestly expected some lag with all the software it is running..  Simply Amazing!!!

I’ve heard some bad reviews about the keyboard, but HTC gives you multiple keyboards to choose from.  I use the 20 key keyboard, and it’s large enough to very easily and quickly type up a message with your fingers.

A+ Sprint!!!!!

The Touch was the bomb when I used to owe one. It’s a match up between that and the P3300 now, the HTC P3300 Price is a bit of an issue however.

Of all the new phone out there, I’d say the HTC Diamond is the closest to being an iPhone killer. That being said, since it isn’t released to any major carriers, I put together a list of the best iPhone killers for Sprint, Tmobile, and Verizon.

great phone

What is the best keyboard for graphic design?
ergonomic keyboard