Touch Interface Gives Windows Phones A New Look

Written by Adam Gosling

Friday, 06 July 2007

The iPhone isn't the only new kid on the block sporting a new-look motion sensitive touch screen interface. The HTC Touch Windows Mobile 6.0 smartphone was unveiled in Australia this week and while phone enthusiasts downunder will have to wait an indeterminate time to get their hands on one of Apple's new handheld device they can walk into any Officeworks or Optus dealer with $699 in their hand next week and get the Touch. Without waiting in line. The Touch is the latest Windows smartphone from the Dopod stable, which was acquired late last year by Taiwanese PDA manufacturing specialist High Tech Computing (HTC). HTC makes smartphones and PDAs for the industry's leading brands and acquired the Dopod business last year to get access to its own distribution and retail infrastructure. The company says it has been working on the innovative new touch sensitive interface for two years now, but the Touch (as this handset is appropriately named) is the result of a "rich ten year history of mobile phone innovations" from HTC. Between this handset and the newly released Apple iPhone, it's clear to see whaere the industry is heading with navigation and interfaces. The reviews of this device seem to indicate HTC has done a good job of making the Touch and easy and efficient device to use with one hand, though a stylus is also available for doing that highly detailed work. It is even intelligent enough to distinguish between finger and stylus input and then respond accordingly. When you use your finger the phone automatically changes mode to allow you a little extra leeway for having big fat fingers. When it figures you are using the stylus it gets far more accurate. Because the touch screen is motion sensitive (like the iPhone) it allows the user to intuitively scroll around the display. In this case, the interrface is based on a three dimensional cubed concept. Control is achieved with a sweep, flick and a slide more than a jab and point. It's well worth taking a look at the demo here. You will quickly get an idea of where HTC is heading with this device. "With the HTC Touch, access to your most commonly used content, contacts and features is only a simple finger flick away," said Peter Chou, chief executive officer of HTC. "Mobile phone makers have done a great job of cramming ever-more exciting features into ever-smaller phones. But the way in which one accesses these increasingly sophisticated features has not kept pace. That ends today with the HTC Touch." The device ceretainly doesn't have the storage of the iPhone,. Equipped only with a 1GB stroage card slot copmared to the choice of 4GB or 8GB on board the iPhone. But this translates to a smaller, lighter form factor for the Touch. The display is a fair bit smaller than the APple device too. Overall the Touch is smaller, a coupel of millimetres thicker and a fair bit lighter. The touchscreen interface is mainly dedicated to gtting you toyour usualy places very quickly -- emails, text messages, calendar appointments and contacts. It also has widgets like current weather conditions and forecasts for hundreds of cities around the world. Leveraging the broad functionality of Windows Mobile 6 Professional, the HTC Touch includes Outlook Mobile, Office Mobile, Windows Live and the capabilities to run thousands of third-party applications. Users can surf the web with Internet Explorer, send and receive emails, chat on Messenger and send files to their own web space through Windows Live. Sadly the HTC Touch is a GSM/GPRS device, though it does have Wi-Fi. HTC Touch details include: dimensions: 99.9mm (L) x 58mm (W) x 13.9mm (T) Weight: 112g with battery 1GB microSD storage card included / 64MB RAM, 128MB ROM 2.8-inch LCD touch screen with backlight, 240 x 320 dots resolution with 65,536 colours Battery Life: Rechargeable Li-Ion battery with a capacity of 1100 mAh Standby time: Up to 200 / Talk time: Up to 5 hours Camera: 2.0 mega-pixel CMOS colour camera Windows Mobile 6 Professional with Direct Push Email and HTML email support Wireless Connectivity: GSM/GPRS/EDGE Tri-band: 900, 1800,1900, Wi-Fi: IEEE 802.11 b/g and Bluetooth 2.0 Elegant soft black colour www.htc.com Newer news items Small Slider To Go With That Little Black Dress -05/03/2008 HTC Rolls Out Another Touch -03/10/2007 Older news items Special Edition KRZR K1 -29/05/2007 Spec Check: MOTO RAZR2 V9 -15/05/2007 Spec Check: MOTO RAZR2 V8 -15/05/2007 Spec Check: MOTO RAZR2 V9m -15/05/2007 Spec Check: ROKR Z6m -15/05/2007 Tag This Now: