HTC Arrive User Reviews

kadvopatel posted on 13 Apr 2012, 15:12

10

Windows OS is Amazing -

kadvopatel has owned it for more than one year before publishing this review

I been using HTC Arrive for over a year now and found it to be much superior OS than Iphone and Android. I believe microsoft got it right this time with its Metro UI. it doesn't feel cluttery and simple to use.

Build quality 10/10

Reception 10/10

Call quality 10/10

Internet 10/10

Multimedia 10/10

Camera 10/10

UI speed 10/10

Everyday usage 10/10

Text input 10/10

Display 10/10

Battery 10/10

alexandermatthews posted on 16 Jan 2012, 23:58

10

HTC Arrive is an amazing phone on the Sprint line up.

alexandermatthews has owned it for less than year before publishing this review

This phone is highly underrated. The HTC Arrive is a great device and packs a punch all into one. You get a physical keyboard and probably one of the best ones out on the market. You get a decently sized screen at 3.6" (Hey it's .1 bigger than an iPhone.) You get a pretty good camera, and not to mention crazy battery life. I was very shocked at how well this phone performed and how sweet the UI is. I have an iPhone, but also still have my Arrive. I play with both daily and each day I find myself loving the Arrive more. I'm sold on WP7 and look forward to seeing more from the platform in the future.

Build quality 10/10 Build is amazing. Solid. Will say it's pretty heavy and thick, but that's a given with the keyboard.

Reception 9/10

Call quality 10/10

Internet 10/10

Multimedia 10/10

Camera 8/10 Camera is 5mp and the quality isn't too bad. Definitely not better than say an iPhone 4S, but still decent. Also love the camera shutter button.

UI speed 10/10 Flawless and fluid!

Everyday usage 10/10

Text input 10/10 The physical keyboard is the best I've ever used. What's even better is the on screen keyboard is amazing too! I'd personally say it's better than the iPhone's onscreen keyboard.

Display 8/10 Display is 3.6 and a little small. Resolution is pretty good, but definitely could have been better with a Super amoLED display.

Battery 10/10 I was VERY impressed with the battery life on this device. I could EASILY get through the day after using it pretty heavily. Listening to music, texting, calling, playing some games, and browsing the web.

Pros

• Build
• Reception
• Call Quality
• Internet
• Keyboard
• Battery Life

Cons

• Camera could be better.
• Display is a little on the weak side.
• Pretty heavy and thick.

Uzzelien posted on 07 Dec 2011, 22:19

9

Some small tweeks would make it a great phone.

Uzzelien has owned it for less than year before publishing this review

I've had this phone going on six months now and I have to admit I love it. Some small things would make it nicer but as a young OS it's comming along much faster then others. The phone itself very nice. I love the metro ui but this is a love it or hate it thing. The camera isn't bad for a phone but better optics would make it great. I've had very few problems with the recpetion and mostly in common places where my friend's evo has the same problems so I really can't complain to much about it. I think it's more of a Sprint problem. I like that I have a real keyboard and not just an on screen one. The screen tilt is very nice when sending emails. The screen isn't bad but it's not as nice as Samsung screens are.

Build quality 10/10

Reception 9/10

Call quality 9/10

Internet 10/10

Multimedia 8/10

Camera 7/10

UI speed 10/10

Everyday usage 10/10

Text input 8/10

Display 9/10

Battery 10/10

Pros

• Nice style
• Love the brushed metal
• Like the screen tilt on keyboard slide
• Not a bad battery life for a smart phone
• Metro UI is nice looking

Cons

• Not sure if it will support WP8
• Camera optics could be better
• Could have a better looking screen
• Text to speech could be better

Grant posted on 04 Aug 2011, 16:04

9

As Good as I had Hoped

Grant has owned it for less than 3 months before publishing this review

I waited a long time for this phone and it met my expectaions. Great operating system obviously if you need to root your phone or make major customizations to your phone it is probably not for you. If you are looking for a polished Smartphone consider The Arrive. If you are looking for a Windows Phone with a physical keyboard this is the best of the batch. Music experience is great, Zune PC software is excellent for organizing your collections and syncing your phone. The OS is still young and will have significant improvements and add even more functionality.

One more thing, dont let service reps talk you out of this phone, if what you see in the store intrigues you I say go for it. I have had quite a few try to shoo me over to the Android section when I have played with them at the store. If they say it is slow and buggy, they are talking about WM6.5 and should lose all credibility.

Build quality 10/10

Reception 8/10 Good for a Sprint phone, better than the others I have had in the past at the same locations. Mostly a Sprint thing.

Call quality 9/10 Good call quality but I have bumped the end call button with my ear a couple times.

Internet 7/10 Browser isnt great, but it is good.

Multimedia 10/10 Zune player is unbelievable! I have always loved it on my coumputers and on my devices. A big reason I bought the phone.

Camera 7/10 HTC is pretty well known to put ify cameras in there phones. It takes quite a few blurry photos in dim light. Then again I have taken some really awesome pictures too! Overall it is just good. Quick camera lauch is amazing though!

UI speed 10/10 Fast and gorgeous.

Everyday usage 9/10 Live tiles update sports scores, events, notifications etc for quick viewing without launching apps. Toast notification alert you immediately with previes of texts or facebook notifications without interupting what you are doing.

Text input 8/10 Does not correct words without spaces or words with numbers in the middle, and I wish the hardware keyboard had a tab button. Other than that it is great.

Display 9/10 Thought I would really want a large screen, but I am suprisingly satisfied with the 3.6" display

Battery 7/10 Cant make it through the day on heavy usage, but it is reasonable.

Pros

• Quick camera launch
• Excellent Keyboard
• Fast, smooth UI
• Music + Video Experience

Cons

• Battery life
• Customization (to an extent)
• Bulk/Heftiness of phone

dkw164 posted on 28 Jun 2011, 03:36

8

Solid Phone

dkw164 has owned it for less than 3 months before publishing this review

I upgraded to this phone from a Palm Pre that I had had since its release in June 2009. I decided to jump onto another promising new operating system in Windows Phone 7 after I had had a good experience being an early adopter of the Pre. After getting used to the phone I am still very pleased that I switched, however I recognize that WP7 is still very raw and will need to be hugely improved with the upcoming Mango update. As has been stated in every WP review I have read, the foundation for a great mobile OS has been laid by the initial innovation of WP but will need lots of perfecting to compete with the other, more mature platforms. I am enjoying my Arrive and it still does not have a scratch on it after a month of fairly heavy, at times, less than careful use.

Build quality 10/10 The phone is as solid as a rock. It may be quite hefty compared to what I am used to, but the glass front and metal back, along with soft-touch material and the metal mesh make the entire device feel luxurious and sturdy. The sliding mechanism takes some getting used to because of its heavy feel, but there is not an unusual amount of give to its movement and it too feels like it will hold up over time and still feel smooth. There is no cover of any sort over the micro-USB charging port which I would have preferred, but it makes no difference to its ability to function and contributes to the device's "industrial" look and feel. The keyboard keys are not as raised off of the keyboard surface and do not have as much click travel as i expected to have been put in place by a company well known for its keyboard designs. The quality, however, is high and does not let the rest of the device down. The springs that whip up the display when the slider is open have a slight squeak to them; it adds character, I guess.

Reception 8/10 Sprint reception is not very good where I live. I have not gotten good reception with any device, however, and this phone seems to be just as good as any other device I have used in my area on the reception front.

Call quality 8/10 I do not often make calls with the phone, but when I do I have not noticed any problems in the quality. I do not believe the phone has dual microphones for noise cancellation as many phones do nowadays, so that could affect usage in high noise areas. I don't really have much experience with that.

Internet 8/10 The Internet Explorer version on the current WP7 has been called "between IE7 and IE8." It doesn't have flash or HTML 5 support yet, but the Mango update will bring both, purportedly. I enjoyed how the browser formatted my search results into a WP7 themed results page that made the web experience seem more integrated with the phone.

Multimedia 10/10 The media player interface in WP7 was very easily navigable and quite pleasantly presented. Even for obscure artists, a background image of the artist being viewed is shown behind the information, and a biography of the artist is also given right next to all other information about albums and songs available in the library and for purchase. The Zune desktop interfacing software was acceptable for getting my content on my phone, but it could have been easier to do. I prefer just to plug in the phone and drag over all my items, but the Zune software is the only way.

Camera 8/10 I am not a smartphone photographer. Compared to the camera on my previous phone, this one is far more generously equipped, for example it has a macro mode. The flash is bright enough for taking pictures without any ambient light and the auto-focus was surprisingly good. My favorite thing about the camera was that it was activated by a two-stage camera button like one found on a dedicated camera, with a half press for focusing and a full press to take the picture. Also, the camera could be activated with a full press of the camera button at any time for quickly opening the camera.

UI speed 9/10 The Windows Phone 7 GUI is the cleanest, simplest, and most unique of all the smartphone platforms in my opinion. Live tiles are an excellent innovation that forms the core of user interaction with the phone. They present small pieces of information to the user from the tile view, which is akin to the "home" screen. Selecting an application can also be done from a list of installed applications, however a universal search is glaringly missing from the phone and opening an obscure application not pinned as a live tile must be opened by scrolling through a list of all applications. Multitasking is also not yet available, although Mango will bring this. The lack of multitasking slows certain tasks, like going from looking up something on the Internet to telling someone about it in a message, or transitioning from watching Netflix to texting someone, to name a few instances I've had to deal with. However, app switching may be done with a press of the back button to launch the application that was last open, which can sometimes take a step out of trying to do two things at once on the phone. Overall, the UI is fantastic with a few fixable shortfalls.

Everyday usage 9/10 Making the transition from my last phone to this one, I have not had to change how I use my phone. The interface was fairly intuitive to learn how to use. I am able to accomplish all that I wish to on this phone. Some applications I used to use frequently, such as Pandora and Google Latitude, are not available for this phone so I have had to adjust to those application selection shortcomings.

Text input 7/10 The physical keyboard on the Arrive took me some getting used to after the ergonomically superior keypad on my previous phone. The vast area of it sometimes gives my thumbs a workout navigating the great expanse of the slide out QWERTY. Once i got past the keyboard itself, I had to adjust to the text correction software that attempted to correct what I typed. It corrects mistakes much more liberally than my last phone, and that means it makes more errors. I have disabled the correction and resolved to be more careful typing because I often failed to write a coherent message using the correction software because of my employment of word shortenings and such. The virtual keyboard allows me to type with undeniably greater speed than the physical keyboard, and compared to other virtual keyboards the one on Windows Phone 7 compares well, however the text correction on the iPhone is more polished in my perception and the ability to edit the correction dictionary on WebOS also makes the WP text input leave more to be desired. The messaging application lacks a couple of features that I miss having from my old phone. The first is that messaging smileys are displayed as the sumbols inputted and not as small pictures of the smiley face which is a small feature I will miss. The other shortcoming is the lack for multiple message support: one may only enter 160 characters at a time before having to start another message to complete the desired transmission. It is quite a hassle compared to being able to type 5 messages worth of text to someone without having to stop, send a message, and re-select the text field and keep typing when I intend to send long messages. Also, the text field in the messaging application is not automatically selected, meaning that it is necessary to select it on every occasion you start typing a new message. This results in occasions where I begin a message only to realize the text field was not selected and I am forced to start over. I still have elected not to try to figure out copy and paste, but it is clearly not as intuitive as the other implementations of the feature I have experienced. Text input on the Arrive took some getting used to, and I expected it to be a great improvement from my previous devices considering the seemingly endless pasture of a 5-row keyboard it sports.

Display 8/10 I knew that the display was not one of the new ones with a special acronym or name like "Super AMOLED," "Retina," "SLCD," or whatever, and I didn't care because in my usage I will not know what I am missing when I pay extra for one of those displays. I have indeed used the phone side-by-side with phones featuring those alternative displays and was not particularly put off by the Arrive's shortcomings. Often, it has a pixel density advantage over those phones, which frequently employ much larger screen sizes while retaining the normal 800 x 480 resolution. I refrained from a larger phone because a pixel density low enough that I can see the individual pixels is something that I would notice without knowing what I am missing in those other phones, ergo, I went for the Arrive which has an above average pixel density. Brightness is good enough to be used outdoors but definitely not spectacular. I also liked that I could not see a gap between the cover glass and the display, a sign of quality, which is a small detail that I have seen poorness in exhibition of in other smartphones of lower quality.

Battery 8/10 The phone lasts at least all day, even when I spend part of the day streaming Netflix movies, conducting multiple text and email conversations, downloading applications over both WiFi and the 3G network, taking pictures and listening to music. Multitasking (and the overclocking needed to make it smooth) was the activity that most drained the battery of my last phone, and that problem is not existent in WP. A day is all you can expect from a modern smartphone, and the Arrive at least delivers on that.

Pros

• Build quality
• Clean and fast UI
• WP7 is awesome
• Hardware design is attractive
• Everything is good enough
• Free on contract (Windows Store)

Cons

• Slider is heavy
• Apps aren't all there
• Internals are already a bit out of date
• Display could be more vivid
• Many small OS shortfalls

pinata posted on 14 Apr 2011, 12:09

7

Much to be desired

pinata has owned it for less than month before publishing this review

Cannot add ring tones, system is fairly well locked down. Manipulating title screen for clock display and battery life is difficult(looking for app). Would prefer phone with wm6.5. Tethering for business is not offered and the phone does not have a hotspot capability.

Build quality 9/10

Reception 9/10

Call quality 9/10

Internet 9/10

Multimedia 5/10

Camera 7/10

UI speed 9/10

Everyday usage 3/10

Text input 5/10

Display 5/10

Battery 5/10

Pros

• fast

Cons

• lack of customization features
• no tethering/hotspot
• no 4g

JeremyC posted on 29 Mar 2011, 22:14

9

Leaps and Bounds better than previous Windows Mobile...

JeremyC has owned it for less than month before publishing this review

Overall this is a great device.
Build quality is top notch, even with the goofy hinge for the slide out and tilt.
Reception is on par (good) as other HTC devices.
Internet is not bad, but it's not as good as Android (browser is based on a mix of IE 7 and 8, not webkit).
Multimedia is fairly good experience overall. You must sync to Zune to load music and videos or buy them from Market (and no customer ringtones only the ones on phone and in market)... I would like the ability to side load music...
Camera is NOT on par with my two previous HTC phones (EVO and Hero). Both the Arrive and Hero have a 5 mp camera but I guess the default camera app for Windows Phone is not as good as the custom camera app HTC does for Android. The pictures aren't bad per se, just not the quality that I'm used to.
I can honestly say I think it's the most beautiful UI I've seen on a phone. It's clean, it's fast and really handles everything well.
Both on screen and hardware keyboard are phenomenal.
The SLCD is super sexy. Crisp and clear! One of the best screens!
Battery.... Good so far. I haven't really gotten into "regular" usage. Still with the heavy usage I've done, it's better than the EVO and Hero.
Sky Drive is awesome....... 25 gb for storage, heck yes!

Build quality 10/10

Reception 10/10

Call quality 10/10

Internet 8/10 I think webkit is better and more and more sites are catering to iPhone and Android which use webkit... IE 7 looks dated.

Multimedia 9/10 Would be a 10 if sideloading music(not using Zune was an option) but extra points for Sky Drive.

Camera 8/10 Not as good of a camera as other HTC devices.

UI speed 10/10

Everyday usage 9/10 Unfortunately, I use my phones camera A LOT!!! If a camera isn't a top priority, than easily could be a 10 for everyday use.

Text input 10/10

Display 10/10

Battery 10/10

Pros

• Very good phone... Highly recommended!
• Sky Drive, UI

Cons

• I really wish the camera was better...
• Can only load music through ZUNE

JeremyC alternatives:

HTC EVO 4G

HTC Hero CDMA

Vanny posted on 26 Mar 2011, 21:01

10

MUCH BETTER THEN I EXPECTED..

Vanny has owned it for less than month before publishing this review

I'm a Heavy User when it comes to wireless gadgets, specially Smartphones, and now that I have this HTC Arrive Smartphone, am getting more and more surprised.. In many ways, it much better then expected and after having a couple of iPhones and a couple of Android Phones, I still gave it a shot and so far, it has been VERY Worth it..

Build quality 10/10

Reception 10/10

Call quality 10/10

Internet 9/10

Multimedia 10/10

Camera 9/10

UI speed 10/10

Everyday usage 10/10

Text input 10/10

Display 10/10

Battery 10/10

Pros

• OVERALL THE BEST BUILT SMARTPHONE I HAVE HAD..

Cons

• Some Apps I like still not available..