HTC Touch Dual Review

You are always on the move and need a beautiful, small and comfortable office to fit in your pocket?

HTC offers you a solution. About six months ago, Touch appeared on the marked and everyone was impressed by its compact size and innovative options. In other words, it revealed the elegant image of the modern PocketPC, utilizing the design and functions of the widely popular models such as, iPhone, LG’s Prada & Viewty, Samsung’s F700 and Armani.

The subject of this review is the development of the slider concept with a 3G support (UMTS/HSDPA), a processor twice as fast (400MHz), more memory (256MB ROM and 128MB RAM) and the Windows Mobile 6 Professional OS. We will discuss the HTC Touch Dual.

The set includes:

• HTC Touch Dual P5500 Phone
• NIK160 Battery
• ADP-5FH Charger
• Data Cable
• Handsfree
• Suede Pouch
• Stylus
  

Design:

Home screen

Interface:

HTC Touch Dual is a Windows Mobile 6 Professional based device, but similarly to its predecessor it is different from the rest using the same OS with a personalized interface. As a good successor it develops the ideas and is equipped with a second generationTouchFlо. With large fields and being able to distinguish movement on the screen, this function is intended to facilitate operating the phone. But still, if you have previously used such type of smartphone, you will be always familiar with menus such as phonebook, organizer, messages etc.

The Home screen we know from the last model is changed. It is still divided in two parts, but the top part has four tabs now. Here you will find information about calls and messages, the Weather application, Launcher with 9 shortcuts and Profiles, allowing fast witching between separate modes and choosing a ringtone. The lower part contains information on the upcoming appointments reminding a WM6 phone.

The entire Start menu is bigger so it’s easier to operate with fingers. The last five applications started, show up in its upper part. This function, combined with the variety of programmable shortcuts, allows you to get to the app desired by 1-2 clicks.

When we are talking about customable shortcuts, there is no way not to mention TouchFlo cube. For those of you, who are not familiar with that function we’ll explain - in short by running your finger upwards 3 page menu opens through which you can go by a similar movement along the display but from left to right. The menu has access to the following options:

1) Shortcuts to Email/Messaging/Internet/Organizer;
2) Shortcuts to nine speed dial contacts and phone functions
3) Music/Photos/Videos

Another useful extra is the menu, which opens by pressing the small service icons, in the upper right corner. Enlarged application icons (battery, communication manager, voice manager, phone status) appear in a pop-up widow and are a lot easier to press with fingers. This is another way to make the stulys unnecessary. In standby mode the further most right icon opens the Task Manager, allowing you to close some or all applications loaded in the RAM fast.

An interesting addition made is that when you hold the end button a Quicklist opens giving you fast access to the Airplane mode/Lock/Terminate Data/Vibration mode.

PhoneBook:

The phonebook is the typical for the OS, which although good, is on the average when compared with other smartphones. The number of contacts that can be added is not restricted and depends only on the memory available. When you open the phonebook all contacts are displayed as a list; each field consists of the name and the number of the contact, while a letter placed beside them indicates what the type of the number is (w – work; m – mobile, etc.). Pictures are not displayed even if there is one attached to the contact.

When in the Contacts menu the virtual keyboard does not appear, since it is a slider phone and it has a hardware one. If you still prefer to use the phone while closed, you have five different options. The old tabs filtering by the first letter, have been exchanged for a vertical scroll with all symbols. They enlarge when you run your fingers through them making choosing a letter easier. That reminds us of the iPhone and is far more convenient than the other WM6 phones.

When adding a new name to the phonebook; the device offers way too many capabilities, including multiple work and home numbers, but there’s only one for mobile –something quite inconvenient as that’s exactly where we wanted to add multiple numbers to. The numerous address, e-mail and other address fields confuse you even further – it would have been a lot easier if the most frequently used fields are highlighted in some way. We would choose this to be done with the Name, Picture, Mobile number and e-mail fields and thus finding them would have been easy, eliminating the need to go through the long list.

Personal photos and ringtones can be assigned to each contact; there’s no restriction on the size of the pictures but they are visualized in very small size even on an incoming call – we think they are useless. You can also add a note to each contact.

Receiving a call from an unknown number happens often. If you want to add such a number to your phonebook, you should open the call history to find it. Touch Dual tries to save you some time and after each call received from an unknown number a message appears for a few seconds, inviting you to add the contact. Unfortunately it lasts only 2-3 seconds, and it would’ve been better if it gave you 7-8 seconds to react.
Dialer:

Dialing a number can be done through the virtual or the hardware keyboard. While inputting digits you will see the info corresponding to the number (from the Call history) or the names (from Contacts), which is typical for this OS.

We note a useful change in Call history as well. You can divide it into separate tabs – incoming, outgoing, missed or all together. This is more convenient compared to the other WM6 models, since the lists are shorter.

Organizer:

Alarms can be directly accessed through the home screen, by tapping on the clock. They are three, and they all can be configured to be active for certain days of the week, and you can also assign names and different sounds to each of them. All alarms can be active simultaneously, and overall they are easy to use and do what they are supposed to. We are rather disappointed that their number is limited to three, as it was in the previous version of the OS.

The next tab in this menu is the clock; there is a field called Visiting next to it which can be used as a World Clock – select another location and the phone starts using its local time. The clock has an option to be displayed on the title bar of all the menus, which is handy.

In the phone menu you can find your electronic calendar where you can save your appointments. They have fields for subject, starting/ending time/all day event, location, notes. You can use options like: reminder (PRIOR NOTICE 1/5/10/15/30/45 minutes, 1/2/3/4/5/6 hour/day/week), recurrence (Once, Every (same-day-of-the-week), Day (same-date) of every month, Every (same date-and-month) for every year, sensitivity (normal, personal, private, confidential). You can also add attendees (required or optional) from your contacts where e-mail addresses have been added and where meeting requests will be sent.

Examining the calendar can be done by day/week/month and you can choose starting day for the week and the week duration (5-6-7-day week). The appointments for the day are clearly shown in their time limits, so you can see your free time at a glance. This is one of the new things of WM6 compared to WM5.


You have Tasks menu, where you can add to-do items. For a given Task you can set subject, priority (normal, low, high), start/due date, reminder (to be notified if it’s due), category (business, holiday, personal, seasonal) and note. The Task can have recurrence (Once, Every (same-day-of-the-week), Day (same-date) of every month, Every (same date-date-and-month) for every year and sensitivity (normal, personal, private, confidential). Examining the tasks in a list you can easily see which of them are finished and which are not. The tasks options can be: sort by (status, priority, subject, start date, due date) or filter (all, recent, no categories, active, completed).

The Calculator is simple but its buttons are relatively big and can easily be pressed with your fingers. Features like scientific calculator and unit converter are still missing.

‘Notes’ are simple notes in which you can input text by the keyboard or by hand as an image. They can be synchronized with outlook.
Search is an application searching in all files in the phone. You can specify certain types of files (calendar/contacts/excel/messaging/notes/etc), but the best option is All Data which will rummage everything in your phone.

File Explorer is the mobile alternative of Explorer in Windows environment with computers. We use it to view the phone memory, including the system folders of the device which feels like working on a PC.

The voice recorder can record without limitations of duration but the microphone is not good enough for the purpose and even if you hold the phone next to your head you will not hear clearly. It is not of any particular use.


The HTC Touch Dual doesn’t have a good voice commands system but only a possibility for voice dialing of contacts which you have to input in advance. This is quite an inconvenient, clumsy and old system and it’s a pity that the manufacturer has not used something better. The Eten and Nokia smartphones for instance, have a speaker-independent voice commands/dialing system.

What do you think is the reason for the repeatedly mentioned slider to be added? For text and digits input of course. Wouldn’t it be logical, to do just that, once we open it? When sliding it up in stand-by mode a menu appears for a few seconds, combining the most frequently used options, such as Messaging (New E-mail, New SMS, New MMS), Organizer (New Appointment, New Task) and New Contact. In first place, we would like to have the dialing option, which is not even present here, but if you are going to do that or something else, you have to either press the end key or wait for five seconds, for it to hide.

Messaging:

The various types of messaging options, SMS, MMS and e-mail, are combined in one menu. Adding an actual keyboard, changes the inputting methods to a great extent. If you are a hardcore texter, you will be happy to be able to write single-handedly and delete with the dedicated “backspace” button. But if you prefer to see all symbols on the screen, there are the following touch methods:

• Block Recognizer – handwrite block recognition
• Keyboard – full QWERTY
• Letter Recognizer – handwrite letter recognition
• Touch Keyboard - 20-key on 2/3 of the screen
• Touch Keyboard - 12-key on 2/3 of the screen
• Transcriber – handwrite whole words or phrases on the entire screen using the gesture control to edit (delete, copy, paste etc.)
  

It is strange that the QWERTY present here, which facilitates imputing text with fingers (similar to that of an iPhone), appears in all system menus, but is not to be found in the messaging one, where it is most needed. In our opinion, it is quite more convenient compared to the on-screen touch keyboards/keypads, which offer large buttons, but require either a predictive text input system or repetitive tapping.

Just a few steps away is the option to add your e-mail account (POP3 or IMAP) and to use it on your mobile phone. Very nice extra is that the phone can try to get the email settings automatically from the internet, and so we configured our Gmail Account by entering only the username and password. Windows Mobile 6 already supports HTML formatted e-mails. The client is very similar to the Outlook on a computer, you can filter your inbox to see just some results, reply to message or forward it to other person.

The support for attachments allows you to download or send one, in addition to the text body. The phone can be set to synchronise with your company Exchange Server.

As standard, Windows Mobile comes preloaded with the mobile version of Live! Messenger (MSN). Windows Live account will be added in Messaging when you add your e-mail account. You can add third party application for other popular instant messengers like AIM, Yahoo! Chat and ICQ.

Connectivity and Data:

Similar to the first Touch, this one is tri-band also (supports 900/1800/1900 MHz) and is not appropriate for areas that use 850 MHz, which limits its usage in the US. The 3G (UMTS/HSDPA) support, for high-speed Internet (up to 3.6 MB/sec) access, where the network allows it, is what makes the Touch Dual totally different. Unfortunately, there is no Wi-Fi, which is one of the main drawbacks of the phone, since it is one of the functions that every smartphone must have.

At least you have the Bluetooth (v2.0) for local wireless connection. The stereo Bluetooth support (A2DP) allows you to listen to music with wireless headset or with a portable sounbox.

To connect to a PC you can use a standard miniUSB cable. Like the rest of the Windows Mobile based phones, if you are using XP you have to have ActiveSync installed or Windows Mobile Device Center if you are running Vista. The application allows the fast and easy synchronization of your phone (contacts, e-mails, organizer etc.) with Outlook.

Internet:

Similar to all other WM6 phones, the mobile version of Internet Explorer is used for internet browsing Standard pages visualize but you have to scroll horizontally as well as vertically almost all the time. If you want to read a text, it is almost sure you will not be able to fit the whole row in those 240 (or 320 if you put the phone in landscape mode) pixels. Full-screen usage is almost mandatory when the page has loaded.


There is also One Column View option which eliminates the need for horizontal scrolling but increases the need for vertical scrolling. The page is narrowed and thus it changes its initial look.

As it is a smart phone, you can always use third party software to replace the original one. We prefer using Microsoft Deepfish browser instead of Internet Explorer but unfortunately, it is still in beta mode. Microsoft should update its browsers with better rendering engine and more options, such as panning.

Camera:

It is obvious that HTC have not accented on the multimedia functionality. In contrast to some Nokia smartphones, Touch Dual cannot be competing in the cameraphone marathon.

However, the camera is 2-megapixel and can be useful if you want to snap an interesting picture or the image of a loved one. Unfortunately, there is no auto focus and flash.

The pictures are saved faster than with the Touch (about 7 seconds between two pictures), but is still slow. Here we also have large and easy to tap icons, but the settings interface has been changed. They are divided in two tabs, which are more than enough to accommodate the few camera options.

The outdoor pictures in broad daylight would do, to show where or with whom you have been, but do not expect anything special. The lack of auto focus and flash is notable – in artificial lighting, the pictures are quite blurred, and if the light is dimmed, you get almost black screen. The situation is pretty bad when recording a video – the obsolete resolution of 176x144 pixels cannot be used for viewing on a computer.




Overall, the camera can be relied on for recording a memorable moment than anything else. If the meteorological conditions allow it, that is.

Viewing the pictures taken is very different from the previous model. The possibilities of the new TouchFlo are revealed here. Now, by running a finger/stylus across the screen, you can do the following:

- Moving left/right – previous/next picture
- Semicircle – rotation of the image, depending on the direction (unfortunately there are no custom angles, but only a 90 degree one)
- Circle – zoom in/out, depending on the direction (what is interesting here is, that the zoom in/out factor is proportionate to the size of the surface encircled)
- Continuous pressing – pan view (allows moving across all over the image after zooming in)
- Double tapping – fit to screen

After being familiar with these extras, they are not so impressive, but are still convenient and make the phone interesting.

Multimedia:

As with the Touch, we have the standard Windows Media Player, whose main purpose is, to play video, and the manufacturer’s Audio Manager is the main audio player. In the media library, you can add MP3, WMA, WAV, AAC, AAC+ and AMR-NB files.

The following video formats are supported: MPEG4/H.263, WMV and 3GP. As we expected, they are watched in full screen with good quality and no lag, the sound being perfectly synchronized.

The buttons of the Windows Media player are very inconvenient and we (HTC as well) recommend you using the Audio Manager for playing music.

Its interface allows the easy control with fingers on the screen. You can sort music in your playlist by artist, album, genre, and composer.


The music output has never been one of the strengths of the PocketPCs. HTC Touch Dual is not any different. There is only one low quality speaker. The sound is very loud when playing music or ringing and you’d hardly miss a call. There are crackling noises when the volume is at the maximum level, and it won’t be any different if you lower it to 80%. Unfortunately, using the headset included in the set does not change anything. It is beautiful and comfortable with elegant controls and only when it is plugged in, you can take advantage of the Audio Booster option (which is a type of software equalizer). If you turn the volume to the max though, you’ll probably have to go and visit your favorite otologist. In other words, if you want to listen to your favorite music you'd better invest in a music player.

Software:

Touch Dual has 256 MB ROM (four times more than its predecessor) and 128 MB RAM. The memory can be expanded via the microSD slot.

WM for PPC provides unlimited capabilities for installing software. The only restrictions are the memory available and the hardware of the phone. The first problem is easily solved by getting a memory card, as there are microSD cards with capacity of up to several GB. Every WM6 Professional phone comes with programs that are modified, “pocket” versions known PC applications. Such programs are the mobile versions of (Microsoft) Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Outlook, Internet Explorer, Explorer, Media Player, etc. The Office applications allow you to view and edit documents of the most-used types and the phone opens them without any error. Even a complicated Excel document with a few sheets is not a problem. Touch also has Adobe PDF Reader preloaded, which like the Office works flawless. We opened a big document (1.5MB) and scrolling through pages, when zoomed to 100% is almost immediate. Many more programs could be downloaded from third party sources.


There are numerous programs created for this platform, almost as much as the ones intended for PCs with Windows operating system. The most popular are the various utilities for personalizing the PPC, multimedia players, file explorers, Instant Messengers, etc. You can download third party applications to be used instead of the preloaded ones.

Performance:

The operational speed has been improved a lot in Touch Dual, thanks to the fast processor (400 MHz), used in most of the 3G phones of the manufacturer. There is a little bit of lag in the menus and the latest Symbian S60 OS based phones (N95, 6120, N82 etc.) are still better.

We are happy to be able to install Skype – a well-known application. Thanks to the upgraded processor, aside from the small lag, you can switch between different menus and chat while having a conversation. The loudspeaker can be used for voice calls and the quality is not bad. Consider the fact that if you use this function in an area with 3G coverage, there will be considerable lagging while you talk.

It’s the same with Fring, the application that combines Skype and GoogleTalk, except that it loads slower and overall is sluggish. In order to get installation file for Fring, we had to choose the phone model from the Fring's webpage. Dual was not listed, so we selected HTC Touch.

We used Spb Benchmark to compare Touch Dual system performance with other PocketPC's of the manufacturer. As we expected, in most tests it performed better than its predecessor, but was behind the top-model TyTN II.

HTC Touch Dual left us with mixed feelings related to the sound while talking. The sound is clear, but the voices are somewhat muffled. The insufficient volume and monotony makes it hard to use the phone in a noisy atmosphere. As we mentioned above, using the loudspeaker is not recommended, since a terrible noise is heard at maximum volume.

It is better on the other end of the line. Very loud and clear – not the best we’ve heard, but is way above average. When testing it, there was a hissing sound, but strangely, we didn’t see a neither snake nor an apple.

Conclusion:

HTC Touch clears the path for the WM6 Professional line of fashion smartphones. Dual is another way to say “slimmer-faster-newer.” The manufacturer should be given credit, not only for adding a slider, but for developing most elements of the interface too. TouchFlo marks serious progress making the phone more similar to the cult iPhone. We should not forget the HSDPA support either, which provides extremely fast internet, wherever there is coverage.

The serious drawbacks have multimedia character – a weak camera, terrible sound, lack of MPEG4/H.264 support. Wi-Fi would give a better flexibility to the model and broaden its market options.

HTC Touch Dual remains the beautiful face of the Windows Mobile 6 Professional phones. If you want the elegant smartphone with that OS, but you are a beginner in the area or you are simply used to operating a regular phone with a real keyboard, this is a good choice.