The HTC Touch Pro2

When I took the HTC Touch Pro2 out of the box that Verizon had sent me, the first thing that struck me was its amazingly large screen. Then, while still holding it in hand, I noticed its weight. It was heavy enough to do some damage if thrown. The 3.6-inch screen, with its stunning 480×800 resolution is made possible by the ginormous size, it measures 4.57″ (H) x 2.33″ (W) x 0.68″ (D) and weighs 6.4 ounces.

Comparing the weight to the iPhone’s 4.8 ounces and the Palm Pre’s 4.76 ounces, it’s a lot heavier. You may say 1.6 ounces isn’t all that much, but when it’s a full 33 percent heavier, I say that’s a lot. The Touch Pro2 isn’t as wide as Apple’s iPhone, but it’s extra thickness and height add to its bulk. When walking around with the phone in my pocket, it felt noticeable and not every phone is. Compared to the Palm Pre, the Touch Pro2 is wider, taller, thicker and heavier.

Physical features aside, the Touch Pro2 makes a great phone. The technology is present that you can use the phone all over the world. Sound quality is great. Check your coverage map to make sure that there’s adequate Verizon coverage in your area, and make sure you test the phone out during the grace period in the places you plan to use it most, otherwise you might have a problem breaking the contract later down the road.

The Touch Pro2 feels great in the hand. It’s rounded edges and smooth sides fit well in my hand (which is neither large nor small). Talking is clear and crisp through the handset. Similarly, there are no audio issues when talking over BlueTooth. It paired easily with my in-car system and had no connection issues.

When you’re texting, you have two options at your disposal. There’s the on-screen keyboard that’s okay, but I much prefered the slide out keyboard. One feature that isn’t immediately noticeable, is that when you slide the phone’s keyboard out, you can tilt the LCD screen up. It gives a pretty good viewing angle for texting.

The slider keyboard is soft to the touch, and the extra size gives you a full 5 rows of buttons. That means you have a dedicated row for numbers, the standard qwerty layout and a row beneath for the spacebar, function, symbol, mail and favorite buttons. The keyboard is actually one of my favorite aspects of the unit. It was a little wide for me, coming from the Palm Pre, which slides vertically. Once I got used to it though, I actually prefered the extra space and added buttons. The mail and favorite button come in handy for easy quick launching of the most used applications.

While the keyboard is great, browsing the web leaves a lot to be desired on the Touch Pro2. It uses the Opera Web Browser which is in a firm 4th place behind the WebOS, Mobile Safari and the Android browser. It’s better than the non-touchscreen BlackBerry browsers, but not by much. When zooming in with the browser, the text didn’t wrap properly on all websites, which meant you had to zoom in and then scroll horizontally on the screen.

The 3.2MP camera actually snaps nice pictures and sports an LED flash that’s missing on some competing phones. It also takes some decent video.

With the Touch Pro2, HTC puts its impressive TouchFLO shell on top of the Windows Mobile interface. The effort does a lot to polish the otherwise rough edges found in Windows Mobile 6.1. Even with that polishing, in my use, Windows Mobile just doesn’t provide as seamless of a user experience as its competitors. If you’re the kind of person that would put the iPhone on top of the world of Smartphones, with Android, WebOS, and BlackBerry following, then you’re probably not going to be swayed by a device like the Touch Pro2.

In terms of Windows Mobile phones alone, HTC puts together a fantastic unit. But looking realistically at the offerings of other available phones, it just doesn’t make sense to drop $200 after rebate on it unless you have to have a Windows Mobile phone.

Overall, the HTC Touch Pro2 is a good phone, but not great and is limited by its software and weighed down by its hardware.  It’s available right now for $199.99 after rebate from Verizon Wireless.

Have any questions or comments? Shoot me an email at matt(dot)schuler(at)woodtv(dot)com or send me a message on twitter, twitter.com/mattschuler .