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HTC Touch Pro with Windows Mobile 6.1 Professional

INTRODUCTION
The Touch Diamond and Touch Pro are undoubtedly game-changers in Windows Mobile land. Soon, VGA resolution will be standard, most phones will utilize accelerometers, and having some sort of Windows Mobile interface replacement will be expected. The Touch Pro is the business device that many have been waiting for. It's got a stellar spec sheet, a beautiful design, and a generous hardware keyboard offering. This is the review you want to read if you want to know everything about the HTC Touch Pro. Read on for our comprehensive review.

WHAT'S HOT
The Touch Pro is quite similar to the Touch Diamond save for a few things. It sports a Qualcomm MSM7201A processor running at 528MHz. It has 512MB ROM (the Diamond has 4GB), 288MB RAM (the Diamond has 192MB), and has a microSD/HC expansion slot for added memory (which the Diamond doesn't have). The screen is 2.8" and is VGA 480x640 resolution. It's a quadband GSM (850/900/1800/1900) phone with dualband UMTS (1900/2100) with HSDPA. It also has assisted GPS, WiFi b & g, Bluetooth 2.0 + EDR, USB 2.0, and FM radio. The rear camera is 3MP with auto focus and LED fill light (the Diamond doesn't have a light), and the front camera for video calls is VGA resolution. The Touch Pro has a spring-assisted 5-row QWERTY keyboard (of course, the Diamond has no keyboard). Powering all of this is a 1350mAh battery, compared to the Touch Diamond with a smaller 900mAh battery. For even more specs, check out PDAdb.net. Also, for a side-by-side comparison of the Touch Pro and Diamond, check out the chart.

The Touch Pro looks almost the same as the Diamond from the front, except for the corners which are more rounded.

Although the device is almost as thick as the TyTN II, it really doesn't feel that thick because it's not as wide and tall, as you'll see in the next image.

In this size comparison from sizeasy, we see the TyTN II in blue, the Touch Pro in yellow, and the Touch Diamond in red.

WHAT'S IN THE BOX

The unboxing experience for the Touch Pro was memorable...which is important when you spend this much on a phone.

Here is a shot of the box, which, like the Touch Diamond, isn't a conventional shape.

HTC does a good job outfitting the user. Inside the box we have software, manuals/warranty, stereo headphones with extra felts, charging cable, miniUSB syncing cable, wall charger (with an interesting shape!), leather case (it's more like a sleeve), and extra stylus.

THE DEVICE

The screen of the Touch Pro is completely flush.

The keyboard slides out to the left and has a fair amount of spring assist, though it could be stronger to really "snap" it into place.

Although the buttons are a bit flat, the keyboard is generally easy to use and feels much better than that of the TyTN II.

The bottom part of the phone is entirely touch sensitive - even multi-touch sensitive, but the inbuilt software on the Touch Pro doesn't take advantage of this. There are four tactile buttons that light up white when pressed including Home (takes you back to the Today screen), Call Start (which calls up the phone application, but you can configure the long press to open a program of choosing), Back (which works as an OK button), and Call End (with a long press will lock the device/end data connection/set ring/vibrate/turn on flight mode).

In the center, there is a 4-way D-Pad. You can use the circular area as a touch-sensitive zooming mechanism to move in and out like in Opera and in the photo viewer, and to change text size in Word, Messaging, etc. I was hoping that this would offer scrolling functionality, but it doesn't. The center button inside of the D-Pad is another place that has touch-sensitivity, used in the camera application. Tap lightly to focus the camera, and press inwards to take the picture. Oh, and as you can tell, there are no soft keys. Ditto on the keyboard. I don't miss them, though some people may.

I should also note that in the center of the D-Pad is a circular white lighting system that shows the phone status. When a call comes in, you get a rapidly blinking circle of light. When charging it will glow from bottom to top (and stay fully lit when charge is complete), and the top and bottom part of the ring flashes twice when there is a new message.

On the top we see a light sensor, the earpiece, and a front-facing video camera. The Touch Pro does a good job at regulating screen brightness. When you turn on the phone out of standby, the screen fades on, rather than just coming on instantly, which is actually a pleasant touch.

The rear has the same faceted backing as the Touch Diamond, but it's made from the softer-plastic found on the T-Mobile Dash and others, making it feel more secure in hand.

No, there aren't two camera lenses, but it looks like it, right? Within this nice brush-metal triangle, we have the 3.2MP auto-focusing camera lens at the top, and the LED fill light on the bottom. Note the speaker on the left there.

If we slide off the back, we reveal the 1350mAh battery.

In the upper left, we have the hot-swappable microSD card slot. By hot-swappable, I mean that you can change cards while the device is still on. Also note the placement of the SIM card slot.

Here is the right-side profile shot which shows just the stylus silo. The stylus, like the Diamond, is magnetic, so that when you pull it out, the screen turns on. Also, when on a call, removing the stylus will launch the notes application (which I think is silly, and there is no way to turn this off).

On the top of the device, we have a nice-feeling on/off/standby button.

Turning over to the other side, we see the volume up/down buttons, plus the text "HTC Innovation".

And on the bottom, we have HTC's proprietary ExtUSB jack (which works with miniUSB charging/syncing cables), plus a well-placed soft-reset hole, and the microphone up top.

Ok, let's talk about the keyboard layout. One of the best features of the keyboard is the dedicated number row. Similar devices like the TyTN II (comparison pictures soon) don't have this row. Instead, the numbers are imbedded within the letters, and to get to them, you have to keep hitting the function key. Rumor has it that the US version of the Touch Pro will unfortunately replace this top row with symbols. That's a shame.

Anyhow, the amount of shortcuts on the keyboard are slim. Using the function key, you can access programs like Opera, Email, SMS/MMS, and Connection Manager. HTC has left out soft keys, a Start menu button, OK button, or programmable hot keys. The function key will turn on a green LED light at the top of the keyboard, ditto for the CAPS button. I liked the double-sized shift button, though I wish they'd make the space bar one key-size larger, as sometimes it's hard to feel for.

And when it's dark, the entire keyboard is backlit.

COMPARISONS

Here we have a shot comparing (from left to right) the Apple iPhone, AT&T Tilt (TyTN II), HTC Touch Pro, CDMA HTC Touch on Verizon, and Samsung Omnia.

And here they are again in the same order, stacked. The Touch Pro is definitely one of the thickest here - just 1mm thinner than the ol' TyTN II.

And here is another profile shot.

I keep talking about the keyboard in comparison to the TyTN II, so here is a close up of the two together. The keys on the TyTN II are indeed larger, but the tactile feedback on the Touch Pro feels much better...the keys travel the same distance across the entire keyboard, and it is easy to feel for the next key despite the smaller key size.

TOUCHFLO 3D
The Touch Pro includes HTC's well-received TouchFLO 3D Today screen replacement which brings a good amount of one-handed usability and beautiful graphic design to Windows Mobile. In addition, throughout the operating system, there are numerous changes to make the device more touch-friendly.

To start, I have a tip. By default, the color scheme used on the Touch Pro is HTC Black. This makes the top and bottom bar a flat black color, which can give the illusion of a smaller screen because they can blend in with the device itself.

I found that changing the color to something other than HTC Black made the screen seem a little bit bigger by making the top and bottom border stand out more.

found that changing the color to something other than HTC Black made the screen seem a little bit bigger by making the top and bottom border stand out more.

This is the first screen of TouchFLO 3D. There are ten icons along the bottom that represent a new tab. You can access these tabs by running your finger along the bottom and landing on an icon, by tapping on an icon directly, or by sweeping your finger across the center of the screen screen horizontally.

In the Home tab, we get to see current time in a gorgeous, animated clock. We also see the date, state of missed calls (which links to call history), plus next appointment. If you swipe your finger downwards where the arrow is, the clock will shrink to a smaller one so that you can see more appointments.

Over on the next tab, we have favorite people, which lets you flip through pictures of your favorite contacts by swiping your finger up and down, kind of like coverflow. Or, to flip through contacts, you can run your finger along the pictures on the right side of this screen.

A tip: if you add a contact and have a picture associated with the contact through Outlook, the picture will be blurry that is used in this tab. Instead, load the original picture (shrunken to 256x256) on your device, then press the Menu button on the new contact, and choose Change Picture, and navigate to the picture. Do this also for Music.

In the next tab, we have a window into our SMS. From here, you can swipe your finger up and down to cycle through the most recent text messages. You can open up the reply screen by tapping the message, or start a new one by tapping the button in the upper right.

The next tab is Mail, which, like the previous tab, lets you flip through your messages in this elegant-looking envelope-preview screen. It will work with multiple accounts, and for each new account, there will be a new envelope on the right side. Unfortunately, this tab doesn't work with sub folders. All of my email goes into sub folders, not the inbox, so this tab is worthless to me.

On the next tab we have a link to Opera if you tap the big picture of the Earth. Flicking your finger down will cycle through your favorites.

When in the Photos and Videos tab, you can flip through pictures that are in your My Pictures folder in a stunning animated display. You flick your finger upwards to get to the next picture. What's great is that this mini gallery is updated immediately when you add new images to the My Pictures folder. From here you can also access the camera, video camera, view the album, or go into slideshow mode.

As is the case on earlier HTC Touch devices, the album is visually pleasing and finger-friendly. When you open up a picture, you can make a circle on an area that you want to zoom in on, pan the picture around with your finger, and flick left or right to move forward or backwards.

The next tab is the music tab, which scans your device for music. If your albums have album art, you will see them all displayed here, and you can flip through the covers like cover flow.

This is the music application which is consistent with the TouchFLO 3D theme. Well done.

Next up we have the weather tab. You can have weather for multiple cities, and you cycle between them by flicking your finger up or down. The animation for the weather is gorgeous. When it rains, a windshield wiper comes across the screen to remove water droplets. Nice!

And we also get a 5-day forecast, and if you hit More, Opera Mobile will take you to the AccuWeather page for your city.

This is the Settings tab which gives you access to some settings.

Clicking on Sound will let you change the profile of the phone easily.

And the program list is n ice iconic-based grid that you can add your own programs to. If we hit All Programs...

...we get this finger-friendly program list that is much more attractive than the Windows Mobile program menu.

Sadly, this is how TouchFLO 3D looks in landscape when you flip out the keyboard. There is no TouchFLO 3D! It's just a row of 8 icons. That's silly.

SYSTEM SOFTWARE

This is what happens when someone calls you. If the phone is face up when the call comes through, turning it face down will mute the ringer. Like the Palm Treos, you can ignore the call with a text message.

And this is what the in-call screen looks like. As mentioned, removing the stylus during a call launches the notes application to associate a note to a call in Call History. I'd like to disable this feature. I never make notes during a call.

And speaking of Call History, here it is. Notice where it says "Matt" there is a picture of a note, indicating that I've written something during the call.

Everything is larger and finger-friendly on the Touch Pro. Pressing the volume up/down button on the side of the phone brings up this slider for the volume. This is another quick way to change the profile of the phone.

Using your big finger to tap on a small icon in the system notification area may be difficult, so by default, you'll get this enlarged menu when you tap anywhere on the top bar. Yes, it adds an extra step to simple things like checking WiFi or Battery status, but I found it useful. You can turn off this feature if it bugs you.

HTC's task manager is a great application that lets you quickly close programs that are taking up program memory. Using the wrench, you can set programs to actually close, rather than hibernate, when you hit the X. This feature has been in all HTC devices for a while now.

If you click the Call Start button while in landscape, this is what you get. I like the well-sized dial pad which uses T9 to find relevant matches.

I want to emphasize that all menus throughout the Touch Pro are larger than you would find on other devices to make them finger-friendly.

Here is the Start Menu, which has larger entries separated by dots. Office Mobile 2007 is included. Also, you'll see the Pocket IE is hiding in the Start menu; it is not present in Programs.

Here is the first part of the Start menu. You can read PDF files with Adobe Reader LE. Audio Booster provides an equalizer for the audio, and only works if you've got headphones (wired or wireless) plugged in.

The radio reception was not great indoors, but pretty good outdoors.

The Comm Manager is a beautifully skinned in HTC green, white and black.

Going down the list we have a printing utility, an MP3 trimmer (perfect for making ring tones), Opera, and an RSS reader...

Here is the printing utility, which I didn't work much with.

The MP3 trimmer program let me, in about 2 minutes, take a segment from one of my favorite songs, and set it as my ring tone. Nice!

RSS Hub is a simple RSS reader that let me view the pocketnow.com feed.

Opera Mobile 9.5 brings desktop-class browsing to the Touch Pro. All menu items are finger-friendly. That said, I think that Opera still needs some work. At times I found it to be very slow and sometimes buggy.

The settings are simple and easy to use with a finger in Opera Mobile.

The default mode of Opera makes the window go to full screen. From here, you can double-tap a column to bring it in closer. Then you can move your finger around to pan, or double tap to zoom back out. Rubbing your finger in circular motions on the D-Pad will also zoom in and out.

Continuing down the list we have a program for streaming media, a Voice Speed Dial application (where is Microsoft Voice Command?), a program to snap pictures of business cards and convert to text, and the YouTube application.

The custom-made YouTube app is beautiful, simple, and well-done. Unfortunately, this application does not render in landscape when you slide open the keyboard. What's with that?

And the app can utilize YouTube's new "high quality" setting now available on most videos. Streaming high quality videos on the Touch Pro was a great experience - the videos were super-crisp on the VGA screen.

This is Teeter. Holding the Touch Pro parallel to the ground, you tilt the phone to get the metal ball into the green hole. It would be nice if there were other games like this included.

There are three very well-done keyboards on the Touch Pro, should you have a need to use it in portrait without the slide-out keyboard. This is the full QWERTY. All keyboards have great spell correction and word completion.