HTC Touch Pro2 review - taking care of business

HTC Touch Pro2

HTC Touch Pro2

HTC Touch Pro2

HTC Touch Pro2

Following on from the HTC Touch Pro is the rather unimaginatively named HTC Touch Pro2, but aside from its dreary designation, this burly handset could be a business person's best friend. Casting a quick glance over the Touch Pro2's spec sheet reveals a wealth of intriguing features to drool over. Read on as I get all touchy-feely with HTC's latest offering.

Physical Aspects

The first thing you'll notice about the HTC Touch Pro2 is that it certainly isn't a phone for putting in your shirt pocket. This is down to the Touch Pro2's hefty weight of 178.5g (6.3oz) and chunky dimensions at 116mm x 59mm x 17mm (4.6in x 2.3in x 0.7in). Thanks to its heft, the Touch Pro2 feels very solidly built, which it is. The front of the handset is mostly taken up by the 3.6" WVGA (400 x 800 pixel) resolution resistive touchscreen display, which shapes the Touch Pro2 into the now common 'tablet' form factor. This is no ordinary tablet though, and the Touch Pro2 is significantly thicker than other large touchscreen devices out there. That's because the Touch Pro2 has a slide-out QWERTY keyboard tucked away beneath its front panel.

Below the display on the front of the Pro2 is a touch-sensitive zoom bar like that found on the HTC Touch Diamond2, and four keys: the 'send/answer' key, Windows menu key, 'back' key, and 'end/home' key. The whole front panel is surrounded by a chrome band that is beveled to give the phone a more rounded edge.

The rear of the Touch Pro2 is clad mainly in a metallic silver plastic. A brushed metal effect strip runs down the middle of the rear cover, engraved with the device's name. The strip also houses a button for muting the microphone while in speakerphone mode, and the camera lens for the 3.2 megapixel camera. Surrounding this strip is a large perforated grille, housing the speakerphone loudspeakers. On the left side of the handset is the volume rocker, and on the right side is the active stylus and a second microphone pinhole for noise cancellation purposes. At the bottom of the device is a lanyard fixing point and a mini-USB port for charging, headsets, data, and TV out (separate cable required).

The Touch Pro2's five line QWERTY keyboard slides out from the left side with a smooth, sprung action. It snaps firmly into place, at which point the screen can be angled on two hinges at the back. There is a full number row along the top of the keyboard, and four arrow keys for navigation. To top it all off, there is a Shift/Caps key and a function (FN) key. The latter allows many of the keys to double for commonly used symbols. This is great for entering web and email addresses, as the '@' and '/' symbols are never far away. You even get two small white LEDs to notify when the Shift/Caps key or function keys have been pressed. The keyboard generally gave very good tactile feedback, and was easy to use quickly thanks to generous key spacing for such a relatively small device.