Review: HTC Touch - A Totally Touchable Smartphone

HTC Touch

HTC Touch

HTC Touch

While HTC touts the finger friendly aspects of the HTC Touch and the TouchFlo user interface extensions, there are relative few actual changes made to the stock Windows Mobile 6 UI from the user's perspective. Unlike purely finger based user interfaces, such as those adorning the LG Prada phone and the Apple iPhone, the vast majority of the Touch's WM6 UI looks stock. What HTC added to the UI can be categorized as follows: finger based scrolling for most applications, "swipe" gestures for calling up the finger-based menu application, and the new finger-based menu system itself. A finger friendly Today screen plug-in also adds much to the Touch's usefulness with a finger, even though it is not really a UI extension.

Let's start with the scrolling. One of the things that allows the Touch to do its thing is its ability to determine the difference between the stylus (or fingernail) and a fingertip. Whereas a dragging motion with the stylus in the Inbox application will select multiple messages, the Touch will instead scroll the display when a finger drags on the screen. The user's finger effectively grabs an entry on the screen and drags it up or down, causing the screen to scroll. By "throwing" the grabbed item up or down with a quick motion, the screen will continue to scroll on its own (like spinning a bicycle wheel). Adding a second throw will cause it to scroll faster. Eventually the screen will slow down on its own and stop unless the user speeds it up again. When scrolling, a quick tap of the finger will bring things to a quick halt.

This form of scrolling is particularly effective for the Inbox, Contacts, and long pages in the Pocket IE web browser, where, incidentally, a finger can be used to "click" on links. The scrolling also works in most other applications and parts of the system. For example, you can use your finger to scroll through the Programs folder, File Manager, or even third party applications like the NewsBreak RSS reader. Incedentally, increasing the default font size that WM6 uses will make many of these functions easier to use with a finger. The extra intelligence that the new display technology uses makes accessing small on-screen controls with a finger more accurate. This is especially true of controls like the OK/X button in the upper right hand corner of the display that closes a program or window. The fact that the Touch can sense finger position beyond the pixel edge of the display makes it far more accurate in these situations. Contrary to what you might think, hitting small buttons in the corners of the screen with even a large fingertip is quite easy. In fact, I find most on-screen controls usable with a little practice.

The aspect of the HTC Touch that impresses people the most is the new finger menu system that is accessed with the equally new finger swipe gestures. The new HTC finger menu application can be accessed at any time on the Touch by placing a finger on the HTC logo at the bottom of the display and dragging, or swiping, it upwards. The application will slide up from the bottom of the screen in a very Apple iPhone looking way. It can be closed with a downward swipe. The three main pages of the HTC developed finger application include the finger menu, the picture contacts list, and the multimedia app menu. The finger menu is a simple finger friendly page of buttons that provides quick access to the following functions and applications: email, SMS, Pocket IE, Tasks, HTC's Comm Manager, and Calendar. Unfortunately, these shortcuts can not be changed. Swiping from left to right or right to left on the menu will bring up one of the other two pages in the system, complete with 3D rotating cube graphics effects.

HTC TouchFlo

HTC TouchFlo

HTC TouchFlo

HTC TouchFlo

The picture contact list looks like a speed dial application. 9 contacts can be placed on the screen, and the system will use the associated contact photo if one is present. Tapping on one of the 9 contacts will bring the standard WM6 contact view up on the screen that provides quick access to calling or sending the user a text or email message. The main contacts list, the call log, and the phone dial pad can also be quickly accessed from on-screen buttons at the bottom of the picture contact list. The last page of the system, the multimedia menu, provides 3 large finger buttons that access HTC's own Audio Manager as well as the stock WM6 Photo and Video galleries. The HTC Audio Manager is much easier to use with a finger than the stock WM6 Windows Media Player. The stock photo and video gallery apps are not nearly as finger friendly, though. Using a fingernail should circumvent any problems users come across.