The last
device, or what I should say what I had thought to be the last thing, was the
one that came from Japan. I ended up getting more after that so it ended up not
being the last after all. So cutting to the chase, the fourth device was the
gift that Tsubasa had sent me for Christmas. I had sent him the iPAQ that he
already posted about. What he sent me was also Windows Mobile based, but a
phone instead of just a plain PDA like I sent.
It is a
Japanese version of the HTC Touch Pro. This is a slider phone with a keyboard,
which is why I was happy to get it. I have mentioned before that I have gone
crazy trying different keyboards, so anytime I have the option to try one, I
jump on it! For someone like me, I would be stupid not to right?
This one
specifically is interesting since it came with a beta version of Windows Mobile
6.1 and would say "Not for resale" when booting, so it was likely a
review unit. All in all, the hardware itself is interesting compared to other
stuff that was for sale at the time. They put in a few neat things like while
it had buttons on front, the area around where the directional buttons clicks,
is also touch sensitive.
Rolling your
finger around the select button will scroll in some programs, or zoom in most.
When you use the camera on it, it acts like a real camera shutter button.
Touching the select button will focus the camera, then you click it in to take
the actual picture. Another neat thing is when you pull out the stylus, it
automatically turns on. They put a magnet in that senses when the stylus is
removed and holds it in place as well.
It's the
little things like that in the end that really sparks my interest. When you
think about the way phones are now, stuff like this isn't needed anymore sadly.
The hardware is decent for Windows Mobile at the time, with a VGA screen, good
bit of RAM and ROM, specifically 288MB of RAM and 512MB of ROM. It has Wi-Fi
and Bluetooth as well, and runs on a Qualcomm 7201A at 528MHZ. I will get more
into the details when I do a review later on.
The keyboard
on it is for me, rather stiff, but it does work nice compared to some other
ones I have tried over the years. Though to be completely fair, I haven't given
it as much use as I should have, so I will need to do more before starting the
actual review. The Dana has gotten the most use out of everything so far
really.
The main
issue that I have with it is that there is no 3.5MM headphone jack since while
it does use a normal Mini B USB cable, the port is a special one that HTC used
on a few other phones. It doubles as the audio jack with an adapter. While this
does work, and I did get one from Brando when he sent the TYtN II, it annoys me
since the phone is THICK and could have fit a 1/8" jack instead!
They did
change this on the Touch Pro 2 as I recall, which is a lot thinner so it's kind
of stupid really. It is the same way companies like Palm used a 2.5MM jack,
when a 3.5MM would have not only fit but been a lot more useful. I know the
excuse would have been that they didn't make wired headsets for 3.5MM then but
they could have made them use the adapter instead. Especially when they had
Bluetooth headsets, and so did pretty much every phone. But enough of that.
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