All New Gadgets Updates

When HTC had announced the Evo 3D along with the tablet, we kind of felt that it won’t have a GSM version very soon. However, the latest proceedings around this smartphone is that a GSM version is very much in the works, although this is all based on some pictures showed on HTC’s new site for developers.

From the images seen, it’s quite visible that the GSM version will be a little different at least when it comes to the looks of the handset. The rings around the icons which are otherwise present on other versions are not seen over here. Also there’s supposedly an older version of the HTC Sense running on this handset, which is a little strange. The speaker grille is also different and the camera lens is oval, rather than the round variant in the CDMA version. Moving to the back, there are some more changes visible. The flash component is different and so is the coloured ring around the camera module.

For now that’s about it on the GSM Evo 3D and we hopefully want to see some more developments on this handset including pricing and launch dates.

The last we heard about the smartphone named after a dance from HTC, was that we’d probably be seeing the ChaCha here in India, soon. It’s been a month, but there hasn’t been a word about the smartphone and since it hasn’t come in till now, we hope that we’ll get the upgraded version with a faster processor, instead.

According to ITProPortal, HTC gave an 800 MHz processor to the smartphone, which is a nice little bump from 600 MHz and should see a slight improvement by 33 per cent. That’s not it though; HTC has also given an OTA update, which will make the build version of the ChaCha to 1.18.401.1. What will the update do to the smartphone in terms of new features or bug fixes, hasn’t been mentioned by HTC.

The ChaCha runs on Android 2.3 aka Gingerbread, has a QWERTY keyboard and the display is encased in Gorilla glass. You might want to take a look at the specifications of the ChaCha below:

• 2.6-inch touchscreen display with a resolution of 480 x 320 pixels
• 3G, Wi-Fi, GPS with A-GPS, Wi-Fi Hotpsot
• Bluetooth 3.0 with A2DP
•  5 megapixel camera with autofocus and LED flash
• 3.5 mm audio jack
• Memory expandable to 32 GB

HTC has been in the Android smartphone business since the very beginning. They’ve managed to keep themselves at the top of the game and their latest smartphone, the HTC Incredible S, aims at pushing their stock a few steps ahead of the pack. So if you’re wondering if the Incredible S is a smartphone that you should consider shelling out your hard earned money on, here’s a closer look at the device that should help you make a calculated decision one way or the other.

Form Factor
The Incredible S is right up there with the slick looking handsets in the Android community. It’s all black contoured design looks very polished and even a bit rugged. The slightly protruding rear panel, although quite unusual does give the handset a better grip and a certain feel-good-factor about it. A subtle but very interesting aspect about the Incredible S are the touch sensitive backlit keys under the 4-inch S-LCD display (480 x 800 pixels, 16 million color, gorilla glass encased) that change orientation along with the UI. These keys look seriously funky and are easily visible from all angles and in all lighting conditions. The same goes for the display. Very innovative.


A 3.5mm handsfree socket is located at the top of the handset right near the power/screen lock button. A set of volume/zoom keys along with a universal (charge PC interfacing) micro USB port are located on the left side of the device.  A hot swap slot for a microSD card (32Gb supported) is located under the rear panel. Incidentally the Incredible S features 1GB of internal storage. An 8 megapixel AF/Touchfocus camera with Dual LED flash is strapped onto the rear while a secondary 1.3megapixel camera is located in front to support video calling.

Features and Performance
Interface
The Incredible S is equipped with a 1 GHz Scorpion processor and an Adreno 205 GPU but is, for now, not loaded up with Gingerbread so you’ll have to suffice with FroYo. Speed is however a non issue as everything from accessing menus and apps to multitasking is fluid. Android still hasn’t been able to offer users a smoother orientation transition from Landscape to portrait and vice versa. The iPhone has them all beat overall UI fluidity.

HTC’s Sense UI with SenseUI.com are truly designed to offer users a very hands on experience with an Android handset. Normally I’d swap the existing UI for something like LauncherPro to simplify usability and speed up overall functioning, but there was really no reason to do so with HTC Sense. It’s smooth and very layered with plenty of options like HTC Scenes that are preset version of the UI designed for a variety of uses – Work, Play, Travel, Social Networking etc. There’s also an option get more. Of course you can create your own according to your own preferences. HTC scenes are essentially themes for Sense UI. Specialised HTC Sense UI widgets, sound sets etc. are also available pre-loaded and downloadable make the interface extremely customizable.

Another interesting thing I noticed about HTC was the UI’s ability to remember and recall data like usernames, email address etc. making retyping them in some places quicker. This is what one expects from a ‘Smart’ phone. Simple things like pre-inserting ‘gmail.com’ when typing ‘g’ immediately after the ‘@’ symbol makes you appreciate the UI more. Needless to say, it was a pleasure to use on the whole.

Media
I’ve never had an issue with HTC’s audio quality for both calls as well as media. When it comes to media the Incredible S offers a wide range of services. From a very receptive FM radio that took less than 12 seconds to locate all 9 of our available stations and store them as presets to a video player equipped to handle DivX and XviD encoded files and enhance audio with virtual surround sound via SRS WOW HD effect settings, you’ll want for nothing. Well almost nothing. In this particular case the lack of Video Out via HDMI is sorely missed.
Audio quality via the native music player is excellent. Tones are quite in-depth with a resound thump in the bass line and well balanced higher and mid levels as well. EQ presets are also available for those looking to customise their experience to an extent. The player also allows you to connect to YouTube to watch videos of a track you’re currently listening to. With DLNA support you can also hook up the handset to a media server or other DLNA certified devices to stream media or share media.

The Media Gallery is designed to let you easily switch between your images and albums stored on your handset or memory card or those stored on cloud services like FB (YOURS AND YOUR FRIENDS albums), Picasa and Flickr. HTC has preloaded a very user friendly and easy on the eyes, ebook reader that includes quite a few titles pre-loaded and the ability to sign up, create and account and download more.

Connectivity
There are plenty of connectivity settings built into the Incredible S. Firstly it’s a 3G enabled (HSDPA, up to 14.4 Mbps) handset that works just fine on slower connections like EDGE or GPRS. You can also tether the handset to other devices or create a 3G Wi-Fi hotspot. I already mentioned DLNA support. GPS capabilities offer all of Google’s pre-loaded content from Maps and directions to Places and Latitude and more. HTC has also thrown in a ‘Car Panel’ app that also has a host of handy GPS enabled functions (integrates) to offer that include maps for India and other locations with directions, a digital compass and plenty more sub-options inside. Data might need to be downloaded so I suggest using Wi-Fi and not eating into data usage.

Social networking functionality is also very evident with HTC’s Friend Stream app and widget that combine FB and Twitter for am amalgamated listing of updates and simultaneous posting to both your accounts. Standalone apps for Facebook and Twitter (Peep) can also be used. HTC has also thrown in Plurk which is a consolidated app that pulls feeds, news updates and social updates into one neat app. HTC’s Hub and HTC Likes offer applications from the App Market and HTC’s online services that HTC believes would help enhance your Incredible S experience. It’s a bit redundant but doesn’t really hurt.

Bluetooth with 2.1 with A2DP + EDR and USB 2.0 make up the rest of the handsets fundamental connectivity solutions.
Misc. Features
In the extras I found that all the basics – Calendar (syncs with Google and FB), calculator, Alarm, world Clock, Adobe Reader and QuickOffice (editing and creating Word and Excel sheets allowed) are all present. A Stock Market application and News readers are also provided. Weather apps, Teeter (HTC’s favourite game), a Voice recorder and Sound Hound for music details are also thrown in. HTC has also included a Data Transfer application that allows you to transfer all of your important details from any phone to this one. It took unusually long though to transfer just the contacts from the Motorola MILESTONE to the Incredible S so it was much easier to just download it off of Google’s servers. Social networking integration between your contacts and your networks was a simple, noontime consuming and uncomplicated process.


Camera
HTC has started adding quite a bit of additional functionality to their cameras. A little special features option provides features like - Depth of Field settings, Distortion, Vignetting, Vintage options and more effects. Touch focus for both the still and video camera are also available. Face detection, Geotagging and other simple settings are all included. Image quality was quite good with focus that was quite sharp wherever selected or normally.

720p video recording @30fps with touch focus also worked out quite well and quality was once again, nothing to complain about.

Battery Life
The Incredible S’ battery was just one more asset with an average talk time of almost 7 hours on a single charge.  I was able to use the handset for a good two days with a few calls, social networking, music, messages, web browsing and emailing.

The Bottom Line
With a price tag of Rs. 28,000 (MOP), I can highlight just one issue with the HTC Incredible S and that’s the absence of HDMI and TV Out. At this price, HTC should have considered including it over and above DLNA. Other than that, the handset is loaded to the hilt with all kinds of useful and very relevant functionality, all packed away into a very appealing shell. But the lack of video out could be deal breaker for some. If you can get passed it, the Incredible S is a superb handset and defiantly worth the money.

It’s HTC in the lead, bringing us yet another Windows Phone 7 handset - enter the HTC HD 7. I wasn't altogether too pleased with their initial offering, i.e. The HTC 7 Mozart. While the handset proved to be mediocre at best, the new look and feel of the Windows Mobile UI didn't really do it for me either. Having said that, their latest offering had the community wanting more and I was hoping that that's just what HD7 would offer. Here’s a closer look.

Form Factor
Taking its cue form big brother HTC HD2, the HD7 is pretty much just an upgrade in some instances and a downgrade in others. For instance, while the HD7 is a classier, more elegant and refined looking handset, it’s a tad heavier than the HD2 but not enough to hamper portability or usage. Like the Mozart, the HD7 doesn’t have support for external memory. It’ll be available with 8GB or 16GB internal storage. It’s big phone to say the least, with display size and resolution almost identical to the HD2 – 4.3-inches, 480 x 800 pixels, only the HD7 features 16million colors while the HD2 could only handle 65,000.



The physical keys under the display of the HD2 have been replaced with 3 simple touch sensitive options – return, a Windows key to get to the Home Page and search. A micro USB connectivity/charging port is located at the bottom right next to the 3.5mm handsfree socket with the volume/zoom keys on the right side above the camera activation/shutter release key.

At the rear of the handset is a neatly engineered kickstand to prop the handset up in landscape making it really easy to view while watching videos. The bundled handsfree, while extremely comfortable and able to provide excellent quality audio, has the microphone built into the control pad which is situated too far. This makes it harder for the person on the other side of a call to hear you too well.

Features and Performance
Interface
There’s really no difference or changes made to the HD7’s UI as compared to the Mozart’s. It’s still as smooth as ever thanks to the 1 GHz Scorpion processor, Adreno 200 GPU and Qualcomm Snapdragon chipset which incidentally was also available on the HD2. At least with HTC’s Windows Mobile version of Sense UI, functionality was a lot better even if the layout wasn’t so simple. The little drop down menu from the top of the screen doesn’t any more information other than battery power, time and signal strength. A few more details would have helped. New messages and a small music player UI shows up when necessary but doesn’t stay there too long.

The older Windows Mobile edition looked cluttered and too much like most other smartphone UIs at the time, WP7 is far more refined. From accessing menus to animations that happen while the accelerometer is in use and even pinch zooming, it’s all very iPhone-esque. It’s a fluid UI and the large virtual QWERTY keypad even in portrait mode makes for quick and comfortable typing. Multi-tasking on the WP7 platform isn’t very well thought out since there’s really no way you can access apps running in the background other than the music player.



The Tile system and side scrolling for most menus is easy to navigate but the lack of an actual ‘homescreen’ could take a little getting used to. There’s no way to adjust the background except with a light or dark (white or black) theme and tile color options. Almost anything can be pinned to the desktop making it somewhat easy to access. However, with platform like iOS or Android with their smaller icons and widgets, you have slightly more options per screen. Nevertheless, the Tiles are large and clear for viewing and access. Sadly though, the entire menu system does not switch to landscape, so if your handset’s neatly propped up on your desk, you’ll have to manage viewing the desktop, menus page and a few others in a sideways angle. Settings are minimalistic and that’s not a bad thing.
Media
There’s just one thing wrong with the handset’s media set up – Zune! The fact that I have so much space to play around with but restricted to using a proprietary system of data transfer is just annoying, pure and simple. There’s absolutely no issue whatsoever with the audio quality or decibel level in this device. With Dolby Mobile and SRS sound enhancement technology for both audio and video, the HD7 handles audio out put really well. EQ presets are not available from within the players interface. A separate app has been provided (Sound enhancer) for it and that includes a few preset options. The FM radio worked out quite well providing a decent amount of reception in most places even while on my daily commute and that’s something to be a little impressed about.




Unlike iTunes that has issues with conversion of all kinds of files for the ‘i’ products, Zune manages to accept all formats but takes an insanely long time to convert them to the appropriate size and resolution for the device. My advice is, convert them to iPhone size MP4 files using any converter software available and then transfer them through Zune. The process is much faster. It’s a pity a device with such a fabulously large and clear display has no support for DivX or XviD codecs.

There’s also no option for stretching videos to fit the screen or viewing them in their actual resolution. Sometimes videos that I converted from a 16:9 aspect ratio got unexpectedly stretched to the size of the HD7’s screen. While clarity was not an issue, it did bother me to see Bruce Willis’  bald head look more egg shaped than usual.  A photo enhancer app is also available for adding a few choice flavors to your photos.

Connectivity
The WP7 platform seems to be the only one that automatically captures and stores my Loop Mobile EDGE settings without any manual intervention. The HD7 supports 3G, EDGE and Wi-Fi with no frills. At least the HD2 and its much older Windows Mobile system allowed you to use the handset as a Wi-Fi router. The platform also doesn’t allow for tethering. Bluetooth connectivity is still limited to just A2DP with no file transfer options. Images can be shared only via Wi-Fi/EDGE by uploading them to Facebook, or Microsoft’s SkyDrive server for storage. They can also be emailed or sent via MMS of course.



Setting up email accounts is as simple as it is in any new Smartphone platform. Basic details are required, a verification protocol is run and that’s it. The UI for emails is neat and designed for comfortable viewing. WP7 also comes with a preloaded Stock market app which, once again, is oddly similar to what Apple used to do for iPhone customers. HTC’s Hub interface is more like an immersive weather application where you can also add a few shortcuts to various apps. It could have been an option for a secondary desktop but instead it’s an additional app that you’ll need to activate each time you want in.

The IE browser, as brilliantly as it performed while browsing, does not support Flash or Silverlight making the over experience a little underwhelming, all things considered. The App market is not yet available for India so it’s quite an offset for HTC to have launched two WP7 handsets in the country without app support. There are work-around methods of accessing the store via a PC but apps are a little pricey and the ones that are free just didn’t seem all to impressive. App development for WP7 is still a work in progress, as is the platform itself. Good luck Nokia.



One of the perks to the WP7 platform is Xbox Live integration. Though the Windows Phone 7 Games Hub you can access titles from Xbox LIVE, Microsoft Game Studios and other publishers as well as your stats and other account related information. It even allows you to play online. Facebook, Google, Windows Live and Twitter account integration with your contacts is quite well fashioned. The absence of any preloaded chat applications and the extremely limited availability of the same on the App Market is another peeve one has to deal with on the WP7 platform for now.

Bing is the native browser of course and Bing Maps handle the handsets GPS (with A-GPS support) capabilities. They’re no match for Google Maps just yet but you never know. As is though, they’re not a bad option even when it comes to navigation (no voice guided option).

Misc. Features With some mobile standard apps like a unit converter, calendar (that does not sync with your Facebook account), alarm, calculator you’re good to go as far as basic features are concerned. What’s missing is a Notes application and Facebook or Google integration with the calendar. Then again, this is a Microsoft enabled handset so Google really isn’t given too much priority. The suite of Microsoft Office functions with OneNote and SharePoint adds quite a bit of value to the device but still not enough to cover all that's missing from the OS. Good stuff but we want more... Camera The HD7’s 5 megapixel autofocus camera is provided with a dual LED flash and features a few scene modes. Effects, flicker adjustment, metering and of course geo-tagging. Image quality isn’t as sharp as some of HTC’s previous offerings and does appear a bit on the dull side with colors looking just a tad washed out. In native resolution details are not really as clear as you’d expect either. Not the most clear of them all Battery Battery life proved to be a big drawback. With silly Tiles being unnecessarily animated, FB and emails on Push and the large LCD sucking up power, I found the HD7 doesn’t offer too much usage without needing to be charged each and every day. On an average talk time ran into the 3 hours 30 minutes span which is not really too great. The Bottom Line With a price tag of Rs. 28,990 (MOP), the HTC HD7 might seem like a great handset but do keep in mind handsets with far superior capabilities and operating systems that provide you with more functionality exist. The HD7, while a classy piece of hardware is saddled with an OS that is not yet full functional and, like I said before, a work in progress. For the record, the HTC HD7 is a handset to keep your eyes on.  It’s quite future-proofed, however there’s no telling just how frequently the updates will come though. This means you’ll be stuck with a handset with tremendous potential that’s just waiting to be unlocked to its optimized capability. Prop it up and sit back If you’ve got the patience, I say go for it, but we’ve been though this before with the iPhone and even the Android OS. Let’s not forget handsets like the Hero were seriously flawed but new age handsets like the Desire models have unlocked a whole new realm of mobile usability. It might be better to simply wait and see what the next update brings to the table and then decide. The only big hurdle you’ll have to conquer is the poor battery life.

There aren’t many Android smartphones with QWERTY keyboards, so when HTC announced the release of the Desire Z in India, it was received with much appreciation. There’s a bit of history involved, too. The first Android handset - the HTC G1 - had a QWERTY keypad as well, and this is the first Android smartphone with one that HTC have released, since then. Things have changed, obviously, and the Desire Z brings FroYo goodness, an S-LCD screen and a whole bunch of other features to the table.

Let’s see how it fares.

Design and Build Quality
The first thing you notice when you hold the HTC Desire Z in your hands is how heavy it is.  This is in no small part thanks to the slide-out QWERTY keypad. Also contributing to that is the metallic finish that the front of the phone, as well as the battery cover has.

The 3.7-inch S-LCD capacitive touchscreen, running at 480x848, adorns the front of the Desire Z and is encased by Gorilla Glass, below which the four standard Android touch-sensitive keys reside. An optical trackpad is also present. The left side of the phone houses the volume rocker and the microUSB port, whereas the right has the dedicated camera key and also the back panel release. The power button and the 3.5mm jack lie on the top of the phone. The back has the 5 megapixel camera, with the LED flash right beside the lens.

The slide-out function for the QWERTY keyboard is rather unconventional and funky. Once you start sliding out, the display gets raised onto a rubbery hinge and then drops down. It doesn’t lock down though, and the rubbery hinge is a bit of a concern. It looks like it could wear down over time, but it’s still a very cool touch.

Unfortunately, the phone doesn’t feature a front-facing camera. But that and the bulkiness are probably the only negatives in the design of the Desire Z. It looks and feels very well built. Obviously, you wouldn’t want to drop it on concrete, but it still instills a feeling of solidness.

Features
Interface
The Desire Z has Android 2.2 FroYo with the HTC Sense UI on top. We’ve said time and again that we feel Sense is probably the best custom Android UI we’ve seen so far, and we stick to that. I hardly ever encountered any lag during the entire time I used the phone, and while the 800MHz processor doesn’t exactly make operations silky smooth, it doesn’t make it sluggish either.

That is in large part due to the super sensitive display. Even the minutest touches were captured and responded to by the screen, which led to an excellent multi-touch experience. Add to that the optical trackpad for scrolling and selection, and the Desire Z provides a very wholesome package as a smartphone.

Slide the keyboard out though, and the problems start cropping up. The phone does switch automatically to landscape mode (which is a big plus), but the issues start from there. The four-row keyboard, though it feels nice while typing, has a pretty poor layout. The shift and the function keys really should’ve swapped positions and the lack of a D-pad is criminal. It forces you to use the optical trackpad, which on its own wouldn’t have been a bad thing if my big thumb wasn’t hitting the damn touch-sensitive menu button right above it (on the left in landscape mode) every single time. That also makes you type with one hand most of the time, which kinda defeats the purpose of a physical keyboard. The presence of a dedicated menu button and two customizable shortcut keys are probably the only saving grace.

Overall, the OS and the interface are super as a normal touchscreen handset, but the keyboard is very disappointing.

Media
The inbuilt music player is pretty nice, but fell short in the loudness department. Of course, I tried giving it some artificial gain using Mixzing (which also gave me the graphical EQ settings Android desperately needs natively), but just as I thought it was going smoothly, the sound started cracking.

Video playback is excellent, though. The Desire Z supports DivX and XviD, as well as H264 videos all the way up to 720p. High-profile 720p H264 videos start framing though, so maybe the processor is just a little under-powered to handle those. Otherwise, videos look and play great on the Desire Z.

Stereo FM with RDS is also present, and it sounds pretty nice and clear when outdoors.

Connectivity
The Desire Z has everything you’d expect from a phone in this price range. 3G (HSDPA at 14.4Mbps), EDGE/GPRS support, WiFi connectivity, 3G WiFi Hotspot capability and also DLNA for streaming media to other DLNA-enabled devices. Bluetooth 2.1 with A2DP is present too.

There are built in apps for Facebook and Twitter, though they’re a bit redundant with Friend Stream being bundled. The widget displays updates from Facebook and Twitter simultaneously, and is a very convenient one. Obviously, the other standard Google connectivity apps like Gmail, Gtalk, Places, Google Maps, Navigation etc are all bundled too.

Misc. Features
A lot of mobile phone standards present are present, and so are extras like Adobe Reader for viewing PDF files. But what steals the spotlight here is the HTCSense.com integration, which gives you some pretty neat features when using a desktop internet browser. If you’ve misplaced your phone somewhere, you can send it a command to ring – even if it’s in silent mode – and if you’ve managed to lose it completely, you can track it using GPS, lock it down completely or even wipe out all personal data from the device remotely.

It also includes features for call and message forwarding, backing up of contacts and messages and even allows you to send messages from your phone using your desktop keyboard! All in all, HTCSense.com is a great addition and with all new HTC devices sporting it, it’s a nice experience enhancer.



Camera
The Desire Z has a 5 megapixel camera with autofocus and LED flash. Like all HTC phones, it has quite a range of options for pictures including white balance, exposure, sharpness, saturation etc. It also has a bunch of post-processing options, which can lead to some pretty hilarious pictures.

The picture quality is very middling. It’s neither excellent nor horrible, and sits comfortably in the middle, probably tilting a little towards the good side because of the customization. Outdoor pictures are a little better than the ones taken indoors, but there isn't a very big difference.

The camera also supports 720p video recording which is pretty cool. I tried it out and didn’t experience any kind of framing in the video, which is fantastic.

Battery
The 1300mAh battery serves the Desire Z well, even if it is a bit out of its league when put under heavy load. Heavy usage saw the battery die out in about a day, but medium (with some music and YouTubing thrown in for good measure) and light usage saw it last two and two-and-a-half days respectively. It’s not exactly winning (see what I did there?), but it’s decent nonetheless.

Closing Comments
The Desire Z’s USP, the QWERTY keyboard, lets it down. Sure, it functions very well as a smartphone otherwise, but would you really tolerate the extra bulk if the very reason for it is inadequate? At Rs. 24,999 though, you’d expect more from your phone. If you really need that physical keyboard, I recommend waiting and watching how the upcoming Motorola Milestone 2 fares. If not, you’re better off looking at the much better touchscreen smartphones on offer in this price range.