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stars
"iPhone for real Geeks" on by cornelius_ms
Pros: Beautiful VGA touchscreen
5 Row QWERTY keyboard
TouchFLO 3D
Accelerometers
Pre-loaded with Opera as the default browser
FM Radio + TV-out
Tethering support
Cut & paste
HTC has a cult followingCons: Fingerprint magnet; wish the back wasn't so glossy
AT&T bloatware preloaded (can be easily fixed)
1340 mAh battery is insufficient for more than one day of casual useSummary: It's a great phone out of the box, but in the hands of a knowledgeable person it can be made so much better through tweaks and customizations. It supports all of the smartphone features that pros need (Blackberry connect, push email, outlook, office, even a business card scanner!), yet it comes with cool toys that would make even iPhone users jealous (higher-res screen, QWERTY keyboard, more media support).
One of the biggest pluses is the fact that HTC phones are easily tweakable. HTC users can simply head over to xda-developers dot com to find tons of tips, tweaks, and software to make their phone better. Want to run Quake3 on your Fuze? Want to get rid of that annoying message whenever you hit the PTT button (and remap it to something actually useful)? It's possible.
While there's nothing comparable to the "App Store" for Windows Mobile phones, there are thousands of free (and really useful) applications and games for this phone.
Highly recommended accessories:
- Micro SDHC card (8gb cards are ~$20)
- Spare battery ($5 on ebay)
- Screen protector (one comes with the phone)
- TV-out cable
- 5 replies to this review
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I'm an XDA geek myself. My Fuze is running NATF's 4.7 ROM currently and it's eager to get ahold of the 5.0 ROM (winmo 6.5) ASAP! I've had my Fuze for about 6 months now and it's the single most useful device I've ever owned. There's not a thing it can't do. Once you really remove all the 'restrictions' of the AT&T Rom that comes with the phone, you're able to make the phone faster and more useful.
Some things to look into at XDA:
Flash Ollipro HardSPL FIRST!!
NATF Windows Mobile 6.1 ROM V 4.5 or 4.7
SkyFire V1 Browser (Watch Hulu.com - full flash support)
Iris Browser - webkit based like safari
TomTom Navigator V6
Google Maps w/streetview and latitude
Live Search app w/voice searching, gas prices, movie times and more
PockeTwit Twitter app
Kinoma Play - my FAVORITE app for mp3, internet radio, podcasts, rss, facebook, twitter, flickr, picasa, more!
Call Calendar - puts all calls on your calendar with start and end time.
Google sync - for contacts and calendar events -
Excellent review. This is a joy of a phone/pocket pc. One gripe I constantly hear others say about it though is about the speakerphone volume/quality. I discovered early on a couple days after getting my Fuze that the speaker is located behind the keyboard.
So naturally, if you're holding your phone or set it down, the speaker would project into your hand or down into the surface it was set on and muffle the sound. Solution! Open the keyboard to let the sound out or better yet, turn the phone over so the back faces up and you'll be surprised at how loud and clear it is. -
i went to the xda site, but i cannot find the tips and tweaks you are talking about. can you help?
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What is the highest mp3 file size that can be set as a ringtone. I've got a Pantech Matrix and an mp3 larger than 300KB cannot be set as a custom ringtone. I've been considering swapping out for a Fuze just for all the extra stuff but if you can set any size mp3 ringtone then that will cinch my decision.
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Thanks for the URL to fix that darn button, I'm going to make mine the snap a photo button if possible, if not having it put in my area code, 916 would also be cool.
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