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CNET editors' review
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CNET editors' rating:
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Detailed editors' rating
- Reviewed on: 12/09/2008
- Released on: 12/01/2008
Joining Sprint and AT&T, Verizon Wireless is now offering the HTC Touch Pro, a full-featured Windows Mobile smartphone aimed at business users. It brings a nice update to the Verizon Wireless XV6800 with the addition of Windows Mobile 6.1 and a sleeker design. Plus, it's fully stocked with wireless options and messaging and productivity tools. Unfortunately, the Verizon Touch Pro lacks some of the services and applications offered by the Sprint Touch Pro and the AT&T HTC Fuze but the bigger issue is that the Verizon Touch Pro simply doesn't deliver when it comes to performance. The smartphone is buggy and frustratingly slow, and it's certainly not worth the pricey $349.99 with a two-year contract. If you're a Verizon customer and need a business-centric smartphone, you'll be better off with the Samsung Saga. You'll lose some of the flashiness of the HTC Touch Pro but at least you'll get a device that can keep up with your demands.
Design
The Verizon Wireless HTC Touch Pro doesn't differ much in design compared with its Sprint and AT&T variants, though there are several differences. For example, the Verizon handset features sharper edges and a flat, plastic backplate, whereas the Sprint model has a soft-touch finish and the AT&T Fuze sports a geometric backing like the HTC Touch Diamond. While the other handsets have fun and distinguishing features, the Verizon Touch Pro is still an attractive model and certainly more compact than the Verizon Wireless XV6800 at 4.1 inches high by 2 inches wide by 0.7 inch deep and weighs 4.9 ounces.
On its front, you'll find a 2.8-inch touch screen with VGA resolution (480x640), so you'll enjoy sharp text and images. You can customize the Home screen with various themes, including HTC's TouchFlo 3D interface. This user interface places a toolbar along the bottom of the screen that lets you scroll left to right and launch applications with one touch, and also allows you to scroll through images, messages, and Web pages with various finger swipes.
The display also has a built-in accelerometer, so the screen orientation will automatically switch from portrait to landscape mode when you rotate the phone. However, similar to the Sprint model, the feature only works in certain applications, such as pictures and video and Web pages. The page view will also change when you slide the screen to the right to access the full QWERTY keyboard. That said, we found that the Verizon Touch Pro was incredibly slow to perform this task, beyond what we experienced on the Sprint version. There were times that it took so long that we thought the phone froze. There were also a couple of occasions when we opened the keyboard and the bottom third of the screen looked like it was on the fritz. Obviously, that's not good and we found that the smartphone was underpowered in general. Check out the Performance section for a more detailed description.
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