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"Should have switched to Sprint when I had the chance." on by florida_diver
Pros: Screen looks great, very sharp
Slide out keyboard
Nice collation of installed apps
TouchFlo Interface
WiFi connects super fast
Surprising battery lifeCons: Out of box experience pathetic
Customer Service very slow
Phone sluggish at times
Required a factory reset within first hour of use
Audio plug
Build qualitySummary: When my two year contact with Verizon was ending, I contemplated about switching carries since their selection of new PDS/Phones was very limited and 2 years with a Motorola Q is enough pain for anyone. I am not a Blackberry fan so the Storm did nothing for me nor do I want an I-Phone. I was thinking Sprint and the HTC Touch Pro simply because the reviews are good so far and Sprints $99 unlimited plan sounds tempting. However since Verizon announced they would offer the HTC I decided to stay, sign up for another two years and purchased the HTC as soon as it became available online. As promised, the phone came within 36 hours of the on-line transaction. When I opened the box, things started to get depressing, looks like Verizon was in a hurry to get these phones out and forgot a few things like attention to detail. With the phone I ordered additional memory and a car charger, neither one was compatible with the HTC; I got a regular sized memory card and a piece of junk generic car charger. Verizon forgot to place the activation instructions so I had to make the dreaded call to their customer service. The person I spoke to was rude, and insisted that the activation directions are in the box after some heated argument I hung up and tried again; approximately 90 minutes and two support personnel from hold time to final activation, nice going Verizon. There was some Internet chatter about Verizon crippling the phone with less memory, perhaps but they definitely went the cheap road with very little bundled accessories. Their top of the line phone, still over $250 after rebate and new every 2 year deal and they still can?t provide a decent headset and carrying case? OK, on to the phone, this is a new phone then why is there a large bump on the lower part of the screen? After the lengthy activation experience, I started personalizing the phone. Forget Verizon?s on-line backup process, that is a joke, I used DashWire and transferred everything form the Q to the HTC in minutes, very nice. I installed a single application; Microsoft?s Live Search, worked great on the Q but crashed the HTC on first use. No response with a soft reset or battery removal so a second call to Verizon?s wonderful customer support. They walked me through a factory reset which of course wiped all the changes, no big deal another connection to DashWire fixed that. So far I am not a happy camper with this phone, a third call to customer support about the ?bump? and a replacement phone ended up with a suggestion to either send the phone back or wait till December 1st and take the phone to a local Version store. I have used the phone ?as is? for the last few days, the TouchPro interface is nice once it?s setup correctly. Performance is adequate but there is some lag while switching screens. The speakerphone is useless, with volume up all the way it is still hard to hear while in a car. The keys on the slide out keyboard are very still and will take some getting used to but still way better then the on-screen keyboard. I would rate the experience of Verizon?s HTC Touch Pro so far as acceptable, but not satisfied. I should have switched carries when I had the chance and get Sprints HTC Touch Pro months ago.
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"Great phone! Best I've used." on by profe2
Pros: The slide-out QWERTY keyboard is terrific--bigger and better than those on the Sprint and AT&T models; more flexible, quick, and responsive, better suited to medium-to-long messages than soft-keys on iPhone or Storm. Opera browser is great.
Cons: Phone is a bit uncomfortable held at the ear for long conversations. Running TouchFlo 3D does slow the phone down a bit (but I don't use my phone for most of the things that TouchFlo does well/prettier, so it doesn't matter to me).
Summary: I've owned a Palm Treo 700P, a Blackberry Storm (for two weeks), and this phone. I own an iPod Touch (same interface as the iPhone, and I generally like it), I've used friends' iPhones, I've used other Blackberrys (Curve, Pearl). The HTC Touch Pro is the best phone I've owned, used, or tried in the store for my purposes. I am a heavy emailer (mostly business), I do quite a bit of messaging, and I use the browser a lot. The iPhone's browser bests Opera Mobile by only a bit (Opera Mobile is excellent--far better than the browsers on Blackberry devices or others) and the iPhone's apps are the best, most fun, and most aesthetically pleasing (weather and stocks are great, too). And the iPhone's media capabilities are the best. But I use my phone for phone calls, contact management, calendar, and email (the latter three synced with corporate servers). And the HTC Touch Pro is better at all of these. For example, with the slide out QWERTY keyboard (on which the typing experience is terrific, despite the small space bar and orphaned M key), you can see much more of the message or appointment you're working with.
The device is only a bit thick, to accommodate the keyboard, but it doesn't feel big. It actually feels small-ish, to me. And TouchFlo 3D does slow the machine down. But TouchFlo's advantages have very little to do with what I want to do with the phone (and sometimes get in the way), so that doesn't matter to me.
Overall, this is an absolutely terrific device. -
"Pretty Good Phone, Stupid Verizon" on by bakerco
Pros: Lots of bells and whistles. Pretty good browser. Full slide out keyboard. Verizon data network.
Cons: Battery life could use some help. Software a little laggy. Verizon crippled the GPS and amount of RAM on this thing.
Summary: Stupid, greedy little Verizon for locking the GPS on this device. I've been testing out my buddies and was going to buy this phone until I found out that you cannot use Google Maps on it. Instead I would have the pleasure of paying $10/month extra to use VZ Crappagator. Way to screw loyal customers, you greedy bastards. What's the point of selling a "smart phone" if you just turn around and dumb it down.
My review would have been a solid 3 1/2 stars if it was fully capable. -
"Overpriced and underpowered, still VZW's best WM phone" on by Leindurstit
Pros: VGA screen is drop-dead gorgeous. 5-row keyboard more useful than the 4-row on the XV6800. Third-party modifications to remove ugly Verizon-tarnished Touchflo 3D color scheme. Third-party app for auto screen rotation. Plenty of ROM space.
Cons: Significantly less RAM available to user compared to other Touch Pros. Keyboard layout is dysfunctional compared to other Touch Pros. Inflated price compared to other Touch Pros. Battery life is awful. Mismatched glossy finish on front is ugly.
Summary: So long as you bite your tongue and avoid reminding yourself that you have been completely and utterly ripped off by Verizon by getting this phone, you'll notice that it's actually not too bad. The squared design is nice and the keyboard, while lacking the pure function of the Sprint Touch Pro, makes up for it by giving you larger keys (although I really, really question why they thought cutting between N and M with an arrow key was a good idea, and why does it need a dedicated SYMBOL key when there is a whole extra ROW of symbols? Idiots.)
Touchflo 3D (or, rather, a stock HTC version that I replaced the ugly Verizon maroon-on-gray version with,) is responsive and fun to use, and overall the performance of the device, even in its crippled state, is generally good.
I'd say pick one up if you're looking for a solid upgrade from an XV6700 or i760. If you've got an XV6800, give the Touch Pro a good testing before you make your decision. -
"Battery Life sucks!!" on by vmadhvani
Pros: Great screen, amazing colors and sharpness
touch flo 3d
opera browser
Mp3 clipper
micro SD card
slide out qwerty keyboard
wi fi
windows mobileCons: Crappy battery life
some issues with software
'Backup Assistant' won't transfer contacts
Quite bulky (depending on what you're used to)
Touch Flo still not as good as iphone
Verizon nickle and dimes you!
No front camera as stated on HTC websiteSummary: God do I hate Verizon! I've seen the Sprint version of this phone and they include so much more in their $99.99 plan, including GPS, Sprint tv, etc. I have the $149.99 'unlimited data' plan, and it doesn't include tv or nav. If it wasn't for the coverage I'd switch in a heartbeat! Paying $50 more per month for less features!
I ordered the HTC Pro over the phone since it's not out in stores until Dec 1st. Received it yesterday, and these are my initial impressions. On paper the phone has everything you'd need. But whats the point if the battery can't keep up! I charged it fully overnight, and so far today it went down to 10% within 5 hours flat! And all I did with it was 3 phone calls for less than 60 minutes, checked my email twice, and took one photograph! I'd switched off the wi-fi knowing that this would suck up the juice. And after noticing how fast it drained when using my bluetooth, I even turned that off! Put the phone on standby for most of the time, turned off direct push, low backlight, basically everything recommended to get extra battery life. And 5 hours to go through 90% of the battery inspite of all this is just nuts.
Also, earlier today, the phone froze up on me. None of the inputs would work, and couldn't even turn the power off. Finally, removed the battery, and put it back in again. This started the phone, but it got stuck on the 'unlock' screen. I kept typing in my password, but it refused to unlock! I received a call at that moment, (thank God it lets you that), and after hanging up it suddenly let me unlock the phone. Weird! It's working fine since.
The final irritant is Verizon's Backup assistant. My previous phone had all the contacts and #'s backed up on Verizon's servers, but apparently you can't download this on a pda! I have to take the phone into a Verizon store where they can do the transfer with a cable. I guess it's not a big deal, but just find it retarded. The cherry on top is that I can't even download my contacts from their site on my pc!
AT&T has good phones but spotty service, TMobile just doesn't have enough 3G coverage, and Sprint is CDMA too. So people like myself have been stuck with Verizon for years, and have to deal with them fleecing their customers! Consumers need a better alternative!
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