HTC HD Mini

Style & Handling Summary for HTC HD Mini
The HD Mini is pocketable size, with a glossy glass front and a tactile rubber back.

User Friendliness Summary
Windows Mobile 6.5 is an awkward operating system made fluid by HTC’s intuitive Sense interface.

Feature Set Summary
We are always happy to see a 3.5mm audio port, and the five-megapixel camera is capable despite not having a flash.

Performance Summary
The capacitive touch-screen is pleasing and responsive, and everything happens quickly with no delay.

Battery Power Summary
While no smartphone will give you much more than a day, the HTC HD Mini does have enough stamina to last a bit longer – although we would still recommend charging it up daily.

Full Review and Specification for the HTC HD Mini

HTC is riding high at the moment. A string of top-class Android phones – the Legend, the Desire and Google Nexus One – as well as the HD2, the best Windows Mobile phone yet, have firmly positioned the company as a smartphone giant.

Its latest handset, the HTC HD Mini, is the successor to the HD2, the first handset that made the tricky WinMo OS effective and attractive, largely by covering is with a useable interface.

Style and handling on the HTC HD Mini

The HD2 was also the first WinMo phone to have a capacitive touch-screen, which look and handle better than the pressure-sensitive resistive kind. But it was big, at 4.3 inches, and proved too much to lug around for some users. The Mini has a 3.2-inch capacitive screen, which brings the overall size of the phone down to a more manageable size and still gives you space to view content effectively.

The build quality is superb, with a tactile rubber covering on the back complemented by stainless steel screws to give an elegant industrial look. The front is smooth and slick, with touch-sensitive icons that sit next to the display. These are start and end call, home and back keys, and a dedicated Windows Mobile key. This will take you to Microsoft’s list of shortcuts including Internet Explorer and Microsoft My Phone, which syncs up contacts calendars and more. There are also some HTC apps on the list such as Twitter client Peep.

Sense UI on the on the HTC HD Mini

HTC’s talent with Windows Mobile lies in its Sense software, which cloaks the awkward WinMo with a friendly interface. The home screen displays the clock and weather app that will be familiar to existing HTC users, with its little weather-specific gimmick that shows windscreen wipers when it’s raining and so on.

At the foot of the home screen is a carousel of shortcuts including mail, messages and even share prices – well, it is a business phone after all – that are easy to slide between. As an alternative you can swipe your finger up the screen to make the clock disappear and be replaced with a grid of nine shortcut blocks. You can configure these to contain all sorts of useful items, including internet sharing to easily connect to the web from your laptop using the phones 3G connection. Beware of the small-font menus though – a seeming speciality of Windows Mobile.

Camera, email and more on the HTC HD Mini

The five-megapixel camera doesn’t include a flash, which is a shame. Camera flashes aren’t often that good but they at least give you some option to shoot in low-light conditions. Still, it’s a capable enough snapper.

When the screen is locked, it displays missed calls, messages, emails and voicemails. Touching the relevant part of the screen won’t take you straight into your inbox or contact, it just takes you back to the home screen and lets you find your own way. But that’s not too much of an issue thanks to the neatness of the Sense UI.

This is best demonstrated by the email inbox: Swipe you fingers up and down, and shortcut images of your emails slide on or off the pile. Press one of these to get into the message.

The smart virtual keypad has haptic feedback and great error correction, and is comfortable enough to make typing messages and texts a breeze.

Verdict on the HTC HD Mini

The HTC HD Mini is a complex phone that is made accessible and user friendly thanks to HTC’s intuitive Sense interface. It’s a good size too. HTC is onto another winner with this one

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HTC Smart

Style & Handling Summary for HTC Smart
A comfortably sized handset with a classy finish, the HTC Smart looks more expensive than it is. The screen is a nice size, although resistive rather than the superior capacitive type.

User Friendliness Summary for HTC Smart
The HTC Smart is an enjoyable phone to use and pretty straightforward too. Once you’ve got used to it, you’ll sail through the home screens.

Feature Set Summary for HTC Smart
Bearing in mind its price tag, the Smart has a good range of features. The only thing it’s missing is Wi-Fi.

Performance Summary for HTC Smart
It’s not got the fastest processor in the world, but the Qualcomm’s Brew operating system makes everything run smoothly, and the touch-screen is fast and responsive.

Battery Power Summary for HTC Smart
370 minutes’ talktime is good compared to smartphones, but you’ll probably need to recharge it on a daily basis.

Full Review and Specification for the HTC Smart

HTC has really hit its stride with its Sense interface, so much so that it’s hard to tell which operating system the HTC Smart uses. In fact, it’s Qualcomm’s Brew; which, for any tech-heads who might be interested, stands for Binary Runtime Environment for Wireless, and is designed especially for feature phones that aren’t quite smartphones.

What you see, though, is the usual shortcuts such as Friendstream and Weather, alongside the intuitive and seamless navigations we’ve come to expect from Sense.

Style and handling on the HTC Smart

At £100 on prepay, the HTC Smart is affordable, but it’s certainly not cheap. The back fascia has the subtle matte pastel appearance of anodised aluminium, which you see on the iPod Nano. This effect also provides a frame for the screen and four keys that sit under it: start, end, menu and back. The Back key, which is off-centre and an oblong shape, will take you back a step or return you to the central home screen.

There are seven home screens, like you would find on HTC’s Android handsets, which you can slide in and out with a touch. The touch-screen is of the resistive variety, which means no multi-touch capability, but you can operate it wearing gloves, if you want, or using a stylus. No need for that here – Sense’s menu system is designed to be finger-sized.

Unlike Android phones, you move shortcuts on and off your list using the Settings screen – just choose the page-sized shortcuts you want and they appear, one per home screen. But where the Smart does resemble the Android is with its pull-down menu; just swipe your finger down the screen to bring up your options. There’s a work setting, which puts email and messaging up front; a personal setting that centres around FriendStream; HTC’s social networking aggregator, which supports Facebook, Twitter and Flickr; and a music player screen. You can give each of these a unique wallpaper too, to make them instantly recognisable.

Applications and shortcuts on the HTC Smart

You can also use the Clean Slate option, so only the central page has programs waiting. This displays HTC’s usual clock and weather icon as well as three shortcut buttons, which you can use for just about anything. If you swipe your finger upwards, six more shortcut buttons appear. The camera has its own hard key on the side of the handset.

As well as the more obvious shortcut options like calendar, contacts and messaging, there are some rather obscure choices too. Flashlight turns on your LED light and has three brightness settings. Rings is a well-executed game that involves flicking metal hoops into a wizard’s hat against the pull of magnets. It’s simple and addictive in the style of iPhone’s Paper Toss.

Web browsing and email on the HTC Smart

There is no Wi-Fi on board, which is a shame given the browsing-friendly screen size. You do get HSDPA connection, though, which provides a tolerably quick 3.6Mbps, provided you have a good signal. Unsurprisingly, there is no GPS, although this has become such a smartphone essential that even feature phones like the Smart feel lacking without it.

What you do get is a 3.5mm audio jack so you can plug in your own headphones, and FM radio, and a micoSD card slot for up to 16GB of storage space.

Some elements of the Sense interface sparkle on smartphone but fail to inspire here. The photo library shortcut, for example, takes you straight through to your photo album, taking up a whole screen; on HTC’s Legend, it displays like a stack of photos you can simply flick through on your home screen.

Email on the HTC Smart is very like that on smartphones: swiping a finger up or down the screen reveals the header of the next (or previous) message, and it’s intuitive and enjoyable to use.

Verdict on the HTC Smart

There are lots of handy smartphone-like little touches on the Smart, which gives you advanced features in an affordable, accessible handset. It’s a nice, comfortable size yet the screen is large enough for enjoyable web browsing. If you don’t want a smartphone for whatever reason, the HTC Smart gives you the simplicity of a basic phone, with plenty of customisation options and exciting features.

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HTC Wildfire

Style and handling summary for HTC Wildfire review
The HTC Wildfire has taken a little something from each of the other flagship devices from HTC –it has the Tattoo’s size and shape, yet offers the Desire’s classy, matt feel. It is wider than the Legend, so offers a more comfortable experience when using the touch-screen keyboard, while the optical trackpad allows navigation without touching the display.

User friendliness summary for HTC Wildfire review
Android 2.1 is fun and easy to use on the HTC Wildfire , offering multi-touch, and allowing you to pinch and zoom in any home screen. This lets the user view all programs in helicopter mode.

Feature set summary for HTC Wildfire review
We were disappointed by the five-megapixel camera, which resulted in slightly soft pictures, even in daylight conditions. However, its standout features include the responsive capacitive touch-screen and impressive social networking abilities.

Performance summary for HTC Wildfire review
Like its predecessors, the Desire and Legend, the HTC Wildfire runs on Android 2.1, featuring HTC’s updated Sense interface. Everything runs smoothly – social networking, apps and web browsing – though we found many web pages appeared pixelated on the QVGA display. And when using memory-intensive programs we experienced lag on the touch-screen.

Battery power summary for HTC Wildfire review
You’ll get 490 minutes of talktime from the HTC Wildfire ’s battery.

Full Review and Specification for the HTC Wildfire
The full HTC Wildfire Review

Android fans are usually a bit geeky, thanks to the opportunities that it offers for tweaking. However, HTC is doing its best to push Android to the masses, with an offering of easy-to-use handsets, customised with the HTC Sense interface. The Wildfire sits somewhere in the middle of the group – cheaper than the Desire and Legend, but a touch slicker than the Tattoo. In terms of hardware, it’s more akin to the older HTC Hero, but its range of software ensures it sits firmly among the ranks of the latest smartphones.

Mix it up

The HTC Wildfire has inherited something from all its cousins – it’s the same size and shape as the Tattoo, yet has the Desire’s classy matt feel. However, while the Desire was clad in Teflon, the Wildfire is constructed from metallised plastic with a soft sheen. It’s wider and shorter than the Legend, offering a more comfortable experience when typing on the touch-screen keyboard. Using the optical trackpad allows the user to navigate without touching the display. Above it sit four touch-sensitive areas for home, back, search and menu.

Just like the Legend and Desire, the HTC Wildfire runs on Android 2.1, with the updated Sense interface from HTC. Offering support for multi-touch, you can pinch and zoom in any home screen to allow for viewing in helicopter mode, and you’ll find all the HTC widgets here, including Friend Stream for social networkers. The only thing that betrays the Wildfire’s low price is the pixelated QVGA display. The Wildfire also has a five-megapixel camera with auto-focus and flash. But there’s no dedicated camera button – you have to use the optical trackpad. The camera produced somewhat soft images, even in daylight, but you’ll find the colours are warm and true.

Social butterfly

Considering it’s available for free with a £20 contract, the HTC Wildfire offers an impressive range of social networking capabilities. There’s Friend Stream, which shows an aggregated stream from Twitter, Flickr and Facebook, while a calendar extracts all your Facebook Friends’ birthdays. The contact book is really useful, merging friends with their social networking profiles. Not only that, but it displays all your messages from them in one place, along with their status updates and pictures. As if that wasn’t enough, the Wildfire even suggests links if it discovers matches between your Flickr, Twitter and Facebook lists and your contacts.

Something that’s on no other HTC phone except the Wildfire is App Share. This great new feature allows the user to send friends a link to their downloaded Android apps. You can link to App Share on your home screen. Once started, it will present a list of other apps, which can be shared one at a time using Friend Stream, email, text or any other social networking apps. The message you send will contain a link to the Android Market – it makes it so much easier to tell your friends about your favourite apps and is more reliable than just telling them and hoping they’ll remember which one it is when they go shopping at the Android Market.

Email and Gmail

Android phones have two interfaces – one for Gmail, one for all other email. Though we’re not sure why this is, the Gmail interface works perfectly, and even offers up suggested email addresses that you’ve typed before – on a desktop or another mobile. Once logged in, the user is synced automatically with the Google Calendar.

The interface for other email isn’t quite as good, but it has some neat touches, such as being able to select a tab to view emails as conversations. You won’t see this in many webmail services – Hotmail for instance. You can even use multi-touch in email, which we really liked. Words autofit so they don’t run off the page, and zooming in reveals smoother looking text.

If you’re typing an email, the touch-screen is not quite as fast as the Desire and Legend – but then considering the Wildfire’s lower spec, this is not that surprising. However, the keyboard is just as accurate. The touch-screen keyboard is one of the better ones we’ve tried, but still expect some jerkiness, especially as the phone gets filled up with data.

The bigger pixel

Web browsing was quite speedy using the full HTML browser – non-mobile sites were loaded in about ten seconds. A neat touch is being able to type in the address of some well-known sites, and letting the Wildfire suggest the name of the website. You can view in landscape or portrait, thanks to the accelerometer, although we found landscape preferable for browsing.

What does let down the browsing experience is the QVGA display, which makes web pages look rather pixelated. However, we found zooming in produced both smoother text and pictures, and mobile sites appear as they would on a high-res screen. It’s a bonus that text always autofits, too.

It is possible to bookmark pages, or choose to share them via Friend Stream, email or text. Fire up Google Maps and you’ll probably get the best experience available on any budget handset. A digital compass shows you which way you’re going, and the Wildfire also offers support for Google’s voice navigation. Unlike the Legend, multi-touch works here on the Wildfire. The GPS fix, meanwhile, is fine for driving, but probably not good if you’re wandering along narrow roads and streets in a city centre as it has an accuracy of 70m. The fix was fast though.

There was some touch-screen lag when using memory-intensive programs such as GPS, the phone and the web. While at other times it was responsive, in these instances the screen occasionally froze and scrolling was jerky.

The verdict

The Wildfire looks good and has some top-class features packed into its low-cost body. However, we love the added bonus of App Share, and it has all the required apps, social networking and fast internet access. While Android is still considered something of a geek’s choice when it comes to smartphones, the Wildfire brings it one step closer to the mass market, offering a fun, easy-to-use platform.

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HTC HD7

Style and handling summary for HTC HD7 review
A huge 4.3-inch display may dominate proceedings, but the HTC HD7 has a minimalist yet fetching appeal

User friendliness summary for HTC HD7 review
The Windows Phone 7 operating system is far easier to negotiate than previous incarnations, and the virtual keyboard is one of the best we've encountered

Feature set summary for HTC HD7 review
With the ability to record high definition video, access to Xbox LIVE gaming, a handy kickstand, Wi-Fi, HSDPA and A-GPS, the HD7 is feature packed

Performance summary for HTC HD7 review
The multimedia functions are excellent, and bar the odd scrolling issues, so is the browsing experience

Battery power summary for HTC HD7 review
With a battery life of 320 minutes talktime (3G) and 320 hours (3G) standby time, you won't want to be without your charger for too long

Full Review and Specification for the HTC HD7

You might remember that we loved the HTC HD2, which was a bit of a departure for us because in general, we loathed Windows Mobile devices. But that has all been forgotten, as Microsoft's mobile operating system has been updated - and not only are we rather keen on it - but HTC has been quick to load it on to the successor to the HD2. We give you the HTC HD7...

Looks

In case you're wondering, the latest HTC phone has been named after Windows new operating system Windows Phone 7. Like its predecessor, the HD7 has a massive 4.3in display, which reaches right to the edge of the handset. This time around, the screen has been upgraded to an S-LCD. At the moment, the jury is out on whether these displays measure up to the AMOLED. But to our untrained eye, while the HD7's screen is as vibrant as the Super AMOLED display on the Samsung Galaxy, for instance, it doesn't offer quite the same level of crispness and boldness when it comes to text. Having said that, unless you put the phones next to each other, you wouldn't really be able to notice the difference.

Underneath the screen, you'll find three touch-responsive keys - the Windows home key, a back button and the Bing key (this is Microsoft's own search engine, denoted by a magnifying glass icon). While the HTC manages to retain a slim profile, it definitely has some weight to it. Turn the handset over and you'll find a kickstand on the back; this can be pulled out so that the phone can stand on a flat surface in a horizontal position. It's a nifty addition, and a clue to the HD7's multimedia aspirations. Mind you, we'd suggest that you are careful with the kickstand, as it would be easy to catch it on something while it was in a bag or pocket, and snap it off.

Microsoft has a lot invested in its new Windows Phone 7 operating system. In the past, its menu systems have been fiddly - often requiring the use of a stylus - but now there is a home screen, featuring big ‘live' squares, with each one representing one of the phone's capabilities. These cover everything from Windows Marketplace, to accessing your photo collection or your contacts lists. While we're on the subject of contacts, sign in to your Windows Live or Facebook account and the HD7 will aggregate all your contacts into one list, bringing up any details available, such as birthdays, place of work and email address. It is even possible to assign one of the live tiles to your favourite contacts, so you can instant message, text or call them in no time at all. Another nice touch is that the HD7 pulls any of your photo albums from Facebook and places them, in the phone's photo folder, along with the latest images posted by your Facebook friends, as well as any snaps you've taken with your phone.

The HTC Hub also sits on one of the ‘live' tiles. Now, while this may look pretty good - and it's where you'll find the HTC's 3D weather feature - we're somewhat puzzled by it. From the Hub it is possible to download a few select apps that have been optimised for the HTC HD7. Once you have bought and downloaded them, they stay in the Hub. But you can also add them to the home screen. So unless you want to check the weather or download new apps, we can't see you wanting to spend a lot of time in the Hub.


A touching display

We found the capacitive display very responsive, providing a really fluid experience as we scrolled through the pages. If you're using an application with multiple features, you'll see that the next page ever-so-slightly creeps onto the page. We found this a bit distracting at first, but then realised that it is a good way of making the user aware that there are several pages to swipe between. However, we were hugely impressed by the virtual QWERTY keyboard. It's very spacious, particularly in landscape mode, but the bonus is that the operating system uses an intelligence technology to offer a more accurate typing experience. The phone is capable of recognising common letter patterns, so if you type a ‘t' and an ‘h', it is able to open up the margin of error around the ‘e' key, as it recognises that you are most likely to be typing ‘the'.

Another major feature is the HD7's gaming capabilities. Microsoft has ensured the device has access to a wealth of Xbox LIVE games. Once you have paid for your game (it is possible to try them out before buying), you are then able to play against yourself or against other Xbox LIVE players. The graphics are fabulous, and while gameplay will obviously vary from title to title, we found the touch-screen offered an excellent experience in all the games we had a go at. The device also comes with Zune, Microsoft's version of iTunes, which allows you to buy and download music and films, which can be stored on your phone and your PC.

Picture perfect

The HD7 comes with a not-too-shabby 5-megapixel camera, which also boasts a dual-LED flash. You can turn on the snapper from any application, even if the handset's screen is locked - just hold down the dedicated camera button on the side of the handset. Mind you, we're not too keen on the position of this key - it's a bit too central and feels a bit uncomfortable. Zooming in is a bit of a letdown too - not the fluid experience we had hoped for. However, the video camera is more promising, as it records in high definition. Also, if you use Microsoft's SkyDrive feature, it is possible to store up to 26GB of photos and videos, which leaves the HD7's onboard memory free. That's good news as the HD7 is lacking a memory card slot - bit of a shame, that.

As the HD7 is a Windows device, it's no surprise to find Microsoft's own search engine, Bing, on board. Enter the search term and you can either search the whole internet, locally or for related news stories. The search results were excellent and appeared quickly, but the scrolling process is rather sluggish, which led to us accidentally zooming rather than scrolling. Overall, however, we found the HD7 makes an excellent browsing tool.

The verdict

Now we've seen the HTC HD7, we're both relieved and excited about the future of Windows Mobile. Windows Phone 7 has given the operating system the revamp we had hoped to see, and with the added bonus of Xbox LIVE and other multimedia facilities, it should appeal to consumers in a way previous Windows Mobile phones have not. As for the HTC HD7 itself - well we have exhausted ourselves when it comes to saying good things about HTC's devices. In the past, we've said the HD2 was the best Windows Mobile handset we'd ever seen. We've just had our mind changed...

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HTC Mozart

Style and handling summary for HTC Mozart review
The aluminium with Teflon outer shell is unusual to say the least, but not especially stylish, and the phone is covered in logos. Compared to this, the Windows Phone 7 software proves itself neat, modern and a joy to use.

User friendliness summary for HTC Mozart review
Navigation is excellent, the touch-screen proves responsive, and the interface is intuitive. It's easy to use for contact syncing, as well as playing video and music. The only hiccup is the number of clicks you have to make just to make a phone call.

Feature set summary for HTC Mozart review
While we found the media, web and email facilities really decent, the eight-megapixel camera is disappointing, despite its good Xenon flash. We did miss the copy and paste facility too.

Performance summary for HTC Mozart review
Responsive and speedy in use, the Mozart is a joy to play with and really simple to use, with some intuitive features and a very decent touch-screen. Added bonuses on an already well-specced media phone are Zune and Xbox Live syncing.

Battery power summary for HTC Mozart review
Most smartphones need charging every night, and the Mozart is no exception, especially if you are running Wi-Fi, 3G, the music player and GPS.


Full Review and Specification for the HTC Mozart

Throw away your preconceptions about Windows phones, or HTC phones, because the Mozart, a multimedia device that is one of the launch handsets for Windows Phone 7, is now here. And like all its Windows phone siblings, it toes the party line when it comes to what Microsoft expects of it – and that’s not a bad thing.

Styling

There are some minimum requirements for the hardware of a Windows Phone 7 handset – for a start it must have a 3.5-inch touch-screen with WVGA resolution. The Mozart gets its own message across with its anodised aluminium cover (rather like the HTC Legend), which curves around part of the phone. The remainder of the phone is crafted from Teflon (like the HTC Desire). It exceeds the minimum requirements with its 3.7-inch screen, although an inch of that is a touch-sensitive area for search, back key and the Windows Start button. It won’t take you long to realise this phone is an Orange exclusive – turn over the handset and you’ll get the branding message – with logos for HTC, Windows Phone 7 and Orange. You’ll also find the eight-megapixel camera lens, a speaker vent (there’s also one on the front) and the Xenon flash.

Back to basics

There’s a unique styling to Windows phone 7, with its homescreen of ‘five tile’ widgets. The Marketplace tile, for instance, can tell you when an app has an update waiting. It's also possible to add shortcuts to contacts, apps, or places to navigate to. You’ll see lots of fades as you swipe between screens – it’s very different from the old, unintuitive Windows Mobile.

Microsoft has decided that one-look-fits-all, so manufacturers are unable to add their own skin to the operating system. However, we don’t think that’s a bad thing. The phone book proves itself excellent, with an integrated contacts list that is mixed with a Facebook feed and your recent contacts. Microsoft has taken note of what other operating systems offer, and you’ll find you can sync Facebook, Hotmail, and Google as well as connect your friends’ contact details across all of them.

It’s just a shame that making an actual phone call is such a long-winded process. Unless you’re calling someone you’ve contacted recently, it takes four clicks just to get to the contact book, and then you have to input a few letters, choose the correct contact, and then…decide if you’re going to text or call them.

Get the message

While the touch-screen is highly accurate and sensitive, and the clever predictive text facility ensures you’re more than likely to type the right word first time –we did, however, find its hit-rate at guessing from mistypes is not as good as the iPhone, for instance.

The emailing facility is excellent – far better than on Windows phones we’ve seen before – and it features instant push notifications for Exchange, Hotmail and Gmail. Our email arrived as soon as it appeared in the desktop accounts – on the iPhone it can take Gmail more than a minute to appear. It’s also possible to opt to sync the whole account or choose to do so for a set period, including your custom folders.

Lights, camera, action

We tried taking scene and portrait shots in both lowlight and dark situations – we were surprised that we got better results in a totally dark room – which highlights the quality of the flash, In a lowlight situation, the auto setting produced images with a blue tinge. Both shots, however, were soft and blurred when we zoomed in. In daylight, images proved clear when viewed on the phone, but once we zoomed in they were still noisy. On a monitor, they suffered from the same slightly cool tint that we have previously witnessed on the HTC Desire.

It is possible to get some good action shots, but you’ll have to acquaint yourself with timing the shots while taking into account shutter lag – that’s one second in a daylight situation, more if you’re using flash. On the video side, we’re used to 720p as a standard, and you get little more from the Mozart. Once you’ve taken your photo or video, it is possible to share it online or back it up using SkyDrive, Microsoft’s cloud service. You get 25GB of storage with your Windows Live account.

Sounds

The iPhone has iTunes, but with the Mozart you’ll need to get a Zune account if you want to listen to your music. You’ll first have to download the software to your computer, but apart from that Zune is simple to use. Its interface is fresh and simple – there are menus for music, video, radio, podcasts and the marketplace where you can buy more music. It’s a bit of a shame that it’s not possible to create playlists on the go – a feature available on other music phones, whether it’s the iPhone or more basic devices. (It is possible to add tracks to a now-playing list, but you won’t be able to save it.)

Using the Sound Enhancer app, you are able to get 'virtual surround sound' by selecting Dolby Mobile effect or HTC's 'SRS Surround Sound' – this adds a bit more fullness to the sound. While the sound is a good standard for phone speakers, it in no way serves as a replacement for a set of travel speakers, for instance. If you’re using headphones it’s possible to add a number of ‘boosters’, from bass (which will big up the sounds) to rock or jazz, although we could discern little difference from these.

Exploring the web and navigating

If you’re heading onto the web you’ll find Internet Explorer quick to load. It also has a multitouch facility, and both images and text appear with clean edges. Choose to pinch to zoom, or do a double tap to whizz to 100%, which autofits text to the page. The only – pretty major – omission is copy and paste, which, Microsoft says, will be available some time in 2011.

It’s no surprise that your mapping option is restricted to Microsoft’s own Bing Maps, but we find it far more fiddly than Google Maps, and it offers no navigation features except for text direction on the phone.

For custom content, look to the ‘Hubs’ where either operator partners or manufacturers are able to include their own apps. The HTC's Hub has a few apps plus the clock-weather widget, but nothing to affect your everyday use of the operating system. Likewise, you’ll probably find yourself ignoring Orange’s preloaded apps –although one nifty facility available from Orange is that the price of your apps is billed directly to your mobile phone deal.

With all these features, and running Zune, push email, web browsing and sat-nav, we managed to eke 13.5 hours out of a full battery charge

The verdict

Windows Phone 7 is finally going to give iPhone and Android a run for their money. It’s incredibly well designed – and has the added bonuses of Zune and Xbox live, as well as that excellent integrated phonebook.

As for the hardware – we found the sound and the camera somewhat disappointing. And while the Mozart didn’t thrill us in the way something like the HTC Legend did, we have to say that Windows Phone is – surprisingly – a good enough OS to make the device ultimately very usable.

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HTC Desire Z

Style and handling summary for HTC Desire Z review
At 180g, the HTC Desire Z is a bit of a heavyweight, but it does boast a 3.7inch S-LCD screen that proves brighter than Super AMOLED displays

User friendliness summary for HTC Desire Z review
It might be a bit geeky, but this handset is easy to use, thanks to its simple setup and customisable home screens

Feature set summary for HTC Desire Z review
The five-megapixel snapper is a bonus, and we like the Car Panel app, which transforms the home screen into a sat nav dashboard

Performance summary for HTC Desire Z review
Surprisingly, considering the 1GHz processor and 512MB of RAM, the screen was sluggish in its responses

Battery power summary for HTC Desire Z review
You'll be charging this handset every night, as the battery power is average to say the least

Full Review and Specification for the HTC Desire Z

HTC has a long tradition of Windows-powered business handsets, so it is not surprising that an Android powered one has appeared. While the Desire Z has a respectable side, with its QWERTY keyboard, it also offers some fun with numerous media functions.

Back to basics

The Desire Z features the latest Android operating system, version 2.2, so there are some major new features to enjoy - as well as the HTC Sense interface, and some new widgets and apps. But HTC has still managed to retain the simple user-friendly interface. You'll find seven home screens, to which you can add shortcuts, apps, wallpapers and widgets. In the centre is the ‘home' screen. Here there is a default set of widgets and shortcuts (HTC dubs these ‘scenes' and there are a number of preselected ones to choose from). You can either customise these, or begin with a blank canvas and create your own. At the bottom of the display is a dock, which features a large swatch for Phone along with a pair of smaller tabs for personalisation and programs.

The personalisation menu is now uber-organised, with tabs for customising sound and display, as well as adding shortcuts to home screens. Turn on the handset for the first time and you'll be taken through a simple setup process that asks you to input all your social network and email accounts. The phone could be a bit geeky, but thanks to this straightforward setup, it is actually simple to use.

The Desire Z's HTML browser supports Flash, which enables the user to see web pages as they would appear on your desktop (and that includes embedded video), which puts it ahead of the likes of the iPhone and Windows 7 devices.

Looking good

The Desire Z weighs in at a quite hefty 180g. The battery sits behind a stainless steel cover that pops open when you press a spring-loaded button. The S-LCD display is 3.7inches, and proves brighter than the Super AMOLED displays. A narrow black bezel sits around its edge, and there are a total of four touch-sensitive areas for universal search, home, back and menu. The OK button takes the form of a black optical trackpad.

Along the sides of the device, you'll find a micro USB port and a volume rocker - right at the top there's a 3.5mm headphone jack. Memory can be expanded from 1.5GB up to 32GB thanks to a microSD slot. One thing we found annoying is that some of the apps - including the snapper - won't work unless a microSD is inserted, and you won't find one in the box.

Rather than the slider mechanism found on many QWERTY handsets, the Desire Z opens on a three-piece hinge. This offers the user the best possible space to use the four-line QWERTY keyboard, which is backlit for use in low light and has a number of nifty extras - there's a dedicated @ key, and you have the option of assigning two customisable keys to the apps of your choice. While the hinge opens and shuts with a snap, it's neither as smooth nor as controlled as that on the HTC Touch Pro2.

Android and power

With a 1GHz processor and a decent 512MB RAM under the bonnet, you'd expect this device to be pretty speedy, and yet we encountered quite a lag when using the screen. The display is still accurate and responsive, it can be sluggish to scroll and we waited a second for pinch to zoom to work. This may be down to the power-hungry Android 2.2 OS, as we encountered similar problems on the Desire when we updated it to 2.2 from its native Android 2.1

We also found ourselves having to force-close quite often - usually when we were running RAM-intensive features such as maps and the browser. If you want to close open apps without rummaging in the Settings menu, you'll have to download a task manager app from Android Market.

Thanks to its up-to-date OS, the Desire Z can act as a Wi-Fi hotspot - it does a clever trick where it transforms its 3G connection into a Wi-Fi network, to which you can connect other Wi-Fi devices. It's simple to achieve, and can be password-protected so all and sundry won't be using your network! However, be warned that this drains a lot of energy - and the battery has a very average life anyway. We found we had to charge up every night, and with the likes of 3G, Wi-Fi and sat-nav running, it didn't make it through the whole day.

Seeing sense.com

HTC now has a server where you can back up all your data - Sense.com. Using their Sense.com account, the user is able to back up everything from maps, links and contacts, to photos, searches and text messages. The nifty thing about this is that you can also transfer all this information onto another phone - so should you (heaven forbid) lose your phone, or upgrade to another Sense-Android phone, all these details can be downloaded onto the new desire. It is also possible to control your handset remotely using Sense.com.

Lost or left your phone somewhere? Choose from call and text forwarding options, a facility to lock your phone or - if you're sure it has gone forever - the remote wipe. It is also possible to make your phone ring on full; fantastic if you're in the habit of leaving it in silent mode and then putting it down ‘somewhere'. However, we didn't manage to get this to work while we were reviewing the device, and an HTC spokesman did state that this facility is a bit patchy at the moment.

You've got mail

One of the key highlights of the Desire Z is its universal inbox - this can stream your mail from a number of accounts (apart from Gmail). Like other Android handsets, there is a separate app for Gmail.

There is another mail app, entitled Mail, which allows you to add webmail and Microsoft Exchange. You could add Gmail in here if you wanted, but you'd end up getting two lots of notifications. Your mail notifications appear at the top of the display, as do other alerts. To see the full information, simply drag them down.

It is possible to view one mail account at a time, or you can look at them together. You are also able to sort messages by size, sender, date, subject or priority. The phone also allows you to look at other folders - such as trash, drafts or sent - but it only applies to mail that has been downloaded or created on the handset - so you won't be able to view everything you've ever sent, written or dumped. Each account's email is tagged with a different colour for identification, and you can choose to filter by mail with attachments, favourites or unread mail. But don't expect to see your responses, as you can on Gmail. If you're accessing Microsoft Exchange accounts, it's possible to add a facility that lets you flag mails as priority. Oddly, it won't work with invites from Google Calendar or sent from standalone Outlook accounts - we could, naturally, open them and go through to the Calendar app.

Application highlights

With the benefit of Google Maps and A-GPS, it has always been possible to use HTC Android handsets as sat navs, but now the Desire Z has something new in the shape of a Car Panel app, which transforms the home screen into a sat nav dashboard, complete with nearby points of interest, links to your finish point, a history of places visited - and there's also a shortcut to the dialler, so it's simple to use the phone. There's a free 30-day licence for voice navigation (we found the feminine voice quite soothing) but voice command is omitted. We did like the fact that you can put your handset in a car mount, and even if it's connected to neither a headset or car kit, the speakerphone will instantly turn on if you receive or make a call.

The phone's five-megapixel snapper is better than the one that was included on the Desire - daylight images are particularly good, with warm bright colours and decent clarity. Video records at 720p.

The verdict

There are a number of features that make the Desire Z an excellent business handset, but it will also appeal to Android fans thanks to its social networking, media and web facilities. Its top-notch touch-screen, access to Android apps and customisability make it stand out from the other QWERTY smartphones on the market.

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HTC Desire HD

Style and handling summary for HTC Desire HD review
The Desire HD manages to stay slim, despite the large screen, and its aluminium styling both looks and feels really good

User friendliness summary for HTC Desire HD review
The screen is great to touch, and thanks to the marvellous HTC Sense user interface, it's a joy to use

Feature set summary for HTC Desire HD review
So many highlights to mention - eight-megapixel camera, Wi-Fi, A-GPS, and high-def screen - along with the HTC Friend Stream social networking facility

Performance summary for HTC Desire HD review
A powerful processor gets to work on fantastic navigation, social networking, and internet user experiences, along with a very decent camera

Battery power summary for HTC Desire HD review
With such a large screen, it's no surprise that battery life is pretty average

Full Review and Specification for the HTC Desire HD

The HTC Desire gained plaudits from the industry, and now HTC has come back with a bigger - and probably better - offering in the shape of the HTC Desire HD. But don't dismiss it as just another follow-up device - the Desire HD is very much a new phone in its own right; it has a new look, a bigger display and a better operating system. Whatever, HTC has certainly put itself under some pressure to deliver something even better than the Desire, and to offer a plausible alternative for iPhone fans.

First appearances

With its slick aluminium chassis, the Desire HD probably has more of the look of the HTC Legend, rather than the Desire, which was Teflon based. On the back of the device you'll find a pair of removable covers. Underneath is a space to store the microSd card and SIM. On the right-hand side, the cover hides the battery storage space. This means it is possible to hot swap memory cards without the need to turn off the device first. Mind you, we were rather worried about the way in which the battery virtually falls out - if the battery cover became loose after prolonged use, would the battery fall out and get lost?

The Desire HD has very slim proportions, despite that huge 4.3in touchscreen, but it is really long, which makes it a bit cumbersome. We could still fit the device in a pocket, and we're big fans of large screens, but it may put off some users. We love that HTC has allowed the touch-screen to stretch to all the device's sides, apart from the bottom. Underneath the screen are four touch keys for search, Back, Menu and Home - unlike the original Desire, which had hard keys for these functions.

Touch-keys are not always too responsive but those on the Desire HD have no such problems; there's enough surface area to make sure that you get a good key press. The home key is quite comforting - at any time you can hit it and go straight back to the device's home screen (that's the one with HTC's well-known digital clock interface). If you hit the home key when you're viewing the main screen, up will pop seven screens as thumbnails; this means you can quickly touch the one you want and go right there, rather than having to go through them all. You can also do this with a pinching movement.

HTC Sense UI

HTC has always been big on customisation, but the Desire HD goes one better, with the help of the fantastic HTC Sense user interface. HTC has even gone so far as to add a dedicated customisation icon - this takes the shape of an artist's palette and paintbrush and is located in the bottom right-hand corner of the display. With the customisation icon, it is possible to edit home screens and change wallpaper; you can even alter the design and colours of Google's notification bar, which you'll find at the top of the display. This is where you'll be able to see social network activity, messages, updates and new emails. Pull the bar down and you'll be rewarded with a scrolling list of the most recent programs used - a nifty addition. Pulling down the notification bar is achieved by putting your thumb right at the top of the display, so that it overlaps onto the surrounding edge - it feels a little strange.

Getting social

We have to say; we think HTC offers the best social network integration experience of any of the phone manufacturers, thanks to Friend Stream, which manages to sync Twitter and Facebook contacts with no repeats. Pop a ‘What's on your mind' status and it will add an update on both networks; you can state what sort of news you want to see from which networks and are able to review the history of your conversation with specific contacts; you can also see photos they have put up on social networks. We were also impressed with the email facility - pop in your password and email address and you're off. Choose whether you want to have one stream of all your accounts merged together, or filter to look at all your email conversations with one contact, all mails with attachments or unread mails. It's the closest we've seen on a mobile device to a real desktop email experience. It's handy that the device remembers your email addresses, so that you don't need to re-enter them to log in to other accounts. The dedicated ‘com' key on the virtual keyboard (whether it is in landscape or portrait mode) is another bonus.

Underneath all this cleverness is Android's latest version of its operating system: FROYO 2.2. In short, it offers a faster user experience, voice search and dictation, and allows you to play flash video, like that embedded on a number of sites such as the BBC. We're generally very keen on Android, but we have to say it is not as smooth as the Apple OS, so it's great that HTC has managed to counteract this by adding its own skin of customisable menus and large icons.

Web browsing

Going online proved enjoyable, whether it was via W-Fi or HDSPA, thanks to the hugely responsive accelerometers and the excellent screen, which made watching videos a joy. Videos in landscape mode are particularly impressive, but we must add a note of caution - watch where you hold the phone if you're using both hands - because of the size of the display, we often found that a thumb would brush the edge of the screen and whisk us away to another page.

There are some useful features - hold a finger on any part of a website (except a picture or video) and a new window pops up offering three choices. You can choose to copy text - in which case the area will be magnified so that you can highlight the required text and copy it onto an email, text message or social network site. Quick Lookup offers the facility to highlight a word and then look it up on Google, Wikipedia, Google Translate, and Google Dictionary - even YouTube. Share Via offers the facility to post the link to the page either into a text or email or onto Twitter or Facebook. The only thing that came up short was that you can only view four pages at a time - but then we reckon it's rare that you'd need to look at more than four web pages all at the same time!

The HTC Desire HD has its full quota of media credentials. Yes it plays flash video, as we have mentioned, but it also offers great sound thanks to both surround sound and Dolby settings - just try listening in either of these, and go back to ‘normal' mode and you'll be amazed at the difference. It's hardly surprising, then, that there is a 3.5mm headphone socket, even though it is on the bottom of the handset. HTC assures us this is because it means if you keep your phone in your pocket with the 'phones plugged in; when you pull it out, it will be facing the right way - it seems they've thought of everything!

Snapper-happy

The HTC Desire HD has an eight-megapixel camera on-board, which makes it the best-equipped Android phone in terms of snapper so far (yes, we know the HTC Mozart has a Xenon Flash, too, but that is a Windows Phone 7 device). It's a shame that there is no lens protector, nor a dedicated camera key - instead you have to use a virtual icon on screen to switch it on, which we're not keen on. But we were impressed with the dual LED flash and there are a good dozen or so effects to play around with - they also offer the chance to preview before taking the photo. If you turn the phone around from portrait to landscape orientation, for instance, the virtual icons realign too, which is handy. The name will have given away the fact that the Desire HD offers high definition video, but we felt rather let down by the video recording facilities on offer. It's not awful, and does allow you to zoom in and out while recording, to record up to an hour's worth of footage, and to use the flash and the effects offered on the still camera. But we found it a shame that the video camera took some time to get used to changes in light, which resulted in rather amateurish footage.

Finding your way

One of the Desire HD's home screens has been designated for HTC's own mapping service, Footprints. It utilises Route 66's navigational technology which is fabulous, and offers ATM and petrol station locations, voice instructions and the option to call points of interest directly. However - there isn't much more on offer here than on Google Maps, which is also pre-loaded on the handset - and of course, you'll pay nothing more for the Google facility than data rates. Both options worked well, though, and there was a speedy A-GPS fix that stayed accurate and strong throughout our testing.

We could go on about the features on the Desire HD, but we're running out of space. But before we go we must just mention two more things: the highly useful call blocking facility, which lets you flag up numbers in your address book that you can divert straight to voicemail, and the Amazon MP3 store, which gives iTunes a run for its money, with loads of albums and singles available to buy, many at a cheaper price than Apple's store.

The verdict

At the beginning of this review, we said HTC had its work cut out improving on the already acclaimed HTC Desire, but it's done it with abundance. Okay, it may not have the initial wow factor, but that's mostly because we have already been wowed by the original and now know what to expect. But it does everything magnificently, from its perfect navigation to its fabulous social networking facilities. In fact, there are only two kinds of people who won't like it - those who find its case a tad too long, and the other is called Steve Jobs and runs a rather large technology firm named after a fruit. Not much we can do about that.

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HTC 7 Trophy

Style and handling summary for HTC 7 Trophy review
Well built and with subtle good looks, this stylish phone has plenty to offer

User friendliness summary for HTC 7 Trophy review
Using the Windows Phone 7 operating system is a fun, smooth and efficient experience

Feature set summary for HTC 7 Trophy review
All Windows Phone 7 devices offer lots of features including Wi-Fi and GPS, and the Trophy can also boast a 5-megapixel snapper and some excellent sound features

Performance summary for HTC 7 Trophy review
It's speedy and responsive: the fast processor and slick OS make it an enjoyable phone.

Battery power summary for HTC 7 Trophy review
Most smartphones need charging every night, and you'll probably want to do this with the Trophy, although it should take you into a second day if you need it to

Full Review and Specification for the HTC 7 Trophy
Now so many Windows Phone 7 (WP7) devices have appeared on the market, it's getting harder to distinguish between them all. Of course the Samsung Omnia 7 is recognisable by its super AMOLED screen, while the HTC HD7 is easy to recognise thanks to its huge display. The HTC Trophy, meanwhile is a little more understated, which, along with its smaller stature, may appeal to many of you.

First impressions
Try to forget the name, first of all. We can't see many people shouting about their new Trophy - just say you've got a new Windows Phone 7 handset and leave it at that. Looking at it from a design point of view, the HTC Trophy is pretty neat, with its understated brushed-metal chassis, which makes it feel reasonably solid. Around the display is a slim chrome frame; turn it over and it has a rubberised back. Stylish but classy.

All the basics are in the right place too - the 3.5mm headphone jack is on the top edges - the best position for it, and the micro USB connector has not been squirrelled away under a flimsy cover.

The Trophy (actually, the name's not as bad as we first thought) is a Vodafone exclusive. You'll see this when the trademark red tiles pop up on the home screen; click on one of these tiles and it will transport you to Vodafone's own portal, which is dubbed 360 MyWeb. One tile takes you to HTC's own hub, where you'll find a collection of excellent apps, including that HTC favourite, the weather - rather apt considering the conditions we're enduring at the moment. We are also fond of HTC Notes, an app that creates Post-It style notes, that even start curling at the edges after a while. We think that's supposed to encourage you to get on with whatever task that note is reminding you to do!

Touch me
Like HTC's other devices, the touchscreen can be wakened from its slumber by pressing the power button on the top of the handset, not by using the touch-sensitive lights on the front. This is, apparently, aimed at conserving battery life, as there's less chance of the screen being turned on by accident while the phone is in your bag or pocket.

We love the screen size - at 3.8in it's sizeable enough to look good while still keeping down the overall size of the handset. At this size, Microsoft's decreed resolution of 400-x800 pixels looks excellent. We were impressed by our view of video, photos and maps from its wonderful mapping app. Okay, it's not as bright as the AMOLED display that Samsung's Omnia 7 boasts, but it's really good for a regular LCD screen.

Snap-happy
And while those photos may not reach the heights of those produced by the HTC Mozart's 8-megapixel snapper, the Trophy's 5-megapixel camera complete with flash still offers very decent images. Like the other WP7 devices, we love the fact that one long press on the metal camera shutter button will wake up your handset, let you frame your image and snap it. A great feature.

So pictures are good, what about sound? The good news is that HTC has seen fit to include SRS Surround effects and Dolby Mobile on all its WP7 handsets.

We were also impressed by the Trophy's speed - which is all thanks to the 1GHz processor that Microsoft has insisted upon for all WP7 devices. It's partly because these chips are pretty pricey that no WP7 device edges into the budget price range. However, the Trophy has been set at a pretty competitive price - partly due to the fact that it only has 8GB of onboard memory, where many of the WP7 devices have 16GB.

The verdict
In the main, we were impressed with the Trophy. It's a decent handset to use although it has no wow features, but with understated style, solid build quality and the excellent WP7 operating system, we think HTC is onto a winner.

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HTC Gratia

Style and handling summary for HTC Gratia review
Slimmer and sleeker than the HTC Wildfire it succeeds, the Gratia is aimed at the female market and sports an industrial style. It comes in green, white and black

User friendliness summary for HTC Gratia review
At 3.2in, the screen is a tad small, which in turn means the keyboard is also a bit squashed, even for those with small hands. Android 2.2 Froyo is, however, user friendly


Feature set summary for HTC Gratia review
The five-megapixel camera is pretty good, especially as it has an LED flash and auto focus. It also has the bonus of voice navigation in Google Maps and a vocal commands app entitled Voice Search


Performance summary for HTC Gratia review
This is a decent mid-range smartphone, and it runs along nicely thanks to the 600MHz processor under its bonnet


Battery power summary for HTC Gratia review
A fully charged battery will see you through the day even if you have all those power-draining apps running


Full Review and Specification for the HTC Gratia
It may not be a flagship top-of-the-range handset, but that doesn’t mean the HTC Gratia is in any way boring. While HTC may make a big deal about its flagship models, it’s mid-range handsets like the Gratia that show why the phone maker has been so successful. This ‘affordable’ smartphone comes in at around £300, which is about £100 less than the Desire HD, and yet you still get the benefits of a five-megapixel snapper and Android 2.2 Froyo as well as a full set of sat nav and internet features.

Looking good

If you’re a fan of HTC handsets (and there’s a lot of you around nowadays), you probably realise that the Gratia is the next generation of the Wildfire. It’s thinner and sleeker – actually it’s targeted at women who apparently prefer smaller handsets – and has an unusual design with a wraparound back cover that encases the device like a jacket.

Our model came in pure white – but you can also choose a green or black chassis – and has an industrial look with its four silver screws situated at each corner. Under the speaker vent lurks the five-megapixel cameras lens – to open the back cover you press down on the speaker. Even inside, HTC’s unusual style is apparent – it features a coloured battery slot like that of the HTC Smart.

In terms of specs, the Gratia is on equal par with the Wildfire. It has the same 600MHz processor (which is par for the course in mid-range handsets like this), as well as a five-megapixel camera and 512MB of memory. Luckily, it comes with a 2GB memory card, as otherwise you wouldn’t be able to use the camera. However, while the Wildfire’s display only managed a 240x320 screen, which suffered from pixelation, the Gratia has the benefit of a far smoother 320x480 display that has truer colours.

Touch-screen

Most smartphones now manage a capacitive screen and the Gratia is no exception. Although it is mostly responsive and accurate, we encountered a slight lag when tapping on the virtual keyboard.

At 3.2 inches, the screen is a tad small, and this resulted in a rather cramped keyboard, which took some getting used to. The backspace key was especially hard to find, and we found landscape mode was the best orientation for typing.

It was easy to swipe through the seven home screens, an experience that also benefits from the pinch-to-zoom facility, which works in browser and gallery mode as well. You can also pinch to display all seven screens in ‘helicopter mode’, which makes for a speedy method to hop between them.

You’ll find the traditional Android buttons (Back, Menu, Home and universal Search) under the screen – they’re presented as touch-sensitive areas. The OK button is served with a silver optical touch-pad, which also acts as a tiny mousepad.

Android 2.2 benefits

Like the top-end HTC phones, the Gratia sports Android 2.2 Froyo, already superceded by 2.3 Gingerbread, which appears on the Google Nexus S and is due to make an appearance on the next batch of HTC handsets. This is not unusual with Android, which is upgraded at the drop of a hat, but unless you’re obsessed with having the very latest technologies, it shouldn’t be too much of a worry.

The Gratia is easy to set up, thanks to HTC’s Sense interface. Making the phone’s personalisation simple are a number of preloaded combinations of shortcuts and widgets entitled ‘Scenes’ – good news for smartphone newbies. A setup screen when you start up will advise you to sync Facebook, Twitter, email and Flickr accounts.

HTC’s Friend Stream widget has always been a big selling point on Android handsets, and the Gratia is no exception. The widget brings together news feed from your social networks. HTC’s extra touches give its smartphones the added edge, and we’re big fans of its bespoke widgets – the weather clock that shows a variety of animations according to the actual weather, for instance.

Some new features include the Voice Search vocal commands app and a facility to tether the device to a PC and utilise it as a modem, as well as voice navigation in Google Maps.

Voice Search should allow the user to send emails and texts by speaking into the phone, but we were unable to get it to work. It managed to recognise what we said, but sent this into a Google search.
It was easy to call our contacts from our phone book, although non-standard English did prove a bit troublesome. Say ‘Navigate to’ and you’re taken straight to Google Maps.

Snapper

Most Android handsets sport pretty average cameras, so we were surprised at the pretty decent five-megapixel snapper on the Gratia, which also boasts LED flash and auto focus. We took some images in daylight and found they were better than those we’d seen on HTC’s former devices. The images lacked the blue tinge seen on snaps from the Desire, and the colours are pretty true, even though they’re not up there with the likes of the iPhone’s snapper. Image resolution was decent too, and zooming in resulted in little in the way of noise.

While there is no dedicated camera button, you can fire up the snapper by pressing the silver touch-pad. The camera’s shutter is speedy, reducing the chance of image blur, although the auto focus takes a while.

The verdict

HTC has produced plenty of Android devices recently, and the Gratia comes up to its usual high standards. It’s hardly a budget phone, at £299 SIM free, but it’s a decent mid-range device with a number of advanced features you’d expect on a high-end smartphone. If you’re looking for a new Android handset but don’t want to hang around waiting for the next generation of HTC phones, the Gratia is a good choice.

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HTC 7 Pro

Style and handling summary for HTC 7 Pro review
A tad lighter than most slider phones with touch-screens, but it’s still quite substantial. We really liked the five-line QWERTY keyboard but found the slider rather stiff

User friendliness summary for HTC 7 Pro review
Windows Phone 7 is a contemporary, fresh operating system and a joy to use, and we like the way the 3.6-in WVGA display slides out at an angle for easy inputting

Feature set summary for HTC 7 Pro review
This powerful smartphone has either 8GB or 16GB of onboard storage, a five-megapixel snapper and a 1GHz processor. It also offers the chance to sync with Facebook and plenty of email accounts

Performance summary for HTC 7 Pro review
While applications all fire up and work speedily and smoothly, and the contacts book has plenty of features, including photos and social feeds, it’s a shame multitasking will have to wait for an update to the operating system

Battery power summary for HTC 7 Pro review
You’d be lucky to get a full day out of a full battery charge – but that’s par for the course for the more advanced smartphones

Full Review and Specification for the HTC 7 Pro

We need to point out something straight away – the HTC 7 Pro is no more business focused than the HTC Mozart , which was music oriented. While you do get a QWERTY keyboard that lends itself to professional typists, the rest of its offerings are the same as the other Windows Phone 7 handsets on the market. But is that super keyboard good enough to persuade users to buy this rather than any other phone?

First impressions

With the slider closed, the 7 Pro is quite substantial, although it still managed to be quite a lightweight compared with other slider handsets. Below the 3.6in widescreen high-res touch-screen you’ll find three touch-sensitive areas dedicated to universal Search, Home and Back. At the top of the handset are the power button and 3.5mm audio jack – there are also inputs for the microUSB charging port and the dedicated camera shutter. Built-in memory comes in a substantial 8Gb or 16GB, although you have to bear in mind that like other WP7 phones there is no microSD slot to allow you to expand on this at all.

The HTC 7 Pro’s forerunner was the HTC Touch Pro2, which ran on Windows Mobile and was pretty popular with business users. Like that phone, the 7 Pro has a tilting touch-screen that slides out over a five-line QWERTY keyboard. It’s a shame that the mechanism is rather stiff and we found we had to push quite hard to get the screen going – it even makes a scratching sound as it moves. Once it is out, the screen sits at a 30-degree angle, which makes it very comfy for typing. The keyboard length was also conducive to typing without that rather stretched feel you sometimes get on landscape keyboards. Cursor keys, a dedicated number line and an emoticon button add to the user-friendly effect – great for heavy texters.

Finding your way

While the keyboard is excellent, we found even the virtual one was just as good, due to the very responsive display. It’s simple to use as WP7 proves itself an intuitive OS, with its one home screen and one all-programs screens, all based on a set of rectangular and square widgets. We rather like this uniform appearance, compared with the likes of the iPhone’s and Android’s icon-ised look. You’ll see new events in apps including Calendar, webmail and inbox appear in these ‘live tiles’, which can be moved around easily to help you customise the look.
What we did find annoying was the fact that all apps instant reorient themselves to landscape mode (except on the home screen) when the keyboard is slid out. It makes the phone feel rather annoyingly chunky in portrait mode.

When the phone fires up, it asks you to input your Windows Live password, to start an account if you don’t already have one. This will then load your Hotmail contacts, calendar and inbox – so if you’ve had your Hotmail account for yonks and it’s got loads of contacts that you never talk to, it might be worth starting up a new account for your phone. The password also gives you access to a cloud server service call SkyDrive, which lets you back up contacts and content for free – up to 25GB worth. We really like the remote access facility, which allows you to lock or wipe your handset if it gets lost – or you can even find it using GPS location.

One omission in WP7 that does stand out is the lack of multitasking. It should appear with the update to the OS in June, but until it does, being unable to keep open apps when you’re firing up another one can be irritating – especially as Android, iPhone and BlackBerry handsets are all capable of this.

Doing business

There’s an easy-to-use interface for syncing Microsoft Exchange, Yahoo!, Gmail and Facebook as well as other web mail accounts. This lets you load on calendars and contacts from these accounts (read photos and contacts for Facebook), resulting in a hyper contacts book that shows photos and social feeds.

You can view the calendar by day, agenda or month – it all appears in a fresh, contemporary design that looks rather like the digital version of a real calendar.

While push email is available, you won’t get a universal inbox like those found on Blackberry and iPhone handsets. And you’ll also miss out on the threaded view that retains all emails on the same subject together a la iPhone, or the conversation view that you’ll experience using Gmail on Android handsets.

Having said that, if you’re inputting a new message, the HTC 7 Pro will auto-suggest email addresses from all your accounts. We also like the business-focused facility that allows you to highlight important emails, and if you’re in inbox view, scroll between urgent, unread, flagged and all-mail.

What we did find irritating is that apart from the first alert, there is no repeat notification of new messages or mails. On Android and BlackBerry devices you’ll see an LED when there are unread alerts.

As you’ll see on other HTC WP7 devices, there is a ‘discreet ring’ facility, which means the ringer quietens down if you move the phone, and goes mute if you turn over the handset.
Internet, navigation and snapper

Because this is a Microsoft system, your browser is Internet Explorer Mobile, which is smoother than the first incarnations of its desktop version. You’ll find you can pinch to zoom and that it supports full HTML – and fonts and images look sharp. Double tap to zoom in (and autofit) – and you can keep up to six windows open at the same time.

Mapping comes courtesy of Bing Maps, which is not quite up to Google Maps standard – a feature that’s unlikely to ever be available on WP7 phones.

Last but not least is the five-megapixel snapper. It’s as good as most other phones on HTC devices – that is, it is pretty average. Daylight photos appear oversaturated, and there is blur apparent even before you zoom in. We found the camera hard to use one-handed, because of the handset’s size – however the shutter is pretty speedy. We did like the addition of HTC’s Photo Enhancer, which offers different filters to play with.

The verdict

Windows phone 7 is a joy to use as always, and while the HTC 7 Pro is no exception, we prefer other WP7 handsets. The sliding mechanism is too stiff and the handset’s body will be just too substantial for a lot of users. Having said that, phones with slider and touch-screen are always going to be on the chunky side. Business users may find that the one-off email notification is a problem, but for anyone looking for a ‘fun’ smartphone that does well when it comes to messaging, the 7 Pro could be one to consider.

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HTC Incredible S

Style and handling summary for HTC Incredible S review
The Incredible S is well built, with a matte black chassis, but the slight bump on its back makes it look a tad awkward. The SLCD screen is clear and bright and we liked the auto-rotating touch-icons

User friendliness summary for HTC Incredible S review
HTC's own Sense interface is as user-friendly and intuitive as always, offering a top-notch setup menu that helps you get started immediately with email and social networks

Feature set summary for HTC Incredible S review
Everything you’d expect on a smartphone – social networking, email, web and sat nav. Plus the new 1GHz chip ensures multitasking works smoothly, and the eight-megapixel snapper has a dual-LED flash and is the highest-specced camera you’ll find on any HTC phone

Performance summary for HTC Incredible S review
The touch-screen is accurate and responsive, but really speedy typists may notice a slight lag on the virtual keyboard. For web browsing and social networking it’s excellent, and Gmail users will have the best experience on any Android handset

Battery power summary for HTC Incredible S review
Plenty of hours on offer from a full charge, with 245 hours on standby, 600 minutes of talktime and 35 hours of music playback

Full Review and Specification for the HTC Incredible S
The problem for HTC is that we expect a lot from its phones now. This latest launch, the Incredible S, is actually a European version of the much-heralded HTC Droid Incredible that was released in the US last year. The handset has a new, really sharp SLCD screen and runs on Android 2.2 Froyo (although you will be able to upgrade it to 2.3 Gingerbread) and has the full set of smartphone features. While no one could deny it’s a good handset, it could well be overtaken by the next generation of superphones that are due out this summer.

Looking good
HTC has rarely gone for ordinary when it comes to design – just think of the Teflon-coated Hero and Desire, or the bright colours of the Trophy or HD Mini. HTC has gone for the matte look on the Incredible S, and added a new design feature – a raised rectangle over most of its back, which we assume is to make space inside for its features without making the whole phone too chunky. While the Hero has a chin to protect its display, the Incredible S leans more towards the hunchback look – mind you it does grow on you after a while.

The WVGA display is four inches in size, and there’s a touch-sensitive strip at the bottom where you’ll find the usual Android touch areas for back, menu, search and home. Rather cleverly, the display’s LEDs rotate when you move the handset onto its side, so the glowing icons always appear the right way round.

The screen is now a super-clear SLCD, which offers improved visibility in daylight. Like all of HTC’s handsets recently, we were wholly impressed with the phone’s build quality.

Back to basics
The phone runs on Android, which is skinned with HTC’s own Sense interface, which offers top-notch social networking integration and email setup, as well as a detailed start-up screen that allows the user to input details for Facebook, Twitter, email and Flickr accounts. Something new is the extra screen that asks if you’d like to move data from your old phone – although when we reviewed the phone it wasn't capable of doing this for newer models such as the iPhone 4. If you’re already a smartphone owner, you probably have all your contacts synced on Microsoft Exchange or webmail and have everything else stored on a microSD card, but it's a nice touch for smartphone newbies.

It’s pretty fast to load up – six seconds from pressing the power button to having all the homescreens loaded. It also logged on to 3G networks and Wi-Fi pretty quickly. HTC’s Sense interface gives you a total of seven homescreens, which can all be customised with widgets and app shortcuts. To do this, just hold down the homescreen and a menu will pop up that allows you to personalise sound, homescreen and display. If you really don’t want to be playing about with these, there are a number of default homescreen settings (also called ‘Scenes’) for you to opt for, with themes such as ‘Work’ or ‘Social’ and which feature suitably relevant widgets and apps.

The display is a capacitive touch-screen that offers multi-touch support. Pinch to zoom and you can see all seven homescreens in bird’s eye view. We found the virtual keyboards accurate and quite responsive but if you’re a really speedy typist you may experience a touch of lag. The iPhone 4’s virtual keyboard is probably just a tad better.
Social networking
HTC's trump card has always been its social networking facilities. Using the Friend Stream widget you’ll find all your social network feeds aggregated, plus you can sync your social network contacts into your contacts book – choose to show all of them or only those that have phone numbers. The advantage of most Android social apps means that if you download any new apps, such as Skype, they will also sync contacts with the phonebook.

When it comes to email you get the usual Android experience – all email (including Microsoft Exchange corporate mail) streams into one app, with the exception of Gmail that has a separate app that replicates the desktop experience. The former email app streams all mail into one inbox, but annoyingly not your Gmail messages. Sometimes it seems as if Google is following in Apple’s footsteps by jealously protecting its products.

Web browsing also worked well, offering a full HTML browser with the ability to pinch to zoom and to copy and paste.

Images and movies
The HTC Incredible S features the highest-specced camera you’ll find on any HTC device – the eight-megapixel snapper has a dual LED Flash and features adjustments for contrast, exposure and settings. And yet its results are rather average. On default settings we ended up with daylight photos that were over-exposed and we found the flash too powerful in low light, especially when it came to taking pictures of people’s faces.

Sure, you can adjust the settings, but it seems strange when everything else is set up correctly from the get-go. After some tweaking we discovered that lowering the exposure by one level and adjusting the contrast depending on the light available made a difference. However, there was still some blur and the colours weren’t bright enough. Having said that, the shutter is quick, which means you don’t need an ultra-steady hand for a sharp picture, and we like the onboard photo effects that let you add cool tints to your images – rather like the Hipstamatic app on iPhone.

On the front of the device is a 1.3-megapixel camera for video calls – however, you won’t find a native video-calling feature on the phone, and Skype doesn’t actually support video calls on Android. Yes, you can download the likes of Tango and Fring from Android market, but you’ll only be able to call friends who already have these services as well.

One bonus is that the video player supports DivX as well as other file formats. DivX is the format used by most high-quality and HD video that you will download from the web (unless it’s from the iTunes Store), so it makes the Incredible S an excellent – and futureproof – video phone. It also benefits from that SLCD screen, which displays high-definition in all its glory, with true, bright colours.

Something for the geeks
One of the biggest surprises was the battery life the Incredible S offers. Because it has a higher capacity battery than its forebears, the phone survived for more than 15 hours, with HSDPA and Wi-Fi on, while we downloaded Spotify playlists, downloaded apps and even did a bit of GPS-assisted navigation. So the good news is your phone won’t die in the middle of the night if you don’t charge it (and importantly will still be able to wake you up if you have the alarm on!) When you get down to 15% of battery life, a prompt tells you to alter your power settings, and the power meter also highlights what is using up the most juice (we found it to be that glorious SLCD screen).

Multitasking proved speedy and smooth, although it became jerkier as the power ran down if we had some high-load apps running in the background. It is possible to switch between your open apps if you hold down the home key, when the multi-tasking apps bar pops up. It’s just annoying that you’re not able to close down programs from here – you have to delve into the Settings menu instead. While there are plenty of task manager apps available from Android Market, you’d have to be a bit of a techie to even think of doing that and we asked ourselves why HTC hasn’t managed to preload one onto the handset, or, indeed just got round to creating a native task managing facility.

With Google Maps and A-GPS on board, the Incredible S makes a decent sat-nav (as do most HTC devices) and using the Car Panel app makes it even more suited to navigating while driving.

The Incredible S is speedier than its US counterpart thanks to a newer 1GHz processor (rather than the Qualcomm MSM8255 model and the fact that it supports the speedier 802.11/n Wi-Fi rather than the older 802.11/b and g protocols.

It will be possible to update the Incredible S to Android 2.3 Gingerbread in the summer, although one of the major new features – NFC technology that allows contactless payments to be made using the device – won't be supported, because the Incredible S lacks the actual NFC chip itself. While NFC is not yet being used by phones, the likes of T-Mobile, Orange, O2 and Vodafone are all backing it and it’s likely that the next generation of superphones will all feature it.

The verdict
HTC has managed to produce a very capable device, but it still has all those Android issues that have never changed – the split between Gmail and all other mail, a very average snapper and the omission of a native task manager. Okay, none of them are the end of the world – and it is possible to fix the last two issues – but early adopters may baulk at the omission of NFC support. It means that if you buy the handset on a two-year contract, it could be out of date before your contract ends. However, on the positive front, it’s a top device for video and social networking, and as you can get it free on a £25 a month contract, it’s a pretty decent deal. So, if the very latest technology is less important to you than solid email, web and email, then the HTC Incredible S is still a solid buy.

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HTC Desire S

Style and handling summary for HTC Desire S review
With its aluminium unibody, the Desire S feels smooth in the hand, while it gets a retro feel from its rounded edges and matt rubber embellishments

User friendliness summary for HTC Desire S review
Improved performance thanks to Android Gingerbread, as well as more responsiveness from the touch screen and a speedier virtual keyboard. We also like the HTC Sense interface

Feature set summary for HTC Desire S review
What you'd expect from a smartphone - snapper, sat-nav, and social networking, email and web on a par with the desktop experience - but there are bigger and better devices on the horizon, with high-definition displays and dual-core processors, so it may seem a bit old hat come the end of the year

Performance summary for HTC Desire S review
Performance was mostly speedy and smooth, with decent multitasking capabilities, although every so often we didn't receive email alerts

Battery power summary for HTC Desire S review
You'll get a slightly better battery life thanks to a slightly bigger battery - but you'll still need to charge it at the end of each day

Full Review and Specification for the HTC Desire S
The HTC Desire S is a darn fine phone. And if you've been keeping up with phone developments and are familiar with the work of HTC that's about all we need to say. Because the Desire S is very much like the Desire HD, the Incredible S and the Desire - just wrapped up in a different chassis. Features-wise it comes on a par with the Incredible and the HD - and as the Desire is set to get an Android Gingerbread upgrade, that will soon be pretty much the same too. While the Desire S really just represents an incremental upgrade on the Desire stable, is there room for another one - and does the Desire S do enough to earn its rightful place?

Looking good
The first standout feature is the aluminium unibody - which comes in grey, slate or black. On the top and bottom of the device there are matt black plastic pads, and its rounded edges offer the familiar trademark HTC retro look. The 3.7in touch-screen is of the S-LCD type, which offers a brighter, sharper take on the LCD screen of the Desire HD, and is easier to view in sunlight - although its colours don't quite match up to the likes of the high-res screens found on phones such as the Xperia Arc. The usual Android buttons - search, back, home and menu - are found in four touch-sensitive areas along the bottom.

The search key is great - you can use it to do an apps search from the home-screen or launch the web, or use it for app-relevant searches when in most apps.

Under the hood is a 1GHz processor, plus 1GB RAM, which is a step up from the Desire. Like other phones on Android 2.2 and above, the Desire S can be used as a Wi-Fi hotspot, as it can convert the 3G signal into Wi-Fi, to which other devices are able to connect. The battery is bigger than the Desire HD, at 1450mAh compared to 1230mAh, so there's a definite improvement in battery life, but you'll still have to charge the device every night.

Back to basics
The Desire S is the first of HTC's phones to be launched with Android Gingerbread (although the Incredible S is due an upgrade soon), and most of the differences can be found under the bonnet. Performance on the Desire was a bit sluggish, even with a 1GHz processor, but the Desire S offers a smooth experience - it's faster, has a better virtual keyboard, and multitasking works well.

Anyone who is familiar with HTC's Android handsets will have no problem getting accustomed to the seven home-screens, which can be customised with widgets and pre-loaded apps - as always the HTC weather-clock is a joy, with its animation of current climes when the phone is nudged awake from sleep mode.

Setting up and syncing email is easy thanks to the handy start-up screen, which also takes you through setting up Facebook, Twitter and Flickr step by step. If you don't already have one, you'll need a Gmail account to activate the handset - this will sync contacts with your phone book, as well as all your social network contacts. Android 2.2 lets you back up your data with Google - which means every time you sign in to a new Android handset with that email address, it automatically downloads everything from saver usernames to apps, so if that doesn't appeal make sure you leave that option unticked.

Looks-wise, the only thing that's different in Gingerbread is the all-programs menu - this appears as a vertically stacked set of screens, rather than one long scrolling menu - and there's a features tab that allows you to change settings such as 3G and Wi-Fi quickly. A toolbar at the top of the screen is where your alerts will appear, but we found this to be rather unreliable, as alerts popped up some minutes after the email had actually arrived. Also, we had some trouble receiving texts - they often didn't appear unless we sent a new one, or made a phone call.
Snapper
The five-megapixel snapper has an LED flash and autofocus. While HTC has been working on improving its cameras, this is still not really a ‘good' camera phone. Having said that, it does offer a reasonable amount of options for tweaking settings before you take a snap and some nifty effects to add on afterwards. We'd still like to see a better lens and a few less software options though, as seen on the iPhone 4. However, the images are pretty decent, with better colour reproduction than those from the Desire HD's snapper. In daylight, images come out pretty clearly, although we noticed some over-sharpening if we zoomed in.

In low light with the flash turned off, the images were slightly blurry, especially if we had zoomed in, but some pictures we took in a dimly lit club were okay when viewed on a monitor. Where it comes up trumps - compared with the iPhone 4 - is when it comes to sharing options. You can send your picture via any of your emails, MMS or social network apps.

You can also record in HD video, at a DVD-quality frame rate. There is a front-facing VGA camera for making video calls, although you'll find no native video calling feature on the phone - and Skype does not yet support video calls on Android handsets. You can choose apps such as Fring or Tango, but your friends will have to use these too.

Apps and internet
Android handsets have always had the benefit of an excellent browser that offers full HTML for a desktop-like browsing experience. The web pages will automatically fit the display, which means you don't have to do a lot of scrolling, and a double tap switches between zoom-in and 100% page views. A nifty addition is the ability to download the Chrome to Phone app - this means you can send text and links that you are reading on your computer over to your phone. It's handy if you're checking out phone numbers or map links.

Android Market now offers you a choice of 300,000 apps and is fast approaching the number of iPhone apps available (350,000). But HTC has had the foresight to preload a good few apps on the Desire S, so you may not need to go shopping any time so. The Car Panel app offers a proper sat-nav experience for drivers, there's a Places augmented reality app for nearby points of interest, an ebook reader and Soundhound, which is a Shazam-lookalike.

The verdict
HTC has been busy bringing a host of Android handsets to market that all have similar features and pricetags. While there will be higher-tech phones available soon, with dual-cores and ultra-HD screens, the Desire S has plenty to offer the average smartphone use, with email, web, apps, social networking and casual photography options. So why would you buy it? Well, it's pretty much the same as the Incredible S, but comes in a smaller package.

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