Since Apple announced its completely touch-sensitive iPhone, everyone has gone contact crazy. The LG Prada arrived and now HTC is joining this ticklish troupe with its Windows Mobile Touch smartphone

You could be lead to believe from the furore caused by the Apple iPhone and the LG Prada, with their ‘revolutionary’ touch-sensitive navigation modus operandi, that the touch-screen has just been invented. Of course, this display technology has been around for years, but manufacturers have only recently started to implement touch-navigation in more mainstream handsets like the LG Chocolate and the Samsung E900.

More interestingly, the likes of Apple and LG have taken this touch-technology a step further, making it  intelligent and more sensitive, and susceptible to varying degrees of pressure and techniques. The idea behind this move towards a completely touch-sensitive world is that this method supposedly panders to our basic human instincts. But for a mobile phone-loving planet weaned on mechanised buttons, we’re not sure how it will be received.

Nevertheless, the latest manufacturer to fully embrace this concept is smartphone practitioner HTC. Its new Windows device, the aptly titled Touch, implements HTC’s proprietary TouchFLO platform that responds to more than just mere fingertip jabs.

Before we look at HTC’s TouchFLO in detail, it’s also worth noting that the Touch handset is the manufacturer’s first model to be signed up by the networks, namely Orange and T-Mobile, still under the HTC brand. So you won’t be seeing SPV or MDA versions.

Smart and sleek

Both the LG Prada and Apple iPhone have proved that for any chance at success, the touchy-feely nature needs to be combined with a highly stylish design. Luckily, the Touch is an incredibly sleek device, measuring 13.9mm thick and is compact and relatively lightweight at 112g.

It’s also swathed in a wonderfully tactile soft paint finish and metallic trim, making it a pleasure to handle. The design is  minimalist, with only a volume switch on the left side and camera shutter key on the right. A hot-swappable microSD card slot and SIM card slot are neatly hidden under the metallic side bar and, although accessible, we found trying to slide home the SIM fiddly with the spring mechanism often rejecting the card.

Touchy, touchy

While the dominant navigation method is fingertip touch, unlike the Apple iPhone, the Touch sports mechanical keys and a stylus for a degree of flexibility. The five-way D-pad and call keys give the phone familiarity, but we mainly used the stylus to work through the more intricate menus. A Windows Mobile 6 OS powers this smartphone and, while the core menu doesn’t deviate much from fellow 6-ers, HTC has tinkered with the homescreen to promote fingertip operation.

A natty black and graphite icon-based design screen still offers the standard messages, appointments and missed calls information, but you now get three new icons to activate a launcher for popular features, return to homescreen and a weather update. The latter hooks onto a GPRS connection and brings you the latest five-day forecast for your area.

Gleaming the cube

The Touch’s smart abilities really only kick in when you summon HTC’s Touch Cube menu system. This will appear with one broad stroke right across the 2.8-inch display from bottom to top while in the homescreen. The first side of the interface will show a phonebook menu that displays your nine favourite contacts, complete with photos, and access to your complete calls and contacts list.

To access the second interface, slide your thumb or finger from left to right (or vice versa) and this will swivel round – complete with 3D graphics – to reveal three icons to activate your music, photo gallery and videos. Repeat the stroking technique and the last interface will appear giving access to email, SMS/MMS, Internet Explorer, tasks, a communications manager and calendar.

Once inside the different features, you can flit between these menus using the same up-and-down sweep technique. There’s no discernible lag between interfaces, but you have to apply more pressure to get the TouchFLO technology, er, flowing. Once you’ve gauged its response, this touch-technology gets smoother, but you will need plenty of practice before you make it anywhere near as efficient as a mechanised keypad. Its erratic nature can be annoying and if you’re prone to fits of impatience, you might want to steer clear.

Multimedia miscellany

Elsewhere, the HTC Touch plays out much like other Windows Mobile devices, with integrated push-email support, synchronisation with your contacts, emails, calendar and task on your desktop PC’s Outlook and you can read and edit email attachments. The Pocket Internet Explorer is primed for web browsing over an EDGE connection, but HTC could have stretched to 3G, at least. However, Wi-Fi is on hand if you demand broadband speeds.

A basic two-megapixel snapper without auto-focus or flash graces the rear. It shoots in 1200x1600 pixels and picture quality is adequate, although you won’t be printing out your snaps. The new-look Audio Manager is handy, organising your music library neatly into artists, albums, songs, genres, composers and playlists.

Verdict

We have to admit we weren’t entirely convinced with the TouchFLO OS and it makes us wonder how the Apple iPhone, with its completely touch-sensitive navigation, will fare. Still, the HTC Touch is a capable, svelte, attractive and feature-rich smartphone. Its selling point is its sophisticated sensitive side, but this proved too unpredictable to embrace unconditionally.

TouchFLO technology
Windows Mobile 6 OS
Built-in Wi-Fi
Two-megapixel camera
Expandable memory