HTC Touch Pro2 (Verizon)

Sometimes second-best just isn't quite good enough. Verizon's Touch Pro2 is the second-best of the four carrier models of this phone, after Sprint's. It's also Verizon's second-best Windows Mobile smartphone (after the smoother HTC Imagio) and their second-best business smartphone, after the BlackBerry Storm2. But if you're a business executive looking for a proper Windows Mobile device with a keyboard, the Touch Pro2 will serve you well.

Design and Call Quality
The Touch Pro2 is huge. It measures 4.6 by 2.3 by 0.7 inches (HWD) and weighs a hefty 6.4 ounces. It looks a little meaner than the AT&T Tilt2 due to its blackened front panel surround. HTC's vast 3.6-inch, 480-by-800-pixel touch LCD is glass and resistive; while it's not as responsive as an iPhone or Android handset, it's perfectly acceptable. The display tilts at a 45-degree angle for watching videos or impersonating a tiny laptop. The five-row Touch Pro2 keyboard is excellent in this incarnation; like on the Sprint version, there's a top horizontal row of numbers instead of a square number pad.

The Touch Pro2 is a true world phone, with dual-band EV-DO Rev A (850/1900 MHz), quad-band EDGE (850/1900/1800/1900 MHz), and foreign HSDPA (2100 MHz) support. That means you'll get high-speed data both in the U.S. and overseas. It also includes Wi-Fi. Voice quality was excellent and callers sounded bright and crisp in the earpiece. Wind rejection was only moderate; callers could easily tell when I stepped outside or inside. Reception was slightly weaker than my reference BlackBerry Curve 8330 on Verizon. A little static crept into calls in rural areas, but I rarely lost EV-DO signal. The noise-canceling speakerphone sounded clear and loud in both directions, though there was slight distortion at the top of the volume range. Calls also sounded fine through a Plantronics Voyager Pro Bluetooth headset. Battery life was solid at 5 hours and 47 minutes.

UI, Web, and Apps
The Touch Pro2 has a Qualcomm MSM7600A CPU running at 528 MHz, along with 264MB internal storage and 183MB of RAM, with 57MB free for user programs. Just like on the HTC Imagio and Sprint Touch Pro2, Verizon's version of the Touch Pro2 really cleans up Windows Mobile's interface. After browsing HTC's beautiful, sliding TouchFLO 3D panels, tap the Windows button and you'll see a straight grid of customizable menu icons for other common tasks. Verizon and HTC also replaced the ugly staggered icon menus for settings and the communications manager, making this handset easier to navigate than the AT&T and T-Mobile versions. When the handset is locked, press any button and the handset will display a small graphic pointing to the unlock/power switch—unlike the Tilt2, which just appears dead until you figure out which button unlocks it.

Disappointingly, the Touch Pro2 only runs Windows Mobile 6.1 for now, although HTC has promised a future upgrade. Since HTC overwrites much of the UI, that doesn't amount to too much aside from the lack of Windows Marketplace for Mobile and My Phone support. That said, while TouchFLO has improved over the past year, the Touch Pro2 still feels like it has a split personality once you stumble into all the fiddly Microsoft dialogs and tiny buttons.

Things improve once you get down to business. Like all Windows Mobile smartphones, the HTC Touch Pro2 is a solid messaging device. All the usual e-mail, Exchange, and document editing hooks are present. There's no built-in instant messaging, unlike on the Sprint model; Verizon offers download links for AIM, MSN Live, and Yahoo Messenger, at the carrier's usual, annoying pay-per-SMS rate. Opera Mobile 9.5 does an excellent job with desktop Web pages. There's no Flash, but it's easy to scroll around pages. VZ Navigator 4.1.6 took about 15 seconds to start up, but locked into my position quickly and offered clear, voice-enabled, turn-by-turn directions. Annoyingly, it only worked in landscape mode with the keyboard extended, which was impractical while driving. The built-in accelerometer did kick in when browsing the Web, though.

Multimedia, Camera, and Conclusions
My 16GB SanDisk microSD card worked fine in the side-mounted slot, which was underneath the battery cover but didn't require removing the battery. MP3, AAC, and WMA music tracks sounded bright and clear over Motorola S9-HD Bluetooth headphones. WMV and 3GP videos played smoothly. Windows Media player is still a little annoying, though: the volume drops the video out of full screen mode, and you must still navigate through tedious folder levels to get to video files on a storage card.

The 3.2-megapixel camera includes auto-focus, but lacks an LED flash. Photos were disappointing, with prominent pixelation and smeared details. The auto-focus helped keep things fairly sharp, but there was plenty of noise in indoor shots. Unlike the Tilt2, the Touch Pro2 can record 640-by-480-pixel videos at 17 frames per second.

Verizon's smartphone line-up may soon get a much-needed Android boost. In the meantime, the HTC Imagio reigns supreme; while it lacks the Touch Pro2's sublime QWERTY keyboard, it compensates with a slimmer and lighter design, true broadcast mobile TV (at extra cost), a better camera, and Windows Mobile 6.5. The BlackBerry Storm2 is good enough to banish memories of the buggy, quirky original Storm, although its Web browser and click-screen have their own issues. Regardless, the Storm2 would be an easy pick especially if you don't like Windows Mobile. Otherwise, the Touch Pro2 is a safe purchase for anyone looking for comprehensive integration with Microsoft's business ecosystem.

Benchmark Test Results
Continuous Talk Time: 5 hours 47 minutes

Compare the HTC Touch Pro2 with several other mobile phones side by side.

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