HTC Touch Pro (Verizon)

HTC has released many versions of its popular line of TouchFLO-equipped smartphones, including keyboarded (Touch Pro) and non-keyboarded (Touch Diamond) models. That's in addition to its earlier line of Touch devices (HTC Touch, HTC Touch Dual). The sliding Touch Pro has finally reached Verizon, and it looks decidedly more corporate, given its standard Windows Mobile home screen and lack of multimedia options. While the Sprint and AT&T versions weren't perfect to begin with, Verizon's is the worst of the lot—despite the fact that it has an attractive slider design, a luxurious QWERTY keyboard, and a vast array of wireless radios.

The black, glossy plastic Touch Pro measures 4.2 by 2 by 0.7 inches (HWD) and weighs a somewhat lighter 4.9 ounces (compared with 5.3 ounces for the Sprint version and 5.8 for AT&T's HTC Fuze). Its 2.8-inch touch screen is bright and offers full VGA (480-by-640 pixel) resolution. As with other Windows Mobile–based handsets, the panel requires deliberate finger touches and doesn't always register presses the first time. Fortunately, the built-in stylus helps with small menu icons. The built-in accelerometer lets you flip the handset on its side like the iPhone, but the one in the HTC is slow to react and works for only a few functions, such as when Web browsing and photo viewing. The back panel is smooth plastic, unlike the Fuze's cut-diamond look and the Sprint Touch Pro's soft-touch design.

When closed, the Touch Pro's five-way backlit control pad suffices for navigating Web pages and menus. Sliding the handset horizontally reveals a roomy, evenly backlit, five-row QWERTY keyboard. As with the other two models, the membrane keys are flat, textured, and comfortable to type on. I appreciate the inclusion of four-way arrow keys and the dedicated row of number keys across the top—an arrangement that the Sprint Touch Pro shares but the Fuze lacks. Still, there's one glaring fault unique to this phone: The Up arrow is between the N and M keys. (Hello?) As you would expect, this slows typing considerably.

Voice quality was excellent, providing warm, full sound in the Touch Pro's earpiece. Other callers thought I sounded as crisp and clear as I did on the Editors' Choice BlackBerry Curve 8330. Reception was mostly good; in an area where the Curve 8330 stayed solidly on EV-DO, the Touch Pro wavered a bit and dropped to 1x mode several times. The handset also sounded good when paired with an Aliph New Jawbone Bluetooth headset. The speakerphone, as with other HTC handsets of late, was too quiet for anything but indoor home or office use. The Touch Pro lasted 4 hours 9 minutes on a continuous-talk-time test, which is a mediocre result. It does, however, best Sprint's 3 hours 8 minutes, but lags behind the AT&T Fuze's 5 hours 31 minutes.

The dual-mode (800/1900-MHz) CDMA Touch Pro offers EV-DO Rev A data speeds in the right coverage areas. It can also be used as a modem for a laptop with Verizon's BroadbandAccess Connect plan. In addition, the Touch Pro includes an 802.11b/g compatible Wi-Fi radio and Bluetooth 2.0 radios. For GPS, your only option is VZ Navigator, which costs $2.99 per day or $9.99 a month and offers voice-enabled, turn-by-turn directions. Verizon has locked the GPS chipset, so it doesn't work with other apps, unlike on the AT&T and Sprint versions.

Verizon's software bundle for the Touch Pro is a mixed bag. Like other Windows Mobile 6.1 Professional handsets, the HTC Touch Pro can view and edit Microsoft Word documents and Excel spreadsheets. Verizon also bundles ClearVue Presentation 5 Pro, which lets you create and edit PowerPoint files (something you normally can't do with PowerPoint Mobile alone). The Outlook Mobile e-mail client can hook into Microsoft Exchange accounts for Direct Push E-mail, and also works with standard POP and IMAP e-mail accounts. The handset syncs well with both Windows XP and Windows Vista machines. If you're a Mac user, you'll need a third-party app like The Missing Sync to connect your PC to this (or any) Windows Mobile device.

Oddly, while the phone supports HTC's finger-friendly TouchFLO user interface (UI), it doesn't come enabled by default—instead, it's a home-screen theme option. When you first power up the Touch Pro, it looks like any other Windows Mobile 6.1 Professional smartphone. (For more on TouchFLO and its various pros and cons, check out the aforementioned Touch reviews). On the plus side, Verizon throws in a copy of Opera Mobile; its tabbed Web browsing and superior rendering engine is light-years ahead of Microsoft's mobile browser, although the Touch Pro's stubborn touch panel means it's still no iPhone.

In day-to-day use, the Touch Pro's UI looks sharp but feels sluggish and unresponsive. One potential reason: Although the Verizon Touch Pro features the same 528-MHz Qualcomm CPU as the other versions, it has only 48MB of RAM free for user programs once TouchFLO is loaded. The equivalent Sprint and AT&T versions have 122MB and 117MB free, respectively. Thankfully, HTC includes a Task Manager shortcut that makes it easy to quit Windows Mobile programs, since the OS still can't handle that task on its own.

Other software on the Touch Pro—including a print driver, an MP3 trimmer, and an audio-booster app—is less compelling. Verizon also bundles the useless VZAppZone for buying additional content: One app took almost 20 minutes to install and left the handset unusable while it loaded various Microsoft components; it displayed what felt like an eternal spinning wheel. Oddly, the Touch Pro doesn't support Verizon's over-the-air V Cast Music or V Cast Video services, and it doesn't include a built-in TV tuner for V Cast Mobile TV. There's also no IM client.

On the photo front, HTC's 3.2-megapixel camera has a flash and autofocus. Pictures taken with the Touch Pro were sharp and moderately detailed but showed flat, lifeless color. The handset also recorded dim, jerky, 352-by-288-pixel video files. There's a microSD card slot underneath the battery cover (but not underneath the battery), which Verizon claims works with cards up to 16GB; my 8GB SanDisk card worked without a problem.

The media player supports MP3 and WMA music files and PlaysForSure DRM-encoded tracks, but it doesn't display album art. Music sounded terrible through the built-in speaker. Music came through warm but not particularly detailed on a paired set of Cardo S-2 stereo Bluetooth headphones, and it was surprisingly flat and bass-light through an otherwise stellar pair of Creative Zen Aurvana wired earbuds. (To use the latter, I had to plug in the clumsy audio adapter dongle that HTC packs in the box, since the Touch Pro lacks a standard headphone jack.) Video playback was also a disappointment, with stuttering even on 320-by-240-pixel WMV files.

Verizon's smartphone lineup lags behind Sprint's and AT&T's, but there are still a number of good models—all of which I'd choose before the HTC Touch Pro. The BlackBerry Curve 8330 is our current Editors' Choice on Verizon and is probably the only truly excellent Verizon smartphone we've seen: It's far less expensive at just $79, feels quicker and more responsive, comes with a stellar push e-mail client, and is more comfortable to type on. It's also smaller and lighter, although it lacks the Touch Pro's five-row keyboard, sharp VGA graphics, and touch panel. Back in the Windows Mobile camp: The Samsung Saga and Motorola Q9c are more traditional, slab QWERTY smartphones—and both are easier to use. The Saga even comes with a touch screen, although it's not as good a voice phone as the Touch Pro. The Samsung Omnia is another solid choice, with its killer 5MP camera and lower price ($199 direct), but it lacks a hardware keyboard. In short, the Touch Pro's cobbled-together feel, crippled RAM, design missteps, and stubborn UI mark it as an "also-ran" in this highly competitive race.

Benchmark Test Results
Continuous talk time: 4 hours 9 minutes
SPB Benchmark: 426.04
CPU index: 2207.2
File system index: 181.25
Graphics index: 706.79

Compare the HTC Touch Pro (Verizon) with several other mobile phones side by side.

More Cell Phone Reviews: