HTC Touch Pro2 Review

If the HTC Touch Pro2 looks familiar, it’s because that fold-out keyboard is decidedly similar to Nokia’s most recent handset, the N97. Don’t be fooled though, HTC’s finger-magnet isn’t nearly as well designed at the Big N’s. Thankfully, it has some other skills to make up for it.

For a start, the HTC Touch Pro2 runs Windows Mobile. Depending how you look at it that could be a good thing, or a catastrophic mistake. On the plus side you’ll get familiar office apps and Microsoft Exchange support for e-mail built in. On the downside, it’s horrendously sluggish at times, and has a tendency to chomp through battery life like Mr Kipling at a pie fair.

Inside there’s Wi-Fi, GPS, HSDPA for download speeds up to 7.2Mbps and a touchscreen.

So far, so good, but despite those specs the HTC Touch Pro2 failed to get our pulse racing. See, on the outside the design is a bit, well, ordinary. It’s also a beast, being almost 17mm thick. It feels large in the hand, and it’s heavy too at 178.5g.

On the upside, that bulky frame means it can house a large 3.6 inch screen and a comfy keyboard, even if we’ve seen better folding actions elsewhere (we’re looking at you N97).

There are on-screen keyboards to, for those not keen on flipping out buttons on the street, and viewing full web pages is a comfy experience. HTC has built in a special ‘zoom bar’ under the screen, letting you swipe it to see more detail on a page, or photo.

Unfortunately, that’s where good news ends. HTC continues its nasty habit of using USB connectors instead of proper headphone sockets, and the 3.2 megapixel camera seems overly sluggish. Battery life too is less than we’d expect.

So, a disappointment from HTC, although we can’t help thinking the majority of speed and battery issues are the fault of Windows Mobile rather than the hardware itself.