HTC Touch Dual (Unlocked)

CNET editors' review

When it comes to touch-screen phones, there are those who dig them and those who want to bury them. And when we say touch-screen phones, we mean the models that largely lack physical buttons, more specifically tactile dialpads and keyboards a la Apple iPhone, LG Prada, and Samsung Instinct. The HTC Touch also falls into this category, and when we originally reviewed the Windows Mobile smartphone, we had major issues with its minuscule onscreen keyboard. HTC pretty much got the hint, as it implemented better and larger virtual keyboards on the Verizon and Sprint versions but still, some desire the feel of actual keys.

Enter the HTC Touch Dual. While still offering the TouchFLO interface, the Touch Dual features an integrated slide-out 20-key QWERTY keyboard that facilitates entering text and composing messages. In addition, it's the first smartphone to ship with Windows Mobile 6.1 in the United States, and supports our 3G bands (note: supports AT&T's 850/1900MHz HSPDA/UMTS band). We will say that for the unlocked price of $549 (we're talking about Nokia N95 prices here), we would have liked to have seen the inclusion of Wi-Fi or GPS. Still, there's a lot of power packed into the compact device. The HTC Touch Dual is available now at Best Buy stores and online.

Design
The HTC Touch Dual has a very similar face to the HTC Touch, but there are a number of notable differences. First, it's no surprise that the smartphone is a bit taller and thicker than the original Touch, given the addition of the slide-out keyboard. The Touch Dual measures 4.2 inches long by 2.1 inches wide by 0.6 inch deep and weighs 4.2 ounces compared with 3.9 inches long by 2.8 inches wide by 0.5 inch deep and 3.9 ounces. It's still a compact handset, though, and you should have no problem slipping it into a pants pocket. In addition, the mobile has a soft-touch finish to give it a rubbery texture.

The HTC Touch Dual is a bit thicker and taller than the HTC Touch, but it's still a very compact smartphone. Here it is pictured next to the RIM BlackBerry Curve 8330.

As a result of the narrower body, the Touch Dual has a slightly smaller screen at 2.6 inches diagonally. It still displays 65,536 colors and a 320x240 pixel resolution for a clear and bright picture, and of course, it retains the TouchFLO interface. This unique feature lets you navigate through certain menus with a series of finger swipes or taps. Perhaps gimmicky to some, but it looks cool and worked well during our tests; the touch screen was also responsive.

Unlike the previous Touch models, there are some tweaks to the interface. First, since the Touch Dual ships with Windows Mobile 6.1, you get the new Getting Started menu that will guide you through the setup of your e-mail, Bluetooth headset pairing, ringtones, and more. You'll find this option on the Home screen, but once you're done configuring everything, you can remove the item altogether. The clock size has also been increased on the Home screen, and the HTC Home screen features panels where you can check your weather, sounds, mail, missed calls, and other information.

Another difference is the new task page that appears when you slide the screen up to expose the 20-key QWERTY keyboard. This screen gives you a quick way to create new appointments, e-mail, text messages, and other tasks. It's a nice little shortcut since it only requires one click to perform the operations.

The Touch Dual features a 20-key QWERTY keyboard for those of you who desire tactile keys.

Now, onto the keyboard. One of our biggest gripes about the HTC Touch was the onscreen keyboard. The first Touch had a minuscule keyboard that was impossible to peck at without a stylus, but we'll give credit where credit is due, as HTC improved the keyboard on the Sprint and Verizon versions with a larger buttons. Even still, there are some who just like the feel of actual keys (present company included) and the HTC Touch Dual fills that void. The keyboard mimics that of the SureType models found on the BlackBerry Pearls. We found the layout to be a tad cramped, and the buttons actually seem a bit wobbly. However, it gets the job done and it made entering text and composing messages much easier. You still have the option of using the onscreen keyboard and other input methods, such as Block Recognizer and Transcriber.

Other controls on the Touch Dual include Talk and End keys and a four-way navigation toggle with a center select button right below the display. On the left spine, you'll find a volume rocker and a microSD expansion slot hidden at the bottom corner. The right side holds the power button, a camera activation key, the stylus holder, and another hidden compartment for the SIM card. The latter is particularly difficult to access. You have to take off the battery cover and then remove the battery to pry open the cover to get to the SIM card slot. Granted, you won't be switching out your SIM card often, but still, it's a bit of a nuisance.

The SIM card slot is located on the right side, but you need to remove the battery to access it.

The HTC Touch Dual comes packaged with an AC adapter, a mini USB cable, a pair of earbuds, an extra stylus, a soft carrying case, a software CD, and reference material. For more add-ons, please check our cell phone accessories, ringtones, and help page.

Features
One of the most notable things about the HTC Touch Dual is that it's the first smartphone to ship with Windows Mobile 6.1 (Professional Edition) in the United States. We touched on some of the interface differences in the Design section, but you also get some enhancements to Internet Explorer Mobile. The Web browser now has pan in/out functionality, so you can zoom out of a page, find the spot you want, and then zoom in, saving you the trouble of having to scroll all over the site.

As for the rest, you still get the Microsoft Office Mobile Suite for editing and creating Word and Excel documents and viewing PowerPoint presentations. There's a PDF reader as well as other productivity tools, including a task manager, a voice recorder, a Zip manager, and a calculator. For e-mail, the Touch Dual offers Microsoft's Direct Push Technology for real-time e-mail delivery and automatic synchronization with your Outlook calendar, tasks, and contacts via Exchange Server. As usual, POP3 and IMAP accounts along with HTML format are supported. Using the Getting Started menu, we configured the Touch Dual to access our Yahoo account, and after inputting our login name and password, we were good to go.

Voice features on the HTC Touch Dual include a speakerphone, voice dialing and commands, and text and multimedia messaging. The address book is only limited by the available memory (the SIM card holds an additional 250 contacts) and you can store up to 12 numbers for a single entry, as well as home and work addresses, e-mail, IM screen name, birthday, spouse's name, and more. For caller ID purposes, you can pair a contact with a photo, a caller group, or one of 40 polyphonic ringtones. The smartphone also has Bluetooth 2.0 that supports mono and stereo Bluetooth headsets, hands-free kits, file sharing, dial-up networking, and more.

The quad-band (GSM 850/900/1800/1900) world phone also supports U.S. 3G bands, specifically the 850/1900MHz bands. This means that in order to take advantage of the HSDPA/UMTS speeds, you're going to need an AT&T SIM card and not T-Mobile, whose 3G network runs on the 1700/2100MHz bands. With the 3G, you can get upload speeds of up to 384Kpbs and download speeds of up to 3.6Mbps. It's the boost you need if you want to do some serious Web surfing on your phone, especially since the Touch Dual lacks Wi-Fi. There's also no assisted GPS, so you'll need a Bluetooth GPS receiver to get any type of real-time tracking.

On back, you'll find the Touch Dual's 2-megapixel camera and self-portrait mirror.

Moving onto some of the multimedia capabilities, the Touch Dual is equipped with a 2-megapixel camera with up to 8x zoom and video recording. The editing features and settings are on par with other camera-equipped smartphones. You can choose from five resolutions and four quality settings, while in video mode, you only have a choice of four resolutions. White balance and brightness controls are available to get the best image. Other tools include a self-timer, flicker adjustment, various effects, and a photo counter.

The Dual's camera produced good quality photos, but there's bit of shutter lag.

Picture quality was decent. Objects were clearly defined and though we wished there was a bit more warmth to the colors, they were more accurate and brighter than some of the images we've seen from other camera phones. Unfortunately, we didn't have quite the same praises for videos as the quality was pretty grainy. We also noticed there's a bit of shutter lag.

You can still enjoy your personal multimedia library with Windows Media Player 10 Mobile. There's support for AAC, MP3, WAV, WMA, MPEG-4, and WMV files, to name a few. Plus, if you have TV shows recorded on your Windows Media Center PC, you can transfer them to your device for on-the-go viewing or stream your home's TV programming right to your device with a Slingbox and SlingPlayer Mobile. The Touch Dual features 256MG ROM and 128MB DDR RAM.

Performance
We tested the quad-band (GSM 850/900/1800/1900; GPRS; EDGE; HSDPA) HTC Touch Dual in San Francisco using AT&T service, and call quality was OK. We thought there was a bit of hollowness to the audio quality when talking to friends, but we were still able to carry on conversations and use an airline's voice-automated system. There weren't too many complaints on the other end, though a couple of callers reported the occasional echo. The speakerphone had plenty of volume, and while mostly clear, voices sounded a bit tinny. Using the Getting Started menu, the Touch Dual was able to automatically connect to the Logitech Mobile Traveller Bluetooth headset and the Motorola S9 Bluetooth Active Headphones without us having to enter any passcodes.

The Touch Dual is powered by a 400MHz Qualcomm MSM 7201 processor and with about 97MB of free storage and 55MB of available program memory, general performance was pretty snappy. However, some operations, particularly multimedia, could get really sluggish when we had a number of applications running in the background. Surfing the Net was pretty swift, though not particularly blazingly fast. Some graphic-intensive sites still took a little while to load. Multimedia performance was a bit lacking. Song playback through the phone's speaker sounded tinny and and unfortunately, the Touch Dual requires you use the included headset, which connects via the mini USB port--not even a 2.5mm headset jack. We also checked out a WMV clip, which was watchable but still had a bit of pixelation.

The HTC Touch Dual's 1,350mAh lithium ion battery is rated for up to 5 hours of continuous talk time for GSM and 3 hours for UMTS and up to 15 days of standby time. In our battery drain tests, we were able to get 3.2 hours of continuous talk time on 3G. According to FCC radiation tests, the Touch Dual has a digital SAR rating of 1.42 watts per kilogram.