Minggu, 06 Desember 2009

HTC Imagio (Verizon Wireless)

Though HTC Imagio (Verizon Wireless) touts itself as a multimedia smartphone, it is not as flashy as other multimedia focused hand helds. This is not to say it isn't attractive indeed, we love the large touch screen display as well as the smooth edges and tapered corners. But the dimpled bezel surrounding the display, which doubles as the speaker, and the thick plastic casing gives it more of a hefty industrial feel. Measuring 4.6 inches tall by 2.4 inches wide by 0.5 inch thick and weighing 5.25 ounces, HTC Imagio (Verizon Wireless) has quite a sturdy construction and is not at all flimsy or cheap.

The back of HTC Imagio (Verizon Wireless) is partially covered in a matte black soft touch finish, which gives it a comfortable feel in the hand. By far the most stunning thing about HTC Imagio (Verizon Wireless)'s appearance is its large 3.6 inch WVGA touch screen. It has 65.000 colors output, 480x800 pixel resolution, and a smooth glass surface, which result in beautifully crisp images and sharp text. The extra screen real estate lends itself well to Web page scrolling and video viewing as well.

Also handy is the built-in accelerometer that switches the screen from portrait to landscape mode when you rotate the phone. This is only applicable in certain situations, though, like with the Web browser, e-mail, photos, and videos. Even though HTC Imagio (Verizon Wireless) does not have the Touch branding. Like that on the HTC Touch Pro2, you get additional tabs for the Calendar and Stock quotes, plus the ability to add and remove tabs on the Home screen. We also really like that the Start menu is presented in a grid view, which you can customize with different apps and settings.

HTC Imagio (Verizon Wireless) has a resistive touch screen rather than a capacitive one. We usually complain about this because resistive displays require more precision than capacitive screens, but in the case of HTC Imagio (Verizon Wireless), we were quite pleased with it. The touch screen felt responsive and easy to use, even when we were just using our fingers instead of the included stylus. We even liked the onscreen QWERTY keyboard, especially since it supports XT9 auto word complete and tapping the keys provides haptic feedback.

We do prefer using the keyboard in landscape mode rather than in portrait mode, however, as the keys are a bit bigger, thus resulting in fewer mistakes. The zoom in and out bar underneath the display helped a lot when reading and selecting hyperlinks in the Web browser as well, since you could just zoom in easily by sliding your finger on the bar. It does take a couple of seconds for the page to render when zooming in, though. Underneath the zoom controls are the Talk and End or Power keys, a media key, the Start menu key, and a back key.

The media key can be mapped to any media application, like V Cast TV, V Cast Video, or the music player. The keys are flat, but there is enough delineation between each key that they weren't hard to press. The volume rocker is on the right spine and the mini-USB port and 3.5 mm headset jack are on the bottom. On the back is the camera lens plus an antenna that doubles as a kickstand simply press the release button and it'll pop out. This way you can set HTC Imagio (Verizon Wireless) on a flat surface and watch videos as if it were a portable television. Also on the back toward the lower right is the stylus compartment. The microSD card slot is inconveniently located behind the battery cover on the right side.