A great all-rounder. Review on HTC S710

I bought this phone around 5 months

back and have been extremely happy with it. Here are some goods and

bads:

GOODS:

• Design:

The design is excellent. The convenience of

having a regular numeric keypad and a QWERTY keypad is great. I can

type SMSes with one hand using the numeric and long messages and

emails using the QWERTY.

• Emails:

Setting up an email account was a

breeze. If your email id is from any of the better known providers

(yahoo, gmail etc.) then the settings are already available. You can

set up the emails to be refreshed every 5 mins if you want a

push-like experience or if you don't get too many emails then you can

set it up to refresh every hour / 4 hours etc. and save on the GPRS

bill.

• Screen:

The screen resolution is brilliant. The colours really

stand out and you feel as if you are using a computer screen.

Home Screen:

The home screen layout is very user friendly. It provides quick

access to the connection manager(to start / stop the wi-fi /

bluetooth / activesync etc. - more on these things later), recently

used programs, missed calls, sms / email, calendar etc. Depending on

the home screen you chooses you can also get quick access to RSS

feeds, Windows Live etc.

• Connectivity:

It has GPRS / EDGE and Wi-Fi. If

you have a wireless modem at home for your laptop / desktop then you

can easily set up the mobile to access the wi-fi network and get

access to broadband speeds on your mobile. Excellent for quickly

checking your email(see above) without having to boot your

laptop.

• Modem:

If you are on the road with no internet available

but with mobile connectivity, you can use your phone like a modem to

connect your laptop to the internet. Speeds are decent if EDGE

network is available and OK if it is GPRS.

• Apps:

It's a windows OS

and a lot of applications can be downloaded and installed. Some free,

some not. If you have wi-fi at home / work, you could download apps

like Skype, EQO etc. and use those to chat as well as make internet

calls. A range of other apps are available(see https://clickapps.com) to

enhance your experience.

• Sync with Outlook:

Since microsoft

is the most ubiquitous OS on most of our laptops, you can use this

phone to connect to your outlook and sync contacts, calendar, emails

etc. If you have the relevant permissions you can also set up the

phone to directly connect to your microsoft exchange server and have

emails delivered to your mobile just like a blackberry.

• Bluetooth:

What's more, you can connect wirelessly to your laptop / desktop

using bluetooth. If your laptop / desktop doesn't have bluetooth you

can buy a bluetooth dongle adapter.

• Memory / Storage:

The built in memory /

storage is not too great but you can always add in a 2 / 4GB micro SD

card and get around that problem.

• Misc:

Other features that are

useful are voice notes, text notes, tasks, calendar, video recording

etc.

• Oh yes, it's a phone too:

Before I forget, it's also a phone:-). Call quality is

excellent though the speaker is almost too loud. It's easy to switch

between speakerphone and handset mode. You can also use the other

features of the phone while you are on a call(obviously it will be

easier if you have a handsfree).

• Contacts:

Getting to the contacts is

easy. From your home screen just start typing the name using

predictive text and it starts showing you all available options. You

can use this to also search for emails from particular senders in

your message inbox.

• Battery:

Battery life is ok. It'll probably last

2-3 days on standby if you don't make / receive any calls. If you are

a moderate user then you'll probably be better off charging it every

day. If you use the USB cable to connect to the computer then it

charges your phone while you are connected.

• Back to design:

All this is

packed in an extremely slim design. I can put it in my trouser pocket

and not feel too uncomfortable.

BADS:

• QWERTY:

After

having used the blackberry, the QWERTY keypad is not as intuitive for

typing especially when it comes to using capitals, numbers and

special characters. If I rate BB 10/10 on this then HTC would be a

7.5. So it's not too bad.

• Screen:

Reading the screen in bright

sunlight can be a little difficult at times. You need to shade it a

little with your hands.

• Browsing:

Internet browsing using the included

internet explorer mobile is quite restricting but that can be

overcome by downloading Opera Mini.

• Camera:

The camera resolution is

just so-so. Camera wasn't a big requirement for me so it doesn't

really bother me too much.

• 3G:

Doesn't support 3G. Not too big a

problem right now since it's not even available yet but let's see if

I feel bad when it does become available.

As you can

see the Goods definitely outweigh the bads. I have been a Nokia fan

all my mobile using life(~8 years) so was a little wary of going to

another brad especially after a so-so experience with a Motorola RAZR

but I have not been disappointed in the least.

Overall, I rate

this phone an 8/10.