Review
HTC Snap – the smartphone that goes and goes and goes
AshMan says…
HTC is known for making mobile phones with a great number of features and fantastic build quality. The HTC Snap follows in that tradition.
HTC Snap Breaks The Mould
When first holding the phone you realise just how thin and light it is (weighs only 120grams). The phone isn’t a touch screen based device, but does feature a fixed QWERTY keyboard. The keyboard is a lot better than any other QWERTY device I have used before with the raised keys assisting you to select the key you want therefore significantly reducing typing errors.
Super Thin HTC Snap
The 2.4-inch QVGA display has an LED backlight which really is great for using in a number of different locations, both bright and dark. The screen feels like it should have been just a tiny bit taller as when surfing some websites you cannot see enough information on the screen at any one time.
The phone comes boxed with Windows Mobile 6.1 Standard but HTC has released the upgrade to Windows Mobile 6.5 Standard. Even though there are no noticeable changes with the upgrade straightaway, the addition of Windows Marketplace and Microsoft My Phone are definitely there.
The Smartphone features 256MB of ROM and 192MB of RAM which is plenty for this device to happily multitask and the task manager is always available if you need to clear up some memory. The HTC Snap seems to have missed out on the usual HTC make over it gives to all of its other devices, but Windows Mobile 6.5 seems to be pretty good on its own as the navigation is controlled by the scroll wheel and buttons.
Scroll Wheel and QWERTY Keyboard
New users of the scroll wheel system will take a little bit of use to familiarise themselves, but Blackberry users will feel right at home. The default sensitivity setting of the scroll wheel doesn’t feel sensitive enough and will require some tweaking to get the perfect sensitivity for web browsing and for scrolling through large numbers of emails or text messages seamlessly.
A new feature to the HTC Snap which doesn’t appear in any other HTC device is the Inner Circle button located at the bottom right hand side. This button will launch an email application which only displays emails from contacts which you select to be in your inner circle. This application is great in some instances but a downside is that if you use your phone for personal and business use (which most people will) they won’t be able to view family or friends separately to business contacts.
The HTC Snap comes also with a wireless antenna supporting b and g, Bluetooth 2.0 with EDR and A2DP for wireless headsets, GPS and HTC extUSB (which serves as the USB connection and headset connector). It features HSPDA with 7.2mpbs down-link and a quad band radio.
2.0MP Fixed Focus Camera
Battery life is outstanding for the Smartphone with a light test (includes an occasional phone call and the Wi-Fi being turned on for one hour a day) seeing the phone run for almost 6 days non-stop. For the heavy test (includes Wi-Fi being turned on full time and an hour phone call each day) the phone lasted just under 2 days.
The 2.0 megapixel camera on the back is fixed focused and provides an average image quality; which is understandable as this phone’s appeal is targeted towards the business users who wouldn’t be using the camera that much in essence.
In the end, the HTC Snap is a very capable phone with a good keyboard and an outstanding battery life. If you are after a QWERTY keyboard mobile phone this is certainly a strong contender.
Something for all netbooks to aspire to: Acer Aspire One
AshMan says…
The Asus Eee PC when it launched introduced consumers to a new type of computer…a netbook. Its features weren’t the latest or the fastest, but were enough to perform the basic tasks of web surfing and Skype all at a very cheap price.
The Acer Aspire One takes everything which the Eee PC did and made it better; it looks better, feels better and performs better.
Acer Aspire One
The Aspire One contains an Atom 1.6Ghz processor, and though it doesn’t sound like much of a processor, it is capable of playing 720p resolution video with little or no stutter. Paired with the processor is 1GB of RAM, which is upgradable to 1.5GB. Unfortunately it is however a pain to try and access the RAM slots and when you do you can only remove one stick as the other is soldered to the motherboard.
Acer Aspire One - Number One for Netbooks
8GB SSD and 120/160GB hard drive versions are available and both versions run Windows XP SP3. Personally I own the hard drive version as I think that 8GB wouldn’t give me enough room to upgrade to Windows 7 which has been designed with netbooks in mind. The screen size is 8.9 inches with a 1024 x 600 resolution; the resolution is large enough to not need to struggle to see the text. At the top of the screen there is a 0.3MP webcam and microphone which is adequate enough to have a video chat on Skype.
Pretty in Pink: Aspire One available in a number of colours
Weighing in at 985 grams this netbook is one which is so light that I have had to double check my bag that I have it still in there. The 3 cell battery doesn’t give battery life as good as the Eee PC but it is still very respectable. In a light use test (running only a word application, and default start up programs) it achieved 3 hours 10 minutes. In the heavy use test (encoding a video file, as well as a full virus scan) it powered on for 1 hour 25 minutes.
External ports on the machine include: Multi-card reader, SD card reader, 3 USB ports, VGA, Headphone, Microphone, and Ethernet. This set of ports on a small machine beats some full laptops, especially the number of USB ports. The two card readers also are a great asset to a netbook as they can double as SD card storage or Ready boost memory if you are running Windows 7.
All the ports in the world you could need in a netbook
The usability of this small laptop isn’t a problem as the keyboard is 92% of a traditional keyboard which is quite easy to get used to. The mouse buttons are located to the left and right hand side of the track pad, allowing the keyboard to be that bit larger. The location of the left and right buttons takes a little while to get used to it, but once you’re accustomed to the layout it is very easy to use.
The Acer Aspire One is a brilliant little machine, and one of the most popular netbooks available on the market. The average price for the hard drive model is $499, which is a superb price for a machine that is loaded with ports, good battery life, great looks and the ability to run Windows 7 excellently.
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