News, Reviews and more from Australia's Macintosh Authority
News, Reviews and more from Australia's Macintosh Authority
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HTC Touch Cruise |
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| Type | Smartphone |
| Rating |
 
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| Pros | GPS, 3G, Bluetooth; compact size |
| Cons | No memory card for maps |
| SRP | $1149 |
| Manufacturer | HTC |
| Distributor | BrightPoint 1800 650 066 |
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HTC has more mobile devices in its range than you can poke a stick at 19 at the time of writing. In other words, it has the entire market covered and offers a smartphone solution for just about everyone. However, why it needs so many is a bit of mystery as one model the Touch Cruise seems to tick most of the boxes smartphone users would have on their shopping list.
Like many of HTC's handhelds, the Cruise includes TouchFLO a gesture driven interface that shares some similarities with the iPhone and iPod touch. You can sweep your finger across the screen for scrolling through documents, web pages, slide shows and lists. This gives the Windows Mobile 6 interface a significant usability boost. The device fit comfortably into a hand, although I found that the position of some buttons meant that the device was primarily designed for right-handed folk.
HTC provides some customisation of the Windows Mobile software. The default home screen is replaced with HTC's own Today screen plug-in, which delivers a decent-sized clock and ready access to messaging, the phone log and commonly used applications. The Start menu is given a larger than standard typeface so that dependency on a stylus is diminished.
The most common tasks I performed during my real-world testing such as making calls, receiving calls and reading messages could be easily executed with one hand. However, many actions, particularly text input, will require you extracting the stylus from the bottom right corner. For example, text entry using the on-screen keyboard or handwriting recognition can't be done without a stylus.
In addition to the usual array of Mobile Office applications shipping with Windows Mobile devices, HTC's bundled a few useful extras including Adobe Reader, an RSS Reader and the Opera Mobile web browser. Opera is a great extra as I found that it did a better job rendering web pages than the bundled Internet Explorer. Web connections over 3G and WiFi worked well and there's Bluetooth for sharing the internet connection to your laptop.
Rounding out the HTC Cruise are GPS and a 3MP camera. The camera took reasonable shots and they could easily be sent to a Mac via Bluetooth. The GPS receiver is supported through provision of Co-Pilot Live version 7. However, you'll need a system running Windows to install the maps. If you're planning to do that, you'll also need a microSD card to store the maps as the 120MB of integrated memory won't be enough.
Australian Macworld's buying advice. The Touch Cruise is a nice device. HTC's customisation aids its usability and it packs plenty of features. Mac users will need to factor in extra costs for a memory card and as it's a Windows Mobile device sync software.
The HTC Touch runs Windows Mobile 6, the most recent version of Redmonds mobile OS.
Anthony Caruana | Dec 10, 2007
Choosing a GPS receiver really comes down to fitness forpurpose and personal choice. If you want one for your car, then any ofthe reviewed units does the job quite adequately and is orders ofmagnitude better than scrabbling through an out-of-date streetdirectory, particularly if you are travelling solo. You can choose abasic no frills GPS-only model such as the Mio Digiwalker C220 or goall out for the widescreen Hitachi with Bluetooth hands-free, music,photo, videos and input for your reversing camera. In between are theGarmin nuvi250W and the Kogan FIO. If you want to boldly go where no4WD fool has gone before, the Kogan is the one most likely to keep upwith your attempts to get lost. We would really like to see a unit withthe screen clarity and ease of use of the TomTom plus thewide-but-not-too-wide format of the Garmin, loaded with the maps fromthe Kogan.
Ian Yates | Dec 2, 2007
Steve Jobs's announcement that the software update to the iPod touch would cost money (in our case $24.99) as opposed to the software update to the iPhone, which was free (a much more attractive price point) went over like the proverbial anodised aluminium balloon at the Expo. Where a free software update adding a few widgets, a Mail client and an improved Map application would have been a no-brainer, the question must be asked: are they worth twenty-five bucks?
Matthew JC. Powell | Jan 24, 2008
The Centro looks like another in the long line of Treo smartphones although, at 54mm wide, it's a little narrower and consequently easier to hold than its Treo forebears. There's the familiar Palm QWERTY keyboard sitting below a very nice 320x320 display. Typically, entry-level smartphones skimp on the screen but Palm has delivered an excellent touchscreen with good colour depth and brightness. However, will any of that be enough to counter the comin iPhone onslaught?
Anthony Caruana | Jun 17, 2008
