Reviews

HTC Universal

February 22, 2006

Unless you happen to be one my my European readers, chances are you’ll never see this device “in the flesh” as it were. The Universal is designed to be a phone and a PDA in one unit, but since the loaner I received did not have any service, I can’t evaluate issues such as network coverage, signal strength, etc. With that in mind, this review is primarily of the HTC Universal as a handheld that just happens to have phone and high speed 3G data network capabilities.

When I first opened the box, I was quite surprised by both the size and the weight of the HTC Universal. (See the comparison pictures to see the HTC Universal with a Treo 700W and a low-end Nokia phone.) It reminds me in many ways of a mini laptop more than a phone, thanks to the clamshell design that opens on the long axis of the the device. When closed, the front has only a small speaker, while the back has a 1.3 megapixel, a texturized black panel that covers the user swappable battery, and the stylus silo. The stylus is a rather odd one, very wide and flat instead of round, with plastic tips and the middle made of metal. The front edge of the device (away from the hinge) has the left and right speakers, a camera control button, a backlight button, a voice speed dial control, and a volume control. The left edge features an SD card slot and the power button, while the back edge has the headphone jack, reset button, and USB sync cable connector. Closed, the HTC Universal measures 5 1/8” long, 3 1/8” wide, and 7/8” thick. Overall the unit is very solid and well made; it feels quite hefty in the hand. I found it a little uncomfortable to hold in my hand because the unit is so deep/wide from front to back. I assume that someone with larger hands though would find it to be “just right” since I do have fairly small hands and short fingers.

The real fun begins when you open up the device. The screen is the same size as the one on my Dell Axim X51v and features great graphics since it offers VGA resolution. Just to the right of the screen is a second camera, to be used for video conferencing, as well as a 5 way controller. The lower half of the device is a full QWERTY keyboard with additional keys to control the telephony functions. I’ve spent quite a bit of time typing with the keyboard and don’t like it all that much. The keys are very large, which is great, but there is almost no separation between the keys or much of a boundary between them either, which means that though it is fairly comfortable to use I am very inaccurate. You can also put the device on a table and “type” with two fingers, like a mini laptop, but unless you stare at your hands you won’t have much luck typing without too many errors, no matter how much you practice. The best method is to hold the Universal upright and use your thumbs to type instead of your fingers. Of course if you don’t want to use the keyboard, you don’t have to—the screen can swivel around 180 degrees (just like a convertible tablet PC) so that you can close the device with it facing out and have what looks exactly like a typical Windows Mobile device, albeit a very heavy one.

The included software includes what you would expect, such as Calendar, Tasks, Notes, etc. but of course there are a few additions as well. They include SIM Manager, Voice Speed Dial, Wireless Manager, and Wireless Modem. Wireless Manager allows you to control the phone, Bluetooth 1.1, and wireless LAN separately, or turn them all off when the tap of a single onscreen button. I found that during use, the system was very responsive; there weren’t any long waits for programs to load. Memory is a bit on the light side, with just 48MB of program memory and 48MB of storage memory; thankfully the SD memory expansion slot solves that problem if you install your lesser-used programs to the card instead of to the device.

I enjoyed using this loaner, but I’m not sure that it is something that I would want to use everyday to replace both a mobile phone and a handheld. It is rather big and extremely heavy, and the keyboard isn’t as comfortable/accurate to use as others I’ve used. Still, it’s nice to have “everything” in one device—camera, keyboard, handheld, and cell phone with high speed data capabilities. Frequent travelers just might be able to get away with carrying this instead of a laptop if they don’t have very heavy data entry needs. For me personally I might choose the Treo 700W (reviewed later this week) or perhaps a separate handheld and cell phone (my current solution). I am looking forward to seeing what new trends and form factors the whole converged device market will come up with in the future, but for now at least something like the HTC Universal just isn’t for me.

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