We check out Sprint's new Windows Mobile smartphone, with improved browsing and an Inner Circle feature. Is it ready to take on the BlackBerry Curve? Find out in our HTC Snap review.
Review summary of the HTC Snap (Sprint):
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_it00.jpg) The HTC Snap on Sprint is a nice phone with some solid features, but it may just be outclassed by the competition. We like the solid scheduling and messaging features, and we would have liked the Inner Circle feature if it had worked properly. We appreciate the improved Web browsing with Internet Explorer 6, which finally brings Windows Mobile a little closer to the best browsing phones on the market. We loved the extra large battery, and the slim form appealed to us, even if the specific plastics and materials didn't. Problem is, two other versions of the same phone were already announced, the HTC Ozone on Verizon Wireless and the T-Mobile Dash 3G. Both of these have all of the best features of the HTC Snap (aside from Inner Circle, which we don't consider a best feature), and go farther with Wi-Fi. Plus, the starting price for the Sprint HTC Snap seems awfully high in comparison. The improved features and rounded look mean this phone is ready to compete with the BlackBerry Curve, but really it's biggest competition might be itself. Release: June 2009. Price: $100.
Pros: Good business features, like scheduling and productivity apps. Improved Web browsing. Great battery life.
Cons: Keyboard took some getting used to. Inner Circle was not a reliably useful feature. Call quality wasn't up to par.
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Full HTC Snap (Sprint) Review:
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Design – Good
The HTC Snap on Sprint is a basic QWERTY slab phone. It follows closely in the vein of the RIM BlackBerry Curve, with its rounded corners and stout, squat look. Sprint's version of this device felt a little bit cheap compared to the unlocked version we'd seen before. The phone is coated in a shiny plastic. The lower half gets a matte finish, but it isn't the sort of soft touch paint we've enjoyed on other smartphones, it still feels cheap. Also, the HTC Snap on Sprint loses the trackball and uses a simpler 4-way button in the center for navigation. In person, the phone is simply not an attractive device, with the same mass of empty, unused space below the screen that we found unappealing on its predecessor, the T-Mobile Dash (also an HTC device).
The 2.4-inch screen on Sprint's HTC Snap was very nice. The display was bright and colorful, and it did a nice job handling the Windows Mobile 6.1 interface. Windows Mobile 6.1 is actually easier to use on non-touchscreen phones, with its sliding panels on the homescreen that present useful information right up front. The HTC Snap doesn't get any interface improvements over the original design, but we still think WinMo 6.1 is a useful OS. From that Today screen, we could browse recent e-mail, check upcoming appointments and even control music playback. Once you did deeper, things start to look more like a desktop Windows OS, but most features are presented right up top.
Calling - Good
For calling features, the HTC Snap was a mixed bag, but it couldn't deliver on the one feature that matters most: call quality. Phone calls we made during our test period just didn't sound very good. We heard a constant hiss in the background during calls, and our callers reported a muddy sound to our voices. We tested the phone on Sprint's EV-DO Rev. A network in the greater Dallas area, and reception was usually okay, hovering around 3-4 bars for voice and data. Battery life on the phone was exceptional. Though Sprint is only promising about 4.5 hours on their site, we got more than 6.5 hours out of our test unit during a single test call. The whopping 1500mAh battery certainly did a fine job keeping us chatting.
For contacts, we synchronized the phone with our Microsoft Exchange account, though Windows users can also synchronize with Outlook via their desktop. Like all Windows Mobile phones, the HTC Snap does a great job handling contacts. You can simply start typing a name from the Today screen, and the HTC Snap will initiate a search to find the person you need to call. The phone will also keep track of recent calls within a contact's address book listing, so you can look up your client to see how often you've really been in touch.
We weren't able to complete a conference call on the HTC Snap. It's a feature listed in the onscreen menu, but it's suspiciously not in the user guide, and in our tests, the 3rd party call always failed to go through. Voice dialing was also a bit tricky. The HTC Snap was often incorrect in guessing our vocal requests, and the voice commands that the phone prefers seemed less than intuitive. Otherwise, the speakerphone was adequately loud, and we had no trouble connecting our Bluetooth headset to the Snap.
Messaging and Keyboard – Very Good
For messaging and e-mail, the HTC Snap comes loaded with all the basic smartphone features you'll expect, plus a nice bonus thrown in. The phone's raison d'etre is the Inner Circle, an e-mail feature so special it gets its own dedicated button on the keyboard. Press the Inner Circle button and you're taken to a special folder where the phone will collect all of the incoming e-mails from your select favorite few. Once you've figured out whose e-mails need to be sorted from the Spam and junk that normally fills your inbox, Inner Circle will gather them together and will give you a special alert to let you know an e-mail has arrived from an Inner Circle contact. In practice, this seemed like it might be useful, but it was completely unreliable. The HTC Snap had no trouble pulling e-mails from our POP Gmail account as they came in, but e-mails sent to our Exchange account were never properly culled into the Inner Circle window. Also, we would often get false alerts from Inner Circle telling us there was a new message waiting, only to find none when we pressed the Inner Circle button. If this is the feature differentiating this phone from other Windows Mobile devices, we hope HTC can fix this to get it right.
Besides our POP and Exchange e-mail accounts, the phone did a nice job with our text and multimedia messaging. SMS messages are arranged in threaded style so they show up like a long conversation, instead of as individual messages. For instant messaging, the phone gets a bare bones client to support AOL, MSN and Yahoo. It looks ugly, but it gets the job done. Too bad it didn't work for Gtalk or other IM services.
The keyboard on the HTC Snap was nice, but it took some practice. Keys were well rounded and grippy, for easy typing. We liked the satisfying click each key made as we pressed down. We didn't love the staggered layout of the number keys, and we occasionally missed a number while dialing. But for messaging, the phone did a nice job. On previous HTC phones, like the T-Mobile Dash, holding a letter key would activate the symbol above it. We wish the HTC Snap would perform that action, but instead holding a key causes it to repeat, a useless action on a phone.
Scheduling and Productivity – Very Good
Business users will be quite pleased with the HTC Snap. Windows Mobile phones do a great job with scheduling, and the HTC Snap was no slouch, either. The phone pulled all of our appointments from our Exchange account and presented them up front so we could run through the days events. We also like the robust features, including the ability to invite attendees to an event. The calendar and scheduling app isn't very pretty, it's mostly a wireframe with text strewn throughout, but it certainly gets the job done.
For productivity apps, the HTC Snap comes with a basic selection of Microsoft goods, including the Office Mobile suite. Unfortunately, on non-touchscreen phones, you still can't create a new Office document, but you can read and even edit Word and Excel files saved to the phone or sent as attachments. For features, these editing programs are surprisingly rich, but don't expect full desktop functionality.
Beyond these productivity apps, there weren't many additional apps loaded onto the HTC Snap. The phone was blessed with the Internet Sharing app. Internet Sharing is our favorite way to tether a phone to a laptop to use as a wireless modem. You just start the connection on the phone and plug it in, that's all there is to it. This is always better than the extra software that some manufacturers and carriers make you use. We like that the phone uses a standard miniUSB connector, which means we weren't as concerned about forgetting the cord, since miniUSB is a standard that's easy to find.
Web browsing – Good
The HTC Snap ships with Microsoft's newest mobile Web browser, Internet Explorer 6. Sure, that may be 2 versions behind the desktop, but IE6 on Windows Mobile 6.1 (so-called 6 on 6) worked fairly well, and was a significant upgrade over the older version that used to ship on Windows Mobile phones. If you've been burned by Web browsing on Windows Mobile in the past, rest assured that Internet Explorer 6 is now capable of rendering Web pages that look accurate compared to their desktop companions. It wasn't perfect, and some advanced layouts and functions didn't show up properly on the HTC Snap. The browser uses Flash Lite for video and multimedia, but Flash ran so slowly on the Snap that we were only able to listen to our favorite YouTube videos, as they played too slowly to be watchable. There are certainly much better Web browsing phones on the market, but IE6 is a significant step up from the last generation of WinMo Web browsers.
Music – Mediocre
For music, the phone has Web access to the Sprint Music store, but music is played through Windows Media Player. This created a problem on our HTC Snap review unit, as Windows Media Player would recognize, but not actually play, the wma files we downloaded from the Sprint store. Honestly, the Windows Media Player app is so poor we can't imagine using this device for music, anyway. It had serious problems remembering where we kept our music, causing us to update the library frequently. The interface was lousy as ever. This is just not a phone for music fans.
Camera – Mediocre
The camera on the HTC Snap was also disappointing. It wasn't just the small sensor, though 2-megapixels is now at the low end for modern smartphones. Images also looked poor, with washed out colors and a general lack of detail. Picture browsing was also very basic, with few built-in uploading options. Sending MMS messages was easy, and pictures were certainly good enough for simple messaging or social networking apps like Facebook or Twitter. But these won't be good enough to use as a desktop wallpaper, let alone print on real paper.
For GPS navigation, the phone actually did a nice job. The HTC Snap uses Sprint Navigator, which is a competent, if simple looking, turn-by-turn navigation app. In our driving tests, the phone found us quickly and had no trouble tracking us through our trip. To help with GPS navigation, the phone has a QuickGPS app that preloads satellite data. This helped the phone find our location even quicker, and we were started on our trip in under 30 seconds.
Value – Mediocre
At launch, the HTC Snap on Sprint costs $150 with a contract agreement. A nearly identical device, the HTC Ozone, is also available from Verizon Wireless for only $50 after a contract and rebates. The HTC Ozone comes with Wi-Fi, a rarity for Verizon Wireless, as well as GSM roaming, so that phone will be able to make calls in many places the HTC Snap on Sprint will not work. The Sprint version gets the Inner Circle feature, while the Verizon Wireless version does not. Until Sprint drops their price to match, there's really no choice here, but we think Sprint will soon see the writing on the wall.
Price and availability
The HTC Snap is available now from Sprint for $150 with a contract agreement.
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