With 3G networking and Wi-Fi, the Mogul has plenty of features, and a button for every one. Is it the best Windows Mobile 6 phone yet, or just the newest?
Review summary of the HTC Mogul:
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 The Sprint Mogul's update couldn't come at a better time, as the device is running in a crowded field of HTC QWERTY-slider contenders, including the recent Verizon Wireless XV6800 and the AT&T Tilt. The updated Mogul definitely represents a step forward in this market for Sprint. Besides the Sprint Music store and GPS navigation, we were very impressed by the tethered modem speeds, which bested even our fastest PC Card modem, let alone the other phone's in its class. The phone is still limited where Windows Mobile stumbles, in its media player and Web browsing, and it suffers the same graphics issues as other HTC sliders. Release: June 2007. Price: $400.
Pros: Fastest tethered modem we've seen. Best-in-class address book integration. GPS for Sprint Navigator service.
Cons: Call quality could be better. We'd like more IM clients.
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Full review of the HTC Mogul:
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Design – Very good
Though the Mogul is the first phone released by a carrier in the states with an HTC logo on it, you've definitely seen HTC phones before, as most of the carrier-branded Windows Mobile phones were actually designed by High Tech Computer Corporation. The Mogul's predecessor, the PPC-6700, and the recently released T-Mobile Wing are both HTC phones, though the phone that resembles the Mogul most is the AT&T 8525. We've come to like HTC's slide-out keyboard designs, they all feel very sturdy and well made, with nice, comfortable keyboards, and the Mogul is no exception. With the exception of the flimsy back cover, the phone feels solid.
On the Mogul, everything gets a button. There is a dedicated key for: e-mail, Internet Explorer, the start menu, voice dialing, the camera, the comm manager and Wi-Fi, which gets a dedicated on-off switch. For navigation, the Mogul has a five-way hat switch as well as a clickwheel. At first the buttons seemed overwhelming, but we found the Wi-Fi switch and a few other buttons especially convenient. Of course, the wealth of buttons only goes to show that Windows Mobile, even the newest version 6, has a long way to go to be as convenient and one-handed as Palm OS or RIM's BlackBerry interface.
The interface is painted mostly yellow, and we actually liked the look. We found it easy to read and navigate, though the Mogul is missing one of our favorite features from the T-Mobile Wing, the first WM6 device we reviewed. The Wing had a Task Manager menu drop-down menu on the Today screen, which helped greatly, since Windows Mobile has a nasty habit of leaving open applications, even though you think you've closed and exited them. This saps memory quickly, and bogs things down.
Calling – Good
The Mogul has all of the calling features we like to see, but the implementation of these let us down. The phone features Bluetooth, conference calling and voice dialing, but instead of speaker-independent voice dialing you have to record voice tags. The speakerphone was very weak, unusable outdoors with any background noise. Call quality was okay when reception was good, but 30 miles out of Manhattan, in New Jersey, reception dropped to a single bar, and we heard plenty of static fade in and out during calls. Contacts handling with Windows Mobile is second to none, and the phone has numerous, intelligent ways to help you find contacts quickly. Our favorite Windows Mobile 6 feature is the call history log, which links your call history to your contacts so you can look up a person and see when you've spoken to them. Battery life on the phone was also impressive; we got just over six hours of talk time in a single call, even while the phone showed a couple bars of EV-DO reception. This is about twice what Sprint claims, and more than many smartphones, aside from BlackBerry devices.
Messaging – Very good
Aside from the lack of an IM client for AIM and Yahoo users, the Mogul handles messaging as well as any phone we've seen, even BlackBerry devices. Windows Live gives you MSN messaging, but other than that you'll have to go third-party for IM. E-mail was very easy to setup. If you don't use Outlook or an Exchange server, the Mogul will take your e-mail address and search online for all the nitty-gritty setup info you need. In fact, our Gmail accounts took less time to get up and running than our standard Outlook accounts. All messaging is linked to the contact list for live, while-you-type searching from the "To:" field, a feature that every smartphone maker should have stolen by now. The keyboard was comfortable for messaging, though we wish HTC would have taken our favorite feature from the T-Mobile Dash, another phone the company designed. On the Dash, when you hold a key, the alt-symbol above it is selected. On the Mogul, holding a key repeats the letter choice, like on a desktop, but we think repeating a keystroke is a useless feature for smartphones. Another point for the T-Mobile / HTC relationship.
Scheduling and productivity – Very good
Overall, the phone handled Windows Mobile 6 better than the T-Mobile Wing, though performance was still lagging, especially when open applications slowed things to a halt. At one point, we found literally a dozen open apps that had no open windows, and Microsoft needs to change the way applications are opened and exited. Sliding out the keyboard, we noticed plenty of lag as the screen switched, unlike the Sidekick 3 or the Helio Ocean, which both flip or rotate their displays instantly.
Though the calendar app could be prettier, it's hard to argue with its seamless integration with Outlook. The new calendar ribbon in WM6 makes appointments a little easier to view at a glance, but we'd like something easier on the eyes, maybe with more colors and a drop-shadow here and there. For productivity, you get Office Mobile, which is very good for Word, good for Excel and just okay for PowerPoint. Beyond the standard Windows Mobile 6 experience, Sprint hasn't brought anything new to this party.
Laptop sidekick – Very good
The HTC Mogul works as a tethered modem, and though Windows Mobile 6 bundles an Internet Sharing program, we never had to use it, thanks to the Sprint Connection Manager. Browsing with a USB tether was about what we'd expect with EV-DO, which is pretty satisfying. We got speeds up to 700kbps in short bursts. Though Sprint promises an EV-DO rev. A upgrade later this year, we're not expecting much faster Web browsing, since rev. A mostly improves upload times, so users who e-mail large attachments will benefit the most. The Mogul happily charges over USB, and uses a standard mini-USB port, so cables are kept to a minimum, at least for these features. If you want to stow your laptop, the Mogul has built-in Wi-Fi, which is a nice extra, though with EV-DO we usually forgot to turn it on, even in the presence of an open network. Still, Wi-Fi is admittedly faster for Web browsing.
Multimedia – Good
Internet Explorer on Windows Mobile is a very capable browser, and it had no problem loading any page we threw at it. Of course, flash is out, so most video sites won't work, but The New York Times homepage and our graphically intense page loaded fine, with few layout errors and all images intact. Navigating could have been easier, and this is one time we actually found ourselves using the Mogul's clickwheel, which we mostly ignored otherwise.
The phone comes equipped with the standard Windows Media player, and Sprint will also be offering access to the Sprint Music store some time in July. For music, we were happy to find A2DP for stereo Bluetooth, but using wired headphones requires an adapter. We applaud Sprint and HTC for packaging numerous multimedia accessories with the phone, including a mini-USB to 2.5mm adapter, a USB splitter for charging and listening to headphones at the same time, a 512mb microSD card, and a set of earbuds. We prefer a 3.5mm port for headphones, but with other carriers skimping on accessories these days, we were pleased with what was included, especially the 512mb memory card. Sprint includes the Audible Air and Audible Player apps, so that Audible subscribers can access and download their audiobook libraries. We're subscribers ourselves, and we found the program to be a delight, very useful and quite fast, even downloading large book files. The highest quality, high-bitrate files are not available through the program, but the files we downloaded sounded just fine for listening on the train.
The phone lacks GPS, which is a disappointment, though we can't think of any HTC QWERTY slider that features a GPS sensor. The phone features a 2-megapixel camera, which is as lousy as any cameraphone's lens, and hardly worth using, except in a pinch. We were nearly giddy to find a panorama stitching feature on the camera, but our shots dumbfounded us. The panorama is limited to a 480 pixel width, so our five-panel shot came out 480 by 105 pixels, which is miniscule. It simply does not make sense that, as you add panels to the panorama, the image gets smaller and thinner. The feature was completely wasted.
Price and availability
The HTC Mogul is available from Sprint for $400 with a contract agreement. A mail-in rebate of $100 is available when signing up for a qualifying plan.
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