finally I get my hands on the Touch Pro2

I finally got my hands on the Verizon Touch Pro2 today; the day it was released to the public. I was promised it weeks ago but my contact was a bit late in sending it to me. My first impressions are mixed. I’m over due for a new phone and have been excited about these new HTC phones for awhile. I dig it but I’m still getting used to it. I guess my biggest complaint is the lack of a scroll and ‘enter’ button that I’m used to on my XV6800. I really like all the hot key buttons and the scroll of my phone allowing me multiple methods of interaction. For instance, often web pages have very small links and instead of using my finger or the stylus I can just quickly scroll to the link and hit the enter button. The Touch Pro2 doesn’t have any such input methods other than the touchscreen and a stylus. I thought we were past the days of a stylus.

The phone is similar in size and weight of my current brick. It may be a millimeter smaller in depth but it is actually longer. And it is heavier. This is the version with the full keyboard and I’m thinking I want the Touch Diamond2 that is the same phone without a keyboard (and smaller). So I’m going to try to use the virtual keyboard while testing this phone to see if I can live without a real keyboard. So far I like the virtual keyboard.

I'm also getting used to HTC's TouchFLO 3D interface. I dig it mostly but wonder how much overhead it takes up and sometimes just want to bypass it and get directly to my applications quicker. I think I'll get used to it though. It is definitely nicer than the normal Windows Mobile 6.1 interface.

It comes with the Opera browser built in which I really like except for one big fact: it tricks websites in to thinking you are using a full desktop browser instead of a mobile browser. For that reason you don’t get the mobile version of the websites. I want the mobile version of websites when viewing on my phone. Mobile websites are made for a reason. Full desktop versions of websites are too bandwidth intensive with web 2.0 technologies that mobile browsers can’t render anyway. And the text and links of full web pages aren’t built for a touchscreen. At the very least the Opera browser should give you the option of rendering the mobile version of websites. But other than that fact, which is enough for me to not use the browser, I do like the interface. Looking forward to the yet-to-be-released mobile Firefox browser.

Either way I’ll have a new device in the near future.