When tested 15 years ago: HTC’s Touch2 was an economical smartphone at 270 euros
With the HTC Touch2 (test), the manufacturer followed the motto “small but nice” and offered relatively extensive functionality for a low price of 270 euros. A big weakness of the budget smartphone was the boring Windows Mobile 6.5.
Cheap hardware and complicated software
The HTC Touch2 was very compact with dimensions of 104 × 55 × 13 mm (L × W × H). This means it fits easily into any pants pocket. As a result, the usability of small smartphones suffered, especially since the screen was also relatively small at 2.8 inches diagonal. The low resolution of 240 × 320 pixels and the resistive – i.e. pressure sensitive – touchscreen did their usual job. Resistive touchscreens were popular in the lower price segment 15 years ago, but did not support multi-touch operation and were more complicated to use due to the mechanical action required on the screen than standard screens capacitive touchscreens, which are used almost everywhere today.
Touch2 Specifications Component Type of equipment Bar Processor 528 MHz (Qualcomm MSM722) RAM ROM: 512 MB / RAM: 256 MB Operating system Windows Mobile 6.5 Battery Lithium, 1,100 mAh Storage space 256 MB internal (expandable via memory card, max. 32 GB) Size 104 × 55 × 13 mm (L × W × H) weight 110 grams (battery included) 2.8 inch screen with QVGA resolution (resolution: 240 × 320) Operation Touch screen, zoom bar Communication Quad-band GSM/GPRS/EDGE, UMTS (HSDPA/HSUPA),
WLAN (IEEE 802.11 b/g), Bluetooth 2.1 EDR & A2DP, 3.2 megapixel GPS camera Audio support AAC, AAC+, eAAC+, AMR-NB, QCP, MP3, WMA, WAV, MIDI, M4A Video support WMV, ASF, MP4, 3GP, 3G2, M4V, AVI
As another annoyance, Windows Mobile 6.5 was resource-intensive, so the system often responded slowly. In addition, using the operating system was sometimes very complicated because menu navigation was not optimal. HTC relied on its own interface, TouchFLO, which extended Windows Mobile 6.5. This meant that frequently used applications could be accessed directly from a start bar.
Moderate multimedia skills
If the Touch2 was perfect for music playback thanks to a 3.5mm jack connection and its small dimensions, it couldn’t shine when it came to video playback. The screen was simply too small and its resolution was too low. Anyone who wants to surf the Internet can also expect a significantly better user experience from competitors such as the significantly more expensive iPhone 3GS. Photo quality from the 3.2-megapixel camera was acceptable to good depending on lighting, while video quality was slightly worse.
In terms of size and appearance, the Touch2 cuts a good figure (photo 1 of 3).
Another flaw of the HTC Touch2 was the small selection of applications, due to Windows Mobile. At that time, Android and iOS already had huge app stores, while the HTC Touch2 only had 300-400 apps available.
Conclusion
In principle, the HTC Touch2 had good characteristics and for some users the extremely compact dimensions were a plus. Overall, however, the smartphone’s usability suffered from cheap components such as the resistive touchscreen, mediocre operating system, as well as the small screen and low resolution. Given the low price of 270 euros, this could still be an interesting alternative for some users who want to avoid the much more expensive competition.
In the category “In the test 15 years ago”, the editorial staff consults the test archives every Saturday since July 2017. We list the last 20 articles published in this series below:
The advantage of SSDs over hard drives in everyday life Razer’s Orochi for mobile gaming pleasure via Bluetooth BlackBerry’s Bold 9700 was a budding smartphone. New Super Mario Bros. was also a hit on the Wii. NVIDIA’s cheap GeForce GT 240 was too expensive Noctua’s NH-D14 was the ultimate Radeon CPU air cooler The HD 5970 was fast and the Corsairs Obsidian 800D was ideal. for water cooling, Sapphire recommended the Radeon HD 5750. AMD’s Eyefinity guaranteed gaming pleasure on three displays. ATI’s Radeon HD 5750 was too expensive despite a recommended price of 115 euros. 5850 as affordable entry-level DirectX 11Test Radeon HD 5870 as first graphics card with DirectX 11Core i5-750, i7-860 and i7-870 from Intel on Socket 1156Cooler Masters Hyper 212 Plus as budget coolerIntel’s SSD champion The N97 from Nokia would have liked to be a smartphone with the Phenom II back in the GHz race Corsair‘s H50 was water cooling for everyone
Even more content like this and many other reports and anecdotes can be found in the retro corner of the Techoutil forum.
Themes: HTC retro smartphones
Sarah tracks innovations in smartphones, evaluating their performance, design, and key features.
