HTC Mogul Cell Phone Review - Hardware
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Alfredo Padilla Published on July 23, 2007 Comment on this |
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Keypad
Text Words Per Minute (8.97)
To test how easy it is to type on the Mogul's QWERTY keyboard we time how long it takes to enter a sample sentence using two hands and calculate a words per minute (WPM) score. We practice to familiarize ourselves with the keyboard and then run the timed test five times, taking the average for our score. It took an average of 21.4 seconds to type our sample sentence on the HTC Mogul. This works out to 44.9 WPM, an excellent score, even for a phone with a QWERTY keyboard. The Treo 750 scored 43.8 WPM and the BlackBerry 8800 39.3 WPM. The only phone we've reviewed to date that did significantly better than the Mogul is the Helio Ocean, with its score of 53 WPM. The Mogul has a large and spacious QWERTY keyboard, with comfortably sized keys that provide good tactile feedback when pressed. We were very pleased with how easy it was to type on this keyboard. | Cell Phone | Words Per Minute | Score |
| HTC Mogul | 44.9 | 8.97 |
| T-Mobile Wing | 40.1 | 8 |
| BlackBerry 8800 | 39.3 | 7.86 |
| Helio Ocean | 53 | 10.6 |
| Nokia N95 | 29.28 | 5.86 |
| Apple iPhone | 39.6 | 7.92 |
T9 and Auto Complete (5.0)
The HTC Mogul supports auto completion of words while typing, a nice feature that can significantly speed up your typing speed. The Mogul will also attempt to complete entire phrases based on what you've typed in the past. Because of the lack of a standard keypad for text entry, even a touch screen one, the Mogul does not support T9.
One Hand Usability (3.54)
For the sake of completeness we run our WPM test with a single hand, for those who prefer one handed typing. As is common for phones with QWERTY keyboards one handed typing is significantly slower than two handed. This is due to the large size of the keyboard and the awkwardness required to hold the phone with a single hand while typing with a thumb. The Mogul took an average of 54.12 seconds to type our sample sentence with a single hand, which works out to 17.7 WPM. This is only 40% of the speed we were able to manage with two hands, so you can see that you will take a significant hit if you try to type with a single hand.
| Cell Phone | Words Per Minute | Score |
| HTC Mogul | 17.7 | 3.54 |
| T-Mobile Wing | 14.7 | 2.94 |
| BlackBerry 8800 | 23.1 | 4.61 |
| Helio Ocean | 28.3 | 5.66 |
| Nokia N95 | 32.4 | 6.48 |
| Apple iPhone | 32.1 | 6.42 |
Keypad Backlighting (7.0)
The Mogul includes a backlight for the keyboard that does an excellent job of evenly illuminating all of the keys. The phone has a light sensor at the top of the keyboard that judges whether to turn the backlight on and off. There are no controls for the keyboard backlight, instead it will turn itself off in about 45 seconds, and you can't turn it back on until you hit a key. We would have liked to see better controls for when the backlight turns off, but are otherwise very pleased with the Mogul's keyboard backlight.
Controls
D-Pad/Joystick (8.0)
The directional pad on the Mogul has a curious design that we have not seen before. Instead of having a traditional four way rocker with a separate center select button the Mogul's directional pad is all one piece. It tilts left/right/up/down for directional control, and the whole pad is pressed in for center select. It's almost like an over large joystick rather than a traditional directional pad. Despite this curious design we were pleased with the performance of the D-Pad. It's smaller than we would have liked, but despite this was very accurate. We were particularly worried that pressing in to select items would lead to mistaken directional presses, but we found this was not the case. We felt the Mogul's D-Pad was comparable to the excellent ones found on the Treo 750 and T-Mobile Wing, and a significant step above the terrible D-Pad found on the Nokia N95. Touch Screen (6.0)
As a Windows Mobile Professional device the Mogul has a touch screen. The touch screen comes in very handy when you need to do things like copy and past items or manage large numbers of files, things that are awkward to do on devices that lack a touch screen. Unfortunately the Mogul's touch screen has the same drawbacks that all Windows Mobile Professional devices have in that it is designed to be used with a stylus rather than your finger. This means that it isn't nearly as handy to use as the touch screens found on phones like the iPhone or the LG Prada. We did find the touch screen to be fairly responsive though, better than the T-Mobile Wing's, probably due to the faster processor.
Jog Dial (7.0)
We were pleased to see that the HTC Mogul adds a scroll wheel to the selection of controls found on the device. Although Windows Mobile is not optimized for the scroll wheel as BlackBerry devices are, it still comes in handy when scrolling through web pages or long lists such as in your contacts. Unlike BlackBerries the Mogul's scroll wheel is located on the left side of the phone, we theorize that this is done to allow users to manipulate the scroll wheel with their left hand while holding a stylus in their right hand to interact with the touch screen. The Mogul's scroll wheel is a "true" wheel, with 360 degree movement. It is ridged to provide traction and you can press in on the wheel to act as a select button. We found that the wheel was almost identical to that found on the BlackBerry 8700, albeit the BlackBerries wheel jutted out from the body of the phone a little more. In use it performed admirably and we very much appreciated having this alternative method of interacting with the Mogul.
Soft Buttons (6.0)
The Mogul's soft keys are located on the front of the device underneath the screen and flanking the directional pad. The directional pad sits slightly above the surrounding controls and this combined with a somewhat crowded set of buttons made the soft keys smaller than we would have liked and prone to errors. When pressed they do provide good play and tactile feedback, with a solid "click" sound. We preferred the soft keys from the Treo 750, which are larger and have more separation from the surrounding buttons. As with other HTC handsets that have slide out keyboards you will also find soft keys on the keyboard when it is revealed. These buttons are located at the top of the keyboard at the far left and right. We prefer this placement to the T-Mobile Wing, where the buttons are located under their on screen functions. Although this might seem more intuitive, we found the button placement in this case to be awkward, especially for those with smaller hands.
Volume Control (1.0)
The HTC Mogul doesn't have volume keys in a traditional sense. Where you would expect to find the volume keys you instead find the scroll wheel. The scroll wheel does act as a volume control in some situations, for example during a call or when in Windows Media Player. Whether this functionality is sufficient for you is of course a personal decision. In our opinion we are happy to have the functionality provided by the scroll wheel with the more limited volume functionality, but others may disagree. Because of the secondary nature of the volume functionality we only awarded the Mogul a single point in this area.
Power and Standby (5.0)
The power/standby button on the HTC Mogul is located on the left side of the phone, nearest the top. The button is small and plastic, but does jut slightly above the surrounding plastic, allowing you to find it by feel. When pressed there is a good amount of play, but not very much tactile feedback. A single press on the button will put the phone into or take it out of standby mode. A long press will shut the phone down completely. We are a little concerned that the standby button is a little exposed and could be hit by accident in a pocket or bag, to avoid this you may want to use the device lock feature so that if the button is hit you won't get accidental screen presses. We wish there was some way to have the device automatically lock when you put it into standby mode, such as the Treo 750 does.
Other Buttons (15.0)
In addition to the buttons discussed above the HTC Mogul has several other useful buttons that allow you to access various features. Thankfully many of these buttons are user customizable and/or have multiple functions, allowing you to customize the handset for your use. Below the soft keys at the bottom of the Mogul are dedicated Start and OK buttons. These allow you to access the Start menu and dismiss the current window. These buttons do not have secondary functions, nor can they be reassigned. On the left side of the handset just under the scroll wheel is a second OK button for when you are using the scroll wheel. When on the Today screen this button will open the Start menu. This button is not user configurable. Below the OK button is a dedicated voice speed dial button. A long press on this button will open a voice note. Both of these functions can be changed in the settings. Near the bottom of the left side a switch that turns Wi-Fi on/off. This is very useful as it allows you to easily switch off Wi-Fi when your not using it, thus saving significant battery life.
Above the screen are two user configurable buttons flanking the phone speaker. By default they are assigned to messaging and Internet Explorer. On the right side of the phone beneath the power/standby button is a comm manager button. Pressing this will bring up an easy to use menu that allows you to turn various wireless functions on/off. Finally, near the bottom of the left side is a dedicated camera button that doubles as a shutter key when taking a photo. These two buttons can also be reassigned based on your needs. Although some will find the plethora of buttons confusing, power users will appreciate the ability to have one button access to a variety of different functions.
Display
Primary Screen Gross Resolution (8.0)
The HTC Mogul's screen has a resolution of 240 x 320 pixels. This has become the standard for Windows Mobile devices, and has also become standardized for mid to high end cell phones in general. Still, with phones like the iPhone sporting a 320 x 480 pixel display and upcoming Pocket PC phones including VGA and WVGA displays we can't help wishing for a higher resolution on the Mogul.
| Cell Phone | Resolution | Score |
| HTC Mogul | 320x240 | 8 |
| T-Mobile Wing | 320x240 | 8 |
| BlackBerry 8800 | 320x240 | 8 |
| Helio Ocean | 320x240 | 8 |
| Nokia N95 | 320x240 | 8 |
| Apple iPhone | 320x480 | 9 |
Primary Screen Pixels per Inch (7.14)
Pixels per inch (PPI) is a measure of how densely packed pixels on the screen are. Higher pixel density leads to richer colors and sharper displays, while lower pixel densities can cause the screen to look washed out. The HTC Mogul packs 142.9 PPI in its display. This is similar to the T-Mobile Wing's 142.2 PPI and the Treo 750's 141.7 PPI, however it sits at the low end of cell phones. The BlackBerry 8800 packed 165.3 PPI into its display, while the Apple iPhone's screen measures 164.8 PPI. The Mogul's rather low score is caused by the fact that the larger screen size compared to phones like the BlackBerry 8800 is not accompanied by a similar increase in resolution. Again we reference our wish from above that phones like the Mogul with large screens had higher resolutions.
| Cell Phone | Pixels Per Inch | Score |
| HTC Mogul | 142.9 | 7.14 |
| T-Mobile Wing | 142.2 | 7.11 |
| BlackBerry 8800 | 165.3 | 8.27 |
| Helio Ocean | 168 | 8.4 |
| Nokia N95 | 153.8 | 7.69 |
| Apple iPhone | 164.8 | 8.24 |
Screen Physical Size (7.0)
The Mogul's screen measures a comfortable 2.8 inches diagonal. This size screen is standard for HTC phones of this type, you see the same screen size on the T-Mobile Wing and AT&T 8525. 2.8 inches is larger than most phones out there, with only the iPhone a generally available phone that will give you a larger screen size. This large screen size makes the Mogul particularly well suited to browsing web pages or viewing multimedia like photos and video.
| Cell Phone | Size Diagonal (inches) | Score |
| HTC Mogul | 2.8 | 7 |
| T-Mobile Wing | 2.8 | 7 |
| BlackBerry 8800 | 2.4 | 6 |
| Helio Ocean | 2.4 | 6 |
| Nokia N95 | 2.6 | 6.5 |
| Apple iPhone | 3.5 | 8.75 |
Screen Brightness (7.85)
To measure screen brightness we set brightness level to maximum and point the phone's web browser to a blank white page. We then measure how bright the screen gets using a lux meter. The Mogul's screen measured an impressive 102 lux in our test. This is one of the brightest screen's we've seen, higher than the BlackBerry 8800's 90 lux or the Nokia N95's 72 lux. It falls short of the Apple iPhone's 168 lux, however it should be more than bright enough for most users. Unfortunately the Mogul does not automatically adjust brightness based on the lighting conditions. Considering that there is a light sensor on the device of the keyboard we are unsure why this functionality was not included. You can manually control your brightness level, with separate settings for when it's running on battery power and when it's plugged in. You have 11 brightness levels to choose from. You can also set the amount of time before the backlight shuts off, again with separate settings for battery power vs. plugged in. Although we would have preferred to see an automatic adjustment, we do appreciate having a good selection of settings.
| Cell Phone | Brightness (lux) | Score |
| HTC Mogul | 102 | 7.85 |
| T-Mobile Wing | 112 | 7.6 |
| BlackBerry 8800 | 90 | 9 |
| Helio Ocean | 63 | 6.3 |
| Nokia N95 | 72 | 7.2 |
| Apple iPhone | 168 | 16.8 |
Screen Bright Light Performance (2.0)
To test the performance of the screen in bright light conditions we shine 3000 lux of light onto the screen, equivalent to a bright sunny day, and judge how legible the screen is. Despite the brightness of the Mogul's screen it did not perform well in bright light, with items on the screen almost completely illegible. This is likely due to the touch sensitive layer in the screen, which is very reflective. The Mogul performed much more poorly in this test than the BlackBerry 8800, which lacks a touch sensitive layer. The Apple iPhone performed very well in this test, but it should be noted that it's screen gets almost 60% brighter than the Mogul's.
Color Depth (6.0)
Color depth is a measure of how many colors a phone's screen can display. The HTC Mogul's screen displays 64,000 colors, pretty standard for a handset from HTC. We have to say that although a year ago this was pretty good it falls well short of what we're seeing from other high end handsets nowadays. The Helio Ocean's screen is capable of displaying 260 thousand colors, while the Nokia N95 is capable of 16 million colors. We're unsure whether the limited color depth of the Mogul is a limitation of the Windows Mobile platform or HTC's decision, but regardless we hope it changes in future handsets.
| Cell Phone | Colors (thousands) | Score |
| HTC Mogul | 65 | 6 |
| T-Mobile Wing | 65 | 6 |
| BlackBerry 8800 | 65 | 6 |
| Helio Ocean | 260 | 8 |
| Nokia N95 | 16000 | 10 |
| Apple iPhone | unknown | 6 |
Ports & Storage
Power & Data Ports (9.0)
The HTC Mogul uses a modified Mini USB port for both power and data connections. It is compatible with any Mini USB cable, meaning that you can use the same cable as found on the plethora of other Mini USB devices like cameras and camcorders. We appreciate seeing such a standardized port used. We also like the fact that you can charge the Mogul from a USB port, something that isn't found on all Mini USB devices, for example the Nokia N95 lacks this functionality. Headphone & Jack Compatibility (5.0)
The "modified" part of the Mogul's Mini USB port comes into play when we start talking about headphones. HTC has decided in all of its new handsets to use the Mini USB port for headphones. This is a step back from previous HTC models like the T-Mobile MDA or Cingular 2125, which had a more standard 2.5mm headphone jack. Although we understand the interest in limiting the number of ports on a device, the fact is that using a proprietary port like this severely limits the number of headphones that are compatible with the device. The Mogul does include an adaptor that adds a 2.5mm port, but this adaptor is ungainly as it acts as a splitter that includes both a 2.5mm headset and a Mini USB port, and you'll need an additional adapter if you want to use a standard pair of headphones with a 3.5mm plug. A more elegant solution is to use the Mogul's support for the A2DP and AVRCP Bluetooth profiles that allow you to use Bluetooth wireless stereo headphones to listen to music.
Internal Storage (2.0)
The HTC Mogul ships with an impressive 256 MB of memory. This is significantly more than most handsets, although it still lags behind the impressive 4GB or 8GB of storage found on the Apple iPhone or Sony-Ericsson W950. It is twice as much storage as generally found on Windows Mobile devices like the T-Mobile Wing or Treo 750. The increased storage means that users will be able to store all of their user data and applications right on the device, saving their memory card for multimedia.
Expansion Slot & Format (7.0)
The Mogul provides a Micro SD slot for additional storage. These cards currently top out at 2GB, although the newer SDHC Micro SD cards are beginning to offer more storage. We were unable to determine if the Mogul supports the SDHC standard. The MicroSD slot on the Mogul is located on the bottom of the device just above the Mini USB port. Unlike other MicroSD slots on phones like the T-Mobile Wing this slot is not protected by any type of cover. It is spring loaded however, which makes getting the card in/out fairly easy despite the small size.
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