HTC Mogul Cell Phone Review - Messaging
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Alfredo Padilla Published on July 23, 2007 Comment on this |
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Supported Email Services (8.0)
As a Windows Mobile Professional device the HTC Mogul has a powerful messaging application that is able to handle both POP and IMAP email accounts. It's good to see to see that in Windows Mobile 6 Microsoft has upgraded the account wizard so that it can automatically configure many popular email services, including AOL, Yahoo and Gmail. Hotmail email can be set up using the included Windows Live application. Altogether the support for email services is amongst the best we have seen on any device.
Push Email (3.0)
The HTC Mogul supports push email via Microsoft Exchange Activesync. This delivers incoming email messages to you in real time. This service only works with the proper server side support, but is generally available in any enterprise environment. There is no built in support for other push email services, but you can find various third party installations to use things like BlackBerry or Good email with the Mogul.
Multiple Email Accounts (10.0)
The Mogul was easily able to handle our five test accounts, and can probably handle more. It should satisfy anyone who need to keep track of multiple email accounts on a single device.
HTML and Attachments (12.0)
One of the upgrades that comes with Windows Mobile 6, which the Mogul runs, is the ability to view HTML encoded email messages properly. Previous version of Windows Mobile, and most phones, turn HTML email into a garbled jumble of text. This feature is a major upgrade and puts the Mogul and other Windows Mobile 6 devices ahead of Symbian and BlackBerry devices, which can't handle HTML email properly. The Mogul also provides good support for viewing email attachments. Office Mobile takes care of Word, Excel and Powerpoint files while PDF files are handled by Adobe's viewer for Windows Mobile. A zip manager is also included. We were very pleased with the Mogul's attachment and html support. It's amongst the best we've seen from any phone.
Email Customizations (2.0)
The email customization options on the Mogul are as limited as on any Windows Mobile device. You cannot change display font type or size. You also cannot change how many lines of messages are displayed in the message list. About all you can do is add signatures to outgoing messages.
Time to a New Message (3.22)
To test how easy it is to create a new email message we time how long it takes to go from the home screen unlocked until we have a new email message dialogue up on the screen. We repeat this test five times and take the average time for our score. The Mogul took an average of 6.22 seconds to get a new email dialogue up. This is a poor time, especially for what is supposed to be a data centric device like the Mogul. The Apple iPhone, Blackberry 8800 and Treo 750 all took significantly less time, as you can see from the table below. The Mogul did do slightly better than the T-Mobile Wing's 7.46 second time, but both devices are rather slow. It should be noted that we shut the email program down after every test, if you leave it running in the background you can knock several seconds off of our time.
| Cell Phone | Time (sec) | Score |
| HTC Mogul | 6.22 | 3.22 |
| T-Mobile Wing | 7.46 | 2.68 |
| BlackBerry 8800 | 1.76 | 11.36 |
| Helio Ocean | 2.1 | 9.76 |
| Nokia N95 | 4.4 | 4.55 |
| Apple iPhone | 1.9 | 10.53 |
Email Usability (11.0)
Overall the email program on the Mogul is powerful and fairly easy to use. Those who don't need advanced features don't need to bother with them while those who do need them will appreciate having access to them.
Supported IM Services (2.0)
The HTC Mogul ships with Windows Live Messenger, which allows you to access the MSN IM network. Fortunately as this is built into Windows Mobile 6 Sprint does not charge you for an SMS message for each IM sent or received. There is no built-in support for any other IM services, however you can install a third party program like Agile Messenger to add this functionality.
MMS Support (0.0)
Amazingly the HTC Mogul does not support MMS messaging. This functionality had to have been removed by Sprint as MMS support is a standard feature in Windows Mobile devices. We are extremely disappointed that MMS has been removed from this device.
SMS Smiley Face Interpretation (0.0)
To test whether the Mogul displays smiley faces as graphical representations or leaves them in text format we sent four common smileys to the phone. We were disappointed that like many other Windows Mobile devices the Mogul leaves smileys in graphical form. We know this isn't a big deal for many, but it's small details like this that can make a phone seem polished.
SMS/MMS Ease of Use (7.0)
Text messaging on the Mogul is built into the same messaging application that handles your email as its own account. The interface is very similar to the email interface, with messages organized in a simple list that can be sorted in various ways. When you create a new message you are presented with a to: field where you can enter recipients and the body of the message below. There is a handy counter that allows you to keep track of how big your message is, and if you go over the 160 character limit the message is automatically split into multiple text messages. We found the interface generally easy to use and intuitive, however we would have preferred the threaded text messaging interface found on Treos and the iPhone.
Time to a New SMS Message (1.83)
To find out how easy it is to create a new text message on the HTC Mogul we time how long it takes to go from the home screen unlocked until we have a new text message dialogue up. We repeat this test five times and take the average time for our score. The Mogul took an average of 5.46 seconds to get a new SMS dialogue up. As with email this is not a good time, with the majority of the time being taken to launch the messaging program. As with email we completely shut the messaging program down for each timed test. If you keep the program running in the background instead you can open up a new message much faster. | Cell Phone | Time (sec) | Score |
| HTC Mogul | 5.46 | 1.83 |
| T-Mobile Wing | 7.1 | 1.41 |
| BlackBerry 8800 | 3.82 | 2.62 |
| Helio Ocean | 3.1 | 4.76 |
| Nokia N95 | 0.9 | 11.11 |
| Apple iPhone | 2.62 | 3.82 |
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