HTC Touch Cell Phone Review - Multimedia
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Alfredo Padilla Published on November 07, 2007 Comment on this |
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Accessing Music Software (2.56)
The Sprint Music Store is more accessible than the Media Player, as it has a prominent button in the TouchFLO interface. By contrast, to launch Windows Media Player you have to go into the Start menu, then to Programs, and then scroll down to the bottom of the programs to get to the shortcut. We should note that the Start menu is customizable, so if you want faster access to the Media Player you can add it there. The TouchFLO shortcuts are not customizable, however, so you're stuck with what's there. Getting Media Player to start up and get a song playing is significantly faster than Sprint's music software, at 7.8 seconds on average. We decided to go with the faster time for our score here, but those who want to use Sprint's software need to be aware that it's terribly slow. Of course, better than terrible isn't necessarily good, and you can see below that the Media Player's 7.8-second time is still bad.
| Cell Phone | Time (sec) | Score |
| HTC Touch | 7.80 | 2.56 |
| Helio Ocean | 5.20 | 3.85 |
| BlackBerry Curve 8320 | 7.62 | 2.62 |
| HTC Mogul | 6.06 | 3.30 |
| Palm Centro | 3.22 | 6.21 |
| Apple iPhone | 3.10 | 6.45 |
Dedicated Music Controls (1.0)
When music is playing back on the HTC Touch and you're not in the music player, the only keys that control music playback are the volume keys. Many modern Windows Mobile devices have a plug-in for the home screen that allows you to control music playback from there, but the Touch lacks this plug-in since it uses HTC's TouchFLO home screen.
Music Software Functionality and Organization (6.2)
The Sprint music software is Java-based, and although you can use soft keys and the touch screen with the software, you will quickly notice whenever you enter a menu that this isn't a native Windows Mobile application. Sprint's music software is the only way you'll be able to listen to music purchased from Sprint's music store. If you're like most people, though, who have their music collection in an unprotected format on their computer, then you'll probably use Windows Media Player. Therefore, we'll be scoring that software in this section.
Online Song Downloading (8.0)
Streaming (2.0)
The HTC Touch supports streaming audio that uses the Windows Media codec, but does not support streaming MP3 or Real audio. Unlike most Sprint phones, the Touch doesn't support Sprint's streaming audio services.
Podcast Support (0.0)
The HTC Touch lacks any software dedicated to downloading or organizing podcasts.
Music Sync with PC (7.0)
You can easily synchronize your music with a PC using Windows Media Player. You can set the phone up to automatically synchronize selected playlists when you connect the device, or do your management manually from within Windows Media Player on the desktop. This only applies to regular unprotected music, however. If you want to manage music you purchased from Sprint you will need to use their proprietary software. Once again, we're not particularly happy with the necessity to have two pieces of software to fulfill basically the same function, as such we're not awarding any additional points for the Sprint music management software.
Music Formats and DRM (4.5)
The HTC Touch supports MP3, AAC, and Windows Media-encoded audio. The Touch supports Microsoft's PlaysForSure DRM-protected music, and also supports their proprietary DRM using Sprint's music software.
Music Interruption (10.0)
The Touch does a find job handling music when a call comes in. The music is paused and starts up from the same place when the call is done.
Video
Video Software Access (2.33)
To see how quickly you can get a video playing on the HTC Touch we timed how long it took to go from the home screen unlocked until a video was playing on the screen. We did this test five times and took the average time for our score. The HTC Touch took an average of 8.6 seconds to complete this test. This isn't a particularly impressive score, and is slower than any of our comparison phones. Because there's no quick shortcut to Windows Media Player, we needed to go into the menu system to open it and then navigate the library to open the actual video, both of which slowed us down quite a bit. | Cell Phone | Time (sec) | Score |
| HTC Touch | 8.60 | 2.33 |
| Helio Ocean | 5.50 | 3.64 |
| BlackBerry Curve 8320 | 8.08 | 2.48 |
| HTC Mogul | 7.64 | 2.62 |
| Palm Centro | 3.16 | 6.33 |
| Apple iPhone | 3.20 | 6.25 |
Video Controls (9.0)
When a video is playing back in Windows Media Player the d-pad can be used to turn volume up and down, skip to the next or previous track, fast-forward, and play and pause with the center select button. You can also access these functions on-screen, as well as touch a button to go into Full Screen mode. This set of controls is pretty good, and more controls are easily accessible via the soft keys.
Video Software & Organization (6.0)
Videos on the Touch can be viewed by title or genre. There's no division into items like TV, Movies, and Podcasts like you find on the iPhone, unless you assign a video genre to these categories. The software can scan your device to find all compatible videos, and there is support for playlists synchronized from Windows Media Player on your desktop. You can also view videos in full screen landscape mode. There is no support for searching your videos, but you can rate them just like with music.
Video Sync with PC (7.0)
As with music, you can synchronize video content with your PC using Windows Media Player on your desktop.
Video Formats (6.0)
The HTC Touch was able to play back all three of our 3GP encoded videos, and was also able to handle both vanilla MP4 video files and those encoded in H264. It can also play back Windows Media video files, of course.
Video DRM (5.0)
The Touch is able to play back video protected with Microsoft's video DRM. This video is used by stores like Amazon's Unboxed, which has a very credible selection of videos available for purchase. iTunes-protected video is not supported.
Video Playback Smoothness (10.0)
To see how smoothly the Touch can play back videos we attempted to play five files at increasing bit rates. We were pleased to see that the Touch was able to play back all five of our test files without any problems, even in full screen mode. This means you will be able to watch decent quality video on the Touch.
Online Video Downloading (0.0)
The Touch doesn't support any direct-to-device download services. This is not surprising, since there really aren't any such services available yet, but we expect that at some point in the near future such services will begin appearing.
Video Streaming unscored
Because there's really no standard for video streaming to mobile devices we don't score this section, but we do test out a few popular services to see how they do. As you would expect, the HTC Touch was able to play back streaming video from windowsmedia.com, but it wasn't able to play back video from YouTube's mobile site or 3GP streaming video from zoovision.com. You also have access to streaming video from Sprint's streaming video service, but you need to make sure your plan supports this feature before you start, otherwise you might end up with some nasty data charges.
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