Folks,

I've just posted "Day 1" of my "HTC Touch Pro 2 Review - A week in my life....." review of the HTC Touch Pro 2 over at www.4winmobile.com. You can catch the review here:

http://www.4winmobile.com/forums/4wm-reviews-hardware/20610-htc-touch-pro-2-review-week-my-life.html

Here's an excerpt or two:

Introduction

Ever since we first saw, and were blown away by, the original HTC Tytn (HTC Hermes) the flagship device for each generation has been the sliding hardware keyboard form factor from HTC. The Tytn II (Kaiser) and Touch Pro (Raphael) continued this trend and have led the way throughout each generation from HTC, and new OS iteration from Microsoft. It is then, with a little disappointment, that this latest flagship device, the Touch Pro 2, comes with same OS as its older sibling, Windows Mobile 6.1. For 6 months or so since we first heard rumours of the HTC Rhodium (Touch Pro 2) it was expected to ship with the new version of Windows Mobile, 6.5. With little more than an updated screen, on paper, I think this is the most low key device launch I've felt from HTC for a while. Does the Touch Pro 2 have hidden talents to make us lust over? Read on to find out.....

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As is the new trend with these reviews I'll produce a day by day commentary of a week’s use of the Touch Pro 2 along with photos/screen grabs and my thoughts as I go along. Feel free to ask questions, I'll endeavour to satisfy your need for detail. I'll use this for a more formally structured review you're all used to once the week is through.

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First impression of the hardware is....shiny. Very shiny. It's a much better looking device in the flesh than it's photograph's suggest. I've tried to capture the "shininess" in the images you see here but it has to be seen with your own eyes to really appreciate. HTC have used the chrome effect very well indeed.

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Thanks Dave, this is a great Day 1 and I am looking forward to the other days. The screen looks great. I'll be interested to see what you think of the keyboard.

I learned something new as well or maybe I just never saw it before - HTC = High Tech Computer.

Hi, WinMo-geek from Norway on the line....

Looking forward to hear more about the pro2! I've added my touch pro for sale now. Ready to buy a pro2 when it becomes available for sale here in Norway in June. Hope it's a good choice

Welcome to The Connection, IviBer - I don't know about the Facebook integration. Dave will be able to answer this and I am sure he will as he goes through his review.

 I've just posted "Day 2 - Setting up". As per usual here's a little teaser......

 At this point I'd like to offer my respect to the person or team at HTC that is responsible for the screen on the touch Pro 2. Beautiful doesn't quite do it justice; it's awesome; crystal clear, bright and very, very sharp. The only regret I have is that like the chrome finish around the edge of the device no matter how many photos I take of it, they just will not do it justice. I've had a lot of HTC devices in my time (and other manufacturers too) and this is THE best screen I've ever seen on any kind of Smartphone/Pocket Pc. It's awesome.

Link is still the same:

 HTC Touch Pro 2 Review - A week in my life....

IviBer:

Is it correct that the touch pro 2 has Facebook integration? Think I saw something about contact pictures that where imported from Facebook ..?

I've come across an option to add a Facebook link in your "My Contact Card" but not seen anything in Contacts themselves. There's a neat option about plotting their address on a Google map, but nothing Facebooky I've seen so far. I'll have another look later. You can import pictures from Facebook in SpB Mobile Shell 3 though, are you sure you're not getting mixed up with that?

Dave Parker MVP:

Here's an excerpt or two:

Dave, thanks for this! Always great to hear in-person impressions.

IviBer:

Is it correct that the touch pro 2 has Facebook integration?

IviBer, I read about this in Pocketnow's review of the Touch Pro2:

HTC promises us Facebook integration for their next generation of devices. We didn't get it with the Diamond2, but it's here with the Touch Pro2, and it's not that impressive. Here, the Touch Pro2 is trying to match my contacts to those on my Facebook account.

I appears that HTC's "unified communications" contact software just imports photos and birthday info from Facebook. There's also a Facebook panel for each contact, but according to Pocketnow, you can't do much with this, at least not yet. It shows "updates" and "events" - although I'm not sure exactly what these are.

DAVE! I am SOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO JEALOUS!!!!

Bill Fisher:

I appears that HTC's "unified communications" contact software just imports photos and birthday info from Facebook. There's also a Facebook panel for each contact, but according to Pocketnow, you can't do much with this, at least not yet. It shows "updates" and "events" - although I'm not sure exactly what these are.

I've had a look and I still haven't seen anything Facebook like in contacts. Maybe you need to sign in with your own Facebook details on the My Contacts Card so it'll go away and try and match your contacts to your Facebook buddies?

Day 3 - Initial thoughts on usage, is now up.

Here's a taster:

From a performance perspective the Touch Pro 2 has been reasonably good. During some general TouchFlo use I've noticed a bit of slowdown, but not at any given time or process. Sometimes it seems to just "think" for a split second. It's something I've noticed but is nothing to worry about. The change in screen orientation can take a while though. By a while I mean occasionally it has taken a couple of seconds, which is too long. Not always, but sometimes. I've also noticed on a couple of times when rotating from portrait to landscape the screen has corrupted. This was mainly when the TouchFlo internet and is fixed by going back to portrait and then back to landscape again. Switching between tabs in TouchFlo is fast and responsive with the data following the tab icon just a split second after releasing your finger from the screen. I noticed no lag with TouchFlo in general as we saw with the early versions.

As before the link is:

http://www.4winmobile.com/forums/4wm-reviews-hardware/20610-htc-touch-pro-2-review-week-my-life.html

Thanks Dave - not so good about the lack of OK button, but good that the call clarity is so much better. This to me is a really important factor - or am I just going deaf ?

I dunno, it could be an age thing as I used an old HTC Wizard the other day and was frustrated about the poor call quality. I'm no spring chicken anymore.....

I think it's down to the fact that we want WM to not only do everything these days but to do it well too.

The best call feature I've found on the Touch Pro 2 so far is the automatic "ear" detection that turns the screen off when the phone is next to your ear during a call but when you move it away it turns it back on again allowing you to check info on your PDA in the middle of a call without having to fumble around with the power button. 

Yeah I am LOVING the touch pro 2. So glad I held out for it (have it with vodaphone atm). Was umming and aahing about N97 but took the plunge and wanted something to combine my ipaq 2210, N95 and Sat nav and here it is. The phone is spectacular, words alone cannot describe how good it is.

Welcome to The Connection, Arcmedic.