HTC Tattoo Android SIM-Free Mobile Phone – Silver
Posted by Notcot on Apr 13, 2010 in Handhelds & PDAs |
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I have to admit that I chose the HTC Tattoo for two main reasons: firstly, it was nice looking and smaller than most touch screen smart phones, and secondly, it was one of the best value or cheapest. However there are many, many more plus points to the phone than I anticipated.
The phone is simple to set up and you can customise your home screen so that it contains the icons you use most often (mine has text messages, alarms, contacts list and settings). You can then scroll to four other home pages which you can also set up to your liking (mine have links to all my favourite websites so that I can access them instantly, such as hotmail, youtube and of course amazon!)
Internet browsing is excellent on this phone – the screen is large and bright, I can pick up a signal almost anywhere and the internet speed is really impressive. The phone quickly loads up even large files such as youtube videos (and the quality of watching these is excellent as well).
Texting takes a while to get used to if you’ve not had a touch screen before, but it’s not impossible. You can choose between having the screen portrait or landscape and you can also have either a normal phone keypad or a QWERTY keypad on the screen.
The connectivity with social networking sites is great as well. You can link your contacts in your phone book to your facebook friends, so that their status and facebook profile pic appear next to them. The phone gets constant updates from facebook too, which you can access via a small bar at the top of the home screen.
A few things could however be improved upon:
-The battery life is quite poor if you are surfing the net, and you will need to charge it every night, if not more often, if you’re doing a lot of internet activity.
-The camera is not great, but if you’re looking for an excellent camera you won’t be looking at this phone anyway.
-Most annoyingly, the alarm is MUCH too quiet. Even on its loudest setting and with vibrate, it’s not loud enough to wake me, and you also can’t put your own music on to wake up to. This is why the phone has lost a star.
Aside from the alarm though, this is a fab little phone which I highly recommend.
Rating: 4 / 5
Firstly I would like to point out that I have only had this device for 2 days, but WOW! what a lovely bit of kit this is. Extremely easy to use once you get your head around the android OS, and fully customisable to your personal requirements. I mainly used to use my mobile for texting so when deciding which phone to buy this time I was a little worried how I would find a touch screen phone, especially after trying a few of my collegues mobiles with capacative screens as they seemed rather flighty and random as regards text imput. With this in mind I chose to go down the resistive screen route and chose this lovely HTC Tattoo, and how pleased am I, texting is a dream, the contacts list is intuitive, calling is simple, and connecting to the internet and wi-fi and absolute doddle. Email set up was just as easy as long as you have your POP settings from your provider and notifications come through instantly.
This device also supports A GPRS which means it can also be used as a Sat Nav, I was a little concerned at first that the screen would not be large enough but no worries there it’s fine. Loads of useful apps are included with the device, but plenty more are available from Google android market, to download, most of which are free. The 7 home screens hold your shortcuts and apps so that everything you use frequently is right at your fingertips e.g. My main screen has the time and weather app and shortcuts to messages, contacts, browser and camera, and subsequent screens have an app for bookmarks which are shown as thumbprints, another has a photoviewer and calender etc,. If I had one niggle it’s the camera, it’s not wonderful, but as I don’t use phone cameras much – preferring my canon, which goes everywhere with me – this is not an issue for me.
Summing up this is a brilliant device which brings a whole new dimention to the mobile phone and a whole lot of fun – HTC not just giving the user a fully customisable user interface but also provide a service to customise the outside too, as you can buy covers that have been pre-designed or get this! Design your own – how cool is that! It’s a fab little device that will change your whole perception of mobile phones forever….
Rating: 5 / 5
+ Packed with features (GPS/WiFi/3G/Bluetooth).
+ Usual smartphone apps all present and correct, either preinstalled or free from the Market (Web/Maps/GPS Tracks/Weather/Mail/Contacts/Facebook/Flickr/Twitter/Drop7/YouTube/etc).
+ Nice, compact size; fits in your pocket.
+ Android 1.6 OS gives great power & flexibility.
+ HTC Sense user interface looks great and is easy to use.
+ Sensible connectors (3.5mm headphone + Mini USB). Actually it’s an HTC “enhanced” variant of USB so it looks different but a standard USB cable works fine.
+ Great value at the discounted price – under £200 for a fully featured, SIM-free smartphone!
+ Surprisingly good signal and call/audio quality.
- Poor battery life if you use it a lot (1-2 days).
- Camera is rubbish (blurry in low light and lacks autofocus so useless for reading barcodes)
- Occasional quirks/crashes; seems no worse than many smartphones.
- Not all Android apps are available in the Market (due to the smaller screen size).
- Very limited Bluetooth capability (audio only, no file transfer). Will be fixed if/when HTC upgrade the OS to 2.x
- No voice dialling. Should be fixed if/when HTC upgrade the OS to 2.x
- Small, resistive touchscreen makes text entry cumbersome in portrait mode; it is fine in landscape.
Rating: 4 / 5
The attraction of an Android phone was too much for me and I went for the HTC Tattoo due to price.
It’s great at home and most of the time on walk-about. There are both fun and serious applications available free or cheaply. I have Facebook, Twitter, a Skymap that knows which way I’m facing, etc.
Unfortunately, while it has Android, it falls short … it’s not as good as it’s supposed to be.
Bluetooth is crippled (like the iPhone) to only talking to a headset. Have I ever used a headset? No. Have I ever used Bluetooth to talk to printer, laptop, or other phones. Yes. But I can’t with the Tattoo.
Screen size is smaller than any other Android phone, so many applications are not available. You also spend forever scrolling sideways when browsing.
Camera is weak and only fixed-focus. This mean the clever app that reads a barcode on a shop product and tells you the prices in stores nearby won’t work. It can’t focus on the bar-code
GPS is only ‘A-GPS’ meaning it only knows roughly where you are.
Cannot be used on a corporate wireless network. This is the worst of all for me. There’s nowhere to tell the wifi that you’re working behind an authenticating proxy. I don’t know how anyone organisation can provide wifi access and stay legal without requiring this.
Finally, battery life is appalling. Has to go on charge every night – and I DON’T leave Wifi, bluetooth or GPS on all the time.
Rating: 2 / 5
The HTC tattoo is a great mobile phone! I am a total new comer to touchscreen/internet/all singing-dancing phones having owned a motorola pebble for many years (finally in retirement!). The tattoo looks great and the touchscreen is so easy to use – its kind of like having four different computer screens that you seamlessly scroll between. The screen is very bright and colourful, and combined with numerous features, you can set this up to your own needs and tastes, thereby ending up with a phone that suits your needs perfectly!
There are a few points however that might be improved but in no way should these put you off considering the purchase of the tattoo:
the camera is pretty poor to be honest – its so blurry and the definition is not good. however, with patience an ok shot can be taken, but only if the subject is standing perfectly still! However, being able to upload pictures of your friends and contacts so that they appear on the screen when they ring you is cool.
The speaker distorts at high volumes.
Typing in a text can be a bit of a fiddle, although by tilting the phone on its side you get a bigger keyboard.
The battery life isn’t great – the power drains quite quickly, so always make sure you have the power cables handy! I have found though that in practice I just plug mine in to the PC at the end of each day. So, no great deal really.
I think this phone is definately worth considering – its certainly caught the attention of many of my friends and colleagues and I love using it. You can buy screen protectors for the phone, but I haven’t done so yet – I did purchase a small grey and black “sock” from an orange shop in town that serves the same purpose, although of course you have to take the phone out to answer it!
All I can say is well done HTC! I’m very pleased!
Rating: 5 / 5