HTC TyTN II

In various reviews across the web and in print, HTC’s TyTN II has been lauded as the ultimate smartphone. And this certainly seems to be the case from a quick look at its specifications.

For your money, not only do you get a quad-band phone with 3.6Mb/s HSDPA connectivity, but also GPRS with EDGE and 3G for when there’s no high-speed signal. There’s also a built-in GPS receiver, so you can have the phone double as a driving aid when out on the road; you get Wi-Fi for hotspot connectivity, plus there are forward (VGA) and rear-facing cameras (3 megapixels) for video calls and photography, and a large 2.8in LCD touchscreen.

Document compatibility is excellent, thanks to Windows Mobile 6 and Office Mobile. Plus, you get some of the more useful facets of HTC’s TouchFLO system, borrowed from the original Touch, including finger-driven scrolling and panning for navigation in contacts lists and documents.

Other handy additions include a belt-clip leather case and useful extras like a neat camera application that can ‘read’ business cards directly into your contacts list. It’s also compatible with BlackBerry Connect and BlackBerry Connect Desktop, so you can benefit from push email at work even if your IT department prefers BlackBerry Enterprise Server to Microsoft Exchange.

But what most attracted us was the excellent slide-out keyboard and tilting screen mechanism, which makes typing either in the hand or on a desk an absolute doddle. The phone is beautifully engineered all-round, the keyboard is more usable than the slightly unresponsive keys at first suggest and, if that wasn’t enough, there’s also a highly usable scroll wheel on the left edge of the device to provide another alternative for whizzing up and down long lists of contacts, for example.

There are downsides, however. It isn’t the most pocketable device on test at a fairly chunky 20mm and weighs a hefty 190g. It also isn’t yet available for a reasonable price on the cheapest contracts – Three is offering it at $40 monthly repayments on 24-month contracts ($960 in total) on top of any plan you choose. But considering how good the rest of the package is, we think it’s still good value for money.