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Thursday November 26, 2009 1:12 AM AEST
Skip Navigation LinksPC Authority > Reviews > Lifestyle > Phones > Smartphones/PDA Phones > HTC TyTN II

HTC TyTN II

HTC
HTC TyTN II
Tuesday March 25, 2008
Written by Jonathan Bray
Tags: HTC | TyTN | II
AUD
$912
Price at time of review.
Innovative, solidly engineered and packed with features – an almost perfect smartphone
A List Labs Winner
5 out of 6

"Great business tool but has flaws"

Pros:
1. Does just about evertyhing you could want for business and pleasure
2. Push email and Outlook synching works very well.
3. 8gb card provides a pile of storage for music, photso and files

Cons:
1.The screen is too small to make the most of the functionality offered.(3.2" VGA please!)
2. Can be a bit slow
3. I haven't yet had much success with the camera - quality and ease of use disappointing.
4. Weird stuff just happens sometimes, particulalry with phone functions
5. Battery life not brilliant, particularly if using blue tooth or GPS
I have used my TyTN ii since March 08 and it has quickly become something I rely on in my business life - in particular because of its great push email capability. It does however have its flaws and can be very frustrating sometimes.

What I really like:
The pushemail and synching with Outlook works a treat. I have noticed if I am at my desk the emails sometimes come faster to my TyTNii than they do to my notebook connected to the server! I move around alot within Sydney for my work and find I have everything I need at my fingertips wherever I am.It also works well in tandem with the notebook for an internet connection - very simple to do.

I also like the ability to run a multitude of Windows Mobile applications. for example I have a database of books so that when I am in a shop I can tell if I already have a particular book before I buy it. I also have applications providing detailed infromation and basic map for countries around the world and various other apps I won't bore you with.there is a mssive choice of applications available.

Having the GPS is a bonus. This is my first experience with GPS and the CoPilot installed seems to work pretty well.

Frustrations
My first frustration came when making phone calls. The screen would keep turining itself off even when listening to voicemail. This meant I had to find a way to reactivate the screen before I could manage the voicemails - very tedious. The fix came by downloading a patch from a site I found by doing some reasearch on line. I had to find this for myself as neither the reseller or HTC offered anything useful to help. That is poor support in my books. I have also experienced a number of times an inability to make calls - the number starts to dial then ends. Have not been able to work out what this is all about yet! Has only happened a few times but very frustrating.

I bought this device after having owned and O2 XDA and I yearn to have that big screen again. with all the functionality on offer including web browsing the screen is just too small to take advanatage of it. I would prefer say a 3.2" screen.

I have found that I never use the keyboard as I am happy with the stylus. I tried the keyboard but find it sxow to use due to small size of keys and I often pushed the wrong key.

I think the new HTC Diamond would be closer to my perfect device given that I don't use the keyboard, but it does not have removable storage like the TyTNii and has the same size screen. A Diamond with a bigger screen and removable storage - now that would be damn near perfect. It would be very slim but have the big screen.

I was told that WM6.1 will bring some noticeable improvements and that I should be able to update later this month. I look forward to doing that and hope it may remove a few of the weird things that sometimes still seem to happen with WM6.0, including it being a bit slow.

An amazing device and a great business tool but not without some frustrations.




5 out of 6

"The Swiss army knife of Smart Phones"

Pros:
The Music player is fantastic, especially when it’s coupled with a stereo Bluetooth headset such as the Plantronics 855, can’t recommend the headset highly enough, great sound, small and most people don’t know you are listening to music.

Cons:
Co-Pilot Live 7 is a dog. The phone’s GPS works well enough, as does the co-pilot software. It’s the maps that they use which I find are the problem. They are so out of date, not knowing many roads and streets that have been there for decades. It even directed my to use a 4x4 track not knowing the main asphalt road existed. Unfortunately there isn’t any other WM6 navigating software that uses Sensis maps to my knowledge. Given that the GPS was the killer app that made this a “must have” phone continues to be a thorny issue for me. The inability to change the alarm ring tones to an MP3 grates each weekday morning as the choice is either a bing bong or something that shrill that the wife thinks we are being burgled.
Having owned a TyTN11 since December 07, overall I am very happy with it. Was very solid and dependable unit until recently when the USB broke inside the unit. Just waiting for a replacement unit ATM, it’s been 2 weeks of hell waiting as I do use the features generally and have around 1500 contacts in it. Generally I have found it better to use overall than the previously owned Palm Treo 650. I am looking forward to the HTC Diamond and the other new model phones. When choosing this phone I considered a Blackberry a Nokia N95 and a Treo 750 along with the other WM6 phones.

The slide out keyboard is ok once you become accustomed to it. Although I have found that I use the stylus as it’s quicker to tap out a quick email or SMS than sliding the keyboard. Let’s face it the screen size doesn’t lend itself to long emails and I only browse the net if I really need to. The Camera is passable, although I believe they need to add a flash to make it more usable.



Copyright © 2009 Dennis Publishing

This article appeared in the March, 2008 issue of PC Authority.
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Comments: 7
Thoughts on this article? Add a comment below.
Iainstorm
May 23, 2008 11:21 AM
After reading this article and looking online for other options I decided to buy the HTC TyTNII and im very happy I did. Thanks Pc Aurthority your review helped me decide on the best Phone for my buisness.


Comment made about the PC Authority article:
HTC TyTN II?
Innovative, solidly engineered and packed with features – an almost perfect smartphone

What do you think? Join the discussion.
William Maher
May 23, 2008 12:01 PM
That's great - I'm interested to hear how you find the keyboard. The slide out keyboard is a good balance between keypads, and ultraportable keyboards like the EeePC. If you like, you can post your own user review by going to the review page and clicking "User Reviews".
Iainstorm
May 23, 2008 3:30 PM
The Keyboard is good though not perfect the feel is a bit weard and not much movement in them to know that you have pressed them. If I had designed it I would have put the Fn key ( allows you to use the numbers and symbals ) as a seportate key to the left of the keyboard which makes would make useing it easyier. But overall the keyboard works great and its very usefull having the tilt screen which makes it work like a mini laptop.
Iainstorm
Jul 26, 2008 4:06 PM
I have to admit now though the features of this phone are great and I like the ease of use. But and im afraid there is one. I have had this same problem with my old Imate Jam. That the phone needs to be reset a lot due to it basicly hanging. Im not sure if its a phone issue or a windows mobile 6 issue but it is very annoying.
Dinks-c
Aug 7, 2008 10:34 PM
Fantastic phone when its working, however if it ever plays up, expect at least a month turn around for repairs. Have a look at whirlpool for a litany of 'tales of whoa'. Mine recently died, requiring a new PCB, in the end after several complaints, by email, phone and in person, (nothing like physical presence, it makes it harder for them to lie) 'Three' apparently pulled a new handset from stock.
mordie
Aug 8, 2008 7:53 AM
Iainstorm wrote:
I have to admit now though the features of this phone are great and I like the ease of use. But and im afraid there is one. I have had this same problem with my old Imate Jam. That the phone needs to be reset a lot due to it basically hanging. Im not sure if its a phone issue or a windows mobile 6 issue but it is very annoying.


Having the same issue with my wm6 imate JasJam phone. I'm looking at steering away for these phones when my contract comes up for renewal in a few months time. The thing that annoys me most, apart from having to reset it has it hanging occasionally, is having to hit the finish call button (red phone symbol) 3-4 times just to finish the call!!!

I'm looking for to the PC Authority Samsung Omnia i900 review which should be come up any week now :)
Iainstorm
Oct 12, 2008 9:25 AM
Well im selling this phone and ive got myself a backberry Bold 9000 very nice phone and works and does what it should. All i can say to you all is stay away from any of these windows bassed phones.
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