HTC Imagio
- HTC Imagio
Verizon has taken a lot of abuse for its anemic smartphone agenda this year. Well, abatement is actuality and things absolutely are adorable up. Aboriginal we had the BlackBerry Tour and HTC Blow Pro2 and now the HTC Imagio, currently a different smartphone amid US and apple carriers. This is one adult accessory with a 480 x 800 pixel blow screen, HTC’s actual agreeable TouchFLO 3D user interface, Adaptable TV that’s advertisement over the air and a 5 megapixel camera. Verizon and AT&T are aboriginal out the aperture with a Windows Adaptable 6.5 Professional buzz acknowledgment to the Imagio on Verizon and the HTC Pure on AT&T. Windows Adaptable 6.5′s improvements are mostly corrective and you won’t see abundant of them unless you attenuate TouchFLO 3D (trust us, you apparently won’t acquisition it account giving up TouchFLO 3D for the fresh WinMo UI). The Imagio has that appropriate sauce, abundant like the beyond HTC Blow HD aftermost year that starts a appetite gnawing at gadget-loving hearts. It looks absurd with a architecture that’s evocative of the iPhone, and it boasts a more acceptable affection set including a college resolution display, a more acceptable camera, an FM radio and Adaptable TV. At $199 with a 2 year arrangement afterwards rebates ($299 afore rebate), it’s adorable and at home in the apple of fun and business.
Features at a Glance
The HTC Imagio runs on a 528MHz Qualcomm CPU with 288 megs of RAM and 512 megs of beam anamnesis like added contempo HTC smartphones. It has WiFi 802.11b/g, Bluetooth 2.1 +EDR, a 3.6″ 480 x 800 pixel arresting blow awning with accelerometer and haptic feedback, a agenda TV receiver with an antenna that doubles as a kickstand, FM radio, HTC’s YouTube player, the Opera Adaptable web browser and IE mobile. The Imagio supports Verizon V Cast Video and V Cast music with Rhapsody.
Design and Ergonomics
The Imagio has an absorbing advanced bezel that looks like a asperous case. The brindle apparent looks cool, helps accumulate the buzz in duke and hides the accepted array of sensors and earpiece. The aback is two-tone with a appearance atramentous bandage and a beyond matte atramentous surface. The two sections are abutting calm and anatomy the large, disposable aback panel. A aperture in the aback awning accommodates the bifold assignment antenna and bang stand, which stays on the buzz aback you abolish the back. The microSD agenda is beneath the aback awning but you charge not abolish the array to admission it. The SIM agenda aperture for GSM apple adrift is beneath the array and a Verizon/Vodafone agenda is supplied. Unlike best HTC phones, the aback doesn’t accelerate off, instead you’ll pry it off starting at a canal molded into the top edge. Build affection is excellent.
The smartphone is a few millimeters thicker than the iPhone, and that’s not a bad affair because it feels more acceptable in duke than does the naked iPhone. As with added contempo HTC Windows Adaptable Pro phones, there’s no d-pad (allowing for a beyond affectation while befitting the buzz compact). There are alarm accelerate and end buttons, a Windows Start Menu key asleep centermost (odd that this isn’t a home key), a aback button and a Adaptable TV launcher. Like the Blow Pro2 and HTC Blow Diamond2, it has a zoom bar aloof aloft the baby advanced buttons. The buttons are collapsed and glossy, authoritative it accessible to run your deride beyond them, but not so accessible to press, abnormally aback they’re actual abutting to the basal edge. The aggregate buttons are on the larboard side, and those are the alone ancillary controls. The HTC mini USB anchorage is at the basal forth with a 3.5mm stereo jack (excellent!) and the stylus silo.
New affection summary:
- Staggered filigree for applications and settings icons
- The Start Menu as a textual advertisement is gone and aback you tap the Start Menu you’ll see the programs group
- The active cursor is comprised of 4 black dots that breathing (reminiscent of the Windows logo)
- The Windows Adaptable Marketplace (or a articulation to download it) is pre-installed.
- A Today awning that’s evocative of the Zune’s text-based home screen.
- Fresh Today themes, aggressive by appearance designers
The HTC Imagio is the aboriginal smartphone with Qualcomm’s MediaFlo advertisement agenda TV. This is not a data-based alive video service, but rather advertisement TV agnate to that which a approved TV uses (assuming you’re not appliance cable TV). It’s not chargeless though, Verizon accuse $15/month for the account and it includes about 10 channels (there’s a $13/month advantage with beneath channels, but that’s not actual amount effective). TV affection is accomplished and bluff than best alive video agreeable aback it charge not be as aeroembolism to save bandwidth. We’ve advised abounding Verizon and AT&T Adaptable TV phones and the Imagio does the best job in agreement of reception, affectation admeasurement and quality. Aloof accomplish abiding you pop out that antenna to get acceptable reception. Adaptable TV is accessible in abounding busline areas; analysis Verizon’s website to see if the account is accessible in your area.
V Cast Videos, a aberration on Verizon smartphones, is actuality too. Video alive affection is acceptable (watch our video analysis to see it in action), but the appliance generally bogged bottomward and was buggy. We’re abiding that Verizon will affair updates that advance the acceleration and adherence of V Cast Video and V Cast Music with Rhapsody. That said, they’re by no agency unusable.
We activated the Imagio with movies encoded at VGA advanced awning resolution in MPEG4 architecture (the aforementioned H.264 architecture that’s accordant with the iPhone) and were afflicted with the results. This is no multimedia weakling: the Imagio, like the HTC Pure, did an accomplished job of arena aback 900Kbps video with no discernable alone frames or accident of audio sync. Nice.
Phone and Internet
The Imagio is a bifold bandage agenda CDMA buzz with EV-DO Rev. A 3G for fast abstracts and fallback to 1xRTT. It’s additionally a cloister bandage GSM apple buzz with 3G HSDPA for Europe and Asia, but the buzz is SIM bound to Verizon (their SIM is included). That agency you won’t be able to use it on AT&T and T-Mobile in the US unless you get it unlocked. The buzz has more acceptable than boilerplate accession for a Verizon buzz and actual acceptable articulation affection for both admission and approachable calls.
The buzz can be acclimated as a wireless modem for PCs (drivers are included on the accompaniment CD). We activated this with a Sony Vaio Z550 active Windows Vista and it formed flawlessly over Bluetooth. We artlessly installed the driver, commutual the buzz to the anthology and entered our punch up networking settings on the notebook.
Opera Adaptable and IE Adaptable 6 are both on lath for web browsing and Opera is the absence web browser. Opera does an accomplished job of apprehension desktop-oriented abounding HTML sites, admitting there’s no compression zoom aback the Imagio lacks a capacitive display. The zoom bar works able-bodied though, and the browser scrolls calmly and quickly.
Email abutment is the accepted Outlook Adaptable Messaging that handles SMS, MMS, POP3, IMAP and MS Exchange email. It supports MS Direct Push and can accompany with Exchange ActiveSync casework like Google contacts, agenda and email. If you use MS Exchange you can accompany email, contacts, calendar, addendum and tasks (Exchange ActiveSync casework don’t consistently abutment all these services). There’s additionally abutment for affair requests and aggregation agenda access. As a business phone, the HTC Imagio gets top marks acknowledgment to its Exchange support, Direct Push and MS Office apartment that can view, adapt and actualize MS Office documents.
Camera
That 5 megapixel camera with autofocus lens sounds hot, doesn’t it? Alas, as with abounding HTC phones, it’s not activity to accomplish Nokia or Sony Ericsson lose any sleep. Alfresco shots are appealing decent, admitting there’s some agenda artifacting and colors aren’t vivid. Calm shots aren’t acceptable at all aback there’s no flash– they’re blatant and ever warm. Still, it’s more acceptable than best US camera phones, at atomic for able-bodied lit calm and alfresco shots.
The camera can shoot VGA video which is a aberration actuality in the US. Video affection is absolutely good, admitting the iPhone 3GS’s video is a bit bluff and more acceptable as are Nokia NSeries 5 megapixel camera buzz videos. The Imagio’s VGA videos are 18 to 20 fps vs. committed camcorders, the iPhone 3GS and Nokia phones which shoot at 30fps.
Conclusion
The HTC Imagio has fabricated it to the top of our smartphone list– we adulation it. The super-sized blow awning is attractive, bright and accessible to use for touch, and TouchFLO 3D performs able-bodied and awfully improves the Windows Adaptable experience. The Imagio is a able business smartphone with a hasty dosage of multimedia– Verizon is the aboriginal carrier to apprehend that alike business association like to watch TV, get pleasure videos and the like. The buzz is hip and adorable adorable and feels acceptable in the hand. The 5 megapixel camera with autofocus lens sounds abundant on cardboard but it takes aloof OK shots central aback there’s no flash.
