The HTC P3470 sales package is typical of PDA phones; there are no nice extras like a memory card that came with the original Touch. The sales package includes a USB/HTC ExtUSB data cable, a wire stereo headset (suited to fit the ExtUSB standard), a battery, a software disk, a printed manual and a case to carry the phone in. Design, ergonomics
HTC P3470 utilizes the classical candy bar form factor. The casing is made out of plastic with a soft-touch coating. The glossy insert is employed as a side edging. The front panel has a gummed coating that completely spares it from fingerprinting. The design pleases with its black colouring. Let’s remember that the Touch used to be glossy white initially, but they decided to provide some regions with a black gummed variant. And because of its good sales some other colour schemes appeared at retail later on.

The Pharos really looks very solid and impressive, especially taking into consideration a high quality implementation. The casing doesn’t creak at squeezing, the back panel doesn’t play. The coating also left the most positive impression – it’s maximally wear-resistant and for a month of testing it got neither worn nor scratched (in contrast to Gigabyte GSmart MW700, for example, which began to lose the soft touch over the same period of the similar intensity usage). The handset design in general endows the middle class with a powerful ‘image charge’ earlier available only in higher price segments. Even in comparison with a quite nice E-TEN glofiish X600 the HTC model looks way more advantageous.

The ergonomics is also brilliant, especially against the background of bricky E-TEN and Gigabyte. At the same time the thickness of P3450 yields to both X600 and MW700, but its dimensions sport a better balance on the whole, that’s why the device sits in hand perfectly. Beveled edges of the handset contribute to the effect. The track-wheel is available, which is a kind of reincarnation of the similar element with P3300 and the fact is pleasant. It’s a multipurpose one and is utilized not only for navigating around the lists. For example, the element is used to control the zoom ratio while in the firmware gallery, providing smooth and precise zoom management - it’s very convenient.

Scrolling the track-wheel doesn’t exclude a four-position feature habitual for WM and a central OK button. The controls possess a fine feedback when pressed; the nearby keys have a sufficient stroke too. By illustrations one can think that the navigation block is touch-sensitive, but it is not so – the stylization deceives. The call buttons stick out a bit and have a relatively small size, though no problems arise with them. The set of two soft-keys and two habitual OK and Start keys is available.

By default the soft-keys are assigned to reminders and contacts on the Today screen, but they traditionally change their assignment depending on the running application.

One of the nice things of the updated HTC platform (even in comparison with the latest Touch series, including P3650) is a phone dialogue – as well as with the Samsung phones you can reject a call and send a text template like “Unfortunately I’m unable to talk at the time, please call later” to the person automatically after the call is rejected. This function is in charge of the right soft-key, while the left one just mutes the ringtone.

The side edges aren’t quite abundant in control elements - the sound volume rocker on the left edge and the camera button on the right one; the power button on the upper edge and the interface slot at the bottom. The latter is of the firmware ExtUSB standard and is also used as a headset audio output, which isn’t too convenient. The stylus port and the ‘oar’ used to fasten the wrist band are put on each side of it.

The stylus of P3470 is most usual (non-telescopic), fairly nice and convenient. We may only guess what made the designers place its port at the bottom. The model is not equipped with Wi-Fi that’s why there is no abundance of wireless unit antennae in the upper part on the body. The location must be convenient for a technological process. In any case it doesn’t cause any serious discomfort, you’ll get used to it in a couple of days. And the biggest disappointment is the memory expansion slot placed under the battery - one more family feature of P3300. It goes without saying that the hot swapping support is out of the question.

The camera lens resides on the back panel and has no protective cover. For some reason it is sunken into the casing and so tends to gather dust – one has to regularly wipe it for preventing degradation in image quality, which is rather impractical. The hardware toggle switch is available right here that allows for selecting the shooting mode - macro or customary; it is quite convenient. The element has no special use as our photo samples prove below. The self-portrait mirror moves aside if necessary so that you could connect an external GPS aerial.

Connectivity
Regarding connectivity, many people felt disappointment at the lack of an integrated Wi-Fi module with P3470. As for the rest, the model comes with quite a rich set of connectivity features, the 3G support being of no use in some regions of the world. The device is designed to be used in GSM 850/900/1800/1900 networks, it supports GPRS/EDGE. The wire communication is achieved through USB2.0 that makes use of the exclusively designed ExtUSB slot (analogous to the common microUSB). The data transfer speed raises no objections. There's no support for the Mass Storage and PictPridge modes. The ExtUSB-to-3.5 mm adaptor is available as an option.

The wireless communication is represented by the Bluetooth 2.0 + EDR (Enhanced Data Rate) module. It works entirely without problems. A2DP enjoys a perfect implementation - the sound is loud, of a high quality, the signal never gets interrupted. Unfortunately, the audio signal transmission doesn't stop on the release of connection; the integrated speaker is automatically activated. In addition to A2DP, the following profiles are supported:

1. File Transfer
2. Generic Access
3. Generic Object Exchange
4. Handsfree
5. Headset
6. HID
7. Object Push
8. Personal Area Networking
9. Serial Port
10. A2DP
11. Audio/Video Remote Control
12. SAP (SIM card access profile)

The GPS support is well done; this aspect of the PDA phone is based off the SiRFstarIII chipset. The device was able to detect eight satellites on a clear day, which is quite in keeping with Mio and E-TEN.

No FM-tuner is available and HTC does not offer this sort of optional accessories at present.

Storage
The Pharos has a total of 256 Mb ROM and 128 Mb RAM. The latter will for certain please the fans of enhanced multifunctionality. Unfortunately no memory card comes bundled, so it has to be purchased separately. The memory card slot is the habitual microSD one, the most universal variant for today. You can use memory cards up to the capacity of 4 Gb.

One shouldn’t think that only exacting users need 128 Mb of RAM for "heavy" tasks; pitifully enough, but these are demands of the times. Just remember that the mere IE takes 4-5 Mb a page and many people use expansions for launching up to four tabs simultaneously, which makes as much as 15-20 Mb. WM itself takes no less than 25 Mb without applications. In the upshot it becomes clear that 64 Mb is quite sufficient, provided you pay attention to the list of launched applications – you should promptly shut the "heaviest" of them. You cannot avoid such multitasking compromise without 128 Mb.

Screen
HTC P3470 doesn’t belong to the Touch line that’s why the screen recessed into the body is quite expected. The resolution is also predictable - a standard for the mid-end class 320x240 (QVGA), only Gigabyte GSmart MW998 is a pleasant exception to this rule (it is equipped with a VGA-screen), but it lacks GPS.

The element is powered by the TFT technology and has a 2.8”diagonal. The color depth is 65K colors. The image quality is high, yet it yields in both the view angles and the maximum brightness to the same Gigabyte GSmart MW700 though exceeds E-TEN glofiish X600. The screen info stays well legible in the sunlight; in most cases you won't have any trouble using the phone even under the glaring.

User interface
The interface implementation is typical of Windows Mobile smartphones, similar to that with Touch the TouchFLO technology is available (though it lacks the 3D Touch interface).

The upper line is used for displaying service indicators like the battery life meter or signal quality as well as the wireless protocols availability, Bluetooth, GPRS/EDGE, 3G, the list of launched applications. The lower line contains info about context button functions.

The main part of the desktop can be customized to your liking. By default it shows the date, the carrier info, the owner's personal data, messaging stats, the tasklist and schedule, and the indicator area (battery charge, display angle, wireless unit manager and backlighting level). The user can customize the order in which these fields follow or remove some of them from the screen completely. Today Desktop can feature a custom picture or a photo.

The extended functionality of HTC Home comes in handy. That's the brand Today screen which offers short stats. It shows the time and three sections showing new messages and missed calls, favorite contacts, weather, launcher and ringtone settings. The lower part hosts the instrument panel which allows switching between the two components. Let's view each function separately:

Main menu
The tab shows current day of the week, the date and local time. When you receive messages or calls, the tab also shows the number of unread e-mails, SMS/MMS messages or missed calls. If the reminders are set, a warning symbol is also displayed here.

Favourite contacts
The tab allows you to add 9 frequently dialed contacts to grant quick access to them.

Weather tab
This tab shows info about the current weather (through the AccuWeather sevice) and the weather forecast for the four next days. When you use this function for the first time, you have to choose the city of residence, then the phone will automatically establish an internet connection and downloads the necessary data. The weather info includes current temperature, the extremums and a weather icon (cloudy or rainy, etc.)

Launcher
The tab allows adding shortcuts to favorite applications and set access with a single touch. By default it contains shortcuts for comms manager, program list, brightness adjustment, screen rotation, device blocking and ActiveSync. However everything on this tab is fully customizable.

As we see it, the Home module is surely a winning function for the phone itself and its designers, the HTC Company. The weather forecast is probably the biggest advantage offered here. You can get a detailed weather forecast with a single tap of stylus, which is extremely convenient. In earlier models this function was only available through 3rd party software. Another nice feature of HTC Touch is a better support for text scrolling - you can just move you finger along the screen to do this, tapping the scrollbars with the stylus is no longer obligatory. This could be critical to people who often use public transport.

Another addition to the functionality is the Task Manager that sits in the right upper part of the screen and displays a list of running applications so that to switch between them quickly or shut any running task. The thing is useful; unfortunately it’s available only in the Today screen.

There are two kinds of menus in this phone: the quick access menu and the main menu. The former is activated on pressing the Start button and essentially is a vertical list that contains 7 items, info about the 5 recently launched applications as well as grants access to the main menu and settings. The main menu is a list of applications very much similar to a regular Windows-styled window with icons and application names below them. A maximum of 12 icons per screen is allowed.

>Preinstalled Software

The following applications are either preinstalled on the Pharos or come bundled on a disk...
The Office Mobile software packet includes:

1. Excel Mobile for creating, viewing and editing Excel files
2. PowerPoint Mobile for playing PowerPoint files
3. Word Mobile for creating, viewing and editing Word files

The PIM utilities include:


4. Calendar for sending propositions and arranging meetings
5. Tasks for scheduling events
6. Contacts for storing business contact information of your colleagues and friends
7. Notes for putting down short handwritten or typed reminders and images as well as making voice records

The Multimedia Utility package includes:


8. An application for photo and video files management
9. An audio manager that helps you find, sort and play audio files.
10. A voice recorder/player that also lets your records be sent by e-mail, MMS and misc protocols (Bluetooth etc.)
11. A voice dialing application that lets you record voice tags for quick dialing and program launching.
12. Windows Live, Messenger
13. Windows Media Player Mobile for playing audio and video files.
14. A streaming multimedia player for watching streaming video in real-time mode or on demand.
15. Two preinstalled games: Bubble Breaker and Solitaire.
16. A camera applications for taking pictures and shooting video clips.

The Internet utilities include:


17. Internet Explorer Mobile is the Web and WAP browser that also allows downloading files from the Internet.
18. An Internet connection manager for connecting to the Web.

The connectivity applications include:


19. Comm Manager for handling GPRS/EDGE, Bluetooth and ActiveSync connections, switching the phone on and off, swap between the ringtone and vibro mode, activate and deactivate the Direct Push function.
20. ActiveSync for Phone/PC or Phone/Exchange server synchronization.
21. A Bluetooth network browser that enables searching for other Bluetooth devices that allow file exchange. Also this application grants access to Bluetooth-shared folders.
22. SAP adjustment for remote access via Bluetooth or SIM card.

The GPS software package includes:


23. The QuickGPS program for downloading files from the Web to boost the GPS positioning.
24. CoPilot is a GPS navigation software.

The phone service software package includes:


25. Phone communicator - calls, switching between active calls and desktop conference capabilities.
26. Messaging Manager for sending and receiving e-mail, MMS and SMS messages.
27. SIM-card Manager for managing contacts stored on the USIM/SIM card.
28. Spb GPRS Monitor that monitors GPRS traffic and helps you to calculate your GPRS service costs.
29. SIM Tool Kit that allows you to view SIM info and grants access to operator-specific services.

Miscellaneous applications include:


30. Adobe Reader LE for viewing PDF files (Portable Document Format)
31. Sprite Backup for making archived backups of your data
32. WorldCard Mobile for handling visit cards and export of corresponding data to the contacts book
33. Calculator for handling the basic math functions.
34. A file browser/file manager
35. A ZIP application for compressing your files into .zip archives
36. Java runtime package for launching Java applications

Conversations are in charge of the Phone application, which can be activated either by pressing the Call Button or by activating the corresponding menu item in the Start menu. The main screen of the Phone application hosts the three tabs - Calls, Quick Dial and Contacts.

HTC Pharos stores contacts within the Contacts application. The SIM-card stored contacts share the same list with the user-memory stored contacts. A SIM-stored contact can be transferred to user memory and vice versa. The PDA phone supports the three types of contacts:

1. MS Outlook contacts can either be created directly on the PDA phone or synchronized with a PC or an Exchange Server contacts database. Each contact stores a few phone numbers, e-mail addresses, instant messaging contacts, home and work addresses and misc info like post, date of birth, etc. Each Outlook contact can be associated with a unique picture and ringtone.
2. USIM/SIM card contacts. Any of those can only store a name and a phone number.
3. Windows Live Contacts are used by the Windows Live Messenger (MSN). likewise the Outlook contacts, Windows Live contacts can contain detailed data about the person.

Only one telephone number is allowed per USIM/SIM-card stored contact. If you copy a user memory contact to SIM/USIM, the SIM Card Manager program splits any multiple phone numbers associated with a single contact into separate contact records for the USIM/SIM card memory. A special suffix is added automatically to the names of such duplicate contacts to tell between them (by default "/M" stands for Mobile, "/W" for Work and "/H" for Home).

To make a phone call, you can equally use the Phone application, the Contacts book, the Quick Dial or the Calls menu as well as the SIM card manager. Traditionally there's support for Smart Dialing which makes dialing easier than before. Once you input the initial symbols of the phone number or the person's name, the phone filters all the contacts automatically to fit the search criteria. This sorting works automatically for contacts stored both in user memory and on the SIM card and is applicable to the contacts book and the call log (among missed, outgoing and incoming calls). Cyrillic isn’t supported. After that you may select a number or a contact for dialing.

By default, the call log displays information about all calls but it's customizable to filter missed, outgoing and incoming calls only, sorting by name is also present. Besides the name and the number each record in the log stores the time, the date and one call or all calls length.

The only limit to the size of the contact book is the volume of free user memory. Up to 12 phone numbers of different types of phone numbers, 3 e-mail addresses, home and work address, web page address and a plenty of other details like Assistant's Phone Number can be associated with every contact. It goes without saying that each contact can enjoy its own ringtone and picture as well as belong to one of the customizable user groups.

Messaging

Traditionally the Messaging application is used for composing, viewing and sending SMS and MMS messages as well as e-mail messages. Once you get a new message, the Today screen displays a special reminder symbol. You can sort your messages in a number of ways, for example you can sort your e-mail messages by topic.

The E-mail options include auto delivery (a certain time interval is set, defining the period of time between automatic mail checks), also you can set the message delivery mode (define how old in days can a message be in order to pass the filter and be downloaded), activate simultaneous sending and receiving of mail, set a mailing schedule when roaming abroad and sort incoming messages by size prior to downloading them to the phone.

If a Microsoft Exchange 2007 server is used, the message will be loaded at once and not on the next synchronization, HTML support is available. If the message contains several attachments, all of them are loaded at once, delayed download is supported. You can use hot key combinations for quick access to the messaging functions like Reply, Forward, etc.

An able security system is in its place. For instance, the ActiveSync application can be set to digital signing of documents and enable encryption for all outgoing messages, the IRM (Information Rights Management) menu allows you to limit access to certain sections like messages and so on.

PIM
The Calendar application is used for planning events and meetings, this day's schedule can be displayed on the Today screen. If your PC has a copy of Outlook installed on it, you can synchronize the schedules. Reminders can be set in the form of sound signals or screen flickers.

Calendar can also be used for arranging meetings via e-mail with the users of Outlook or Outlook Mobile. If the recipient accepts the proposition, the meeting is automatically added to their schedule. When the person affirms to participate, your schedule is automatically updated with an acknowledgement. The Windows Mobile platform has long been known for its strong points in the corporate sphere.

The standard vCalendar file format is supported for exchanging information about scheduled events; the corresponding files can be exported to the PC version of Outlook.

The Tasks application is used for scheduling events which can either be set to be one-time or recurring. You can set up reminders and sort them by categories. There's a tasklist which automatically highlights in red expired tasks. You can set a reminder that will be automatically activated on every occasion when open your schedule to add a new event.

The Notes tab helps you to store quick notes. You can input the text from the keyboard, put it down in handwriting or use voice-to-text processing as well as convert handwritten notes into text files or send your notes to other people. If a letter crosses more than three marking lines, it's processed as an image, otherwise - as text. To highlight an image (e.g. to copy or delete it) you have to press the stylus on the image for a few moments.

The Office Mobile software package consists of three applications which serve to edit and view Microsoft documents: Word Mobile (supports viewing and editing of *.doc, *.rtf, *.txt and *.dot files), Excel Mobile (viewing and editing of *.xls files), PowerPoint Mobile (viewing and editing of *.ppt and *.pps files).

The traditional PDF-viewer Adober Reader LE is used to view *.pdf files, including those protected by a password with maximum key length of 128 bit.

Explorer is a basic file manager that serves for browsing media folders. A .zip archiver is included as well. A back-up functionality is provided by the Sprite Backup software.

Multimedia
HTC Pharos is compatible with the following graphic file formats: *.bmp, *.jpg, *.gif, *.png. A simple Photo and Video Manager is preinstalled to help the user make simple changes to the files, like rotation or trimming.

HTC Pharos does better at handling audio and video files.

The selected media file can be sent by e-mail using one of your e-mail accounts, transferred to another device, played as a slide show, sent to a person through the Windows Live MySpace network and so on.

Audio and video files can be played with the preinstalled Windows Media Player Mobile application, both local and remote source playback are supported. The three main screens make up the player interface:

1. Playback control keys (Play, Pause, Next, Previous and Volume) and the video window.
2. The playlist showing the currently played file as well as files that are going to be played.
3. The media library that stores audio and video files as well as playlists.

Audio Manager is an alternative shell for music playback. There are main categories used for filtering files here - song title, performer, album and so on. You can compose your own playlists and load them in the Music Player. You can launch an auto search for any music files like MP3, WMA, AAC or AAC+ both in the user memory and on the memory card.

Before setting .mp3 file as a ringtone, you can trim the track and shrink the file size. The MP3 Cutter is just what helps you to do that.

Streaming Multimedia allows for 3GP and MP4 files to be played. It also handles SDP (Session Description Protocol) files. In addition to that, Internet Explorer can be used to open web-pages that employ RTSP-links (Real Time Streaming Protocol) and host streaming media content. It is employed mainly for m.youtube.com

The voice recorder serves, quite expectedly, for talk recording. The records can be further sent via MMS or e-mail, or transferred through a wireless connection. Recorded fragments can also be used as ringtones. The records are stored in the AMR-NB (Adaptive Multi-Rate Narrowband) format. The default save location is the My Voice Records folder.

The firmware photo and video gallery is in its place. It’s not a dull WM application found with other devices (and looking hopelessly inferior as compared to trademark dedicated applications used in other platforms), but a very handy and nicely looking file manager with an adjustable slide show. This reminds of latest Samsung handsets, the G600 model in particular.

The highlighted file is marked among the rest of the files by a larger icon in a frame. Both horizontal and vertical browsing is supported in any of the view modes. A quick menu is available, granting quick access to the most important functions like delete, Send, etc. The smartest part of the application is the perfectly customizable slide show that also allows applying some special effects to the images being displayed; slide frequency and orientation can be customized as well. A repeat option is also present. These features are quite new to WM; default applications found with other models only dispose a very modest range of visualization settings.

The Audio Assistant application added acts as an enhanced equalizer which allows for bass and tremble adjustment, as well as surround sound adjustment. It was this application that cast doubt on the sound section quality of Touch Dual and didn’t deceive us. It helps you to slightly soften the drawback, but the model still leaves much to be desired as compared to the original Touch.

Camera
P3470 is equipped with a 2 Mpix camera without autofocusing, which is simple even for a WM PDA-phone. No flashlight is available, that’s why shooting turns out quite unreal in poorly lit environments. All settings necessary for a non-autofocusing camera are in their place. The interface is already well-known, similar to that of the Touch Dual. The quick menu can be opened by stroking any point of the screen. The resolution, white balance, brightness and media files storage location can be instantly adjusted; it takes no time to switch between different modes of shooting. The main application screen contains a few status symbols showing the zoom ratio, the timer value, the selected shooting mode and so on. Nearby resides the above-mentioned quick menu line, granting quick access to the gallery and settings. The latter, as we’ve already noted, is the smartest WM-based image viewing application. The point isn’t critical for a device supplied with a modest 2 Mpix camera without auto-focusing, but still a nice addition.

The extended camera options include a lot of extra settings like an exposure meter and other features untypical of this class of devices. The maximal resolution is 1600x1200 for photos and 174x144 for video clips. There’s also a 4x digital zoom. Let’s give some examples of how it works:

It’s evident that by modern standards the quality of shooting is average. It particularly concerns shooting video clips and macro shooting. The given samples of the latter are taken with the toggle switch in a corresponding position, but even that doesn’t help. Thus, the camera proves to be more of a complementary element than a key feature. Performance
The hardware part of HTC Pharos is based on the TI OMAP 850 CPU operating at a frequency of 200 MHz. It’s a weak solution for the time present.

Spb Benchmark

As we see, the performance is quite low, but A502 is even less smart. Java implementation is on an average level. The performance is good enough, but 3D profiles are not supported. Although it’s not critical for a smart phone for there’s a good variety of third party software available.

JBenchmark. JBenchmark. 3D profiles are not supported.

Let’s see how the Pharos handles video in The Core Pocket Media Player. As usual, we used two clips in two common resolutions - QVGA and VGA (RAW framebuffer): The Core Pocket Media Player, RAW framebuffer

	HTC P3470
RL_XQ (640x480)	44.24%
RL_MQB (320x240)	103.88%

We can’t say the results are perfect for the class on the whole, but neither can we call the stylish handset a failure on this front. Unfortunately there’s no visible improvement over the original Touch. It's easily explained though by the fact that the TI OMAP 850 core uses a video accelerator which is not supported by the current version of media player software.

Battery Life
The handset makes use of a 1100 mAh battery. The manufacturer claims a total of 5 hours of talktime and up to 180 hours of standby mode.

	HTC P3470	Mio A502
Multimedia-cycle, video (AVI)	4:06	4:32
Multimedia-cycle, audio (MP3)	14:23	12:07

As we see, P3470 demonstrated good results for a PDA phone over the course of battery life tests. The results are slightly inferior to those of the competitor from Mio. On the whole, the battery charge will be enough for most users.

Market Prospect
The beginning of HTC P3470 sales is planned for March and the recommended price will be about € 410 (RM2055); at that no price correction is expected in the near future. As we see, it doesn’t entirely belong to a budget class, so the lack of Wi-Fi is not to the model’s advantage as compared to the closest E-TEN glofiish X600 and Gigabyte GSmart MW700. P3470 is about half as expensive as the direct competitor Mio A502 and that’s a pretty significant argument. The design, ergonomics and certainly the brand popularity speak well for the HTC new product. Besides, P3470 is positioned as a sequel to the legendary P3300 and it is worth something. For this very reason the solution will be much in demand in spite of its being objectively disputable. It goes without saying that the Pharos won’t even to a smaller extent reiterate the success of the Artemis, though it'll beat many competitors in the terms of sales volume.

Our opinion
HTC P3470 (Pharos) is a sequel to the legendary P3300, being a simplified version of the latter regarding specifications, but at the same time developing its design and ergonomics. This model can be recommended to those attaching fundamental importance to the exterior of the handset regardless of the functionality; for which the lack of Wi-Fi isn’t critical.

Pros:
+ Pleasant design
+ Good ergonomics
+ GPS
+ TouchFLO
+ 128 Mb of RAM

Cons:
- Weak CPU
- Lack of Wi-Fi
- Mediocre camera
- High price

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