THE new Touch2 phone from HTC runs the new Windows Mobile 6.5 but that’s not all - it is also sports a new look, solid casing and a slew of improvements over its predecessor.

A closer inspection reveals the phone is 2mm longer, 1.6mm thinner and also 14g lighter - it tips the scales at 96g — than the original Touch.

And instead of a D-pad, the Touch2 offers dedicated Home, Menu and back buttons to go with its standard call and end call keys.

Also new is the zoom bar located underneath the 2.8in display to enlarge images, webpages and text on the fly.

Plain black housing

Frankly speaking, the Touch2 is nothing to shout about in terms of looks.

The candybar-shaped model is wrapped in a plain black plastic casing with silver lining around the sides.

With plenty of large smartphones and Windows Phone models in the market, the Touch2 does feel compact in comparison as it only measures 104 x 55 x 12.9mm.

Its 2.8in TFT LCD touchscreen employs resistive technology and is hard to use under bright sunlight.

Since the device doesn’t support handwritting recognition, users will need to use either the virtual Qwerty keyboard or alphanumeric keypad to key in data.

We noticed the screen is too small to properly accommodate the virtual Qwerty keyboard layout thus those with big index fingers will probably find it difficult to use it when typing.

This means that using the stylus tends to be unavoidable.

On the plus side, HTC has gone the extra mile to provide users with easy access to its functions such as a volume rocker on the side, which you can also use to put the phone on silent or set it on vibrate alert on the fly.

Also available is a hot-swappable microSD card slot. It supports up to 32GB cards but before users can open the cover, they need to remove the battery cover first. Go figure.

In the absence of the multitouch feature, having the zoom bar around is a blessing and it works quite well too. Also having dedicated Home, Menu and back buttons means easier and faster access to the phone’s functions.

NO FLASH: The back of the phone houses the camera and speaker.

At the back are the 3-megapixel fixed focus camera and the loudspeaker grill. Don’t look for a flash as there isn’t any.

Windows Mobile inside

As mentioned earlier, the Touch2 is among the first phones to ship preinstalled with Windows Mobile 6.5.

The updated mobile OS promises to deliver a better user experience thanks to its host of improved features, including a redesigned Home screen, “honey-combed” user interface and Internet Explorer Mobile 6.

There are also plenty of preloaded essential applications like Office Mobile, RSS Reader, YouTube and Facebook to make life easier.

If those aren’t enough you can purchase more apps from the Microsoft Marketplace — the Windows Mobile platform online store which also includes third-party software.

Take note however that the Malaysian store is limited to only few apps to date.

WM6.5 also offers the slide-to-unlock bar ala the iPhone and it works by just sliding the on-screen padlock icon to unlock the Touch2.

SLIDE TO ZOOM: Simply slide your finger on the zoom bar to enlarge a photo on the fly.

It protects users from accidentally accessing the phone’s functions and when the padlock icon is tapped, a dropdown menu will appear to show missed events or incoming messages.

Sounds nice doesn’t it? Unfortunately, in reality the experience was far from great.

WM6.5 actually feels more like a cosmetic change than a total overhaul.

like the previous version, we still have to dig deep into the system to access many of the apps and settings.

Thankfully, the Touch2 also offers HTC’s proprietary TouchFlo user interface to help make things better.

The attractive and user-friendly plug-in takes over the default WM6.5 homescreen in a cool way. With it, the phone feels more responsive to the touch and essential functions are just within one or two slides and taps away.

Thanks to the TouchFLO homescreen, we rarely used the standard WM 6.5 menu.

Multimedia experience

The preinstalled Windows Media Player supports only MPEG4 and 3gp files. For other formats like DivX and XviD you will need a third-party application such as DivX Mobile Player 0.9.

This app is still in beta and available for a limited time only. The app works really well but we could only test it out using a small XviD file due to space constraints.

It also plays music well, offering good noise level and dynamic range.

When it comes to shooting photos, the Touch2 doesn’t offer any dedicated camera button - instead users need to press the shutter icon on the screen to capture the image.

Its 3-megapixel fixed-focus lens is able to capture up to 2,048 x 1,536-pixel still images and records CIF (352 x 288-pixels) video at 30 frames per second.

Also available are the usual options, including self-timer, white balance presets, light sensitivity settings (up to ISO800), colour effects, themes as well as panorama shots.

Don’t expect good quality pictures from this shooter though. Even under bright conditions, the images turn out to be slightly blurry and the colour is bit off with a hint of blue.

You also need to hold the camera very still to take a decent picture. Shooting fast moving objects are also a no no.

Final touch

The Touch2 comes with all the essential apps to let users continue being productive while on the go.

Also the phone’s compact design means it is light to carry around but those with big fingers should probably stay away from it.

Unfortunately the phone’s main selling point of being preinstalled with WM6.5 is a letdown. The changes are simply cosmetic rather than providing fast and proper functionalities.

Thankfully, the HTC’s TouchFlo interface makes the navigation bearable.

Another plus point is that it is also cheaper than competing models.

Pros: Comes with essential apps preinstalled; TouchFlo interface; solid and easy to carry around.

Cons: No autofocus, flash or dedicated camera key; no handwriting recognition and poor legibility under bright sunlight.

HTC TOUCH2