HTC Radar Review

Introduction:

Windows Phone 7 kicked things off to a mixed start. Despite critical acclaim, Microsoft, hardware manufacturers and vendors were under-whelmed by its lack of consumer uptake. So while the platform has definitely fared better than, say, WebOS, it’s certainly left the bottom line a bit thin on the ground. An updated OS, Windows Phone 7.5 Mango should however rejuvenate interest, as should a new array of handsets. HTC are the first off the mark with two shiny new devices. The first of these Taiwanese Mango delights comes in the form of the HTC TrophyRadar, a 3.8” device with a WVGA S-LCD display, a 1GHz Snapdragon processor, 512 MB RAM, a 5MP camera and HTC’s trademark solid build quality.

Design:

In our introductory paragraph, we may have taken a bit of a swipe at HTC for endowing the HTC Radar with such similar specs to its predecessor, the HTC Trophy, however, one area the Radar definitely surpasses the Trophy is design. With a unibody construction and fantastic weighting, it instantly gets a thumb’s up from the first impression.



You can compare the HTC Radar with many other phones using our Size Visualization Tool.

The HTC Radar’s Super LCD screen measures in at 3.8 inches and has a resolution of 480x800 pixels. With the same resolution as the Titan, and almost an inch less screen, it’s markedly sharper and performs well overall, with vibrant colours, solid viewing angles and good levels of responsiveness. Outdoor viewing is on the whole good as are brightness and contrast levels.


The screen is encased in a slick glossy black fascia, at the bottom of which are three capacitive buttons. Above the screen is grille and front-facing VGA camera, with a 3.5mm jack and power button atop the handset and the in-call mic below. To the left is the microUSB port, and to the right the volume rocker and a fantastic two stage camera button. Flip the HTC Radar over and you'll find the 5MP camera, single LED flash, loud-speaker and removable back-cover. While the battery and memory card are fixed, below the back-cover the SIM card can be swapped out. A notable addition is the soft-touch material at the bottom and top end of the reverse. This adds fantastic grip to the already premium feel of the device exactly where our fingers naturally rested.

There’s the temptation to write off the HTC Radar as a safe bit of design, uninspired and under-considered, however that would be a huge oversight. Given how natural the handset feels in the hand, comfortable against the ear and aesthetically neutral, this is probably one of the most universally appealing handsets we’ve used for a while.

Interface:

Windows Phone 7.5 brings Microsoft’s aesthetically unified OS to the next level, taking the visual flare of old and adding some much needed function. These elements include copy/paste, multi-tasking and deeper social-networking integration amongst others.

At the core of the OS are still your two primary screens: homescreen and applications. The homescreen consists of live tiles which act as both shortcuts to apps and app specific notifications. Slide the homescreen out of the way to reveal a list of applications on the right. All these can be pinned to the start menu with a long press, or just opened from the list. In Windows Phone 7.5, a long press of the back button activates a multi-tasking pane with cards that can be swiped through, each representing an open app frozen in its most recent state.

HTC have also included a revised version of their HTC Hub on their Mango lineup. This resonates closely with HTC Sense, with the standard flip-clock weather widget taking center stage. A swipe to the right and you are taken to stocks, another swipe delivers news and finally, a third swipe identifies featured HTC Mango apps which include Photo Enhancer, HTC Connected Media, HTC Location, Dock Mode, Notes and Flashlight.


As a phone, the HTC Radar also works well, with a comfortable dialer sporting big, responsive keys. Type a number in and there is a save button underneath the dialer. It's all very easy and intuitive. The phone book falls under the people tile. This offers very tight integration with Facebook, with a right swipe from your contact list taking you to friend's recent updates. The search capacitive button adapts its function depending on which menu you're in, so contacts can either be scrolled through or searched for directly as expected. Long press the Windows capacitive button to activate the voice dialer.


The copy/paste function works very well, with a single tap highlighting a word and a long press bringing up a cursor. Once an item is on your clipboard, a paste icon appears above the keyboard. On the 3.8” display the keyboard otherwise performs identically to that found on the HTC Mozart/Trophy which is luckily very well indeed. That said, an extra couple of inches would have been appreciated. The email client works great. As soon as you've entered your account details, your emails start to populate and can be read in full HTML glory and now, thanks to Mango, in threaded message view.

Organizer features include alarms, calculator, calendar and notes. The calendar is the most finger friendly we've used in a while, looking very clean and feeling really intuitive. Adding appointments is simple, with the whole experience delivering a clean, visual pleasure. There is also deeper Twitter integration in Mango, making sharing photos and keeping on top of tweets even easier.



Internet and Connectivity:

The HTC 7 Radar is a quad-band GSM, dual-band 3G phone loaded with Wi-Fi, Bluetooth and GPS on board. Connections include a 3.5mm headphone jack, a microUSB port and there’s 8GB of memory as well. With Mango also comes the addition of a front facing VGA camera for video calling and HTC's Connected Media DLNA service.

Completely in line with the latest and greatest achievements in the area, the new Internet Explorer delivers fast loading times and silky smooth scrolling. The same goes for zooming, which you can do by either double-tapping or using pinch-to-zoom. Both options work flawlessly. In addition, the HTC 7 Mozart’s 3.7-inch screen offers a great trade-off between pocketability and web browsability.


Internet Explorer lacks Flash support, however the remainder of the web browsing experience operates well.

Camera:

The HTC Radar comes equipped with a 5MP autofocus camera with a single LED flash. Despite this sounding lackluster, we’re pleased to see an f2.2 aperture on the HTC Radar’s lens and the inclusion of touch to focus capture as well as a range of modes such as panorama, burst shot, face detection and effects.

Photos taken on the handset offer a good level of detail for the most part, and while with the HTC Trophy and the HTC HD7 autofocus was hit and miss, HTC have managed to iron out any kinks. Color reproduction is accurate for the most part, if slightly dull. Contrast levels are again a touch too dull for our liking. With no flash, the camera handles noise pretty well, probably thanks to the aperture, easily better than the Trophy or Mozart but nowhere near as good as the Nokia N8 for example. Fire up the single LED flash and the phone gets a little boost in the night time and indoor snapping department, however nothing powerful enough to light up a room or a subject more than a couple of meters away. Macro shots take full advantage of the new touch to focus feature delivering decent results and speedy focus, while panorama delivers a great interface and the burst mode offers 5 full resolution shots at between 3 and 5 fps.



720p HD video performs well overall. Videos captured on the HTC Radar also play back pretty smoothly and should suffice for most day to day needs. While it can take a bit of time to correct for exposure changes, one thing we were pleased with was the continuous focusing as you'll see from the sample video, especially the detail in the macro portion.

HTC Radar Sample Video:



Multimedia:

With Zune on board, the music experience is tightly integrated by a slick, simple to get to grips with system. Audio quality is above average and the Dolby Mobile and SRS offer a great range of output options.


When it comes to videos, the Zune software integration lends to compensate for the lack of codec support on the HTC Radar. The phone will play MPEG-4 and WMV files, and the Zune software will convert other video formats automatically which is handy. That said, it will leave you waiting a while for your video files to sync. Watching these on the HTC Radar is generally comfortable. While not as visually immersive as on on a larger screen, with a decent picture and Dolby Mobile and SRS, the overall experience gets a thumbs up.

Thanks to HTC, you can also rent films on the go through their Watch service which allows you to download movies straight to your phone while taking full advantage of the audio enhancements.

Performance:

Call quality on the HTC Radar is great. Tones are clear and accurately reproduced and there are no issues with regards to either volume or clarity. Listeners on the other end of the line reported much of the same, so suggesting there isn't anything to worry about in this department. The loudspeaker also delivers good clear sound, both for voice and media.

Mango is more stable than its predecessor and despite on paper, 1GHz sounding a little on the slow side, coupled with this OS it performs consistently well, with all the visual flare of the old Windows Phone 7 and additional functionality and stability.

Battery life on the HTC Radar is pretty standard. With a quoted 10 hours talk time and 20 days standby time, in reality, it lasts over a day with moderate use.

Conclusion:

The HTC Radar is all the Trophy was and then some. With a great screen, comfortable, ergonomic design and an attractive interface not to mention all the advantages of Mango. The phone won’t do everything an Android handset will, however, it’s much easier to work your way around, and with the bonus of the decent 5MP camera and fantastic build quality, buy this and you're onto a winner. If you aren’t too concerned about build quality or the camera, you can consider last season's HTC 7 Trophy which should deliver an extremely comparable experience once Mango lands. Other options include the Sony Ericsson Xperia Ray for an Android alternative or if you like Windows Phone 7.5 but want something less HTC, The Samsung Focus Flash will be coming our way soon.

HTC Radar Video Review: