HTC Snap CDMA Review

Name: HTC Snap CDMA
Brand: HTC

By PhoneArena Team

Published: Jul 07, 2009, 9:29 AM

0comments

Sprint Windows HTC

Introduction:

The Motorola Q arguably brought smartphones into the forefront, but since then Windows Mobile Standard devices have taken a backseat to Professional ones. Samsung has been the only manufacturer to consistently pursue the form factor, but now HTC- the undisputed king of Windows Mobile- is back in the game. The HTC Snap CDMA is a basic WinMo 6.1 device with a new twist, HTC’s Inner Circle. This lets you see email messages from selected contacts in one place; we’ll get into that later. Beyond that it’s a fairly pedestrian spec sheet: 2-megapixel camera, 2.4” QVGA display, EVDO Rev. A and a 1500mAh battery. Included in the box you’ll find:

•    AC Charger
•    Stereo headset
•    USB data cable

Design:

The HTC Snap is a basic bar phone, with the traditional display, navigation cluster, QWERTY layout from top to bottom. The 2.4” QVGA display is good but not great. HTC has spoiled us with VGA or better screens of late, so QVGA just doesn’t stack up. The cluster has two soft keys, Send, End, Home, Back and the 5-way directional pad. They are glossy black plastic, just like the housing, and while the feedback is reassuring they feel a bit cheap.

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

The QWERTY keyboard has a soft touch coating on the keys which gives them a better feel, but we still don’t like it. For starters they are too close together, and too small. The keys on the end of the second and third row (Caps, FN, etc) mess with the layout, and we often found ourselves one key off. Overall there is a cramped, chintzy feel to it. We could type well enough, but this is near the bottom of the list as far as QWERTYs go. We do appreciate the shortcuts on the bottom row for the camera, mail, web and Inner Circle.

The back is a mix of glossy and matte plastic

The chinziness is felt throughout the whole phone unfortunately. HTC usually uses premium materials, but it is obvious that they skimped here. The front and back casing come to a point where they meet around the sides, which leads to a sharp feel. It’s nothing that we’re going to cut ourselves on, but it’s not a desirable feel. The back is a mix of glossy and matte plastic, the latter of which is slippery. While the device feels solid, it just doesn’t feel high quality. It’s hard to explain, and we don’t foresee reliability issues, but we wish HTC had put a little more time into the design here.

The only button you’ll find around the phone is the volume rocker on the top left. The bottom houses the miniUSB port that also serves as a headset jack, unfortunately something that’s becoming common with HTC devices. The back simply houses the 2-megapixel camera and the lone speaker. The microSD slot can be accessed by taking the battery out.

To put it kindly the HTC Snap’s design is underwhelming. A poorly constructed keyboard and cheap materials leave a lot to be desired. HTC is usually on the top of its game when it comes to design, but the Snap misses the mark.

HTC Snap CDMA 360 Degrees View:

User Interface:

The HTC Snap runs Windows Mobile Standard 6.1, and there are no fancy tweaks like TouchFLO 3D here. There is a very functional and visually pleasing HTC homescreen though. In an almost WM 6.5 style, the user is given the time and date, call info, appointments, messages, email, weather, Internet Explorer favorites and settings. The transition from one item to another is smooth with a slick animation. There are some elements from other HTC devices found on the Snap, such as the menu enhancements originally found on the Touch Diamond2. Sadly they are only in HTC applications, like Album and Camera. HTC has proven that they can do amazing things with a pretty bland OS, we only wish they had gone deeper, because beyond this everything else is stock Windows Mobile Standard.

Phonebook:

From the home screen you can begin typing the name (either first or last) and it will begin to match with your contact list. If you begin typing a number it will also match with your contact list, displaying the matching names as well. You can also search within the contact application as well, but only by name and not by number.

Adding a contact is easy; simply select a number from the call history, or type the number in with the dialpad and press save. You can add it as a new contact, or as an additional number for an existing one. There is room for ten numbers per contact, and you can also add three emails, three IM names and other info, such as the contact’s company, address, anniversary and birthday. If that is not enough fields you can always add a note with any other information. The size of the phonebook is limited only by available memory on the device.

Organizer and PIM:

The calendar is full featured, as you would find with any Windows Mobile phone. Like the phonebook, the number of appointments it can hold is limited only by memory, and is for all intents and purposes limitless. The appointments options are plentiful; you can add Location, Attendees and Notes as well as set reminders at different intervals and set the appointment to recur every day of the week, every day of the month or every specific date. You can also set your status to be Free, Busy or Tentative. This allows you to add items such as birthdays and anniversaries as all day events, and by setting the status to Free it does not conflict with other appointments on that day. The calendar can be viewed by day, week or month. You can choose the starting day for the week as well as the duration (5, 6 or 7 day week). At the top of the daily view is a small time bar which allows you to easily see your free time at a glance.

The Tasks menu allows you to create to-do items. For a given task you can set subject, priority (normal, low, high), start/due date, reminder, category (business, holiday, personal, seasonal) and note. Like calendar appointments, a task can be set to recur, and you can also assign a sensitivity level to them (normal, personal, private, confidential.) The list view allows you to easily see which ones are finished and which are not. Tasks can be sorted by status, priority, subject, start date, due date or filtered by all, recent, no categories, active, completed.

Voice Notes and Voice Recorder are redundant items, the latter being an HTC product and the former Microsoft. Why both were included we don’t know. The Microsoft version affords more options, such as recording beyond 60s and setting recordings as ringtones.

A relatively basic calculator is included. It gives some advanced functions such as percentages and square roots, but will by no means replace a real calculator. The basic Windows Mobile clock and alarm is available as well.

Messaging:

Inner Circle is the feature, ah, feature for the Snap. It allows the user to set favorite contacts, and when you receive an email from your inner circle it goes to a special inbox and there is a special alert. It’s a handy feature, and the user can choose to ignore other emails and use it as a privacy blocker of sorts, but we don’t see it being a big selling point. The skin for it is nice though, we wish HTC had ported it over to the regular messaging application.

The HTC Snap offers XT9 for predictive text entry. The software thinks ahead of you, trying to predict what you’re typing based on the first few letters. It also serves as spelling correction, auto correcting errors if the user pleases. Neither XT9 nor spell correction is enabled by default, but we do find it to be a handy feature, especially with the poor keyboard.

Email setup is easy, and you can add any POP3 or IMAP account. Windows Mobile supports HTML formatted e-mails, allowing for a realistic view. The client is similar to Outlook on a computer; you can filter your inbox to see certain emails, view different folders, reply to a message or forward messages to another recipient. Attachments can be downloaded or viewed as long as there is a program on the phone that can handle it (such as a PDF viewer) and you can also attach files to outgoing email. Windows Mobile also allows synchronization with your corporate Exchange Server.

The Snap supports MMS, a trend we like to see from Sprint phones. While they’ve had Picture Mail before anyone else offered a similar product, it was not MMS and we only first see true MMS pop up in the Treo Pro this January.

Connectivity and Data:

The Snap has 3G data over Sprint’s EVDO Rev. A network, but unfortunately does not feature Wi-Fi. Unlike Verizon’s sister device, the Ozone, the Snap is not an international device. This is a curious move, and the only conclusion we can come to is that Sprint did not want the Snap competing with the upcoming BlackBerry Tour.

The Snap’s GPS is unlocked, and while Sprint Navigation is included in Sprint’s PDA data packages the user can use other programs like Google maps. It has Bluetooth 2.0+EDR and supports the HSP 1.1, HFP 1.5, DUN, OPP, FTP, PBA, A2DP, AVRC, HID, PAN, BPP and BIP profiles.

Unfortunately there is no version of Opera preloaded on the Snap, as HTC has done with their WM Professional devices. Instead Internet Explorer 6 is the default browser. It has come a long way from the days of the Q, but there are still better browsers out there. We’d recommend an immediate download of Skyfire.

Multimedia:

Everything here is pretty standard for Windows Mobile and Sprint. Pictures & Video and Windows Media Player are the stock options for pictures and videos, but HTC Album is a better option due to its polish. It supports MPEG-4, H.263, H.264, AVI, WAV, MP3, MP4, MIDI, WMV, 3GP, 3G2 and WMA files. If the file of your choice is not on that list, there is no doubt a third party application out there that can play it. Sprint TV and Radio, as well as the Music Store, are all preloaded on the Snap.

The 2 megapixel camera performed surprisingly well. Colors were good (our samples were taken on a cloudy day) and the details were generally crisp. It does not have any amenities like a flash or autofocus, so we weren’t expecting much, but the results were more than acceptable. The video camera records at a maximum CIF resolution and produced less desirable results, though not uncommon for a cell phone.

Camera interface

Software:

The Snap runs on the Qualcomm MSM7625 processor, which clocks in at 528MHz. It has 256MB ROM and 192MB RAM, all of which contribute to very snappy (sorry) performance. In our time with the Snap we didn’t experience one hang-up or freeze, a remarkable feat for Windows Mobile!

Shipped software includes Office Mobile, Adobe Reader LE, Sprint’s NFL Mobile and NASCAR applications, and a Google shortcut to mobile apps. HTC software includes Album, Audio Booster, Bluetooth Explorer, Remote Desktop, Quick GPS, RSS Hub and their excellent YouTube app. The user is of course encouraged to download any of the multitude of WinMo programs available to make their experience better.

Performance:

The HTC Snap performed good but not great on the phone end. Callers sounded loud and clear to us, but they said we only sounded so-so, rating us a 7 out of 10. Their biggest complaint was that we sounded distant and a bit tinny. The battery is a major selling point of the Snap, and HTC claims 4.6 hours of talk time and nearly two weeks of standby. In our tests we were able to get a beastly 5h51m of talk time, well above the stated time and downright fantastic for a Windows Mobile device.

Conclusion:

We have a hard time figuring out where the Snap fits in Sprint’s lineup. Palm’s Treo Pro is a fairly recent device, and for $50 more offers both a better keypad and a touchscreen. The Samsung Ace has a similar form factor and feature set, while offering global roaming for $100 less. Had the Snap been global like the Ozone we could see it succeeding the Ace, but it’s not. Inner Circle is nice, but it’s not really a huge selling point. Combine all of this with a less than stellar feel and we have to say we don’t see the Snap doing too well.

HTC Snap CDMA Video Review: