HTC PURE Windows Phone
Monday, January 11th, 2010
- Sleek 3G-enabled phone with 3.2-inch touchscreen and full onscreen QWERTY keyboard; powered by Windows Mobile 6.5
- Compatible with AT&T Navigator GPS, Video Share, AT&T Mobile Music,
- Wi-Fi networking (802.11b/g); 5-megapixel camera/camcorder; Bluetooth stereo music and tethering; microSD expansion to 32 GB
- Up to 5 hours of talk time, up to 360 hours (15 days) of standby time
- What’s in the Box: Handset, rechargeable battery, travel charger, USB charge/sync cable, extra stylus, screen protector, 3.5mm stereo headset adapter, quick start guide, CD with user guide
Amazon.com Product Description
Delivering a touchscreen experience in an alluring, compact form factor, the HTC PURE smartphone from AT&T keeps you connected with friends, business partners and world events with its ultra-fast HSDPA 3G cellular connectivity and the revamped Windows Mobile 6.5 operating system. It intelligently arranges your conversations by people, not by the application that you use to communicate with them. So when looking at your contacts, you can now see a history of your conversations in whatever form it took place, quickly and easily–even Facebook updates.
Stay connected with friends, business partners and world events wherever you roam with the sleek, touchscreen-enabled HTC PURE smartphone wi… More >>
Justcut says:
January 12th, 2010
12:00 am
first time writing reviews on amazon.
bought this phone from at&t store. used for 4 hrs. returned the phone immediately even it costed me $35 to return.
window mobile 6.5 sounds nice, but it is really horriable. researched on youtube, seems great. but it is really really bad. it don’t have enough plugins for you to be able surf the internet. and if you can go to certain webpages, it would take forever to load. also no flash light for the camera. i am waiting for nokia x6 now. even nokia 5800 is better than this phone, and cheaper.
Rating: 1 / 5
Schweig says:
January 12th, 2010
1:25 am
This sexy, classy device hides a multitude of shortcomings.
Pure is a Windows device and as such promises to provide a useful PDA replacement. The Windows Mobile operating system permits storage, organization and even editing of documents, which can be transferred by cable or blue tooth. The phone comes with a desktop sync application, which I did not get around to trying, but probably works adequately.
There are quite a few negatives.
First: Size. The screen is so small that editing or reading your applications requires magnification. It is less useful than it sounds.
Software/Operating system: I had to replace the first unit I purchased, as the system caused unwelcome programs to open in the middle of other processes. Having experienced this on a Trio, I wouldn’t take the chance of this recurring out of warranty.
Resolution: I spent a jet lagged hour playing the game included in the software. I noticed that I was having problems seeing the screen, but it was not until I put it down that I realized that I was seeing everything double and blurred, a condition which lasted a few hours. A subsequent trip to the eye clinic put my mind at rest regarding my eyes. Prescription: “Get a different phone”.
Battery life: I have had any number of phones, smart and dumb, and any number of PDA’s (which I had hoped to replace with this). None have run out of power so quickly.
Unlocking: I travel on business, hence the need for a phone with PDA features. Like all international travelers, I carry overseas sim cards with minutes for my stays. This phone at the time I purchased it was extremely difficult to unlock. As a matter of fact, it took the techie several days to get the code, which did not to get to me. I was out $40 with a locked phone. This was fortunate, as it permitted me to return it.
The AT&T plan. AT&T’s recent announcement that all users of Smart Phones, even if they decided they did not want the Internet services, would have to pay the extra $30, which after tax and fees is $40 per month for the Data Plan. This phone could have WiFi, but at $480/year AT&T is motivated not to offer the most customer friendly option.
Keyboard: Even with slender fingers, I hit it wrong plenty of times. Very annoying.
Memory.The phone has essentially no memory, which is odd for a Windows machine, but this goes with the size. A memory card will set you back anywhere upwards of $40 for anything useful.
Price: This phone is valued at $500, although AT&T is currently giving it away for $.01 on Amazon in the cutthroat race for customers. This with a two year plan. If you really want a useful item and are willing to sell your soul to T for twenty four months, consider as an alternative Blackberry. (The extra $40 /month applies.)
My solution: I decided to continue as I had been, with phone and PDA separate. I am forcing IPod Touch into the role of PDA (DocumentsToGo, HandBase for the database functions, Easy Reader and other relatively cheap apps make this possible). IPod Touch has bluetooth, WiFi, 16gb memory.
Rating: 1 / 5
Randoll says:
January 12th, 2010
1:58 am
I really wanted to like this phone. I disregarded all of the negative comments and reviews about it, purchasing it in hopes that an iPhone would not be in my future. When looking at it’s specs, it’s amazing. In actuality, those specs don’t play out well. I experienced major software glitches involving the phone-lock mechanism, wi-fi hook up and overall usability. The charger it came with also did not work.
As far as usability goes, the touch screen is not very sensitive. You must be very aggressive with it or always use the stylus, which isn’t convenient. For me, the most used functions of the phone were very tiny and hard to reach easily even with my small fingers and experience with touchscreens. Touchflo3D navigation often switches off and lands you in the tiny Windows menus without warning. Also, getting the keyboard to flip to landscape mode is quite tricky sometimes! The general lack of ability to customize the look of the interface was a minor but irritating area of opportunity.
On the bright side, it comes with a lot of great games! It’s a pretty phone.
Overall, by the time you spend the money on this, you may as well get an iPhone that you’ll be able to customize and navigate better (iPhones also have a LOT more memory!). Windows phones need to look at a more finger and user friendly interface in the future.
Rating: 2 / 5
C. EDWARDS says:
January 12th, 2010
3:36 am
I decided on this phone because I thought I wanted a Windows based phone also after reading many positive reviews on other websites. After having the Pure for 2 weeks, I’ve had enough and returned it today. The Touch-Flo was a good feature, but I believe it is to blame for a lot of the RAM usage. The first day I had the phone I noticed that, at best, I only had 50MB out of 186MB of program memory free. BTW, this was with ALL apps closed. It was slow and would freeze from the time I got it. I talked to a friend who suggested downloading a memory manager to help free up more memory. I tried a couple, but got only 65MB at best…and no better performance.
This phone takes great pics and videos as long as you have BRIGHT lighting. I played with the camera adjustments for quite a while, and even with the brightness maxed out, pictures were very dark under moderate lighting. I compared it side by side with my wife’s LG Xenon while sitting under the light in our living room and her camera was MUCH brighter at regular settings than this one was set at MAX brightness. Worthless to me under normal indoor conditions.
Internet use was EXTREMELY slow at first until I changed to mobile view which only slightly improved speed. The WiFi was no better than the sluggish 3G connection. Even set to mobile view, the web pages would freeze for several seconds while loading. I read someone complain that the Pure wouldn’t play YouTube videos, this is only PARTIALLY true. YouTube won’t play in Opera, but IE will open the vids in media player, even though they were very choppy due to the slow internet speed.
Today was the last straw. First thing this morning after unplugging the charger, the phone partially locked up and the Touch-Flo home screen would not load. I hit the soft reset button a few times before completely removing the battery and SIM card for 10 minutes. Neither helped. The Start page was the only thing I could access and was the only way I could access the phone menu to place a call! This went on for half the day before the Touch-Flo FINALLY started to work again…kinda’. The Touch-Flo screen would then freeze every time I tried to open an app. When I finally got off work, I couldn’t get home fast enough to pack this phone back up and return it to the store. I believe I’ll try the BB Bold next. I had a BB Pearl before and had very few problems with it, so I hope the Bold has improved on those “few”. Good luck if you choose the HTC Pure…you’ll need it!!!!!
Rating: 2 / 5
C. Rogers says:
January 12th, 2010
5:44 am
I upgraded to this phone from a Fuze and love it. The screen is not quite as big as the Touch Pro2 but bigger then the Fuze. I find that the size is perfect for putting in your pocket on the go. I did like the standard WM 6.5 but am taking advantage of additional functionality after updating the firmware through XDA Dev. Call quality is excellent and internet is very fast for me. The new app store is nice but I’d like to see more apps in the future.
Rating: 5 / 5