 The HTC Fuze features a sharp 2.8-inch touch screen, Wi-Fi networking, Bluetooth stereo music, and GPS navigation capabilities. |
AT&T Service
This AT&T phone can handle high-speed data connectivity via AT&T's 3G mobile broadband data network, which is available in most major metropolitan areas. The AT&T 3G network uses the dual-band UMTS 850/1900 MHz network, and this phone is also compatible with 2100 MHz 3G networks (found in international territories). The AT&T 3G network provides download speeds ranging from 700 Kbps to 1.7 Mbps, and upload speeds ranging from 500 Kbps to 1.2 Mbps. This makes it possible to enjoy a variety of feature-rich wireless multimedia services, and it gives you the advantage of offering simultaneous voice and data services. (For use outside the United States, an AT&T international data plan is recommended.)
In areas where the 3G network is not available, you'll continue to receive service on the AT&T EDGE network, which offers availability in more than 13,000 US cities and along some 40,000 miles of major highways. Providing average data speeds between 75-135Kbps, it's fast enough to support a wide range of advanced data services, including video and music clips, full picture and video messaging, high-speed color Internet access, and email on the go. You'll also enjoy quad-band GSM connectivity, which allows you to make calls in more than 190 countries and access data applications in the more than 135 countries where AT&T offers international data roaming.
With 3G connectivity, you'll be able to access AT&T's Video Share service, which enables you to send a live, one-way video stream to another compatible phone during a standard voice call. The service also allows you to switch the direction of the video stream during the same phone call. (Customers must be in an area served by the company's 3G network and have a Video Share-enabled phone.) A majority of users in the architecture, engineering and construction industries rated the ability to share live video through Video Share highly, according to research commissioned by AT&T. Video Share lets you see progress on a job site or review the day's work without having to drive from an office or other site to do so.
You can take advantage of the AT&T Navigator GPS software and service, a full-featured premium navigation application that includes audible turn-by-turn directions, real-time traffic updates and re-routing options, and 3D moving maps (additional charges applicable). AT&T Navigator offers several other features to make your commute more enjoyable and reliable, including mobile access to Yellowpages.com. Additionally, AT&T Navigator is the only mobile phone-based GPS service that provides integrated speech recognition for address entry and points of interest search.
 With the TouchFLO 3D interface, album artwork, calendar items and snapshots are brought to life for you to interact, play and launch at your fingertips. |
Instantly contact any other AT&T user with this phone's Push-to-Talk (PTT) functionality, which works across the entire network to make sure you have a clear signal so you can get things done. Easy-to-read icons let you know when members of your contact list are available, not available, or have their status set to "Do Not Disturb." You can also set your own status to let others know that you're busy. When a quick PTT call needs to be a longer discussion convert the call easily to a regular voice call--works for one-to-one calls as well as group calls. Save time on group calling by pulling up your contacts and simply "marking" those you wish to include on a call--no need to set up and save groups before calling, unless you want to.
The phone has a built-in web browser for MEdia Net downloads and mobile web browsing. AT&T's MEdia Net service enables you to receive and send emails, read news headlines, get weather updates, download games and ringtones, and more.
Phone Features
With the TouchFLO 3D interface, HTC has taken a great leap forward in touchscreen innovation. It's designed for one-hand operation using simple, gesture-based navigation, allowing you to simply touch, hold and slide along the screen tabs. A quick slide on the home screen quickly activates the most used features such as e-mail, text messaging, music player and camera. This instinctive interface extends to the powerful Web browser, where a useful "zoom in, zoom out" feature makes it especially easy to access the Web via the included Opera browser, which provides for desktop-like Web page renderings and user interactions. An integrated accelerometer senses when you change the position of the phone from portrait to landscape viewing, and it auto-rotates the screen's orientation.
The HTC Fuze features a sharp, 262K-color 2.8-inch VGA touchscreen (480 x 640 pixels) for touch-sensitive navigation control, complete with three-dimensional animated transitions. For email, messaging and other data input, the HTC Fuze also comes equipped with a full QWERTY keyboard that slides out from the smartphone's side.
 It comes equipped with a full QWERTY keyboard, which was designed specifically for AT&T and slides out from the smartphone's side. |
In addition, the HTC Fuze supports scores of industry-specific applications as well as Microsoft System Center Mobile Device Manager (MDM), an enterprise-grade mobile device management solution that also provides security, mobile Virtual Private Network (VPN) and software distribution for Windows Mobile devices enabled for Windows Mobile 6.1.
This phone provides Bluetooth version 2.0 wireless connectivity with EDR (enhanced data rate), and includes profiles for communication headset, handsfree car kits, and audio/video remote control. With the A2DP Bluetooth profile, you can stream your music to a pair of compatible Bluetooth stereo headphones. You'll also be able to access open Wi-Fi networks in offices and hotspots via the integrated 802.11b/g wireless connectivity.
Other features include:
Vital Statistics
The HTC Fuze weighs 5.82 ounces and measures 4.02 x 2.01 x 0.71 inches. Its 1340 mAh lithium-ion battery is rated at up to 7.4 hours of talk time, and up to 460 hours (19.3 days) of standby time. It runs on the 850/900/1800/1900 MHz GSM/GPRS/EDGE frequencies.
Powered by Windows Mobile 6.1
Microsoft's Windows Mobile 6.1 offers a number of handy features that make searching through email, editing Microsoft Office documents, and staying on top of your most important communications even easier. Emails can now be viewed in their original rich HTML format and now offer the ability to visit embedded links. It also includes Windows Live for Windows Mobile, which provides a full set of Windows Live services, such as the Windows Live Messenger IM application, which now enables you to chat with more than one person at one time or send a file.
With Windows Mobile 6.1, your phone will finally be able to emulate the power and features of your PC's Microsoft Office suite. You'll be able to neatly view, navigate and edit Word documents and Excel spreadsheets in their original formatting--without affecting tables, images or text--as well as view PowerPoint presentations.
All Windows Mobile 6.1 powered devices include Direct Push Technology for up-to-date e-mail delivery and automatic synchronization of Outlook calendars, tasks and contacts through Microsoft Exchange Server. It also offers a set of important device security and management features that include the capability to remotely wipe all data from a device should it be lost or stolen, helping ensure that confidential information remains that way.
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Average Customer Review: based on 8 reviews
Decent - especially for the price (currently free)
July 28, 2009
Reviewer: John Henschen (Bettendorf, IA) -
I've had this phone for about a year now and its held up pretty well physically. However, the face scratches very easily, so if you get this phone, get a plastic film cover for it. It will freeze from time to time and its extremely easy to have it dial or answer a call while its in your pocket. Even if you get an app like I have where you have to slide your finger across the screen in a certain place, that doesn't always work because it doesn't always go into the sleep mode like its supposed to. My screen is also starting to lose its sensitivity. Has decent battery life, considering that I use it a lot for emails and reading e-books as well as as a phone.
However, it DOES work for Microsoft Reader for those of you who are looking for a phone that will do that. I've had other smart phones and this one is nothing special. Kinda finicky, scratches easily, freezes too frequently... just kinda blah.
An IT guy's dream.
August 23, 2009
Reviewer: Bobbie Stivers (East Granby, CT) -
I'm a partner and lead programmer/systems engineer at an IT firm. I've had this phone for 4 months now and it has cut me free from my office so that I can truly telecommute from anywhere and still provide 24/7 responsiveness. I found an RDP client that works wonderfully on this phone since it has as spacious 640x480 screen. I also found an SFTP client for file transfers. In short, it's my very capable mobile desktop for emergencies or when I'm bored and wanting to get work done in random places. When I need a full-blown computer, I just quickly tether the phone to my laptop. In another month, I'm going out of country and I will truly put this phone to the test.
FYI: Get a screen protector (which strikes me as a no-brainer there). Tethering is only supported by Windows but I'm working on a solution for Ubuntu. There's a beefier battery and adjusted back cover available from Seidio that I'd highly recommend.
HTC Fuze
November 11, 2009
Reviewer: Alcyon (US) -
It is a very nice phone with many useful features. The Fuze is a sharp looking phone with a solid and well built feel. It does a superior job as a phone as well as PC.
Highlights:
The backlit slide-out keyboard is wonderful. Top marks for key size and function assignments.
Touch screen brightness and resolution are fabulous.
Size and weight aren't issues.
Battery life is super (but I guess anything would be after my last phone).
The processor and response time are impressive for this class of phone.
Not as positive:
Lack of external antenna connector.
Touch-flo is very very quirky.
HTC really could throw in a case of some kind.
Windows Mobile still has almost no options for personalizing a phone. It has the look and feel of a project that left the drawing board and had to hit the market by due date.
And I still despise activesync.
Slides just a bit to easy
September 27, 2009
Reviewer: J. Collins "racjac" (Steilacoom, WA USA) -
I replaced my HTC Tilt with this phone (Thanks to AT&T) it works good, a bit faster thent he tilt, but smaller keys on the keyboard, so maybe a bit harder for men with fat fingers.
The camera is hidden and difficult to get to, but there is a now new ROM update available at the HTC website that will make the PTT button programable so that makes life a bit easier (now with one button I get my camera).
All in all the phone works great, but as any new Microsoft run phone, it should. It has frozen up a few times and I have had to shut it down, but that onlt has beem due to software issues. First thing I did was get to handango and d/l the SPB software and got some COLOR on the screen.
Great phone, VERY customizable
September 7, 2009
Reviewer: Lee Lillie
This phone has better specs than my computer in highschool. Windows Mobile is descent, but very open to customized, open source programs unlike the i-Phone. This phone is the i-Phone for people who want the features, but also the freedom to actually customize the product they payed for without the cell phone manufacturers consent. This phone takes some learning if you want to get full functionality. Touchflow 3D is novice friendly, but it has some lag. I take that off because the Windows Mobile program is a good business tool stand alone. Also, with a little time and understanding you can go on XDA Developers and make the phone do about any program imaginable. Their are LOTS of great, free software options for this phone. With 32 gb micro SD capability there is plenty of room to put what you want on it. I really recommend this phone, unless you are not that tech savy as this phone has so many options that might be too much for some. A great piece of convergence technology.
Four Stars For HTC, 2 Stars For Windows Mobile
November 9, 2009
Reviewer: David R. Tisdale, II "Davelli" (Haughton, LA United States) -
Reviewing this phone is very difficult for me. It's hard to separate how I feel about Windows Mobile versus how I feel about the great job HTC has done with the device itself. I'm going to try to keep my thoughts on those matters separate, but it is a Windows Mobile device, after all.
When I first got this phone last year on 26 December, I was in love with it. This phone can just about do anything that you can imagine. 3G, including HSDPA and HSUPA, check. Wifi, check. Microsoft Exchange, contacts, 3rd party applications, all check, check, check. I was, and still am, amazed that so much functionality could be packed into one device.
The TouchFLO UI that HTC has built on top of Windows Mobile is outstanding and makes using the phone a treat. It's so great that you'll actually groan a little whenever you have to dig down into the Windows Mobile UI to change settings. HTC just cannot be commended enough on how much they've increased the usability of the phone. If this were simply a Windows Mobile device with no TouchFLO, I would have been very unhappy with it.
After a month or so of owning the device, I started to realize its flaws. The touch-sensitive screen will accidentally make and answer calls for you (butt calls anyone?). The phone was becoming incredibly sluggish. Programs would open slowly and become unresponsive, typing would lag far behind my actual keystrokes, etc, etc. We all know that Windows Mobile is slow and not so optimal.
However, I'm a programmer and love to tinker. I had read in all my research about different places on the web to get custom ROMs and applications for the phones to make it run faster. If you don't know what a ROM is, then just skip to the next paragraph. See, many reviewers had said that the Fuze can be made much better, faster, and more iPhone-like by installing "custom-baked ROMs". This is completely true. I spent a joyous month downloading and installing new ROMs on my Fuze, finding exactly the one that offered the best performance/featurest balance. The unfortunate downside of that is that most custom ROMs are unstable. I eventually settled with HTC's official ROM (*not* the official AT&T ROM that comes installed on the phone, which is slow). HTC's official ROM is fast, stable, and works great! Again they have done an amazing job with this device!
I had fallen back in love with my new, improved, speedy and responsive Fuze! But sadly, it was not meant to last. While I love to tinker, love to figure out how things work, love to squeeze that last bit of performance out of something, after a year of ownership, I just want a phone that plain works. I want to be able to check email, read text messages, surf the web, connect to Wifi, all that, but I don't want to have to manually tweak settings to make it do so in an acceptable manner. That's the ultimate crutch of this phone: It's built on Windows Mobile, which has fallen far behind Apple and Google in creating OSes for mobile devices. Windows Mobile is so slow and sluggish that you have to do quite a bit of manual tweaking to this phone to make it run in tip-top shape.
All that tinkering and tweaking was fun for a while. I'm a little older now, with a little less patience and a little less free time, and I just want a phone that works, period. No registry tweaking, no having to download .CAB hacks, just, pow, here's my phone, it works, I haven't had to restart it in three weeks.
The HTC Fuze was a great phone for the year that I've had it. It can do just about everything under the sun. With lots of research and tweaking, you can make this phone run well and be wonderfully responsive, or at least as responsive as Windows Mobile will allow. One day, though, you may become like me, and want something that just plain works well out of the box, no tweaking required.
a question
October 5, 2009
Reviewer: J. S. Ferrer "jcity" (Puerto Rico) -
if i bought this cellphone without a plan (in regular price 299.99) I can put it the att ensurance for robbery?
Bait& Switch
August 10, 2009
Reviewer: Richard Yoder
Beware that you will have to buy a data plan with this phone for at least $30.00 a month. This is not mentioned when you add the phone to your cart. When you try to check out it will force you to add features to your existing account. This seems a lot like the used car salesman's "bait and switch" trick.