HTC PURE Windows Phone (AT&T)

It has it's uses-- but a little small for me. October 23, 2009

Reviewer:  THATCH "RST"  (OHIO) -

If you're ok with using a stylus, this phone may be for you. Being an iPhone user, I ordered this mostly for testing and to see how things have evolved with the current Windows Mobile 6.5. At first touch, I liked the following:

1. Phone seems durably built
2. Screen is very clear and touch sensitivity is good
3. The phone is stylish, as is the charger
4. It is SMALL! Smaller than I expected.
5. The Operating System is responsive. I didn't notice any lag.
6. The "haptic" feedback is great. When you press a button with the stylus, you get a tiny/short vibrate so you know you've registered the tap.

On the downside,

1. It takes a long time to boot if you ever have to restart it to take the battery out
2. The screen elements are so small, much of what you do has to be done with the toothpick sized stylus. Even though it registers a finger press fine, my small fingers are still too big.
3. Windows Mobile still feels "PDA-like". Every app you open stays open until you close it. You must go to the task manager and close it, not just going back to the applications menu screen. It's very easy to drain system resources without realizing it if you aren't on top of closing your apps.
4. Things like Facebook mobile still aren't nearly as good as they are on the blackberry & iPhone.

It didn't take me long to realize that this phone is no iPhone or Blackberry Bold/Storm class machine. Interacting with the Windows Mobile still feels a little like Window 3.1-- you can get lost easily with the layers. If you like a tiny stylus and tiny phone, this may be the phone for you. If you have any issues seeing small things, this probably isn't for you. Personally, I'd love to see this same hardware with a different operating system on it. The Windows Mobile 6.5 doesn't do a good job of "removing surrounding clutter/background clutter" when you are doing things like connecting to wireless, or entering text. They waste a lot of space by not clearing the background and enlarging the menus.

Can I recommend this phone? Yes. But not for everyone. If you love Windows Mobile or want/like a stylus entry, this is a very stylish attractive little phone.

Nice small WM65 phone November 6, 2009

Reviewer:  S. Lee "saint168"  (Oceano, CA) -

This is my 4th Windows Mobile phone so I think I qualify as an experienced Windows Mobile phone user. I am not comparing this phone with iPhone, Blackberry, Android or Palm Pre phone since enough people have done that already.

First of all, I love the small size. My previous phone was a Tilt and that thing was bulky and heavy. When I'm in my gym short and put that phone in my pocket, I was in constant fear. The Pure however is slim and light, very pocketable.

Losing the keyboard is not a big deal for me. I found I seldom use the keyboard on my Tilt anyway since I installed the Touchpal keyboard software unless I'm typing a long email. The new QWERTY keyboard in the Pure is surprisingly nice although the keys are a little small because of the width of the phone.

As a whole, WM65 is much more finger friendly then WM6 although it's still far from perfect when you compare with other choices. The new app store makes it much easier to get new software for the phone. The new lock screen is useless when you cannot set the lock screen to automatically appear without asking for a password. I ended up installing the trusty S2U2 software again. TouchFLO 3D is nice and easy to use.

The camera produce nice looking 5M pictures and the quality is comparable with iPhone. The accelerometer works very well but not all software support it. The battery life is not too good. I usually finish the day with less that 50% left so I have to charge every night. Not having a 3.5 or 2.5 jack is a pain in the XXX but that how it was with the Tilt. My biggest problem with the hardware is not having the D-Pad. I understand many other touch screen phone never had D-Pad (iPhone) and they all work fine. The problem is almost all Windows Mobile phones had D-Pad before and many software assume it too. One good example is Microsoft Reader, it does not support swiping to turn page. You suppose to use the D-Pad to turn page or you can click the "tiny" left right arrows on the bottom of the page. These arrows are so small it's impossible to hit with you big thumb.

I like this phone for it small size and ease of use. I've always been a fan of Windows Mobile because I feel I have more control of it. I am able to customize it anyway I want. If you are using other PDA mobile phone, you probably don't want to switch to this phone, wait for Windows Mobile 7. If you like Windows Mobile and does mind the lack of keyboard, then this is the phone for you.

Am loving this thing November 1, 2009

Reviewer:  VK  (US) -

Have had this device for a day now and am loving it. Its really small and sleek. The "resistive" touch screen is pretty responsive, the keyboard is good, it gives a short vibration or haptic feedback whenever a key is pressed. At first I thought Ill turn that off, but now I feel its really useful. It does have the G-sensor (gravity sensor/accelerometer), which is probably not as responsive as iPhone's and not all applications use it. But some applications do use it like the browser and outlook, and a cute little game called teeter. Its not multi-touch (I think), but the zoom bar makes up for the lack of it, and the flicks and gestures work really well. The 5mp camera is great. Windows app center is good too.

Cons: it doesnt come with a set of earphones! Who would have thought of that. The 'ok' or 'close' buttons on the top right corner are still pretty small. Sometimes its a little too responsive, when I am looking at the call history for e.g, it ends up making a call when I am just trying to scroll. Minor thing which most people have already pointed out: the earphones jack isnt standard 3.5mm jack and comes with an adapter for it.

All in all its a great cheap alternative to the iPhone.

Great Phone November 9, 2009

Reviewer:  Aneshea Thornton 

It took me a while to figure out just what phone I wanted to upgrade to and I finally found it. I've had this phone for about a month now and I truly love it. I waited to post a review as I wanted to ensure I thoroughly explored the phone to give my honest opinion.

I am not a conformist, so stayed away from the iphone and the blackberry. I upgraded from the Samsung Blackjack II, so have to admit the HTC pure took some getting used too.

At first sight, the keypad does seem a bit small/crowded, but I seem to type text messages with little to no errors. I do not use my phone to compose email, but love being able to receive messages from my home email account with the ability to respond back to the sender if need be.

The things that I love the most with this phone is the bright screen, the camera, the ease of making phone calls, listening to music, and personalizing my home screen to my liking.

The two downfalls to the phone are the battery life and a slow running internet. I knew those were the main drawbacks to the phone prior to my purchase from reading other reviews, but figured it wouldn't be a main concern for me since I am not a big phone talker, texter, phone internet surfer and it isn't. I can get exactly what I need from the internet while on the road with no problem its just a little slower than the BBB. I do charge the phone every night but so does my husband who owns a BBB. So I guess the battery life compared to the BBB is about the same.

Again, great phone overall. If you are still having trouble trying to decide on a phone, log onto [...]. Under review, type in the cell phone model and get more detailed reviews to help you decide. Good luck!

Aneshea

Great Phone November 30, 2009

Reviewer:  C. Rogers 

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.

Affordable Contender to the iPhone March 7, 2010

Reviewer:  Blue Agenda  (Gonzales, LA USA) -

Having been a "flip-phone" fan for years and owning nearly every company's version of it, about six months ago, I jumped on the iPhone bandwagon. Unfortunately for me, the iPhone lacked in every detail that I needed a phone for - to talk on it. Less than 30 days later I was returning it for another flip-phone. However, I was intrigued by the number of things that I could do with the iPhone (i.e., apps galore) but was very disappointed with the battery life, call quality (reception) and phone functionality. I stumbled across the HTC Pure while browsing AT&T's website and was given a generous offer to upgrade. Having not put any research into the phone prior to ordering, I was a little hesitant but was pleasantly surprised once I got my hands on it. In many ways, the Pure acts and feels like an iPhone but doesn't require the amount of coin to accomplish it. The screen is clear (LCD), bright and easy-to-read (I'm a 30-something). At the bottom of the screen are tabs that you can customize to your liking that will connect you to your Home, Contacts (Favorites), Internet, Weather and Settings. The weather tab automatically updates approximately every three hours with animation (when raining, it rains on screen and a wiper blade swipes it clear) and is supported (linked) to [...]. You can also synchronize your contacts with their Facebook profile and use their pics as photo caller-i.d. The two browsers loaded with the phone - Opera 9.7 and Internet Explorer 6.5 are equally impressive. I primarily use Opera as it utilizes both portrait (vertical) and landscape (horizontal) modes. IE does not. The call quality is exceptional. Crisp, clear and loud both with the phone and speaker. Battery life is the best I have ever seen on a smartphone. It is rated at 5 hours talk time and 15 days of standby. I have been able to use this phone starting on a full charge and play FreeCell for five hours straight, periodically checking email, etc. and having only used 10 to 20% battery life. I have also been able to make a 45 minute phone call with only 20% battery life left until I was prompted to recharge. The time it takes to recharge is approximately 2 hours to fully charge but I have done it in less and still had significant battery life to get me through my work day (8 hours). If you're considering an iPhone, I strongly urge you to look at the Pure as you would have to buy the 3GS in order to do everything this phone does for half the price. Also worth noting, I DO NOT use this as a music device and have read reviews that one of the downfalls of the Pure is the lack of an onboard headphone jack. This is solved with the included Multifunction Audio Adapter, however, that has been seen with mixed reviews. I also found the stylus to be easy to use and a great way to keep smudgy fingerprints from building up on the screen.

Better value than iPhone March 21, 2010

Reviewer:  Tom  (Freeport, Texas, USA) -

Am I the only one think this is better than iPhone? Got one free from ATT after rebate. This upgrade cost me nothing and does not require any data plan! Other than that, this phone is sleek and WM6.5 works really well for me. It has all the necessary productivity software from Windows and decent games. The following summaries the goods and bads:
1. Sync smoothly with Windows PC.
2. Native MS mobile office.
3. 5MP camera and camcorder
4. TouchFlo works well and don't crash at all.
5. Wifi works nicely with good download speed.
6. Bluetooth works well with Active sync and cordless headsets
7. Sharp screen resolution
8. All Internet applications works really smoothly and fast, including Facebook and Skype.
9. Really love mobile Skype through Wifi....
10. DO need to turn phone connection off so internet applications won't switch to 3G accidentally and incur fees.
11. Internal storage and RAM sizes are small. But it takes microSD up to 32 GB.
12. Multitasking!
13. Do need stylus from time to time but you can do so much more with it.
14. FM Radio! But need a mini USB to headphone jack. The one comes with it is too bulky!
15. The more I use it the more I like it!
16. Transcriber input, got to have it!
17. Need to understand how multitasking works and stop apps as needed.
18. Can be set to single-tasking like iPhone
19. RAM is a little small, but enough for several prorgrams running simultaneously...

Microsoft has come a long way since early days and now I can see they are on the right track to be a well rounded mobile OS. Hopefully they won't sacrifice their advantages in attempt to be more like iPhone....

Great value July 20, 2010

Reviewer:  Rich 

After reading some of the bad reviews here, I had to add my 2 cents. When I was looking at phones a few months ago, the cheapest Android/iphones started at about $200, I got the Pure for $50. So yes, my 4 star rating factors in the price, which I think makes it a great value. The screen is smaller and the unit is slower than it's more expensive competitors, but they both suffice for me. IE offers a decent browsing experience, but I have enjoyed recent versions of Opera Mobile. I also installed other free apps such as Youtube and Google Maps. Additionally, I purchased a couple of apps; CorePlayer lets me play MANY multimedia files and Copilot Live GPS is a much better deal at $40 to purchase than $10/month for ATT gps service. And of course, it works great with Exchange email from work (and I installed the latest Office 2010 mobile). Oh, and it works great tethered to my laptop. I've also successfully streamed media on it from home via [...]. All this on a $50 phone and some think it's not a good value?

Look for another option! December 3, 2009

Reviewer:  Randoll  (KY) -

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.

Am I the only one that finds this phone entirely dissapointing? February 2, 2010

Reviewer:  S. J. Carpenter 

I purchased this phone after hours of research and reading reviews from many websites. I was nothing but excited to get it. I almost even admitted love for it until the annoying aspects started to crop up...

1. I was never able to get a screen protector to actually stick and stay on the screen. I tried 3 different brands but all of them would peel around the outer rim. I tried all the tricks like apply it and let it sit for 24 hours with the phone off, leave it on for over a week, but the darn things kept coming off. I concluded that it is due to the incredibly cheap plastic used for the front screen, it flexes and just feels awful. Guess what? It scratches easily too, which I now know due to the fact that I have no screen protector.

2. Windows is slow, just like it is slow for desktop computers. Using touchflow 3D and no programs running I usually have 65% to 75% of my system resources in use. This thing crawls, and has even hard locked on me from time to time. I have even been trying to shut it down and start it back up every day or two but it doesnt seem to change it.

3. Absolutely no worthwhile applications. Wait I take that back, you get Facebook, MySpace and MS Bing. Facebook is very flaky and I have had tons of trouble using it compared to iphone and blackberry versions.

4. Hardware problems... Headphone jack? I didnt think it was going to be that big of a problem, but guess what? You could pretty much remove video playback and MP3 because its worthless without having headphones. Plus not having a flash just about ruins things too.

5. Yeah it's tiny, that's neat, but the keyboard is terribly small too. It is obvious why they decided to add the stylus because you really can't do some functions without using it.

There are probably other things I am forgetting but you get the idea I am heading towards. I expected an end all solution that I could use to send pictures to my family, cruise the net and do all those cool things. I was wrong. Remember that professional reviews are bought and sold and that once you click that contract agreement you are stuck with a phone for 2 years. Choose wisely.