Touch Devices: HTC Touch vs iPhone vs... Dopod C500?

I was asked by a friend for opinions on 2 of the most anticipated phones to date; what else, the HTC Touch and the iPhone, and compare them with Dopod C500 (just for comparison's sake, I guess XD). As I am just a poor layman who will never get items to review for free ;-) I'll just pull off the specs from the internet and rant on. To each his own opinions so if you agree or disagree, feel free to shoot me.

Specs that matter are summarized in this Google spreadsheet. Really, who cares about infrared connectivity nowadays?

Dopod C500 is in fact HTC Vox. It is basically a slider phone, with QWERTY-keyboard and no touchscreen. It is a standard PocketPC powered by Windows Mobile 6. The good thing about WM6 is that it's already very well established since it shares the same base with Windows Mobile 5; both are powered by Windows CE 5.0 and there are tons of third party software for it, whether payware, shareware, freeware or pirateware XD. The bad thing is it is only powered by TI OMAP 850 which clocks about 200Mhz, so it might be a tad slow especially if many applications are running at the same time.

HTC Touch (codename HTC Elf) is the sudden competitor to the iPhone, featuring TouchFLO technology that basically lets users to interface with the device using a finger. There is also the option to use a stylus. Powered by Windows Mobile 6, there are tons of third party software for it whether payware, shareware, freeware or pirateware. Since its main interface is TouchFLO, you might like it or hate it so checkout this video, decide for yourselves.



The screen size is 2.8" which is quite big compared to other standard PocketPC devices. The bad side is, at ~USD$600, the price is quite steep for a device that is only clocked at 200Mhz, bundled with a 1GB microSD card and lacks 3G connectivity.

iPhone is the current talk of the town. Everything around the iPhone seems to be blown out of proportions since its announcement by Steve Jobs in January. This device has been designed from the ground up to solely interface with human fingers, no options to use stylus. The 3.5" screen is even topped with optical-quality glass for this purpose. It also is powered by an optimized version of Mac OSX. Just like TouchFLO, you might love iPhone's 'Multi-Touch' interface so see for yourselves here.



To add in the cool factor, there is a proximity sensor that shuts off the display and touchscreen when the iPhone is brought near the face to save battery power and to prevent spurious inputs from the user's face and ears, an ambient light sensor that adjusts the display brightness which in turn saves battery power, and an accelerometer, which senses the orientation of the phone and changes the screen accordingly, albeit in only one 90 degree direction. iPhone can be described as an iPod with phone functions, and this is evident looking at the size of its storage; a humongous 4GB or 8GB. No wonder it doesn't need any memory expansion slots.

The downside of iPhone would be third party software support. Steve jobs recently announced that third party "add-ons" for iPhone will only be in the form of AJAX or Java-based widgets as extension of its built-in Safari browser. This doesn't make much sense to me since the device only supports WiFi so it seems to imply that the user must always stay in a WiFi hotspot to keep those web-based widgets running. It is not impossible that the widgets will work offline but it still sucks when users can't install any alternative applications like web browser, media player, word editor etc. True to the Apple spirit, the iPhone will limit users' choice of software.

iPhone is also locked to only one cellular carrier which is Cingular in the US. Users that want the iPhone will have to sign up to a 2-year contract with Cingular. In Malaysia so far there is no information yet on whether the same restrictions will be applied if and when the device enters the market. The idea of locking a particular device to a network has never worked well over here. One more turn-off for me would be the batteries which will be non-removable on the device just like iPods so if they are damaged, users won't be able to replace them without going to a service center. In terms of price a 4GB iPhone will retail at USD$499 while 8GB at USD$599, which in my opinion is rather reasonable given the excellent screen size, the cool technologies that come with it and the huge storage.

Out of the three devices, my pick will be the HTC Touch primarily for the sheer expandability and compatibility with many existing 3rd party software. The best example to demonstrate this flexibility is how these guys at lifehacker.com succeeded in copying iPhone's interface on any Windows Mobile-based device, which in a way proved my points. There is nothing that the iPhone can do that an open Windows Mobile-based device can't do better. However HTC Touch's main drawback would be its steep price.

For the iPhone, it will no doubt appeal most to Mac users, iPod lovers and Apple's fans. If you don't mind being locked to Apple's software offerings and the irremovable batteries, the iPhone would be an excellent device at a very reasonable price for the technologies that come with it. It also has the largest screen size at 3.5" which makes it an excellent media-player.

For everyone else, there's the Dopod C500. ;-)