HTC Tattoo

Full Review

With Google’s Nexus One launched, there has been a renewed interest in phones based on the Android mobile OS. So, this seems as good a time as any to look at HTC’s newest Android phone- the Tattoo.

Features

The Tattoo doesn’t scrimp on any connectivity features. It supports Wi-Fi and 3G and comes with GPS that uses Google Maps. It has a 2.8 inch resistive touchscreen capable of displaying resolutions up to 240x320 and an accelerometer for automatically changing the display’s orientation. The Tattoo’s imaging is taken care of by a 3.15MP camera without a flash. The phone comes with a meager 256MB of internal memory and strangely, you can’t shoot pictures unless you slip in a microSD card. Other useful additions include the 3.5mm jack that you can find on top of the Tattoo and the miniUSB port.

The Tattoo’s raison d'être is its online integration and it does that really well.

The phone uses v1.6 of the Android OS (tweaked extensively and very well with HTC’s Sense UI) and comes with a host of online features. These include (among numerous others), a dedicated Gmail application that makes it very easy to check your mails over Wi-Fi, a Google Talk application, a Twitter application (that lets you instantly tweet and update your status) and an interesting application called Footprints, that geo-tags pictures you have taken and gives you information about the subject in focus. Plus, if you want more applications, you can download them using the Android Market application. This is perhaps one of the best things about the phone. The way the Market is organized makes it very easy to search for applications and a great aspect is that a vast number of useful apps are free and easy to install. Provided the quality and volume of apps remains constant, I would say it is a very good alternative to Apple’s app store.

The Tattoo’s raison d'être is its online integration and it does that really well. Provided you have a Wi-Fi connection, the phone makes it almost unnecessary to log into Facebook, Gmail or even Twitter. Plus, you can sync your phone contacts list with your Google contacts and even use your contacts list from Facebook.

Design & Usability

The Tattoo is one of those phones that would be instantly classified as cute. The phone has a candy-bar design and is almost oval in shape. The build quality is also good. There are a bunch of hardware buttons including the regular call receive/cancel, volume control and D-pad. There are also a couple of other useful buttons that perform a number of functions, including one that brings up a context defined menu, one that takes you directly to the home screen and a search button you can use to either search the phone or the Internet. The phone lacks a button to access the camera and you will have to do so through the menu.

The phone’s screen isn’t the best we have seen and is dull to look at. Plus, if you add a number of widgets or shortcuts on your home screen, it ends up looking very cluttered. The upside is that you have seven home screens that you can customize individually according to your needs.

In spite of the resistive touchscreen, the Tattoo is very responsive to touch input. There is a degree of slowness when you are accessing applications and menus but it isn’t a deal breaker. The virtual keyboard in landscape mode is easy to use and receptive. Unfortunately, the same can’t be said of the keyboard when the phone is in portrait mode as the screen is too small to enable accurate input. Also, the accelerometer takes an extra second or two to kick in which is irritating. The main menu also looks cluttered if you have installed too many apps although you can use the search button to go to the desired app. I would have liked it much more if the applications in the main menu could be segregated according to their type.

The default browser makes good use of the touchscreen and interface. It also renders most pages well and the navigation controls are efficient. Of course, multi-touch is not present but the zoom-bar works fine.

Call quality on the Tattoo is good and the speakerphone is loud and clear.

Multimedia

Honestly, I didn’t expect much from the Tattoo in terms of multimedia. Although it has a 3.15MP camera, it’s definitely not one of the best we have seen. I saw an oversaturation of colors in the images and also purple fringes. The Tattoo shoots videos in a resolution slightly higher than QVGA (352x288) and again, it doesn’t look all that special. Overall, you shouldn’t expect much from the Tattoo’s camera.

On the flip side, the HTC’s music playback is very good. The volume levels are excellent and the sound it produces is well-balanced. An added benefit is the 3.5mm jack which lets you plug in an earphone of your choice. The external speaker is also decent although it isn’t very loud.

Bottom Line

The HTC Tattoo is priced at Rs. 13,000. It does have a few shortcomings including a poor camera and minor interface issues, but if you are looking for a smartphone that does a bit of everything, then it is a very good purchase.