Big review of HTC TyTN (code name HTC Hermes), Part 2

This is the second part of the big review of HTC TyTN. If you want to read the first part, please click here.

Parameters

The Wizard was packed with features to the top. However, some of them were not accepted positively. Perhaps the most controversial was a power-efficient but low-performing TI OMAP 850 processor running at 200 MHz. Later versions of the ROM and some overclocking helped the Wizard move along but the performance still remained sub-par. It is therefore positive that the TyTN runs a much more powerful Samsung SC32442A processor with 400 MHz clock speed. This is a significant power boost on paper yet the TyTN seemed rather "sleepy" – whether in displaying a menu or drawing icons in the Settings. Who knows why – maybe they tried at HTC to achieve a longer time on battery and reduced the computing power. In any case, I would expect faster responses from a 400-MHz processor. When I compared benchmarks for the TyTN and ETEN G500+, I found no significant differences but for graphics performance. Otherwise, the TyTN was slightly better in some areas, the ETEN in others. So, the sluggishness may well be my subjective impression:)

The TyTN offers a standard amount of memory including 128 MB of FlashROM and 64 MB of RAM, which is not much and a memory card will probably be a necessity. After a hard reset, the user can access only 48.84 MB of FlashROM for data and installed applications, and 31.77 MB of RAM to run applications. This could have been better for a device in this category and price level. Talking about performance, we must not forget the graphic system and its mixed results. Its performance is sufficient for games but the TyTN somehow does not work very well with my favourite TCPMP Player. I therefore could not perform comprehensive tests in this area. If your video is optimised for the 320x240 resolution, it will play smoothly until you press Pause. After that, it is unbearably jerky. I did not have much time to sort this out, but a solution may already exist (a different ROM version, a registry hack, whatever). Nevertheless, if you are planning to use your PDA as a portable video player, think twice.

The display slightly above the standard. From the technical point of view, the parameters are rank-and-file: transflexive TFT technology with LED backlight, 2.8 inch (74 millimetres) diagonal, resolution of 240x320 pixels and support for 65 thousand colours simultaneously. Positive is the absence of yellowish tint in the backlight. On the other hand, the maximum brightness could have been greater. You can select from eleven brightness levels, separately for battery and mains operation. At the lowest levels, the backlight will go off completely. There is no automatic brightness control. The touch-sensitive layer was sufficiently responsive but my device sometimes had problems with accuracy. The distributor says it was a fault of this particular piece – if this happens to you, return it and get a new one.

As for audio features, the TyTN does not stand out from the Windows Mobile crowd. It features two speakers (one is for phone calls, the other is a normal loudspeaker), a microphone, and headset output. The phone speaker's qualities are examined below, in a chapter devoted to the GSM module. Here, let's take a closer look at the loudspeaker. It is located at the back of the device, under a crescent-shaped opening in the upper part that grants undistorted sound output. I was surprised by the high quality of the sound and loudness. In comparison with an older Qtek 9100, the TyTN performed far better. I appreciated the good quality also when using it as loud handsfree in phone calls. An important feature for sound recording is automatic sensitivity control, which the TyTN does possess. When the automatic control is active, the TyTN yields excellent results, with the absolutely best recording achieved over the headset. Direct recording using the built in microphone was very good as well. The quality decreases with the distance but fortunately, it is a loss of dynamism rather than comprehensiveness. Sample recordings are available for download here [2163KB], because you just have to hear it:) The last audio-related component on the agenda is the headphones output. As I wrote in the introduction, the TyTN does not have a classic stereo jack but a miniUSB connector. Well, this is not the usual miniUSB connector either – instead of two slanted corners, this has only one. HTC calls this type of connector "ExtUSB" (Ext for "extended") but I am not sure if this is an accepted standard – take a look at the photos. You can connect the bundled headset but you won't be able to use it with other devices with true miniUSB connector, such as MDA Vario. The most important information though is quality of playback. And this headset plays quite well, for in-ear earphones. The highest volume is loud enough, and you won't be stripped of basses completely, either:) In short, the headset is a nice surprise.

The HTC TyTN is a communicator in the first place and the broad range of its communication features is a witness. The basic communication interface is USB (client only), IrDA is present, too. Other communication modules and modes are easily accessible via Comm Manager, which is assigned to one of the buttons on the side of the device by default. The current version enables the user to activate/deactivate the cell phone, Bluetooth, and WiFi, change the mode for Direct Push, data connection, and ringing/vibrations, and to launch ActiveSync.

Let's leave the phone module for a its own chapter and take a look at the Bluetooth and WiFi. The Bluetooth module is version 2.0 but without EDR. The drivers are from Microsoft. Even though Microsoft keeps enhancing this application, is still lags behind competing products. I successfully synchronised with a laptop (Asus S6F), transferred files in both directions between the device and the laptop (Asus S6F) as well as other Pocket PC devices (HP iPAQ rw6815), made phone calls with a BT headset (Jabra BT-200), and ran navigation with an external GPS receiver (NaviLock BT338). The only problem I encountered was with stereo playback over HP Bluetooth Stereo Headset, which even a special registry hack did not help resolve completely.

Communication over WiFi was trouble-free as well.. The TyTN integrates an IEEE 802.11b/g module, which - in theory – supports transmission speed up to 54 Mbps. The device supports WPA, WEP, TKIP and LEAP. Just a few seconds after I activated the WiFi module, a log-in dialogue popped up and connected I was. I tested connection with my two access points (D-Link DSL-G684T and ASUS WL-566gM) and everything worked absolutely flawlessly. The latter AP was configured for the new WPA-PSK/WPA2-PSK mode. Although the TyTN does not support WPA2-PSK, the devices negotiated WPA-PSK and used it. Depending on the signal strength, you can select from three output levels for the WiFi module, which enables you to save some battery power in places with good coverage. All settings are easily accessible in a simple and convenient configuration utility.

Let's conclude this chapter with power management. The HTC Wizard was a top performer and I wondered how the TyTN would compare to it. The results are actually very good: its replaceable Lithium-Polymer battery with a capacity of 1350 mAh fared surprisingly well in the tests, yielding results close to the Wizard. In a test with active WiFi the TyTN even excelled the Wizard notably. In everyday use, I had to recharge every two or three days but do not take this for granted – the TyTN offers such a wide spectrum of features that it is hard to predict how long the battery will last with different usage patterns. Anyhow, if you take all the positive features and characteristics and add support for charging over USB and a hibernation mode (long press of the main switch), the overall rating in this category cannot be other than "excellent".

• Standard test of common usage, maximum backlight - 10h 04min
• Video playback, maximum backlight - 8 h04min
• MP3 playback, inactive display - 18h 40min
• Active WiFi, maximum backlight, no workload - 7h 50min

NB: Due to a bug in Spb Benchmark, the standard test keeps the device busy opening an extremely large Word document all the time. This reduces significance of the test because it is far from typical usage of a PDA.

---

TyTN as a cell phone

The TyTN's integrates a dual-mode quad-band cell phone module. The modes include standard voice and data services (GSM/GPRS/EDGE) at 850/900/1800/1900 MHz, and super fast data transmission UMTS/HSDPA at 2100 MHz (or 850/1900 MHz in models for the North American market). Modes can be toggled manually or automatically. The antenna is integrated but this fact does not seem to affect sensitivity to signal very much. The number of features and integrated keyboard make the TyTN significantly bigger and heavier than ordinary cell phones yet not too bulky to be carried around in the pocket, unlike for instance the HTC Universal.

First. Let's examine voice services. Besides making phone calls, the TyTN offers a range of related features, such as second call, call redirect, blocking of certain types of calls, ID presentation/restriction (CLIP/CLIR), voice mail, as well as text messages (SMS) and multimedia messages (MMS). Phone calls can be made the usual way with the device at the ear, with loud handsfree, using a wired headset, or a Bluetooth headset. I tried all the options. The volume was sufficient in most cases but for the "usual" way and the wired headset, where the highest volume proved too quiet in a noisy environment. My other objection is addressed to sluggishness of the phone application. It is not serious – I would position the TyTN somewhere slightly above the average in comparison with other devices, yet the responses could be faster. This issue is most apparent when rejecting a call: after you press the hang-up button, the phone will not stop ringing immediately but in two or three seconds. I also tried video calls but abysmal visual quality and excessive price discouraged me from this type of communication.

One of the key capabilities of this device is wireless data transmission. The UMTS and HSDPA (High Speed Downlink Packet Access) technologies make it possible to achieve transmission speed up to 1 Mbps, or 128 KB/s, in theory. In real life, the speed differs from place to place. I did not achieve more than 50 KB/s. The device can connect to a PC over the USB cable, IrDA, or Bluetooth. My laptop lacking an infrared port, I could only test the latter two options. Both types of connection were stable and equal in speed. In one test, I recorded the following values: USB cable - 334 kbps (41.80 kB/s) download and 329 kbps (41.13 kB/s) upload, Bluetooth - 322 kbps (40.25 kB/s) download and 318 kbps (39.80 kB/s) upload. I used the UMTS for a few days as my primary connection to the internet (before I got ADSL). Although I am used to broadband, I could easily manage with this connection. Yet there was one thing that annoyed me: I intensively use Microsoft DirectPush, a feature of MS Exchange Server, which keeps a permanent connection between the server and the device, so that email is delivered instantly. However, when this feature is active, the TyTN could not be used as a modem – the device alternatively behaved strangely or did not work at all. For that, you have to deactivate DirectPush in the Comm Manager and switch it on again after you stop using the modem. It may seem trivial but I believe it could have been sorted out somehow. Last but not least, the TyTN supports data transmission over "slow" GPRS/EDGE Class 10 and toggle between them automatically.

Besides the standard phone application, the device carries several other utilities that work with the phone module. One of them is Wireless Modem that helps connect another computer to the Internet. MIDlet Manager runs JAVA applets, and SIM Toolkit for GSM banking and other mobile applications. SIM Manager makes it easy to copy contacts between the SIM cards and the phone's memory. BT Remote SIM Access facilitates access to the contacts via Bluetooth e.g. when using a car hands free kit (I did not have an opportunity to try this functionality). And finally, there is speech recognition utility called Voice Speed Dial.

Another very useful utility is Smart Dialling that searches contacts not only on the SIM card and in the device's memory but also in other places, such as in the lists of most recently dialled numbers etc. When there is an incoming phone call while you are listening to MP3s, the music volume will drop and restore again once the call is over. Supported file formats for ring tones include MP3, WMA, MIDI and WAV. For situations where loud ringing is inappropriate, the TyTN offers vibrations. Similar to some iPAQs, the TyTN offers support for users with hearing and/or speech impairment. Instead of an ordinary headset, a special device can be connected to the headphones jack which then transfers text instead of voice. I have never seen it in real life but if you are interested in more details, try Wikipedia for instance.

Summing up, the cell phone implementation in the HTC TyTN is not absolutely perfect yet it offers good quality services. Those who use the device as a modem for a desktop PC or a laptop will appreciate high-speed data transmissions over UMTS, which are not as impressive while working on the device itself.. Making phone calls is problem free, except for noisy environment. All the issues I have mentioned could be resolved by a software patch. Let's hope there will be one, as was the case with the Wizard.

---

---

TyTN as a digital camera

Virtually all phone-equipped pocket computers nowadays integrate a digital camera and the HTC TyTN is not an exception. Being a 3G device, it carries two of them: the one at the rear takes decent pictures, the other, on the front, is intended for video calls and its quality is quite low. We shall deal with the former because the front camera worked only in video calls. The chip is a 2-megapixel CMOS type with fixed focus (my guess – based on the tests – is that the minimum distance is around 50 centimetres). However, the camera can be switched manually to a macro mode. The maximum resolution for JPEG still images is 1600x1200 pixels (2 MPix), the maximum resolution for MPEG4 video is 352x288 pixels.

The camera application is highly sophisticated. It is fast and easy to control, with most options available on the main screen or just one or two taps away. The display is divided into three parts – upper and lower menu and middle part displaying the actual image. The upper menu includes mode icons for easy switching between standard photos, video, MMS video, contact portraits, picture theme, panoramic image, sports scene, and serial shooting, quick change of the resolution and storage location (device memory or memory card), and a figure stating the remaining number of images or length of video recording that can be saved in the specified storage space. In the central part of the screen, there are five crosshairs delimiting the image, and two buttons adjusting the digital zoom. This feature is rather useless because zoom is available only for the 640x480 pixel resolution. The bottom menu contains two system buttons on the left that invoke settings menu and launch media viewer, respectively. Further to the right is an exposure compensation control (-2 to +2 EV), exposure determination method toggle (central spot/full-screen), flash switch, white balance options, and timer (off, 2s, and 10s). The Camera application can also add effects (greyscale, negative...), set image quality etc.

In most cases, integrated cameras are very basic in comparison with standalone cameras. One of the drawbacks is inability to focus. The camera leaves the production line with pre-set focus from-to and everything that is out of the range will be blurred. This is most apparent in close-range photos but detailed inspection will reveal the same problem at very long distances as well. This not a bug but a feature. However, the TyTN offers more: there is a little lever next to the camera lens that manually changes the distance of the lens elements so that the focus shifts to about 10-15 centimetres. See sample photos in the macro mode [2825KB] to get the idea. In my opinion, the macro is a little exaggerated. For instance, it is very hard to take a picture of a bus timetable – the image is either blurred or reveals too small a section. On the other hand, it is still better than nothing:)

A tiny LED serves as a flash in bad lighting conditions. Despite its small size, it is very powerful and there is notable difference between photos take with it and without it, as you can see. It is easy to use – just tap on the flash icon in the bottom row and the LED will start shining. Then you need to aim the camera, press the shutter release and after a brief flash, the image is taken. Below are some samples.

An extremely useful aid for shooting imbalanced scenes is the switch between exposure determination methods. Exposure can be calculated either from what is in the centre of the view or from the whole scene. The difference is apparent in the two photos below.

Let's take a look at a couple more pictures. Actually, I quite liked the TyTN's capabilities. No, it is not excellent but what more a Pocket PC user can wish for? Images in the original size are available for download here [17289KB]. Two sample videos are here [2301KB].

Summing up on the integrated camera, it is nicely implemented in the HTC TyTN, with a convenient control on the right side of the device and good responsiveness. The application takes about 5 seconds to load, taking a photo (highest resolution and quality) including saving to the memory card takes another four. I am pointing this out because what may seem as a matter-of-course is a problem for some devices, such as those from HP that take ages to save a photo. Quality of the resulting images is very good for a mobile device, as you could see above. The only albeit serious problem is stability of the Camera application. For some reason or other, it sometimes saved a 0.5-kB fragment instead of the whole photo. The application often crashed, especially in the event of some disturbing activity (incoming call, calendar notification etc.). Unfortunately, it was not possible to simply re-launch the application but a reset was necessary. I could go on like this but let's cut it short. Had the camera been of average quality, I would not have spent more than a few minutes on it because of the bugged application.

---

Expandability

The only expansion slot being microSD, we shall be through with this chapter fairly quickly. Besides enlarging the memory using a memory card, you can connect accessories over Bluetooth or WiFi, as we have described earlier.

---

Software

The HTC TyTN comes with pre-installed Windows Mobile 5 Phone Edition including the AKU2 service pack. That means it offers not only the standard suite of applications, including e.g. mobile Office and mobile Windows Media Player, but also some extensions, such as Microsoft DirectPush for permanent connection to a Microsoft Exchange Server. It can be expected that there will be newer versions with service pack AKU3.2 but it remains to be seen when (and whether at all) HTC chooses to implement it.

HTC devices usually ship with loads of third-party bonus applications. The TyTN follows suite yet it offers less in this respect than other Pocket PCs from HTC. Besides all the aforementioned applications and applets, I should mention also ClearVue PDF, a simple PDF document viewer. It is small in size and fast but if you work with PDF files on a regular basis, you'd better download an original viewer from Adobe: ClearVue PDF had problems opening many of my PDF files.

Another bundled utility called shortly ZIP offers much better functionality. It can open as well as create new ZIP archives, add files to existing archives, and e-mail them.

The bundled CD-ROM does not contain much software: Microsoft ActiveSync version 4.1, Microsoft Outlook 2002, and a modem driver.

---

Pricing

Considered the TyTN's capabilities, one cannot expect a moderate price. If you decide to go for it, be ready to cough up around 850 bucks (including 19 % VAT). That's quite a lot. On the other hand, you are getting a great value for your money. In addition, mobile operators are likely to bundle the device with their tariffs, so you may get a bargain if you subscribe for a year or two.

[POLL]

---

Impressions, Benchmarks & Tests

I had been eagerly waiting for the Wizard's successor. Having tested the device for several weeks, I have accumulated substantial experience and I dare declare it one of the best Pocket PCs I have ever had a chance to lay my hands on. However, there is a downside to every device. So, what are the pros and cons of this one?

The first area where the TyTN stands out is controls. Its unique combination of a scroll wheel, system keys (OK, Start and two WM5 softkeys) and a better and more logically laid out hardware keyboard place the TyTN at least one class above the competitors in two-handed and one-handed control. What I liked the best was the scroll wheel. I fell for it in just a few days and missed it bitterly when I used other devices. Nevertheless, I would suggest an innovation: for instance, if you have 200 contacts, you will be able to reach any of them by a few rolls of the wheel. All right, now, what if you have 5000 contacts? Your thumb will fall off at letter "F" at the latest:) It would be great if you were able to first browse by first letters and then fine-tune your selection. I was similarly enthusiastic about the keyboard. It makes it possible to type large chunks of text not only in the office but also on a commuter bus, for instance. (How fast can you enter text by tapping the virtual on-screen keyboard when riding on a bus in heavy traffic?) You can also do much more without putting the hands off the keyboard thanks to inclusion of useful keys, such as PageUp and PageDown. If you ever get hold of a TyTN, try it. It's really cool.

The communication capabilities are excellent. In summary: the device combines GSM/GPRS/EDGE and UMTS with support for HSDPA, Bluetooth, and WiFi b/g. If the HTC TyTN has any weak spots, it is definitely not communication. I tried to use the TyTN as a cell phone, as a modem, as a Pocket PC with integrated phone – and it delivered on the roles without any substantial problems. As for communication, the TyTN is a sure bet.

The TyTN's predecessor, the HTC Wizard, had a serious weakness in computing power. By contrast, the TyTN's powerful yet power efficient Samsung processor provides sufficient performance for everyday tasks. The TyTN handled navigation, games, audio playback etc. without any problems. The truth is, though, that working with the device felt rather slow but if you cannot compare with a faster device side by side, you will hardly notice. Besides, there is a good chance that a new ROM version will fixed these issues. The same will hopefully apply to video playback, because the TyTN's performance in this area was atrocious. On the other hand, the time on battery exceeded my expectations – the results were amazing despite the increased computing power.

Enough praise, though; the TyTN has a few weak spots, too. First, it is a problem common to all brand new models: instability of the system and crashing applications. It is not as bad as it was with first version of the Wizard, but the TyTN has a long way to perfection. A good example is the camera application, which served me a good portion of "fun". On the other hand, remember somewhat lazy responses of the system, jerky audio playback over the stereo Bluetooth headset, video playback issues, and low volume of the phone speaker. Nevertheless, if HTC patches the ROM to fix the issues soon enough, the HTC TyTN will deservedly belong to the elite among pocket computers.

Article rating - (103 votes)