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| HTC S620 |
| General |
| Network | Gsm 850 / Gsm 900 / Gsm 1800 / Gsm 1900 |
| Announced | 2006, September |
| Status | Available |
| Size |
| Dimensions | 111.5 X 62.5 X 12.8 Mm |
| Weight | 130 G |
| Display |
| Type | Tft, 65k Colors |
| Size | 240 X 320 Pixels, 50 X 37 Mm |
| | - Htc Joggr Touch-sensitive Navigation Bar
- Qwerty Keyboard |
| Ringtones |
| Type | Polyphonic (40 Channels), Mp3 |
| Customization | Composer, Download, |
| Vibration | Yes |
| Memory |
| Phonebook | In Shared Memory, Photo Call |
| Call Records | Yes |
| Card Slot | Microsd (transflash), |
| | - 64 Mb Sdram
- 128 Mb Rom
- Ti Omap 850, 200 Mhz Processor |
| Data |
| Gprs | Class 10 (4+1/3+2 Slots), 32 - 48 Kbps |
| Hscsd | No |
| Edge | Class 10, 236.8 Kbps |
| 3g | No |
| Wlan | Wi-fi 802.11b/g |
| Bluetooth | Yes, V2.0 |
| Infrared Port | No |
| Usb | Yes |
| Features |
| Os | Microsoft Windows Mobile 5.0 Smartphone |
| Messaging | Sms, Mms, Email, Instant Messaging |
| Browser | Wap 2.0/xhtml, Html (pocketie) |
| Games | Yes, |
| Colors | |
| Camera | 1.3 Mp, 1280x1024 Pixels, Video |
| | - Java Midp 2.0
- Mp3/aac Player
- Video/audio Album
- Office Document Viewer
- T9
- Organiser
- Built-in Handsfree |
| Battery |
| | Standard Battery, Li-ion 960 Mah |
| Stand-by | Up To 220 H |
| Talk Time | Up To 5 H |
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HTC - S620T-Mobile Dash / HTC S620
Dash is the latest Windows Mobile 5.0 offering from the US Carrier. The handset is based on the HTC Excalibur reference design, and as such is functionally the same as the HTC branded S620 sold in Europe. It sports such highlights as WiFi, EDGE, and Bluetooth data, as well as a full QWERTY keyboard, in a very compact and slim design. In many regards, it can be fairly compared with Motorola's Q smartphone, but with the the Q's 3G support having been swapped out for WiFi connectivity on the Dash.
Physical Aspects
In terms of QWERTY equipped Windows Mobile 5 Smartphones, there are few devices that are more compact and pocketable than the T-Mobile Dash, which measures up at 112mm x 63mm x 14.5mm (4.4" x 2.5" x .57") and weighs 119.3g (with SIM). Samsung's SGH-i320 comes to mind, but that handset lacks the Dash's WiFi connectivity, and its alphabetic keys are less conventionally shaped than the square keys found on the Dash. The Dash's keyboard is quite usable, and while it is a bit more cramped feeling than the one found on the Q, the keys seem less stiff and more user friendly. The same can not be said about the blue backlighting, though, as it can be quite difficult to read at times.
There are few other controls to be found on the Dash when compared with the many dedicated music and camera keys found on today's handsets. This is not to say that the Dash lacks dedicated keys, but just that its dedicated messaging, camera, and web keys are located within the bounds of the QWERTY keyboard. Located around the d-pad, with its center select button, are the two softkeys, home and back keys, and the red and green call control keys. A power/quick-list key is located on the top left side of the Dash, and a horrendous touch sensitive volume control is located on the top of the right hand side. This volume control is very difficult to use, requiring separate taps to increase or decrease volume, and can easily be triggered by the user's ear or face. It can be disabled, but it simply should have been left out of the design and replaced with normal keys.
The T-Mobile Dash, like many of the new WM5 Smartphone based QWERTY phones, makes use of a landscape oriented QVGA display. In the case of the Dash, its display is capable of showing up to 65k different colors. My only complaint regarding the display is that the backlight's brightness level can not be adjusted. There are settings for how quickly the backlight and the display itself time out, but there is no brightness setting, which would certainly help extend battery life.
The rest of the physical design of the Dash is very straight forward, and solid. The cover has a almost rubber like coating to it that is both resistant to fingerprints and comfortable to hold. The rear cover can be removed to reveal the swappable battery and the microSD memory card slot that can be accessed without removing the battery. The camera's lens and self-portrait mirror can also be found on the back of the device. About the only thing left is the rubber cover that protects the miniUSB data/headset/power port that is located on the bottom of the Dash.
Core Functions
T-Mobile's Dash works quite well as a regular mobile phone. It has good battery life, reception, and overall usability when it comes to making and receiving phone calls. Even with Microsoft's Direct Push synchronization system enabled and a bit of WiFi data access, I still managed to get more than two days of solid use from a full charge. We were unable to complete a proper talk time test on the Dash because the device Cingular network appears to end calls after 55 minutes for some reason. I think we can safely say that it should be capable of a decent amount more than the 5 hours of talk time that T-Mobile officially claims for it, based on our limited testing. Audio on the Dash was good, but the volume control did prove itself troublesome enough for me to disable it completely. The Dash's antenna seems to be a very solid performer, finding a signal just about everywhere I went. The only solid complaint is that the speakerphone quality is very poor - bad enough that I would never find reason to use it.
The Windows Mobile 5 system on the Dash ensures that the user will have access to a top notch contacts system that can store most any data point that can be stored in Microsoft Outlook on a desktop PC. The best part of the system, though, is that the contacts can be accessed from the standby screen of the Dash just by starting to type a contact's first or last name. Numbers can be dialed just as easily - just start entering the numbers. The OS will figure out what you are looking for. The profiles system in the Dash is decent, in that you can configure a number of different profiles (Normal, Meeting, Silent, etc), but it won't let you assign different ringtones to each profile. The ringtone selections made in the Sounds part of the Settings for the Dash are global and used by all profiles. The GSM phone part of the Dash can be turned off to give an effective "airplane" mode.
The Dash makes use of a tag based voice dialing system, which means that you have to pre-record the name of each contact before you can voice dial them. A better solution would be one of the speaker independent systems offered by companies like VoiceSignal, who's software can be found in the Motorola Q. Speed dialing on the Dash is accessed the traditional way, by long-pressing a keypad key.
Text and MMS messaging on the Dash both functioned properly. The MMS editor is a bit rigid in use, but does allow for multiple slides and various multimedia attachments. The Dash really shines, however, when used for email. In our case, we configured the phone's ActiveSync system to synch with an account at a hosted Exchange service that supports Microsoft's Direct Push system. With that system in play, new email messages actually arrived on the Dash a few seconds before they showed up on Thunderbird's IMAP connection on my desktop PC. As an added bonus, contacts, tasks, and calendar entries were also automatically kept in synch with my desktop's copy of Microsoft Outlook. In addition to the Exchange accounts that the mail system on the Dash supports, you can also make use of normal POP, IMAP, and even Hotmail email accounts. IMAP support was not perfect, though, as it did not show all of the folders on my account. My friend Joel at Geek.com is reporting that the new Gmail Java client also works properly on the Dash, which should mean the the device is capable of covering just about everybody's needs. WM5 devices come standard with MSN messenger support, and T-Mobile has also included AIM, ICQ, and Yahoo! messenger support as well. All performed well.
Of course before you can get to things such as email and IM, you need a data connection. The T-Mobile Dash supports all four of the normal GSM frequency bands with GPRS and EDGE data. The EDGE data worked quite well for us on T-Mobile's network, providing more than enough speed for messaging and light web browsing on the somewhat antiquated Pocket IE web browser. Browsing speeds picked up tremendously when the built-in WiFi support was utilized. The Dash actually did a better job of being able to use weak WiFi signals than my Panasonic R4 laptop could. Bluetooth support for many profiles is available, including A2DP stereo and PAN. All worked well. Most of the connectivity options can be controlled from the Comm Manager application, where you can enable/disable the phone, WiFi, Bluetooth, and Direct Push, and quickly access ActiveSync. USB support is available for those that prefer cables.
Multimedia / Applications
While T-Mobile's Dash is a business oriented device, it does support a fair number of multimedia features. For starters, it has a 1.3 megapixel camera. More importantly, this is one of the first 1.3 megapixel cameras in a HTC manufactured device that is worth using at all. It isn't a star performer, but is certainly viable for taking random snapshots that have reasonably accurate color and exposure. I was pleasantly surprised. I was less impressed by its video recording capabilities, but you can't win them all, I suppose.
As is always the case with a Windows Mobile device, the Dash uses Windows Media Player for music and video playback. I prefer to use MP3 files loaded from my PC with a copy/paste over having to "sync" with an application on the PC. For users like me, the built-in WMP application is only passable, as it does not do a good job of organizing files that have been copied over in this manner. The total lack of support for creating playlists is also a big gripe of mine. But with that said, once you have the music cued up, the application plays it back flawlessly.
The Dash's Pocket IE web browser, as previously mentioned, is by no means the best mobile browser available. While it handles simple websites and those formatted for mobile devices fairly well, it is not capable of handling more complicated sites at all. The fact that it can not have more than one window open at a time is also limiting. If you wish to do any real surfing from the Dash, a 3rd party web browser would make more sense.
The T-Mobile Dash has great PIM functionality due to its Windows Mobile 5 Smartphone OS. While it lacks support for notes, it has a wonderful calendar and task list system that can be synchronized with a desktop PC with USB or Bluetooth or with an exchange server over a wireless connection. Appointments and upcoming tasks can be displayed on the Home (standby) screen of the Dash, which makes it easy to keep on top of your schedule.
Plenty of 3rd party applications are available for the T-Mobile Dash since it runs both dedicated and Java applications. I personally like to use Sling Player Mobile to watch my home TV and Tivo programs while on the road. I also make use of NewsBreak for accessing RSS news feeds while on the road. A few 3rd party apps are included with the Dash that give access to some Microsoft Office and other types of files. These include ClearVue readers for Word, Excel, PowerPoint, and PDF files. Other purchaseable options for both read and editing files are available if you require them.
User Interface
The Windows Mobile 5.0 user interface is quite a bit improved when compared with earlier Smartphone OS versions from Microsoft. WM5 devices feel decidedly more phone-like than their predecessors. As such, the T-Mobile Dash feels and responds more like a phone than just a PDA crammed into a small body. The lack of a touch-screen in the Dash and other WM5 Smartphone devices also means that there is never a need for a stylus. As such, the OS is great for one-handed use.
The left softkey, when at the Home screen, will bring up the Start menu. The icons in the menu are arranged in a 4x2 grid that is unlike the 3x3 arrangement found in many other WM5 Smartphone handsets. But like other WM5 Smartphones, hitting the left softkey when in the menu will bring up the next page of programs/functions. As is the case with other such devices, the numeric keypad can be used to access the icons in the menu. Due to the 4x2 layout, however, the Dash makes use of the Q and A keys in addition to the 1 through 6 keys. The d-pad can also be used for navigation, of course. A scrolling device of some sort would have been welcomed. Deeper menus in the system, such as Settings, generally make use of a list of text options instead of icons. The number keys can generally be used as shortcuts for these options.
Regardless of where you are and what you are doing, though, the dedicated Home key (indicated with a small house icon) will always take you back to the standby/home screen (as will the red call key when not on a call), and the back key that is located on the other side of the d-pad will almost always take you back to the prior screen. I say "almost always" because the back key fails to function in a few screens that require a cancel to get out of instead of a back function. In these cases the Dash user will need to press the cancel softkey instead. Oddly enough, there are other screens that appear to require a cancel yet still work with the back function. Other small quirks also exist, such as the inability to reorder or organize the items in the start menu. As is, the items are in a somewhat random, somewhat alphabetized order that simply makes no sense. All hope is not lost, though, since there are 3rd party applications that can take care of some of these organizational problems, and you can easily add a voice tag or speed dial to any of the menu icons for quick access. I like to have the 7/X key linked as a speed dial for the Task Manager application, so that I can kill off running applications to free up RAM.
From a more aesthetic viewpoint, the themes support for Windows Mobile 5.0 is quite good, and can even make use of completely different home screen layouts and plug-ins. For example, my wife is fond of the Fizz Traveller layout that ships with that 3rd party application, with its 5-day forecast that shows on the home screen at all times. Other layouts show the most recently accessed applications along the top, where they can be accessed with the d-pad. Most all layouts allow you to display things such as number of messages in your inbox and upcoming appointments, and the background images used and the color schemes can all be individually selected for each layout. The Dash only comes with a couple of useful layouts, though.
The T-Mobile Dash comes equipped with a system called xT9 that adds predictive text input to the normal QWERTY keyboard input. While I don't find it to be much of a problem, occasionally allowing me to save a few keystrokes, it is by no means universally loved by those that are quick typers. There appears to be no way to disable the system without making use of 3rd party applications.
In general the WM5 UI on the Dash is quite friendly, though it shows the processing power limits of the Dash's CPU from time to time. There are the occasional speed hiccups that are common to many, if not most, smartphones on the market, but they are generally not too annoying. The benefits of the UI and OS more than make up for any such small issues.
Conclusion
This past year or so has been good for fans of QWERTY enabled devices. Many solid devices from HTC have come to market, as well as such winners as the Sidekick 3, Nokia E61/E62, and the Motorola Q. But for my money, this is the best one out there. It has dimensions that are similar to those of the fabled Q, but contains a lot more power and usability in my opinion. I does most everything exceedingly well. The only problem with it is that horrible touch sensitive volume control. Luckily with a bit of searching on the internet, one can find a 3rd party application that will improve the situation.
If you and/or your company make use of Microsoft Exchange, Microsoft's Direct Push offers full BlackBerry like over the air synchronization that turns your Dash into a portable copy of Microsoft Outlook. I am a big fan of the RIM BlackBerry Pearl 8100, but for me the Dash's Windows Mobile 5 OS and WiFi data support make it the superior device and earns it a "Highly Recommended" rating. But either way, there are now a number of very solid solutions out there for people that like to take a bit of the office with them. |
| Common misspellings on this brand: htfc , httc , htcc , hrc |
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