Preview of UMTS-communicator HTC Touch Cruise

Announced just recently, mobile-review have already posted a hands on preview of the HTC Cruise. I must say that the device really looks good and has very attractive specs. I might consider getting this...here is the final impression from mobile-review.

Impressions
The Touch Cruise does well on the reception front. The communicator comes with polyphony, however since a multitude of audio formats may be employed for ring tones, having it onboard is not vital at all. The volume of call alerts is average, which still proves sufficient to make ring tones audible in typical environments. Also, during our calls, we had no complaints about how loud the other party sounded, even when we were on a busy street or in a bus.


When the communicator starts shipping in Russia, it will go for around 700-800 USD, which is steeper than most thumbboard-less Windows Mobile solutions out there. New Gigabyte- and E-Ten branded solutions very rarely break the watermark of 700 USD. So if you face it off against other offerings currently available on the market, the HTC Touch Cruise won’t be a clear winner, and it is not the most technologically talented communicator around either. But that’s where other factors come into play.

First off, remember the first months of the HTC P3300’s sales, pre-Christmas and post-Christmas seasons – it never had a really bad downswing, even with its not exactly adequate price tag when it only debuted, and even these days. And in spite of that, people have been falling for it, actually a lot of people, generating some truly stellar sales for the market of Windows Mobile. What is the reason? In many respects, it was a run-of-the-mill solution, and HTC wasn’t trying to make a “do-it-all” solution or a mobile powerhouse of the P3300. Back when the company rolled out the P3300, they had a clear-cut strategy in mind, and this communicator has shown that the path they picked is, if not optimal, by far not the worst out there.

For many the P3300 was a handset and a navigator above all other things, and only then – a communicator, which is not something we have used to see with devices running Windows Mobile. The fact is most owners of these devices do know that they are using a Windows Mobile based solution. This paradigm got cracked with the P3300, and by establishing its Touch series, HTC is set to disrupt it for good. And that’s the standpoint you should apply when judging the Touch Cruise.

The HTC Touch Cruise is a style-conscious phone with touch-sensitive controls and some navigation-related smarts in the first place. Most of its users or let’s say potential users, won’t be pondering over its price/quality ratio, CPU speed or display resolution. Even though all these aspects are pretty decent here, especially keeping in mind that the QVGA resolution is available only with top-of-the-line models on the phone market.

The HTC P3300’s successor has turned out to be a pretty offering, despite its questionable design and a hefty price tag. The company is following the path it picked long ago, and makes everything possible to move towards the mass market with care and persistence.

The HTC Touch Cruise combines the abilities of Qualcomm’s new platform – pretty decent speed in menu and applications for navigation, potent camera and a tidy menu interface that can be managed with your fingers alone. As for its price, the Cruise is pretty much overrated, but will this mar its sales? Probably not.