Flaws in the Touch Pro 2 design--in my opinion

[Eigenbroetler]

So, I fell in love with Pocket PC phones ever since I saw my friend's 6800 from Cingular a few years back. At the time, I had an HP iPAQ, which was just a Windows-based PDA. I thought this phone was the sweetest gadget I've ever seen! A PDA combined with my phone? Awesome! Since I had Sprint at the time, I saved up for and bought what they called the Mogul (6800). After a very fortunate insurance claim, I was upgraded to the Touch Pro about a year and a half ago, and then again to the Touch Pro 2 for free after a warrenty issue a few months back.

While I still LOVE Pocket PC phones and am very loyal to the HTC brand, I feel they starting to change their software quality (hardware still seems decently solid). Could it be in light of their increased popularity? I mean, back when I got the Mogul, HTC was virtually unknown in the mainstream. Even my tech savvy friends never heard of them. Now most of the old-and-crustries at my laid back office have HTCs (and have little idea how to use them ), and when you visit HTC's web page you see how they are gearing their brand to the mainstream with all that "You" crap and that ugly scribbly writing. I loved HTC because they came across as very business-oriented. And since I am anything but a business stiff, I liked to have that professional gadget to organize my otherwise laid-back and casual personality. But with the Touch Pro 2 and TF3D's new interface screens everywhere, I am wondering if they are trying too hard to tap into the teenage "all I want to do is text, use facebook, and surf entertainment websites" crowd and slacking on quality as a result.

I believe the Mogul and the TP1 set the bar pretty high for HTC devices, or at least those available to Sprint. So here are a few of the flaws I see with my Sprint TP2.

-The TP2's keyboard is MUCH better than the TP1's, but where is the control key? I didn't realize how often I used CNTL until I got the TP2. I used to select text and then use CNTL+C, CNTL+X, and CNTL+V all the time. I would do this to rearrange sentences in emails or texts, or when I accidentally started typing in the wrong box (i.e. typing my text in the the "to:" text box ). The absence of this key wouldn't be a big deal if you could ALWAYS click and hold on highlighted text to get the "right click" menu to pop up, but a lot of HTC's new sub-par interfaces don't allow this. If you try to click and hold on highlighted text, it immediately un-highlights it.

-I can't select text on my phone while in text messages with my finger or the stylus. I can't remember if I could with the TP1 or the Mogul, but I thought I could. If I want to highlight it, I have to open the physical keyboard and hold shift and the arrow key. This is slow, probably because of my repeat rate settings, but it would be nice to just swipe the stylus or my finger to highlight text.

-Save a contact: Recently, I had a friend change her mobile number and send me a text to let me know. When I went to save it to contacts, it brought up a new contact card. I had no option to save it to an existing contact. I explicitly remember being able to do this with the Mogul and the TP1. Then, I tried to copy the phone number to paste it in her existing contact card, but I had the "un-highlighting" issue I mentioned two paragraphs up.

-After saving this new phone number to the existing contact, it didn't remap the contact to the existing text conversation I had with this person. New texts from that phone number now show up with that contact's name, but my old texts from her still showed up as just the phone number. It would be nice if it remapped all instances of this phone number to this contact and threaded these two text conversations together instead of keeping them separate, as it is really just one conversation.

-How do you unthread conversations? I've seen a registry edit to do it, but the TP1 had an option where you could view them threaded or unthreaded on a whim, without the pains of a registry editor and soft reset. Every now and then I like to see them individually.

-When I toggled the option "show the clock in all programs" on, the clock would show ALL THE TIME on the upper taskbar. Even when I was on the home screen. I never was able to see the battery charge indicator anymore--the clock was up there 100% of the time, even after reboots and resets. I eventually just turned this option off, because I'd rather see what my battery charge is than to always have a clock there. If I need to see the clock, I can always slide back to the home screen. But it would be nice to have the clock only display in programs like the TP1 did.

-Opera is always running and never shows up in the task manager. Let me say I've seen cab fixes and reg edits to take care of this, and I'm about to do one or the other. I just wish it came default. Come to think of it, I haven't seen ANYTHING in my task manager except the Camera and the SMS/MMS operations. I still run all the same programs I did on the TP1, but now my task manager is always empty, and there is 20% more processor power consumption (used to be 40% on TP1, now usually 60%).

-HTC's new interfaces are pretty, but they're useless to me. The "view all contacts" screen is nice, but who really has pictures for every contact? I sure don't. I mean, I have "American Red Cross" in my contacts so I don't have to look up the number every time I schedule a platelet donation. Or I have a local pizza place for the same reason. But it just looks weird with all those sillouhettes next to most of my contacts, so I feel obliged to go online and download the Red Cross logo just to fill the space. Also, I dislike the interface you see when you click on a contact. Speficially, the contact's picture is smaller than on the Windows default View Contact screen, so for few people I actually have a picture for, it's so tiny it's almost pointless (you have to hit "More" just to see the Windows default screen). Also, 'Edit Contact', THEN scroll down and hit 'More' just to get to the Windows default Contact Editor. To me, this is infinitely more useful than HTC's version of edit contact, since I enter different kinds of information for different contacts. I guess it's cool that it HTC now has a Facebook plug in, but I don't have Facebook and I'll never get it, so to me, this feature is just taking up space that could be used for more important contact entries.

-HTC's message notifcations have bugs. If I'm having a back-and-forth text conversation with someone, I'll keep the threaded conversation view up. However, this view doesn't clear the "new sms message" notification in the TF3D interface. I have to manually exit out of threaded view, then go to the SMS tab and view each text message for 5 seconds to clear them. First, this is an superfluous amount of time to view a text message, as it takes no more than 1 second to read the average text. Second, when you have 3 or more text messages all from one person, it's much more practical to read them all at once in threaded view, so clearing each individually in the SMS tab doesn't make sense. Additionaly, sometimes after I've cleared all text messages from a person, I'll go to "all messages" view and it will still have the person's name in bold with "(1)" next to it, as if I still have a new message from them. When I go back to the TF3D SMS tab, there are no new messages. Nothing resets this "name (#)" glitch, even soft resetting. I have to delete the whole thread if I want to get rid of it. Also, when I send a text to someone, it will show "name (1)" and "Me: blah blah" in the All Messages view, as if it's a new message for ME waiting for it to be read. When I'm texting a lot of people in a day (i.e. sending out party invitations or other mass collaborations) this gets in the way of quickly scanning all messages to see who has replied.

-Deleting individual texts. [Update] a few of you showed me how to do it in threaded few. Thanks!

-The TF3D Calendar tab is really aesthetically pleasing, but allowing only Day and Month views is pretty inadequate. Believe it it not, I liked to use Year view a lot--and I found out I still can, I just have to go to "Start -> All Programs -> Calendar" to view Microsoft's version of the Calendar, which includes Year and Week views. So Microsoft's Calendar isn't as attractive as HTC's.... so what? I would pick versatility over aesthetics if I had the choice.

Some of the issues I encounter less frequently:

-They took away the camera flash. I normally only use my phone's camera if I am in a place without a real camera and I need to take a picture--like when I'm at the store and I want to send a picture to my wife to make sure I'm not picking up the wrong thing. Most of the time I go to take these ad hoc pictures, a flash could help.

-The main times I go to use Straight Talk, the sensors weren't built for it. They got rid of the flash to put in the mute button for Straight Talk, which is sweet. However, I'd like to use it for a quick hands free operation while driving, but placing the phone face down on my leg doesn't trigger the Straight Talk sensor(s?). I have to put it on a flat spot on the dashboard for it to activate, but the moment I take a sharp turn -----> There goes my phone haha

-They got rid of the Dpad on the front. With the TP1, I used this to pan down through texts or emails while in list view, scroll through media in Windows Media Player, scroll through items in the phone's Settings, or even a few times to play PacMan while on the throne. However, now I have to open my keyboard every time I want to scroll through texts, emails, or settings. And I haven't downloaded PacMan again to try out with the keyboard. But, I guess it's not such a big deal. After all, the TP1's hard buttons became very inaccurate as time passed and the front piece of plastic began wearing. After about a year, attempts to use the Dpad would result in me triggering End Call, Back, or Home WAAAY to much, causing me to exit out of whatever program I was in (usually happened in the middle of Pac Man ).


I certainly could make just as long of a post or longer about all the reasons I love the TP2, or HTC devices in general, or even any Pocket PC devices. However, I'd say 50% of my bullet points make me really wonder if HTC is going to fit my needs in the future. They set the bar pretty high with the three devices of theirs I've owned, but these shortcomings are things that disrupt the effiency or usefulness of the device. And some of the lesser problems could be neglected easily by themselves, but in light of all these shortcomings, it puts too many pieces of straw on the camel's back.

Well, I posted this for two reasons: First, if a lot of people are having the same complaints, perhaps we can provide feedback to HTC so they know what's important to their customers as they design their next devices. I'm sure if enough people have the same complaints, they'll listen. They seem like that kind of company. And second, if any of you know something I don't, please (politely) correct me or point me to the right post that will correct me! I have done a lot of searching to find fixes to the aforementioned issues, but just becuase I didn't find the posts doesn't mean they're not out there. I may just need a helping hand from some of you.



I'd greatly appreciate anyone who can help me tweak my phone to overcome these issues. I'm not really ready for a Custom ROM at this point, so I'm mainly looking for registry edits. Cabs will work in a pinch. Specifically, I'd like to find registry edits to:

1. Decrease the amount of time it takes to clear a text message (~1 second is sufficient)
2. Allow a text message to be cleared when looking right at it in threaded view (as opposed to exiting and viewing it in the TF3D SMS tab)
3. Individually disable certain HTC interfaces (like their Edit Contact interface, or their Calendar interface) and default to the Windows version instead. I stress "individually disable," as I do not wish to disable all of HTCs interfaces.

Wow, that was longer than I thought. Haha.

[malibu_23]

"-I can't select text on my phone while in text messages with my finger or the stylus...".


press and hold ur finger on the screen, select "make selection" drag ur nail highlighting the text. press n hold the highlighted portion and select copy. and press n hold in the input box and hit paste. simple.

BTW just call this thread "tell me how 2 do all this stuff i could do on my TP1" cuz thaz what u want anyway. lol.
there are fixes for all ur quirks. (besides the lack of camera flash)

[iknight8]

if you goto Setting and then click on "SMS THREADING" its there for u to choose whether u want to thread or unthread...!

[joeyc1123]

Rhodium keyboard controller(or something like that) allows you to map any hardware button on your TP2 in three steps(single click, double click, and hold).
This is extremeley useful if you wanna make your mute button function for different means, mine is set for turn wifi on(double click), turn bluetooth on(hold) just to give you an example so you can technically bring your "ctrl + X" back to cut and paste using "FN" key as "crtl"

[cbreze]

So how long did it take to write all that anyway??
Hit "exit" when leaving opera if you want it to close out. Run memmaid or sktools to keep your memory up to snuff.
Works for me.

[dumpringz]

Wirelessly posted (HTC Touch Pro 2 (Sprint): Mozilla/4.0 (compatible; MSIE 6.0; Windows CE; IEMobile 8.12; MSIEMobile6.0) Sprint T7380)

lol @ tell me how to do all this stuff i could do on my tp1 ... now i just need to see some1 respond with "use the search tool" & this thread is as good as closed lol

[mstevens]

Holding down the Talk button does start Voice Command, but only if you have Voice Command enabled. My phone came with it turned off. Go to Settings, Personal, Voice Command and make sure the box is checked.

[coppertop24]

reactivate your mogul or tp1 and send me the tp2. i have a girlfriend that needs one.

with the exception of the flash and d-pad (which i never used anyway) my tp2 does everything you say it doesnt. learn to use your phone.

[nrfitchett4]

go to the home page here for touch pro2 and use gfl's cleanup for sprint. fixes a lot of the "quirks" like opera not closing on x.
next, like others said, learn your phone. it does everything you complained it doesn't.
be happy. at least this one doesn't look like it will have to be replaced 10 times a year.

[Bulldog46208]

I came to the Sprint TP2 from the HTC Touch and thought I would miss the D-Pad but I don't. The touch screen on the TP2 is very responsive.

Peace,

Bulldog46208

p.s. I write this while sitting on the throne. But I need to find that Pac-Man cab.