HTC S740 review

HTC might be best known for its Touch range of Windows Mobile devices at present, but it also has a foothold in the Windows Mobile Smartphone market, and it has been producing candybar style, non-touchscreened devices with slide-out keyboards for some time. The S740 is the latest addition.

In general looks terms the S740 is a somewhat chubby smartphone. It is tall at 116.3mm, thin at 43.4mm, and a bit thick at 16.6mm. It weighs 140g. These dimensions make it bigger than your average candybar phone, and small pockets might have trouble accommodating it.

The main reason for its size is its sliding keyboard. This comes out of one of the long edges and provides you with a full qwerty keypad. HTC designs its keypads very well indeed, and while the keys are on the small side they are responsive.

However there is one design error so huge we really can’t believe it got past HTC quality control. The S740 follows the Touch Diamond design in having a shaped backplate. This might look good, but it means the backplate is not flat.

So, when you lay the S740 on a desk and slide out the keyboard for typing the device refuses to lay flat. It bobbles about as you press keys making it pretty much impossible to use in this way. Your only option is to hold the S740 in both hands and thumb-type. For us this is a deal breaker.

The 2.4 inch screen flips into wide format when you slide the keyboard out for use, which is just what you’d expect from a current generation smartphone. The screen itself is clear and easy to read, and we like the overlay HTC has put on top of Windows Mobile 6.1 Standard.

This not being a touch screened device there’s no hope of TouchFLO, but HTC has used a system of panels you move through using the D-pad. The one you want might have several windows that you move through using left and right on the D-pad. In the Internet Explorer panel, for example, you can open the browser to a particular Web page by left and right clicking through bookmarks.

Browsing isn’t a problem thanks to the HSDPA support which caters for speeds up to 7.2Mbps depending on what your network operator has on offer. It is a pity there is no front facing camera for two way video calling to help you take advantage of this should you want to do so, though.

And the main camera is a bit disappointing too. Sitting on the back of the casing it shoots stills to 3.2 megapixels but has no self portrait mirror or flash and is fixed focus. It produced passable shots but nothing we’d rate as being at the top end of what you can get from a smartphone.

HTC has included Google Maps and this can be used with the GPS connection to assist you on your travels when you are out and about. We found it quite handy while testing this smartphone! There’s no point to point satnav software included, but you can buy various third party options to add this feature to the phone. We also liked the Wi-Fi which allowed us to make data connections without thrashing our contract allowance.

There is an FM radio built in which is good, but we aren’t too happy about the lack of a 3.5mm headset jack. The provided stereo headset shares the mini USB connector used by the mains power adaptor and PC cable.

One thing we found a bit annoying was that the microSD card slot you can use to boost the internal memory (256MB each of ROM and RAM) is very awkward to get to. It isn’t under the battery cover as is usual for most handsets these days. Instead it sits under a slot that only becomes accessible when the keyboard has been slid out.

That is not a problem, but the slot is together with the SIM card slot, and you have to remove the SIM before you can get to the microSD card. This means you have to power the S740 down to swap cards. If you are the kind of person who likes to swap cards, this will quickly become a nuisance.

When you want to use the S740 without that sliding keyboard you have the usual number pad and shortcut buttons on the front panel. The buttons have a clear plastic cover that we think looks a little unappealing. But we can’t really fault the front keys for usability.

The D-pad is raised which makes it easy to get to, and ditto the small Call and End keys. The number keys are large and easy to press at speed, and while perhaps they could be a little more responsive we didn’t have any real trouble.

The S740 has most of the required features for a modern high end smartphone. There’s no front camera, and the microSD card is a fiddle to get to, but the main problem is the Touch Diamond-alike shaping of the backplate. Disaster. Which is such a pity, really.