HTC Touch2 review

The Touch2's hardware is simple and this is possibly why it's priced at the lower end of the scale. It's a petite device, with an average-sized screen (2.8-inches, 240x320 pixels) taking up most of the front. Unfortunately, but not surprisingly, the screen is resistive rather than capacitive, meaning you'll have to press harder to get a response.

Below the display, there are the hardware keys, including the Windows Start key that is a requirement on all Windows 6.5 handsets, call answer and call end, back and home keys. The buttons are responsive enough, it's just a shame that the Start key and back button are on the same panel.

Around the edges are volume keys and a 3.5mm headphone jack, which is a pleasing sight for music fans.

The 3.2-megapixel camera is average for a budget Windows device, but as this is the first Windows 6.5 phone to appear on the market, it does leave a slightly bitter taste in our mouth. Surely bumping it up to 5-megapixels wouldn't have been such a hard task, and without a flash or focus, the camera is pretty useless in any conditions other than bright, stable situations.

With the revamped Windows OS comes its new version of Internet Explorer too. IE 6 is an improvement on the previous version, with silky smooth scrolling and zooming using the scroll bar below the screen. It also supports CSS and Javascript, although Opera is still better for that.

There's no denying that the HTC Touch2 is a budget device, so we can forgive some of its shortcomings. Windows 6.5 does make the handset more usable than if used the Windows Mobile OS, but that fact you still need to dig out that stylus makes it a lot of effort for serial typists.

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