Gadgetory

hey guys it's random in a min from pocket now calm and this is the software toward the HTC snap that was just released in europe and will soon be on many global carriers at subsidized prices now the snap isn't trying to be a super capable do everything device like the HTC touch pro and you can tell that because it doesn't have a touchscreen it's got lower capabilities in terms of in terms of the hardware specifications less ram and so forth fewer wireless radios but it does so unapologetically it's made to be a really killer messaging device thanks to this fantastic keyboard and the trackball which allows you to move quickly around on items on the screen and as you're going to see in this video it helps a lot to make navigation much smoother but as you saw in the hardware tour if you watch that video and i'll put a link up on the video towards the end one of the biggest problems with this device is that the eight key isn't all the way to the left instead there's a tab key here so what that means is you're typing along expecting there to be an Akey there because other similar devices like the motorola q9 have the a key over there and you accidentally press the tab key it gets kind of annoying but it's something that you'll have to learn to live with if you're getting this particular version of the snap so let's go through the software and i'm going to zoom in on the screen so right now i have the device locked so i'm going to hit the unlock sequence and over there and here we are now in terms of software there's pretty much standard fare on the snap there have been a few customizations made from HTC for example the volume comes right from the HTC touch pro and all the new HTC touch screen devices but of course that's not that big of a deal let me get a little bit closer and on the screen even so let's go through the sliding panel interface because HTC has added a few things so here we have the clock up here of course and it tells you if Wi-Fi is available we can go down to our calendar and flip to the right to see our next calendar appointments see if we have any mixed cause or missed emails of course it'll tell you if you have text messages or emails right in that one screen and again I'm just moving the little ball down gently and it's it's the sensitivity is quite good you can change it I'll show you how to change the sensor tivity and this is for making a new message here our emails this is whether and if we tap on the weather we actually get a nice little five-day forecast here we have internet explorer and you can add your favorites here although if you're not using Internet Explorer if you're using skyfire as I am this really doesn't do you any good now if we go down to play all songs and we tap in word it will search your device for any multimedia that you have on your device now I have some Dave Matthews on here and I can go into the audio manager and this is the cool looking HTC audio manager we can go back to the library and this makes it just really easy to play music right from your home screen if you're at the gym you'll have to use HTC's proprietary headphones or use a converter Jack because of course the port over on the side get that uses HTC's proprietary but it's nice to see this audio manager which makes it pretty easy to you know manager multimedia right from the home screen going down we have an entry with multiple options we can you know change the date and time setup EML lock the device set up bluetooth set a background change the ringtone and transfer music to your device going down we change the profile as well as always stipulates whether your device will vibrate whether it will ring whether it will be completely silent or if it's on automatic which is the best choice it'll determine that based on your availability in the calendar okay so let's go into the programs and we're gonna venture Lee talk about that inner circle feature this is probably the biggest deal about the snap beyond the keyboard so let's go into the start menu and see what we have here so again pretty standard stuff messaging calendar we have off this mobile which is good if we go into multimedia we have some interesting things we've HTC's album and again this is another element that has been ported over from the touch pro and the other higher-end HTC devices it's a really slick looking photo gallery so we can tap on a picture and if we go to the right with it with little trackball we get to the next picture if we tap on a picture we get some options we can go to menu and we can set it as the home wallpaper we can make a slideshow you can save it to a contact if you want to have it's a picture show up in full screen so let's go back and back again we have the camera applique for the 2 point 0 megapixel camera we have the standard windows mobile photo gallery we have streaming media meaning you can watch youtube videos on here if you're using em youtube com which is good we have a video recorder which works in a similar fashion then the camera does we'll cover that in the review and of course windows media player right there to the right here we have internet explorer which actually is a little bit different this is the newer version and you saw a mouse cursor on the screen you see that it's a very blackberry pearl like way to navigate and so if we go to a site like you know pocketnow.com and again I'm using skyfire because I just like the added speed of that but you may find this new version of pocket Internet Explorer to actually be somewhat compelling it's not as fast as skyfire so I'm gonna probably to jump ahead in the video to show you what it looks like when it loads on the screen and then we have the mobile version of pocketnow.com and you should be able to change that actually if we go into this menu when we go to view yes see we can change it to mobile or desktop so that's that's the Internet Explorer let's get out of here so what okay other stuff call history of course games the standard fare google maps and gps on the HTC snap works very well it has full assisted gps indoors on a cold start i was able to get a signal in about 12 seconds in a hot start or a warm start it's you know 34 seconds very fast great gps performance as good as the touch pro to go into accessories we have some new things so we have you know clear storage clock and alarm communication manager which again is skinned just like it is on the higher end HTC devices so you have this nice looking 3d switcher internet sharing sim manager voice notes task manager and here we've google maps and of course i put skyfire on there because i think it's a fantastic web browser twiki any which is a really really good twitter client for windows mobile non-touchscreen or touch screen and inner circle which i'm gonna explain right now because that's the really big feature of this of this device now from any screen whether you're in you know skyfire or your and you know TWiki knee or in your calendar you can go to the bottom of the keyboard and press this inner circle button and I know the camera is having trouble focusing right now so if i press that button you'll be taken to a filter screen which filters out all of your email by only the people that are in your inner circle right now I have two people set Anton and Adam Lane and the way that you set the people in your inner circle and by the way from this screen you just tap on a message and it brings it up just as usual just as just as if you were in outlook mobile and then of course you can jump right to all email if you press this button and there's some menu options in here so if I go to menu and I go to member list it shows all the people that I have in my inner circle so right now there are four people so it's going to stand my inbox for any messages from Chung Adam Ilana or Anton and show me the matches now I can add people of course if i go to add and i am taken to my standard address book that comes out of my phone and i can just go down the list and check off people that i want to be in my inner circle or uncheck them and they will be added it's a very very simple concept in fact there's actually a tutorial that is very very small let me show you the tutorial here it is tutorial and this is it group your closest contacts in one location your inner circle dedicated inner circle key so you use the key down there simply add members from your contact list or receive messages and then it goes through a little animation and it's demonstrating how it would work I hope these aren't really now dresses and that's it that's the death the end it's a very simple concept really so does the inner circle actually matter what people use it well here's the thing if you get a lot of email and I know a lot of people do from you know 10 15 20 people a day and really at the end of the day you only care about what five of them have to say those are the five people you correspond with the most they're your business partners or your co-workers or your family and your friends then if that's you then inner circle is a fantastic feature but if you're like me and it just so happens due to various email filters that the email that I get on my phone is we're already filtered then it's it's not going to have much utility so I'm not going to be using the feature that much but I know so many people that could get a lot of use from it so finally we're going to go through some settings and see if there's anything interesting in the settings which there really isn't there are some speed adjustments for the trackball which is really all that is different so we can go into trackball here and we can change the sensitivity from slow to normal too fast right now I've it on fast which I honestly don't think it's fast enough I think it needs to be even more sensitive we can show this change in sensitivity in the browser enable repeat mode and kind of stipulate exactly how many lines it scrolls when you're in an email and that sort of thing so overall the software on the HTC snap is very standard stuff HTC has done you know a few customizations to make it more elegant as they normally do but in the end this is a windows mobile non-touchscreen device it has very snappy performance the trackball is a really great way to navigate and it's quite unusual for a windows mobile device of this kind and the keyboard does take some getting used to as we mentioned in the hardware tour video and you can actually use it to do certain things like the inner circle or open up messaging or start a new text message there are a bunch of keys here we can even lie launch windows live messenger from the keyboard so that's it for the software tour will be back soon with the full review on pocketnow.com in case you missed it i'll put the unboxing video and the hardware tour video up on the screen now so you can jump to that after this video if you're interested in the HTC snap again if you want to snap up your own you can get one at clove coat UK shipping for about 255 British pounds that's around 430 others depending on the time of day and that's it for now we'll be back soon with more on the review