CTIA 2009
The Snap is the newest HTC smartphone in the BlackBerry form factor. It's sort of a newer, 3G version of the Dash, although it's not clear that it will come to T-Mobile USA. Like the Dash, it's impressively thin, with a curved back and excellent feel to it. Like a BlackBerry, it sports a trackball for navigating the interface.
The Snap looks and feels great. The keys are universally great. The keyboard has an offset layout to closer match a desktop QWERTY keyboard layout. This is quite unusual for a phone.
Our one gripe with the key layout is that the two soft keys are small and look just like the other keys. This is nice for appearances, but not for usability. It's something we expect most people will get used to, but it would be much more intuitive to have larger soft keys closer to the display, instead of lost in a row of other keys. Not being used to the phone, we pressed send or end more then once when we meant to press a soft key.
The Snap runs Windows Mobile 6.1 Standard, which means it's not a touch-screen phone. For those who want Windows Mobile for straight productivity, it's nice that manufacturers are still offering non-touch options.
The Snap is the first phone to sport HTC's new "Inner Circle" feature. This is an alternate view for your email inboxes that only shows messages from a list of important people that you select. It even does this across multiple email accounts, displaying all messages from those important people in one unified list. This is a neat concept, and could be quite useful for minding only the most important email when you're on the go and have limited time to wade through a busy inbox (or three.)
Here's a video tour of the Snap and Inner Circle:
Video Tour: WebOS 1.4
Video Demo: Palm Pre Plus Mobile Hotspot
Review: Palm Pre
CES 2009
Samsung Refreshes Galaxy S Series with S Pen, New Cameras
Samsung Finesse R810
Palm Pre (CDMA)
PCD TXTM8 / TXT8026
