The Fuze offers what many TouchFLO fans have clamored for: a full, slide-out QWERTY keyboard, which means the Fuze could be a viable successor to the popular, though aging AT&T Tilt. That's in addition to the Fuze's touch screen and stylus, high-end CPU, pumped-up RAM, and full complement of wireless radios (Bluetooth, GPS, HSDPA, and Wi-Fi). But is HTC's latest creation enough to give prospective iPhone 3G and BlackBerry Bold buyers second thoughts?
The thick-looking and heavy-feeling 5.8-ounce Fuze measures 4.0 by 2.0 by 0.7 (HWD) inches, and is definitely on the large side for a modern-day smartphone. The handset's fetching, reflective plastic front bezel looks like smoked glass, and the sides taper down to meet the same diamond-cut back panel found on the HTCs unlocked Touch Diamond. The left side holds black plastic volume controls and AT&T's Push-To-Talk button, while the top panel houses the inset Power button, and there's a mini-USB port on the bottom of the phone. In the box you get two metal styli, an AC adapter, a USB cable, and a port adapter dongle (more on this later).
The 2.8-inch LCD features full VGA (480-by-640-pixel) resolution. Beneath the Fuze's touch screen is the same control-key arrangement as the Touch Diamond, right down to the stiff, circular, backlit 5-way control pad. The Fuze's slide-out QWERTY mechanism feels extremely solid and engages with a positive click; it gives the impression it would survive a three-story drop. (The rest of the phone likely wouldn't, however.) Despite the roomy, five-row keyboard arrangement including a generous number of shortcut buttons, the keys are too small, flat, and stiff for quick typing, and screen response isn't instantaneous. Nonetheless, they're quiet and evenly backlit. Oddly, there are no dedicated number keys even with the fifth row—you still have to use the Fn key every time. There's a four-way cursor control pad like you'll find on the Tilt, however. It's a godsend when editing Microsoft Office documents; I wish every handset had room for one.
The Fuze is a good voice phone. It pulled in a relatively weak 3G AT&T signal in my area, but the handset picked up little background noise, and I didn't hear any untoward fuzziness, or experience any dropouts in a variety of test calls. Unfortunately, the speakerphone was too weak for anything but quiet indoor use. The Fuze paired easily with an Aliph New Jawbone and didn't require a passkey; calls over the Jawbone sounded fine. The Fuze lasted 5 hours and 31 minutes on a continuous talk time test. That's above-average for an HSDPA phone, but falls short of the company's 6.6-hour claim.
Like many AT&T smart devices, the HTC Fuze is a quad-band (850/900/1800/1900 MHz) EDGE and an HSDPA 3.6 (2100/1900/850 MHz) handset. It also features Bluetooth 2.0 (with EDR and A2DP stereo support) and 802.11b/g-compatible Wi-Fi radios, and connected to a test WPA 802.11g network easily. In true HTC fashion, the Fuze is well-equipped in the hardware department with its Qualcomm MSM7201A processor running at 528 MHz, with 512MB of ROM and 201MB RAM, with 117MB free for user programs. Plus, HTC's Task Manager icon at the top right of the home screen makes quitting programs a snap.
The Fuze comes with Opera Mobile 9.5, a superior Web browser that offers tabbed browsing, robust bookmark and history management, but no Flash support. (Skip the Fuze's TouchFLO bookmark shortcuts; something as simple as scrolling through the list felt sluggish, as the handset drew and redrew each item on the list.) Once within Opera Mobile, flicking through Web pages was a snap, and Opera did a stunning job at rendering desktop Web pages. Between Opera Mobile and the Fuze's VGA resolution, I could almost read the New York Timeshome page without zooming in. The Fuze's built-in accelerometer also makes it easy to switch between portrait and landscape modes simply by tilting the handset on its side. But it takes a few seconds to register, doesn't work in all applications, and there's no support for two-finger zoom like on the iPhone.
Messaging is a cinch on the Fuze. TouchFLO itself handles basic text messages. The Fuze also comes with Outlook Mobile, which hooks into POP and IMAP accounts, synchronizes with Microsoft Exchange and Outlook on the desktop, and supports Microsoft's Direct Push system. Like the majority of Windows Mobile smartphones, it synchronized easily with my Windows Vista laptop. The Fuze also features an IM aggregator that logs into AIM, Yahoo! Messenger, and Windows Live Messenger; my AIM buddy list and IM conversation popped up quickly and easily in the program's Spartan but usable tabbed interface.
The otherwise finger-friendly interface on the Fuze requires more determination than the iPhone's. On the plus side, holding the Fuze's main screen icon selector and then dragging my finger back and forth made getting around the Fuze's basic functions simple. But most gestures often took several tries before they registered. Finger touches worked well for top-level navigation, making calls, checking the weather, and listening to music, for example. But as with other TouchFLO devices, once I selected the main address book, e-mail, calendar, the Web, video playback, and so on, the handset threw me into a standard Windows Mobile interface, which requires the stylus for just about everything.
Plus, it's easy to confuse TouchFLO—or become confused by it. Two examples: first, the basic Settings page lets you scroll up and down with your finger. But when I touched Communications, the next page looked exactly the same, but I could no longer scroll. When I tried it, I accidentally selected Airplane Mode, which then spent the next 15 seconds shutting down the handset's various communications radios. Another time, when I turned on the Wi-Fi radio, I was asked to join my wireless network, which eventually meant I had to type in a password after following a few prompts. So I turned the phone on its side and slid out the keyboard. But when I did that, the window asking me for the password disappeared underneath TouchFLO after it rotated, leaving me stranded. Turning it back was no use either; the password window was lost to eternity, so I had to shut the Wi-Fi radio off and start over.
AT&T is no help either, since the carrier has loaded the Fuze to the gills with crapware. Some of it isn't too bad, such as the various shortcut icons to AT&T's Music Store and Community. But 14 preloaded demo apps and games, and seven AT&T mall icons? That's pushing it, especially since many can't be deleted.
One bright spot: the Fuze's GPS radio works with AT&T Navigator. It requires a restart after installation, but offers the same slick TeleNav-powered, voice-enabled turn-by-turn directions (for $9.99 per month, or $2.99 per 24-hour period) as the Samsung Epix and other AT&T smart devices.
The Fuze features 288MB of internal storage and a microSD card slot for expanded storage. The slot is inconveniently located under the rear cover, but at least you don't have to pull out the battery to switch cards. I was able to read and write to an 8GB SanDisk microSDHC card without a hitch. Music sounded fine over a paired set of Cardo S-2 stereo Bluetooth headphones, but a bulky port adapter (included in the box) was necessary to plug standard 3.5mm stereo earbuds into the mini USB port. Basic track listening and library scanning is possible with just finger touches, and the Fuze displays album art whenever available. Flicking through music album covers works, but it's slow, a bit clunky, and is nowhere near as efficient as Cover Flow on the iPhone. The Fuze also works with AT&T's Mobile Music Service and XM Radio Mobile (at an extra cost).
The 3.2-megapixel camera features auto-focus and an LED flash. There's no dedicated camera button, however, which means frantic interface navigation is necessary whenever a photo op represents itself. And the CCD sensor is held back by the Fuze's poor optics. The handset was incapable of taking a sharp photo, even when the auto-focus was on target. Details like grass, leaves, and brick texture were decimated. The auto-focus also adds a several-second delay to snapping pictures. The Fuze recorded evenly lit, smooth video files at 320-by-240 or 352-by-288-pixel resolution; both at 30 frames per second. The phone is AT&T Video Share–enabled and works with MobiTV and Cellular Video. DivX and XviD video files played smoothly, although some 320-by-240 videos stuttered when blown up to full screen. (Remember that despite the Fuze's fast processor, it's pushing four times the number of pixels to fill the screen due to its 640-by-480 resolution; this takes a toll on video performance.)
Right now, AT&T offers a slick lineup of smartphones, so the Fuze has plenty of competition. The iPhone 3G (our current Editors' Choice) has a bigger screen and is a lot better at the touch thing. But it lacks a hardware keyboard, its GPS functionality is limited, and it doesn't have mobile TV capabilities. The BlackBerry Bold is a beautiful, top-notch messaging device, but its flaky Web browser and lack of a traditional IM client are letdowns. Finally, the aging and slightly chunkier AT&T Tilt lacks the Fuze's slick TouchFLO interface. But it's $100 less-expensive, easier to type on due to its larger keys, and virtually matches the Fuze feature-for-feature otherwise.
SPEC DATA :
Price as Tested: $299.00 Street
Service Provider: AT&T
Operating System: Windows Mobile Pocket PC
Screen Size: 2.8 inches
Screen Details: 480x640, TFT, 262K colors
Camera: Yes
Megapixels: 3.2 MP
802.11x: Yes
Bluetooth: Yes
Web Browser: Yes
Network: GSM, UMTS
Bands: 850, 900, 1800, 1900, 2100
High-Speed Data: GPRS, EDGE, UMTS, HSDPA
Processor Speed: 528 MHz
Special Features: Music
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