T-Mobile myTouch 3G Slide review

Prefer it or no longer, T-Mobile has were given currently officially turned its myTouch complete keep into an entire franchise, thank you to the legal addition up of a minute model plus an entire line of styled accessories -- less than it isn't lovely a lot the hardware. A lot up of it, in fact: allowing for the myTouch 3G Slide, the carrier has basically assembled a custom skin higher compared to HTC's Sense for Android 2.1, and each one kidding aside, about that phone represents one of the deepest carrier-customized experiences we've got ever seen. Seeing the way this phone arguably represents the true successor to the G1 -- T-Mobile's (and the world's) initial retail Android device -- it has pretty significant which they get this right, particularly contemplating how significant it looks for a carrier's bottom line to capitalize on the meaty, profitable midrange of its smartphone lineup. Does the myTouch 3G Slide measure up to the G1's sensible name? Read on. T-Mobile myTouch 3G Slide review

Hardware

You may gain carry out not forget the original myTouch 3G's distinctive packaging, a zippered, stiff nylon pod that created a brilliant souvenir you probably did not desire to throw out -- it used to be not as small because it could've been, granted, but on hand could be fewer of an ecological worry once the packaging is intended not to be thrown out. Neatly, T-Mobile has kept the scheme definitely going with the Slide, but it's not precisely the identical deal; this duration around, you buy a hard-shell plastic case that could be a small touch bit bigger than the myTouch 3G's package. We have a tendency to would argue that it is not kind of as great, but you can continue to be inclined to keep it, especially for the reason that it has got a lovely sweet custom foam interior with cut-out spaces for everything the Slide includes: 3.5mm headphones, a micro-USB cable, and the final same custom myTouch charger that the older model included. It does not appear of the kilter these, because the Slide features a lot of of the same delicate styling components. Speaking of the Slide's styling, it appearance better during the flesh than it does in photographs, and is the reason great news since many of the shots we'd seen leading up to the announcement made it look insanely undeniable together with a splash of gaudiness provided by the chrome accessory along the earpiece. Aren't obtaining u. s. wrong, we'd still prefer the phone while not the chrome accent and with a little little bit of soppy touch material on the back, but overall, the phone looks tastefully upscale in light-weight of the abundance of glossy plastic. We tested the black version, and that we bet red and white look also better. As we said prior to, even though the Slide has distinct ID all its own, it shares a handful of in style artwork features with its older namesake -- the mirror-finish body, as an example, and subtle upturns at the apex and bottom (you would possibly even call it the subtlest "chin" that HTC has produced to date). We'll admit that we were dreading going back to an HVGA display to check the Slide, but surprisingly, we missed WVGA resolution much less than we consideration we might; it would be a psychological facet effect of the Slide's generous 3.4-inch diagonal, but regardless of matters, we never found ourselves thinking "man, this screen sucks." It's a enormous amount bright, and out of doors of the occasional internet browsing situation, we bet you have a tendency to be going to be simply fine at 480 x 320. It additionally felt glass troublesome to the touch, something that we prefer to plasticky "give" on full touch devices prefer this that provides it an air of higher quality. On the flip side, there has been a load of resistance and rubbing noise when opening and shutting the display; as far as we is sufficient to be ready to tell, this projects from the cushy touch keyboard constructing contact with the screen's rear. It's doubtless not a controversy, but we definitely did not just like the slide action the maximum quantity because the CLIQ's. The Slide's controls are a mixed bag, but overall, they are definitely excellent. In particular, the keyboard is one of the perfect four-row designs we've employed in latest memory (LG, seriously, take some guidelines from this before you go back freeing up an Ally 2) with great feel, spacing, and clickiness -- it's readily apparent that HTC's deep experience in making these kinds of keyboards is forking out dividends. They suffer from made room for all of the biggest keys that you just ought to still be ready to access without pressing Shift or Alt, significantly the comma, period, and "@" symbol, plus you have Home and Search keys and duplicated modifiers on the left and right aspects. HTC aficionados also will be pleased to detect that they have carried over the lit Shift and Alt symbols higher than the numeric row, which brands it super simple to learn what character you are concerning to press. It is the legal pleasant touch. Up front, you've got got an optical pad that are often clicked surrounded by four buttons: Home, Menu, Back, and a stylized inexperienced "G" where you would in general be expecting Search to be on an Android phone -- this is still the so-called "Genius Button," one of the serious software features T-Mobile is pushing together with the phone itself (more on that during a bit). All four of the buttons -- particularly the outer two -- are a little smaller than we'd like for our massive fingers, making it a little tricky to reliably press all or any of them without risking an accidental press to the concession or left. Against this, the optical pad is plenty large and usable, though as with all alternative Android phone on the market, it's pretty unnecessary; we would've happily taken a marginally bigger screen in exchange for killing the pad altogether. At the high you will realize the requisite power button and three.5mm headphone jack; the left edge (on the keyboard half of the slide) contains a slightly concave volume rocker, and the bottom has your micro-USB port, signaling a closer well-deserved blow against HTC's maligned ExtUSB connector of ancient. Something tells us it will not be coming around once added. The right side has your camera button in its customary location toward the bottom finish of the phone which you will make use of to operate the Slide's 5 megapixel autofocus optics. It's a conventional two-stage button that makes a speciality of the first press, a system we prefer by leaps and boundaries to the old myTouch 3G's (and Nexus One's) buttonless process. HTC has managed to keep both point of interest times and shutter lag to a blank minimum on this phone, and we were pleased to see that shall we go from the house screen to taking a well-lit shot without a flash in underneath five seconds. Unfortunately, symbol quality wasn't stellar; it's a classic case where megapixels (five of them, during this case) are totally unrelated to image quality. It's essentially not potential to go on a "clear" shot without splotchiness and noise interfering -- each and every still shot sort of looks sort of a video frame grab. It will do just fine for MMS and Twitpic duties, of course. Shopping at sound quality (if it's really possible to "look" at sound quality, that is), the Slide fares rather well. The loudspeaker lies in a awfully grill to the right of the camera on back and rests flush once you put the phone down, but it is thus loud that it's not relevant -- yes, it's muffled just a tad, but it's still completely usable. Same with the earpiece -- at full tilt volume, it is very loud and plenty transparent with almost no static when no one is speaking.

Software

The 2nd a phase of the myTouch equation is its extensively-customized software. T-Mobile appears to be forced really taken the bull by the horns here, beginning with HTC's Sense skin and massaging it into something almost entirely alternative. All of the chief elements are still there -- standard Sense apps like Peep and Family member Stream, for instance, plus Android staples like the multi-panel home screen -- but important swaths of the user interface have been redrawn and rethought. That said, something that runs on Android 2.1 will run just fine here, so whether or not the myTouch skin is ultimately a great factor, a really awful thing, or a principally irrelevant thing to your enjoyment of the device is probably a matter of non-public opinion. Perhaps the single nearly all in-your-face component of T-Mobile's adjustments are the unusual bubble-encased icons utilized throughout the launcher and residential screen. For the lifetime of us, we won't figure out why they did this; as we mention in the video, one small advantage this is often that you can see exactly what kind of room the icon takes up on a panel when you're attempting to prepare it or total widgets, but that's a pretty trivial advantage in the grand scheme of factors. That said, we found ourselves ending up as less annoyed by them than we thought we'd be, and inside an afternoon or two of employing the phone, we probably would not assist in giving them a second thought. Design elements aside, two of T-Mobile's major value-adds are the Genius Button and a hot Faves experience. The Genius Button is billed as a natural language (or near-natural language) thanks to carry out absolutely anything on your phone, but in observe, we had trouble getting it to do just about anything aside from search for stuff on the internet. One of the supported commands, for instance, is "Where am I?" -- but once we opened Genius and said exactly that, it ran an online search for "Where MI." Problem is, we feel like be familiar with where we are, not where the nice state of Michigan happens to be. We're certain you could spend previous point learning Genius' nuances and turned into an professional at getting it to do your bidding, but unless you're really into handsfree operation, we predict you'll find that the majority tasks on the Slide are simpler accomplished by just doing them rather than asking Genius to do them for you. Even though T-Mobile's original myFaves concept has kind of died with the advent of ultra-cheap unlimited calling, Faves resides on as a core part of the carrier's branding and revel in. The Slide introduces a new app for managing your Faves, which basically amounts to a speed dial on steroids -- you've got a crazy third-dimensional arc of pictures that you can spin through to choose users, at which purpose you can get snappy access to his or him or her latest social network updates and place a decision, send a text or an email, or proportion a photograph or video. T-Mobile comprises a lot of different home screen widget designs (including separate ones dedicated to circle of relatives members) to create accessing these Faves easier, so it's apparent that they expect you to apply them. Heck, the rightmost button on the bar at the bottom of the home screen even launches you right into the Faves app. It's neat, but whether you in finding it helpful will probably depend mainly on whether you've got a core handful of folks who you retain in touch with significantly more than just everybody else. Overall, we were really pleased with the performance of the phone, which runs a Qualcomm MSM7227 core -- it's not quite up to Snapdragon levels of performance on paper, but in practice, this thing typically seems to burn rubber. The attention-grabbing bit about trying out Android devices is that they almost universally slow down a little bit over time after the review is long over -- you've got more apps installed and you're running more background services, after all -- but starting with a really rapid clean-slate device is an efficient begin.

Wrap-up

Curious software design elements aside, it's pretty apparent in our time with the myTouch 3G Slide that this phone is easily the better Android device T-Mobile has without delay accessible to date -- and, notwithstanding the undeniable proven reality that it is purely got MSM7227 silicon and an HVGA display -- it's among the best QWERTY Android sliders to date, too.
If you like your G1 and you are trying to find an upgrade (which a lot original G1 homeowners on contract probably will be this year), the Slide is an obtrusive decision -- and it spanks the similarly-designed Motorola CLIQ owing to its superior performance, bigger display, and cleaner firmware primarily based on Android 2.1. Well done, T-Mobile; next on your listing, give us some seriously high-end Android gear (and no, the Nexus One doesn't count).