The HTC Tattoo, a bargain version of the company's flagship phones, is like an elderly HTC Hero -- shrunken and less perky, but still with plenty of fun times left in the tank. You'll definitelynotice the corners that have been cut -- the resistive touchscreen is especially annoying -- but, if you're lookingto save some pennies, you can't beat a bargain handset that offers allthe power of an Android smart phone.
HTC Tattoo
The Good
The Bad
The Bottom Line
The Tattoo is available from free on a £25-per-month, 18-monthcontract, or for around £290 SIM-free.
Android for all
The Tattoo offers the same powerful Android operating system and social-networking goodies as the Hero, but in a cheaper, smaller phone. That means you can have all the power of a handset running Android -- ausable, feature-packed smart-phone operating system -- at a price that wouldusually score you a more stripped-down phone.
The Tattoo comes with a good suiteof applications pre-installed, including Google Maps, a Twitter app and aYouTube app. If they're not enough, the Tattoo will also allow you to shop in theAndroid Market, which hosts heaps of little programs that give the phone even morepowers. Happily, many of the apps in the Android Market are free, and it does a good job of making it easy to download and installeverything from Spotify to Skype.
HTC has also iced the Android cake with its Sense userinterface -- the same one we raved about on the HTC Hero. There are seven homescreens, which you can customise to your heart's delight with wallpapers andwidgets. These include Twitter and email widgets that show your missives as they pop-up in real-time, without requiring you to open an app, like youwould on the iPhone, for example.
You can also change your whole configuration, depending onyour mood, by creating your own themes, known as 'scenes'. For example, you may want to see yourwork calendar during the week, but avoid it at all costs during the weekend. Your 'weekend' scene might show your music-playerwidget instead. But the phone is also well set-up rightout of the box, so you don't have to change anything if you don't want to.
Kiss my Facebook
We also love the way Sense grabs our Facebookand Gmail contacts and merges them together into our address book, so we cansee the smiling profile pics of our chums on our phone.
The Tattoo also pulls in your Facebook and Flickr photoalbums, and your friends' albums, and shows their snaps alongside theircontact info. Unfortunately, it doesn't support any other social-networkingsites, like MySpace or Bebo. You can get apps and widgetsfor those sites from the Android Market, though.
Ouch -- my fingers!
HTC hasn't short-changed us with the Tattoo's software, but the hardwareis another story. To cut the price, the company's plunked a resistive touchscreen ontothe handset, and that breaks our little hearts. The screen requires thepressure of a fingernail to register inputs, and it's just not as pleasant to use Androidwhen you can't swipe over the screen with wild abandon. Instead,each selection has to be a slow and deliberate, and, if you don't havefingernails to speak of, you're stuffed. It doesn't help that the touchscreen isalso smaller than average, measuring only 71mm (2.8 inches).
The teeny, resistive touchscreen makes typing a chore. It's great that there's a choice of a virtual Qwerty keyboard, alphanumeric keyboard, and compact Qwerty effort with two letters oneach on-screen key. But, despite these options and fairly good predictive text, thescreen's unresponsiveness means you have to take your time when typing.
Cover it up
Despite its shortcomings, we couldn't help but cheer up when we saw theTattoo's selection of switchable covers. Our sample phone had a cheeky representation of Androidpeeping out at us from its silver case, but you can pick up plenty more colourful options online for about £11each. If you're really feeling creative, you can design your own cover forabout £13, including layers of your own photos and text.
We gave the online cover-design feature a go, and could havespent hours tweaking our handset's appearance. We wish everysmart phone came with this fun extra.
Conclusion
TheHTC Tattoo doesn't skimp in the software department, providing all of the powerof Android, plus the Hero's social-networking extras. But you'll miss out on the pleasure of using a big, bright, responsivetouchscreen. If you bite your nails,stay away from this phone. For those who don't, we'd recommend the Tattooabove its bargain competitors, such as the Samsung Tocco Lite.
Edited by Charles Kloet