HTC Radar Review

The HTC Radar is a new Windows Phone device from the Taiwanese phone manufacturer, and many in the second wave of Windows Phone “Mango” devices being released this holiday season.

We covered the launch of the Radar and the TITAN back in September and the tech-savvy folk among you may have noticed that the Radar’s specifications don’t match up to its’ older brother, the TITAN and definitely pale in comparison to some of Android’s dual cored beasts now on the market.

But don’t let that deter you if you’re looking to jump ship to Microsoft’s fresh faced smartphone operating system, the Radar is more than capable of wowing even the most stubborn smartphone connoisseur.

Hardware

The first thing you’ll notice, as with any new phone is the hardware and look of the phone and the Radar doesn’t disappoint here. The main body of the Radar is one piece of brushed aluminium which means you get a nice flowing feel to the entire device, the aluminium is broken only by small parts of that rubber-ish material HTC is so fond of putting on their phones.

The Radar comes in two colours: White/grey and steel/charcoal and grey, the latter of which you can see in our pictures. It’s not too different from the design and style of some of HTC’s other offerings, such as the Wildfire – which may put some people off or draw them in, depending on your current feelings on HTC’s familiar design.

The dimensions of the Radar, 120 x 61.5 x 10.8mm and weighing 137 grams compliment the design nicely and while it’s not the lightest or indeed the slimmest phone around (for comparison the iPhone 4S is 9.3mm) but it doesn’t feel heavy or bulky in your pocket or hand.
Indeed it’s quite the opposite, the Radar fits the hand actually better than most other phones I’ve used, normally I would prefer a square edged device over a curved device but the Radar has swayed me somewhat.

 

The screen is a 3.8 inch Super LCD with a resolution of 480 x 800 with a touch capacitive back, home and search button below, the norm for any Windows Phone device.

The screen displays text and most websites very nicely, the only downfall being the somewhat ‘washed-out’ colours that are expected with LCD displays by now as compared with the rich colours of Super AMOLED screens that Samsung use.
The Radar can look a lot sharper than an AMOLED screen however, with less pixels showing and somewhat smoother curves.

The final and potentially biggest plus to having a Super LCD screen over an AMOLED screen is that you can use the white background and not have an off colour white or a faster drain on battery life. It’s a nice change if you’re used to using Windows Phone 7 with its ‘dark’ theme.

The Radar has 4 hardware buttons, lock/power volume up & down and a dedicated camera shutter button that you’ll find on all WP7 phones.

The latter button is definitely the best camera shutter button I’ve used, it has to levels of pressure to it, halfway to focus and fully pressed to take the photo and overall it has a really solid feel to it – although included in Mango is the ability to touch the screen in order to focus and take a picture, it makes the camera shutter button slightly obsolete but it’s nice to have the option.
The camera itself is a 5MP with a single LED flash and sits quite flush in the device, the chrome trim is a nice addition also.

On the bottom-rear of the device is the battery and SIM card cover. HTC have decided to make the Radar power off when the cover is removed (most likely to prevent SIM hot-swapping) and as standard, a 3.5mm headphone jack is included at the top of the device.

Inside

The guts of the Radar aren’t a major leap forward from the first wave of Windows Phone devices, and lacking when compared to the TITAN or upcoming Samsung Focus S, but sporting a Qualcomm MSM 8255 1GHz processor and 512MB of RAM it wouldn’t be considered slow either.

The storage in the Radar is a disappointing 8GB, we would have hoped for at least 16GB – especially these days with the amount of people using their phones as entire media and social centres, not just for calls and texts.
Still, it features all the expected connectivity options such as: Wi-Fi, HSPA, Bluetooth and GPS. Also included is DLNA which allows you to share music, photos and videos with Wi-Fi players and the like.

The sound produced by the Radar’s speaker is surprisingly loud for a phone and does a great job when on speakerphone. On the headphone side of things HTC have included sound enhancing options for SRS and equalizer settings for headphone use that work well.
The in-ear supplied headphones supplied aren’t great, they struggle with pretty much any bass and noise leakage is rampant. Still, when have standard issue headphones ever sounded good?

Call quality was a highlight of the Radar, in all coverage from Edge to 3G.

I could hear the other person on calls very clearly, and vice versa. I come back to the speaker here as it impressed me so much, when on speakerphone I had the phone around a foot from my face and the person I was talking to didn’t even know I was on speaker until I told them, so a big plus for the microphone too.

Camera

The 5MP camera on the Radar is rocking a 28mm lens F/2.2 aperture and a single LED Flash, with a VGA camera on the front for video calling, as soon as Microsoft brings Skype to Windows Phone.

The camera is as good as you’ve come to expect by now, it won’t replace a dedicated, professional camera but it will do the job for when you’re out and about.

HTC have tried to differentiate their camera software in Windows Phone here with Burst and Panorama modes.
Burst mode is what it sounds like, you point, press the camera shutter button and the camera takes five photos in quick succession. It’s easy to use and could prove useful but I never used it in day to day use like I did with Panorama mode.

Panorama mode allows you to take a photo, and then pan either left or right on the X (horizontal) axis slowly and once you’ve taken two or three photos, the phone will stitch them together into one mega photo. The phone will help you with indications of when to stop and hold and to make sure you’re holding the phone level.

It’s really intuitive and fun to use and I can see it being somewhat of a selling point for the Radar and indeed the Titan.

The camera is really fast and snappy, once you take a photo you can simply swipe to the left to browse through recent photos and then back to the right to take more. From an open photo you can share via Facebook, Messaging, Email, SkyDrive or Twitter so you’re spoilt for choice.

Before and after Auto-Fix

The camera works really well with ample lighting, but could struggle a tad in low light situations. The front facing camera is almost useless unless you’re in a very well lit area, as can be expected with such a low resolution.

The upside is that Microsoft has included an ‘auto-fix’ feature in the Mango update and it works quite well. HTC have also included a build in Photo Enhancer that allows you to add effects your photos like Sepia and ‘Antique’ etc.

Watch the video on YouTube to see it in 720p.

With regards to video, you get full 720p recording and autofocus alongside zoom and recording works on both cameras but the front facing camera naturally isn’t 720p.
Unfortunately all the controls become locked to you once you start recording which is bizarre, the inability to zoom in and out while recording is very frustrating.

Once you’re finished recording you can upload to Facebook, SkyDrive and share via email or mms. Strangely enough there is no option to upload it to YouTube which seems like a big oversight from Microsoft/HTC.

Software and Apps

The HTC Radar is running Windows Phone 7.5 which means better integration with Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn right off the bat.

I won’t go too much into Windows Phone itself here, as we’ll save that for our full OS review coming soon but it is a breath of fresh air to the current smartphone market.
Its use of Live Tiles and aforementioned social networks deeply ingrained into the phone make it a pleasure to use.

It can be hard for OEMs to differentiate their phones from one another, that’s where HTC’s impressive (in volume) list of apps for Windows Phone 7 .5 set the bar high for the upcoming wave of WP7 devices.

Internet sharing is one new feature to Windows Phones, it allows up to 5 devices to use the phone’s data connection for themselves. Anyone who has used Wi-Fi tethering on a mobile device before will be at home instantly.

HTC Locations is HTC’s own maps app, it contains HTC Footprints – a virtual breadcrumb trail of where you’ve been but it also allows you to get directions, place pins and even share them with friends via email or text. Perfect if your friend doesn’t know which bar you’re in.

Notes is a simple note taking app, it has a big corkboard that you can place sticky notes too, once placed you can move them around and edit them – simple but effective.

HTC Watch is supposed to allow you to rent and watch movies on your device but as with so many other Windows Phone features, it doesn’t work in Ireland. You can view trailers for movies but that’s it. If Microsoft ever expand their services into Ireland (And other lacking countries) then this could prove to be a hit but until then it’s practically useless.

The HTC Hub gives you an animated view of the weather along with news and stock feeds and is shown in the classic HTC Sense style you may have come to expect if you’ve used a HTC Android device before.
There are a few more HTC made apps in a special HTC section of the Marketplace, simple apps like converters and calculators, nothing ground-breaking but surely handy to have.

 

As far as apps go in general, Windows Phone has nearly every app you could need. I say nearly because there are some glaring omissions such as an Amazon shopping app (There is one but again, doesn’t work in Ireland) and Spotify for example, but also there is no Zune Pass or Local Scout support in Ireland.

These are all features being pushed in advertising campaigns yet are obviously missing on end devices.

One cannot fault HTC for the latter complaints though, the lack of Zune and Local Scout is a Microsoft Issue, but the average consumer who buys the HTC Radar (or TITAN) will most likely have these features in mind when buying their phone and may well blame HTC when they don’t work.

The Windows Phone 7.5 Marketplace is the fastest growing smartphone app store/marketplace of all time, with more than 33,000 apps in less than a year since launch.
When you factor in the Xbox Live integration and full Microsoft Office on board it makes a compelling argument to jump from that Android or iOS ship.

Windows Phone 7 does have Multitasking on board too, but it’s a tad bit underwhelming if you’re coming from iOS or Android. There’s no way to manually close apps, the phone will automatically keep the last 5 apps/pages that you used open, and then close the oldest as you open more.
It’s neat and tidy and genuinely easy to use but can be annoying when you want to go back to the oldest open app, but it’s already gone because you done something simple such as opened a text message to reply.

The browser on all Windows Phone 7.5 phones is Internet Explorer 9 and it comes with full HTML5 support but sadly no Flash support. If you want to watch videos, movies or TV shows on the Radar the easiest way (that doesn’t mean it’s the desired way) is to load them on through the Zune software. Windows Phone 7 supported video formats includes .3gp, .3g2, .mp4, .m4v mbr, .wmv. So you shouldn’t have any problems there.

Battery

Battery life on the Radar was quite surprising, in the Battery Saver menu in the Settings, the phone said 1 day & 18 hours at 100% and it wasn’t far off.
On an average days usage the Radar was still going strong with 52% at bedtime, even lasting most of the following day without an overnight charge.

That said, as the battery in the Radar is non-removable we think it would be unwise to travel without a charger, or at least without the phone being at 100% when you leave.

Wrap Up

The HTC Radar is a tough phone to recommend due to it being so similar to what’s already out there.
The Windows Phone 7.5 OS it’s running under the hood is really fresh and slick, but may lack some of the apps or familiarity to persuade people to change.

The Radar seems to be aimed at a more casual consumer, the person who isn’t fussy about specs, who wants a phone that just works. And for them, the Radar is perfect.

With its slim, unibody design, vibrant LCD display and a good camera, it’s a perfect choice for anyone who want to try Windows Phone 7 for the first time but who might be a little scared of the TITAN’s massive screen.

But for those who are already fans of Microsoft’s mobile OS, the Radar could be seen as too small a step up from the current Windows Phone offerings – and that’s fine, for those people there is the HTC TITAN right now, but very soon there’ll be new Samsung and Nokia offerings to choose from.

 

You can contact the author of this post, Luke Hoare Greene at Luke@Techtv1o1.com or follow him on Twitter.