HTC Status Review

Design And Features:

The 2.6-inch display feels pretty cramped, however, and the low, 480-by-320-pixel resolution won’t do your friends’ profile photos any favors. The screen is too small for videos (aside from the quick YouTube clip), and the limited surface makes gaming difficult. It is fine for dashing off email, doing some light browsing, and skimming your Facebook feed.

Between the keyboard and the display, you’ll find two oblong physical keys. The green key to the left takes you to your contacts and call history when you press it at the home screen. The red key is the End key when you are on a call, but it has other uses as well: When you are at your home screen, you can press this key to see thumbnail versions of your walls. Above those two keys, you’ll find the familiar Android touch keys–Home, Menu, Back, and Search–built into the display.

Below the keyboard is a button with Facebook’s familiar “F” logo. This is the Share button, and it gives you quick access to the most important Facebook features. You can update your status or post on a friend’s wall by pressing the button from the home screen. To check in to Facebook Places, you press and hold the Share button.

At the top of the phone, you’ll find the power button and the 3.5mm headphone jack.

Interface:

While the Status is technically an Android-powered smartphone, it’s still hurt by it’s small, 2.6-inch screen size. I can see why HTC shrank the touchscreen to allow for the full keyboard, but the Android experience suffers as a result.

The Status runs Android 2.3 Gingerbread along with version 3.0 of HTC’s Sense skin. I’m usually a big fan of Sense, but it just doesn’t work as well on such a small screen. Widgets like HTC’s iconic clock and weather widget were shrunk and squared off to fit. It just looks weird.

Underneath that, there’s another tiny widget that displays the latest post from your Facebook news feed. I’m not sure why that Facebook widget was included when there’s another one a few screens over that lets you scroll through your news feed. It’s redundant and awkward.

Other Android apps from the Market look squished on the tiny screen. Playing games, web browsing, or even checking Twitter is nowhere near as pleasant as it would be on a full-sized touchscreen. (Twitter’s app can only display three or four tweets at a time.) After spending several days using the Status, I almost wish HTC didn’t load the Status with Android.

Camera:

The HTC Status offers a 5 megapixel camera with an LED flash and VGA front-facing camera. The Status also offers “High Quality”

HTC Status Camera Sample

video recording (720×480). As you can tell from the camera and video specs, the camera is not the best. Obviously for $50 you aren’t going to get a point-and-shoot replacement, but you get decent shots out of this camera.

Like other Android phones, the Status makes it incredibly easy to post photos to Facebook from the Gallery. You have the option to share either via Facebook or through Facebook for HTC Sense. The difference between those two options is that Sense lets you have a little more control over who sees the photos you post, as well as which album a picture ends up in (otherwise it will just default to your Mobile Uploads album). You can also share photos with friends by way of Flickr, Gmail, MMS, Picasa, Twitter, and various other social networks and platforms.

Music:

Audio quality is pretty good though the wired headphone jack or when using a Bluetooth stereo headset; not so good with the small built-in speaker on the back on the phone.

Facebook Button:

The Facebook button sits below and alone, sitting on the white plastic casing with semi-transparent ink sitting on the “f” so that notifications can shine through with a light that blinks at you like a beacon. A long press always brings you to a screen where you can check in at any number of local locations created in Facebook – or you can create your own. These locations sit on Facebook as a Page where people can then Like, or you can Edit and activate things like a website to tie to the location, categories, etcetera.

A short press from a home screen, your apps drawer, your Android menu, or a number of other places reveals a screen where you can update your status. This is the same status that you’d update from either your Facebook profile page or Friends Stream otherwise. You have the option here to take a photo and attach it or take a photo from your already-photographed gallery. You can also post directly to one friend’s wall from this screen.

Connectivity:

The HTC Status supports GSM/GPRS/EDGE (850/900/1800/900 MHz bands), 3G UMTS/HSDPA (850/1900 MHz), as well as Wi-Fi 802.11b/g/n and Bluetooth 3.0 connections.

Battery:

The battery lasts a very, very long time. At the very least a day, if not longer – that being relatively long for your average, everyday smartphone. There’s not a whole lot to power in this device, therefor the power just doesn’t run out at the same rate that it does on other devices. Don’t worry about charging the HTC Status up during the day, instead just rely on overnight charges.

HTC Status Specification

Performance:

The first thing you should know before buying is the HTC Status isn’t a powerful phone. This is only for those obsessed with Facebook and messaging with friends.

Conclusion:

Due to the nature of the phone, portrait-only apps don’t really work too well on the Status, but that fault lies with the lack of development standards and we can’t really blame HTC for that.

PRO:

• Compact and easy to carry
• Android 2.3 with HTC Sense UI
• Good Facebook integration
• Usable QWERTY keyboard

CON:

• Web page text can be small and requires zooming
• Rear speaker not loud enough for music or speakerphone
• Video recording isn’t that great
• Styling may not be for everyone