5 days with the Touch

by | Nov 20, 2007 | Technology

Today is day 5 that I’ve been using the HTC Touch on the Bell Mobility network.

So far so good. Unlimited mobile browser and e-mail. Everything is setup and working how I want.

So – I decided that I would give some “hacking”, skinning, and apps a shot and turn my HTC Touch into an iPhone.

It took me about 30-minutes to get everything done – using some great resources that I found online. The interface works pretty well, but I should admit that I MUCH prefer the today screen plugin that HTC developed and included.

Why? Well, it shows the date and time without having to read the analogue clock – easier to see if I’m in a meeting or driving or something (yes, I wear a watch, and my car has 2 clocks in it). The weather panel is upfront vs. having to open an application (you have to change “tabs” in the HTC plugin – very easy to do).

In an effort to answer some peoples questions…

Hey man, its hard to get a straight answer from the forum, so I was hoping that you could answer a couple questions for me about the new HTC Touch and the unlimited plan for $7.00.

So, can you go to like any website with this for free (ex www.ebay.ca, www.mapleleafs.com) or is it restricted to certain sites?

Can you download clips and sound waves from these sites or is this not included in the plan? Ex: if I am on TSN can I watch one of their highlight clips?. Can you download an attachment from an email etc?

How is the speed and approx what sort of kb/sec do you get?

Thanks in advance for all the help! I know – some people just don’t understand/are upset that they’re not with bell/are speculating when they have no idea.

My response….

yes… for $7 you can go to ANY website you want. It seems that using the built-in IE – the sites that have mobile versions show you the mobile site (WAP versions) – but a site that doesn’t will show you want you want. Does that make sense? If I were to go to www.facebook.com it will end up taking me to m.facebook.com (their mobile version). I haven’t tried to see if there’s a setting to disable that – but it doesn’t make that much of a difference to me.

I haven’t tried to watch clips or videos… so I can’t answer that for you. You CAN download files off the web and save them to your phone or memory card. The phone has a built-in zip decompressor too… 🙂

As for speed – it’s EVDO… what the rating is I couldn’t tell you. There is a bit of a lag as it trys to load sites – but not too bad. For $7 who can complain? 🙂

You can get e-mail from any webserver on it – you can have 8 addresses setup on the phone. You can set the e-mail to check every 5/10/15…etc. automatically for you… so it’s similar to “push” e-mail. Also, if you have an active exchange e-mail server you can get hooked into that from the phone for real push e-mail. I don’t have one – so I can’t tell you about setting it up or anything. I do use my own pop mail servers though. It also supports IMAP.

On another note, I have a bunch of screen protectors and hard-plastic protective cases that are coming to me from a supplier – so if you have a Touch and want one, let me know.

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