google analytics code

06 June 2012

A day with htc rhyme...

Any change from the routine will take some time to get used to. Same thing has happpened to me on tuesday when I spent a day without my xperia and had the chance to test and load the new htc rhyme with some apps.
At first look, the rhyme looks beautiful. The phone feels solid when holding and makes us feel good. Even the xperia x10 mini has a very good design for a phone of its size, and htc has done a good job of fitting all the features in a thin frame, but the user interface (of htc sense 3.5 skin over android 2.3.5) looks little confusing initially. The Xperia on the other hand felt very easy to use with shortcuts at the right places and despite its size, they have managed to create a fantastic and practical UI. No wonder they have won the european design prize when it was launched in 2010. HTC Rhyme on the other hand has a very different UI, which can be modified by using external launchers like Go Launcher.
Changing from a 2.55 inch screen to a 3.7 inch screen will not be so seamless. I miss the comfort of controlling the complete phone with just one hand and others wouldnt even know that I have a phone in my palms! It can easily be hidden from others! Anyway, having a large screen phone will have these adjustments to be made initially, but later on we get accustomed to it.
On the user interface front, I just hope HTC Sense is a bit clearer and straight forward. There was no lag because of the Sense UI, but accessing and creating some important shortcuts was not easy. On the xperia, it was so easy, all I had to do is add a widget to the home screen and just touch the icons. Forexample, its just one touch to change the phone to vibrating to silent mode, thanks to a very useful power control widget. But this is not so easy on the HTC Rhyme. Anyway, this can be changed by using GO Launcher or some other launchers.

And regarding the options before I finalized on HTC Rhyme, I had a look at the Sony Xperia U as a potential alternative, but it misses some key features that I need: no expandable memory. Talking about sony phones, I really dont understand why dont sony use its successfull brands like Walkman, playstation, cybershot all in one single device! It would be a fantastic phone if it can give the complete experience of sony's technologies within a reasonable and justified price. Another complaint is about the updates which were a case of too less and too late. My Xperia 10 mini is unfortunately stuck on 2.1 and I dont think 2.3 would be posible for a phone with 800MHz, and 128MB internal memory. Other phones like galaxy y which have similar features received 2.3 update long back and they do work well.
May be its got to do with the heavy skin of sony ericcson(Timescape UI, etc..).

With love.. Anil