Looking to buy a new smartphone? Remember that whatever phone you get, you are likely to be stuck with it for the next couple of months, or maybe even a year or so. No wonder, making a smart choice on selecting your smartphone can be a daunting task, especially when there are a host of good offerings out there at the moment. If you are looking for one in terms of features and looks then go with the HTC mobile phones. From Sensation to Radar, the Taiwanese smartphone maker has been churning out one beauty after another.
Recently, we received a test unit of HTC Rhyme for a review. First, a piece of advise from my side: one of the most important things to do before you buy a new smartphone is to think about what features?apps in technical terms?are going to be useful to you and those that aren?t really going to be of any benefit to you. This is because smartphones come with a dazzling array of apps nowadays.
Cut to HTC Rhyme, a good-looking phone with a sturdy design and is meant for those who like style, class and high-end usability. It integrates sleek new design, a refreshed HTC Sense multi-layered graphical user experience and a family of integrated accessories with advanced smartphone features. It is true that the prices of HTC phones are expensive in comparison to the other smartphones of different brands. But the HTC Rhyme Android phone has alluring features and elegant looks and rightly justifies its price of R27,499.
HTC Rhyme offers a smart, elegant unibody design with every detail carefully crafted to deliver a unique sensory experience. The materials, the curves, and the dimensions are all designed to feel great in your hand, without sacrificing advanced features. That?s not all. HTC Rhyme is not only defined by its soft, simple design and distinct colour scheme but by the refreshed HTC Sense experience. There is an all-new home screen that provides a clean and uncluttered way to interact with the essentials. The home screen enables quick, uncluttered previews of your appointments, messages or whatever is important to you.
Sometimes it can seem a little bit like nit picking when sales people at a mobile retail outlet make a big deal about a fraction of an inch in difference between the size of one smartphone screen and another. Having said that, you will definitely notice the difference, at least on some applications, between the big screened models and the ones with smaller displays. My experience is that it depends upon the type of software you intend to use.
HTC Rhyme runs the 2.3.5 Gingerbread version of Android, which is a very impressive operating system, especially when it is augmented by the latest version of Sense user interface. Sense is a slick and efficient user interface and offers plenty of useful widgets. The 3.7-inch screen offers a decent resolution of 800 x 480 pixels?certainly good enough for viewing movies, especially if you put the phone in the dock, which, incidentally, has its own speakers. Plus you can run it off the phone?s battery or the mains. HTC Rhyme makes entertainment come to life through HTC Watch, which features a wide selection of movies and TV shows that can be downloaded for instant viewing.
HTC Rhyme also offers advanced imaging capabilities that begin with its 5-megapixel camera that includes auto focus, power LED flash and instant shutter for capturing those memorable moments whenever they arrive. In addition, the camera features a number of photo-taking and sharing elements, including face detection, which ensures that friends are always in focus, action burst scene, which automatically takes five consecutive shots of a scene, and panoramic mode, which lets users stitch several photos for those larger-than-life views. The HTC Rhyme?s locked home screen can be customised to display the most important content, making it quick and easy to see social updates, photos, snapping a photo or the weather forecast by simply turning on the display.
Coming to the boxful of accessories, there is HTC Rhyme Charm?an innovative approach for discretely alerting you to incoming calls or messages while the handset is deep in your bag. The Charm is a small light-emitting cube that attaches to the phone by a cord that can dangle from your bag and also be used to quickly pull the phone out of your bag. It also makes it easy to find your phone buried in your cluttered purse or backpack. The Tangle free headphones take the hassle out of listening to your favourite music.
All in all, the Rhyme is yet another piece of fine work from HTC.
SPECS
Dimensions: 119 x 61 x 11 mm
Display: 3.7 inch 800 x 480 pixels multitouch
Processor: 1GHz
Software: Android 2.3.5 Gingerbread
Memory slot: MicroSD
Ports: Micro USB, Standard USB, 3.5 mm headphones
Camera: 5 megapixel, autofocus, LED flash, front-facing VGA camera video
Estimated street price: R27,499