HTC Fuze review

 Articleimages 2008 11 Fuze Att-Fuze-8

Along with the Sprint Touch Diamond and the Sprint Touch Pro, the Fuze on AT&T represents the latest generation of Windows Mobile smartphones. With it, WinMo devices on AT&T graduate into a ‘next gen’ world that truly feels like late 2008. These devices (we could also add other upcoming devices like the Omnia, the Xperia X1, and a few others) truly feel competitive against other smartphones like the BlackBerry Bold, the iPhone, and the G1. While I do believe that was the case before, of course, the higher resolution, smaller size, and full feature set of these devices makes it an easier case to make.

What makes the Fuze ‘next gen?’ It’s a mix of a few things: A slick, modern UI in TouchFlo 3D, a screen that finally gets beyond QVGA with 640×480 resolution, a smaller, compact size, more capacious memory, a default browser that isn’t flat-out embarrassing, and a processor that able to keep up with it all. While all of these increases can fairly be called evolutionary instead of revolutionary, they do add up to a qualitative change.

 Articleimages 2008 11 Fuze Att-Fuze-13

Processor: Qualcomm MSM7201A, 528MHz. The MSM7201A has become the go-to processor for many of the latest Windows Mobile devices (especially those made by HTC). While there have been questions of “GPS Lag” with the chipset, overall it’s a very powerful and very snappy proc. I find that it has a decent good mix of power and battery life (especially on the Treo Pro), and the Fuze is no exception (more on the battery life below).

Memory: ROM: 512MB, RAM 288MB (corrected!).

I am tempted to say that the real reason for the occasional slowdown is the large amount of resources taken up by TouchFlo 3D. After a soft reset, running only SEVEN Beta in the backround, I get the following free memory:

  • Without TouchFlo 3D: Total 200.99, In use: 60.52, Free: 140.47
  • With TouchFlo 3D: Total 200.99, In use: 71.52, Free 129.45

In other words, although TouchFlo 3D takes up quite a lot of RAM, the fact that the Fuze has a large amount of RAM set aside for Program Memory really helps mitigate that.

Read more here.

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