HTC STATUS
REVIEW
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Currently, there are over 750 million active users on Facebook and more than 250 million of those
users access Facebook from their mobile device. For you 250+ million users, HTC and AT&T have
just the phone for you, the HTC Status, a.k.a. "The Facebook Phone." In most ways, the Status is
just like any other Android phone, save for a rarely-used form factor. However, it's one tiny button
that makes this phone unique. That is, of course, the dedicated Facebook button. The Facebook
button allows you to quickly update your wall and post your location. It sounds like a gimmick, but
it's actually very handy. But you can't buy a phone simply because of one button. How does the rest
of the phone perform? Is this the smartphone to have if you are a Facebook user?
Design & Features
HTC veered a bit off the beaten path with the design of the Status. It features a 2.6-inch display
with a portrait-style QWERTY keyboard. The display has a resolution of 480x320. Text is
surprisingly clear with hardly any pixelation, and graphics look smooth. Interestingly, HTC also
added two buttons for Call and End - a very rare feature for Android phones. What else makes the
Status' design unique is that it's a short, stubby phone with an angled bottom half, the half with the
keyboard, which is supposed to make typing easier and more comfortable. Now, I don't know how
much this actually helped, but it certainly didn't hurt and it's not so angled that it makes the phone
look odd. The size and shape, however, may be a turn off for some people. Personally, I like it, but
not everyone will. The Status measures 4.5-inches tall, 2.5-inches wide, and .42-inches thick.
Most of the front panel is encased in the aluminum material we typically see on HTC phones. This
front aluminum panel connects to a small bar of aluminum that wraps around the back of the phone.
Other than that small bar, the rest of the back cover is plastic. This mixture of materials gives the
phone a solid feel, while not making you feel like you're holding an executive phone that most HTC
devices resemble. (This is a social-networking phone, after all.)
The microUSB port is on the left side of the phone along with the volume rocker buttons, and the
3.5mm headphone jack is placed on top of the phone, next to the Power/Screen Lock button. The
back battery cover is nearly impossible to get off, but once you manage to remove it, you'll find the
1250 mAh battery that ships with the phone and a microSD card slot with a 2GB card pre-installed.
The phone supports up to 32GB to supplement its 512 MB of internal memory. It's unfortunate that
you have to remove the battery cover and the battery to get to the microSD card slot since the
battery cover is so hard to get off, but it's not very often that you need to access the card anyway.
Usability & Performance
The Status ships with Android 2.3 and a modified version of Sense 2.1 for Messenger, at least that's
what the Settings info says. I'm assuming that 'Messenger' was HTC's name for the Status. This
modified version of Sense doesn't add a lot in terms of Facebook or social-networking features - the
Status ships with the same widgets that are available on any HTC smartphone - but the layout of the
homescreens as well as HTC's apps and widgets are modified to fit the small display. There is no
dock at the bottom of the homescreen. Instead, in order to conserve space, the main homescreen has
a shortcut in the left corner for the app drawer and a shortcut in the right corner for the
personalization menu. These shortcuts are in the main homescreen only, so if you are in one of your
other homescreens, you'll need to go back Home to access the app drawer. This is slightly
frustrating, but it's not too much of a pain. As mentioned, each HTC app has been customized for
the small display and its format. Whereas most HTC apps have a slider menu at the bottom of the
screen, the apps that ship with the Status have this slider on the right side of the screen. Due to this
and other customizations, using the Status is comfortable and intuitive. It doesn't look like Android
was just scrunched onto a small screen, but that it was really customized to work to its full potential
despite the small screen. As a bonus, the Status supports HTC Hub, which means you can download
extra skins, themes, widgets, and more. Not all HTC phones in the U.S. support this feature.
Of course, being the Facebook Phone, the Status' main feature is a small dedicated Facebook button
just below the physical keyboard. Pressing the button opens a window where you can quickly post
to your Wall or any one of Friends' Wall. In this window, you can also add photos or quickly take a
picture and add it to your post. Doing a long-press on the Facebook button opens a window where
you can post your location and add a description. These features may seem pointless to some, but to
heavy Facebook users, it's the greatest thing since sliced bread.
The keyboard on the HTC Status is absolutely fantastic. The island-style keys make typing quickly
no problem. The keys are plastic with no rubber texture to them at all, but they are designed with a
slight bubble shape. Along with the great design, there are dedicated keys for a period, comma, and
question mark - something you usually don't see on keyboards. Because of this, you can type even
faster because you don't have to hunt for the Function key, press it, go back to the punctuation key
you need, and then continue typing. HTC also included four navigational arrows in the bottom
right-hand corner of the keyboard. All in all, the keyboard is terrific for social-networking and
texting.
The Status is powered by a single-core 800 MHz Qualcomm processor and has 512MB of ROM
and RAM each. I had very few problems with the processor, probably because the display is so
small with so few pixels which means the processor has very little to actually process. Transitions,
scrolling, and app-loading was smooth with little to no lag. There were times when certain widgets
would take longer than a few seconds to load info, but that has more to do with syncing the data on
the widget and, therefore, the data network. I seemed to experience an exceptional amount of Force
Closes with the Status, a bug that affects every Android phone, though not usually this bad. It could
be the apps I was running or this could be isolated to my device only.
Pictures taken with the Status' 5-megapixel camera were mediocre and grainy. The camera does
feature a tap-to-focus feature which is convenient and can be used even when capturing video. Still,
poor camera quality is hard to ignore. Video captured with the device was worse, coming out rough
and choppy. Sound quality was bad and the microphone had a hard time picking up voices from a
few feet away. Thankfully the camera has autofocus and is equipped with a flash. The VGA front-
facing camera offers surprisingly good video quality considering the resolution. Quick movements
are clear and minor details show up well. Going back to the main purpose of this phone, I assume
that most buyers of the Status will use the picture and video capabilities for uploading to Facebook.
For this use, though the camera quality is somewhat poor, it should be adequate.
The 1250 mAh battery that ships with the phone offered pretty decent performance. On standby, but
with several widgets and notifications still running in the background, the battery lasted nearly four
days. With normal use consisting of web browsing, e-mail, text messaging, social networking, and
widgets and notifications running in the background, the Status got me through a full day. Battery
life will vary depending on your use, but it will probably be safe to charge the phone every night.
The Status uses AT&T's HSPA 3G network for data transfer. Download speeds were decent, but
inconsistent. Upload speeds were terrible. In speed test results, the Status got 1.5 Mbps a few times
for downloads; however, average speeds were 400-500 Kbps with lows of about 300 Kbps. Upload
speeds on the other hand averaged about 100 Kbps. Call quality with the Status was fairly good
while testing it in the Dallas metropolitan area. Callers could be heard clearly, though background
noise could also be heard. Still, voices were clear and easy to differentiate. Callers said that my
voice was clear as well.
Conclusion
The Status may be a mid-range Android smartphone, but in a lot of ways, it doesn't act like one.
HTC's customizations for the small display are excellent, the keyboard is one of the best I've used,
and the dedicated Facebook button is extremely easy and useful. There are still some downsides to
having a small display, but overall, the Status is an excellent phone for Facebook fans or even for
people who use other social networking sites or do a lot of texting, simply because of the great
keyboard and HTC's well-designed widgets. For the price, you'd be hard-pressed to find anything
better.
Wrap Up
What's Good: Excellent keyboard; Facebook button is very handy; customized version of HTC
Sense works very well on the small display; good build quality; decent battery life.
What's Bad: Inconsistent 3G data speeds; poor camera quality; some apps only work in portrait
mode, making it uncomfortable to use those apps.
The Verdict: For Facebook users or even people who text a lot and need a great keyboard as well as
a good phone for a low price, the HTC Status is perfect.
--||--
HTC Status Review
by Kristen Adrianne Stewart
Editor @GC-United States