Thumbs Up:

Stereo FM with RDS, smart dialing; 3.2-megapixel camera; revamped HTC Sense user interface; quad-band GSM/EDGE/GPRS support.

Thumbs Down:

No Adobe Flash support for Web browser; small size and low-resolution screen limiting the benefits of Sense UI and video playback; no voice dialing.

Inside the Trunk:

Technology: WCDMA/GSM
Band: quad band of WCDMA/GSM 850/900/1800/1900MHz
Phone Design: Candy Bar
Caller ID: Yes
Other Features: Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, 3.2-megapixel camera, 3.5mm audio jack, FM radio

The Whiz Kid Speaks:

HTC Tattoo is powered with 528MHz Qualcomm MSM7225 processor, 512MB ROM and 256MB RAM. It also has a micro-SD expansion slot that accepts up to 16GB cards.

2.8 inches touch-screen LCD display has QVGA resolution of 240×320 pixels. The smartphone has 3.2-megapixel camera. The connectivity options are 3.5mm audio jack, HTC ExtUSB connector, IEEE 802.11 b/g Wi-Fi, and Bluetooth EDR with AD2DP.

The additional highlights are FM radio, GPS with Digital Compass, G-sensor, Google Maps, Gmail, and Google Maps.

HTC Tattoo has a battery life of 390 minutes talk time in GSM and 342 minutes in WCDMA. The idle standby time is 520 hours in GSM and 340 hours in WCDMA. Accessories supplied inside the box are mini-USB cable, software disc, power adapter, 2GB memory card, wired headset, and user manual.

Razzle Dazzle:

HTC Tattoo is 4.17 inches tall, 2.17 inches wide and 0.55 inch deep and weighs 3.99 ounces with battery. It has solid construction and rounded edges give attractive look. In addition, you can buy separate pre-designed covers. The overall look and style of the smartphone will match the most of youngsters and its tattoo design gives a businesslike appearance.

Inside Dope:

HTC is making a try to redefine the smartphones with its new Android device – Tattoo. We think that it is one of the best smartphone in Android devices. According to the company, it is upgradeable to Android 2.1 OS. HTC Tattoo features revamped Sense UI, stereo FM with RDS, 3.5mm standard headset jack, micro-SD card slot, stereo Bluetooth, accelerometer, 3.15-megapixel camera, quad-band and 3G support. The Tattoo is unique package for the users who wants to express themselves with their smartphone. Being a first generation Android device, it inherits all the previous Android drawbacks. We do not like that you are getting a small touch-screen display with low resolution. Moreover, the Tattoo has resistive touch screen instead of capacitive one and HTC is not supplying any stylus inside the box. We hope that most of the youngsters will forgive about small screen size and low resolution after concentrating on overall design and style of HTC Tattoo.

2.8 inches touch screen display of HTC Tattoo has 240×320 pixels resolution. The display has inbuilt accelerometer to rotate the display on tilting the phone. However, the touch-screen is resistive instead of being capacitive. Therefore, the smartphone does not have multi-touch and ambient light sensor unlike HTC Hero. The Tattoo’s display has poor sunlight legibility that means – the screen is not readable in direct sunlight.

Navigation array is located underneath the display and consists of circular D-pad and six physical key. Top buttons are styled like that of rocker button. Home and Menu options are on the left button, whereas Back and Search options are on right button. Call key and End button sits beneath the above rocker-styled buttons. All the keys are well defined and slim in shape and solid to press. If you do not want to use the touch-screen to navigate around the menus and browser, then you can use D-pad to scroll horizontally and vertically.

The volume rocker sits on the left side of HTC Tattoo. 3.5mm headset jack and lanyard eyelet are located on the top. As there is no protective cover on the headset jack, so you have to remain it clean for easy usage. You will find mouthpiece and combined mini-USB port for charger/USB cable on the bottom. The camera lens and loudspeaker grill are on the back, whereas micro-SD card slot is located behind the battery cover.

Despite HTC Tattoo is running on Android 1.6, the improved Sense UI plays a major role to provide better user interface. However, the QVGA resolution does not help to take the benefit of revamped Sense UI. HTC has included some scenes including Social, Travel, and Work that has different widgets and wallpaper on the home-screen. You can rearrange the home screen and save changes to a new scene. Clean state scene is a default Android setup where you can create the scene from scratch. What’s more – you can switch between the scenes within seconds.

HTC Tattoo also provides two modes – business and personal that offers more customization options. The menu layout is available in two types – grid and list with thumbnail preview. The company has included the HTC widgets with Android standard widgets. For an instance, one Twitter widget will show updates and other will allow to tweet directly from the home screen. We appreciate HTC to include Favorites widget that keeps your favorite contacts inside a list to direct access.

The phonebook has different tabs for basic contact information, messages, emails, Facebook and call history. Moreover, the People application is also tabbed for easy usage. The messaging features of HTC Tattoo are SMS, MMS, email, and support for corporate Exchange ActiveSync support. Being Android device, it consists of Gmail, Google Talk, Google Search, and Google Maps. The basic feature set includes alarm clock, calendar, and other organizer applications.

Additional highlights are stereo FM radio with RDS, smart dialing, GPS with Digital Compass, G-sensor, Albums app, HTC Footprints, USB 2.0 compatibility, Wi-Fi, quad-band GSM, Bluetooth 2.0 EDR with A2DP support, document viewer, OfficeSuite Viewer, Web browser, and 3G support. You can also use the HTC Tattoo has USB 3G modem after connecting it with your computer. We are disappointed that the Web browser does not include Flash support. On the contrary, the browser is pretty fast with clean interface and features auto complete forms as well as password manager. The OfficeSuite Viewer supports the documents of Office 2007 as well as ZIP and PDF files.

3.2-megapixel camera of HTC Tattoo is fixed focus one, but does not have any flash. It features video recording, self time delay (2 and 10 seconds) and geo-tagging of photos. HTC Tattoo can record CIF videos at 15 frames per second (fps). There is a setting to select the format between 3GP (H.263) and MP4. The overall capture image quality is average. We received underexposed photographs with dark images. The recorded video quality was also average.

The video player of HTC Tattoo is similar to that of the Hero. It supports video formats of WMV 9, H.264, H.263, and MPEG4. The inbuilt music player also needs to be improved with video player. It features repeat/shuffle modes, on-the-fly play-lists, and album art. We are disappointed that contextual search inside music player to search in YouTube and Google is removed. The music player supports audio formats of WMA9, MIDI, WAV, AMR-NB, AAC-LC, AAC+, AAC, and MP3.

Albums application automatically locates already stored videos and images. However, it performs re-indexing each time when you open the application that consumes some time. It arranges all the items in a tree structure that creates sub-album inside an album. There are three buttons – Flickr, Facebook, and folder list located on the bottom of main album. You can launch camcorder or camera for capturing the images in all galleries of Album app except main Album and sharing them directly on Picasa, Peep, Messages, HTC Mail, Gmail, and Flickr. What’s more – you can capture images while browsing Facebook and upload directly. We do not like that you have to download a File Manager application to copy/paste images.

HTC Footprints app allows geo-tagging the images and saving them in different categories like dining, shopping, favorites, etc. with personal note. HTC Tattoo also has a YouTube application to playback the streamed videos. The Google Maps Navigation features digital compass, and Street View mode to provide 360-degree view of surroundings. For using the GPS outside USA, you can download SatNav application from the Android market.

We made few calls through HTC Tattoo for testing. The overall call quality was good. We received loud and clear volume at our end without any static. The callers also received good sound at their end. The speakerphone call quality was good on both ends. The music playback was excellent on both speakers and included headset. We played some video clips on the smartphone and did not get good quality benefit due to low-resolution screen.

1100mAH lithium ion battery has a life of 7.5 hours of talk time and 520 hours of idle standby time for GSM. Whereas, the battery life is 342 minutes talk time and 340 hours of standby time in WCDMA.

Nitty Gritty:

HTC Tattoo is a stylish phone that will attract youngsters and business users, but suffers with low resolution display and resistive touch-screen. It also does not feature pinch-to-zoom, ambient light sensor and multi-touch. If you need a smartphone with stylish design and do not mind above drawbacks, then you can buy – HTC Tattoo. However, we will recommend you to check other smartphones in its price range.

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