HTC S710 - smartphone with slide-out QWERTY keyboard reviewed
After 3.5 years of usage my old Sony Ericsson T610 phone suddenly started malfunctioning and I needed a new phone. I browsed online through some of Sony Ericsson’s, Nokia’s and Samsung’s offerings but I couldn’t really find a phone that fit my needs. But then I checked out some of HTC’s phones and found the HTC S710. This Windows Mobile 6 based phone had lots of interesting features, including a 2 megapixel digital camera, a slideout QWERTY keyboard and WiFi support. The size of the S710 also pleased me, its candybar shaped design is barely bigger than my old phone. Not bad for a feature-packed Windows Mobile phone.
I read a couple of reviews and most of them were pretty positive so I decided to order this phone from a webshop. The only thing I didn’t really like is the limited storage capacity of the phone so I decided to order a 2GB SanDisk microSD memory card together with this phone. Two days later UPS delivered it at my doorstep.
The S710 is made by a Taiwanese company called High Tech Computer (HTC). They were found in 1997 as an Original Design Manufacturer (ODM). This means they manufactured products to sell them to other companies who rebadged the product and launched it on the market as their own. Today HTC has a broad range of own-branded products but they still sell their phones to phone operators and OEM partners. You can buy the HTC S710 (codenamed HTC Vox) in a store or you can also buy the Orange SPV E650, Vodafone VDA V, Vodafone V1415 or DOPOD C500 which are the rebranded versions of the S710 phone.
Conclusion
The HTC S710 is an impressive phone. This Windows Mobile 6 based smartphone packs a lot of features in a relatively small candybar-shaped design. The S710 has a very large and good LCD display, WiFi support, a spring-loaded QWERTY keyboard, a 2 megapixel digital camera, lots of multimedia capabilities, microSD memory support and lots of other features.
This is my first experience with a Windows Mobile phone and overall I’m very pleased. The phone has lots of capabilities but it still feels pretty “phone-ish”. Before I got this phone I feared a bit that Windows Mobile would put the phone features (calling, texting, …) a bit on the background but this wasn’t the case. In my opinion the biggest downsides of the HTC S710 “Vox” are the sometimes slow performance and the low battery life.
Without a contract the HTC S710 can be bought for about 400EUR. This isn’t really cheap for a phone but it’s still pretty affordable for a feature-packed Windows Mobile 6 smartphone.
The Good Stuff
- Big, bright and easy to read LCD display
- Lots of features
- WiFi support
- Looks good
- Compact size for a Windows Mobile phone
- Slide-out QWERTY keyboard as well as a normal keypad
- microSD card can be swapped without removing the battery first.
The Bad Stuff
- Short battery life
- Sometimes a bit slow
- Digital camera quality isn’t great, but good enough to take some photos on-the-go.
- Camera lens isn’t protected
- No 3G support
- The phone is quite heavy (140g), but to be honest this wasn’t really a problem for me.
I give the HTC S710 phone a 8.5/10 and our Editor’s Choice award.