Verizon XV6900 Review

Posted 5/16/2008 at 12:36 AM By GamingShogun

The Good:Above average practical and business use with a beautiful form factor.
The Bad:Windows Mobile 6 clunkiness and no GPS.

Summary: The Verizon XV6900 is worth seriously taking a look at for its PDA functionality and sleep curves. The lack of a GPS is disappointing however.

Full Review:
HTC has long been a manufacturer of some of the most advanced smart phones ever created. Verizon recently adapted the HTC Touch for their network and created the XV6900. While the name 'XV6900' doesn't roll of one's tongue as well as 'Touch' might, Verizon's new cell phone is definitely a step in the right direction as far as PDA/smartphones go. First thing to mention is that the XV6900 is a beautiful phone. From its crisp splash screen, simple curves, and classy white shell, one would not guess at the business powerhouse lying in wait underneath.

XV6900 Advertised Features:

• Built-in speakerphone
• Bluetooth® v. 2.0 with support for stereo, hands-free, and headset profiles
• microSD™ memory card slot with support up to 8 GB
• 2.0 megapixel camera with video capture
• 256 MB ROM / 128 MB RAM
• 2.8” TFT-LCD touch-screen with LED backlight
• 3.98” (l) x 2.35” (w) x 0.56” (d)
• Support for Office Outlook Mobile and Microsoft Exchange® with Direct Push

The Screen:
The XV6900 features a white outer shell and nicely sized 2.8' TFT-LCD touch-screen with LED backlighting. Being only 2.8 inches, one would think it is not capable of displaying alot of information. However, the screen does a very nice job of giving the user pertinent info as needed. The only time we felt slighted was in viewing some larger web pages which do not adequately fit on the screen. Some of this issue is, of course, how the OS decides to utilize the screen but we will get to that later. The screen is capable of excellent detail, as the on board version of Windows Media Player Mobile showed us, however, the touch features on could use some tweaking. The screen seemed to need a little more pressure to react than I would prefer putting such an expensive screen in good conscience. This issue is really most apparent in 'dragging motions' in which you end up not pressing down hard enough. The screen just stops responding as it cannot read your pressure anymore.

TouchFLO:
HTC's TouchFLO touch-based navigation system is nicely thought out, looking at the UI as one side of a cube. Using your thumb, you can 'flick' the cube from the bottom and move it into TouchFLO mode and then swipe from right or left to rotate the cube. A quick flick from the top down will reset the XV6900 to the Windows Mobile 6 'side' of the cube.

The Camera:
The 2.0MP digital camera on the XV6900 delivers clear photographs in brightly-lit conditions, however it does have some issues when in low light. In general, its photo's come out nicely. Also, the video capture mode is very handy and while they are of a small resolution, they are adequate for quick video capture.

Windows Mobile 6 Integration:
Microsoft's Windows Mobile 6 has been the subject of both criticism and praise recently. While not the most graceful OS ever created, what it lacks in finesse it makes up for in functionality. With Office Mobile included, this phone is ideal for the business person on-the-go. Being able to access the full Office suite of programs makes this device allows this device to be a great alternative to a Blackberry. I was getting word docs through Outlook Mobile, editing them, and sending them back on their journey with relative ease. My big issues with Windows Mobile 6 on the device is that everything is designed around using a stylus. Even though the Touch was set out from day one as a touch screen-enabled model, Microsoft has been ill-prepared in refining their mobile OS to meet that need. The basic Windows controls are all very small and mis-clicks can occur unless you use the included stylus. However, one cannot really blame HTC or Verizon for this issue as they cannot recode the Windows Mobile OS - they just have to interface with it.

Practical Usage:
Using the XV6900 on a day to day basis over the last couple weeks has proved to be a very positive experience. I found it effortless to collect news each morning with my coffee while I surfed the web. Scanning the very pretty splash screen that displays the time and weather for the city you select is incredibly handy while rushing out the door. I love not being tied to the morning television weather report before leaving. Windows Media Player Mobile 10 will allow you to view AAC, MP3, WAV, WMA, MPEG-4, and WMV movie and audio files, storing them in the 140MB of disk space set aside for user storage. Verizon has done right in keeping the MicroSD expansion slot though, as that will support up to an 8GB card, seriously increasing storage capacity.

Additionally, Verizon's EV-DO data network is very speedy and the phone updates the time and weather very quickly. Even the mobile version of Google Maps (which we installed third-party) ran smoothly and proved to be a godsend in practical travel without a conventional GPS unit. There is actually a GPS ship integrated into the unit, however Verizon has disabled it. This is definitely a negative for the phone as having that added functionality so that it can be used by map software such as the aforementioned Google Maps application would drive up the usefulness of the model so much we would forget about many of its shortcomings. Another good feature that would have been useful on this model is the ability to connect to networks over 802.11 wireless, but I digress.

One thing we were looking forward to that did not pan out as we had hoped was the touch keyboard on the XV6900. The holy grail in touch-based keyboard functionality has been the one on Apple's iPhone and, unfortunately, the XV6900 still cant compete with it. The XV6900's touch keyboard consists of key area with multiple letters on each virtual button. This is not the most efficient way of doing a touch-based virtual keyboard and was actually slower for us than using the embedded stylus and standard Windows Mobile keyboard.

Given the thin size of the XV6900, I found the phone easy to carry around, although I was concerned about breaking it somehow. It is very light as well, which adds to my paranoia. I am one of those people who carries around a very large, heavy phone normally so in case I drop it, I know it wont break. The XV6900 seemed to hold up well enough and the best part is that I didn't drop it once.

The battery held up very well giving me a couple days of charge with light usage. Charging the battery is easily done via a USB splitter cable (with a 2.5mm headset port) or via the included AC adapter wall charger.

Conclusion:
Even with the lack of GPS or 802.11 support, the XV6900 is an excellent choice for the business person on-the-go or student needing to organize their hectic world. It provides solid PDA performance via the stylus and Windows Mobile 6, while also giving enough finesse to satisfy with its TouchFLO user interface and crisp screen.