HTC S730 Review - What\’s the Difference? Plenty Actually!

The combination of dual keypads and the Windows Mobile 6 OS made the S710 a great alternative to the typical smartphones on the market which the market seemed to agree with judging by its popularity.

With the release of the S730, HTC are clearly looking to build on the success created by the S710. Though first impressions gave me a suspicious feeling of deja-vu, in the case of the S730 appearances can be (and are) deceiving.

The most important aspect of the S710, the dual-keypad design is still present, though there have been some amendments to improve the usability. What is noticeable is the increase in weight, which has gone up from 120g in the S710 to 150g in the S730 and may be worth taking into consideration when balancing against the updated features.

Both of the keypads have undergone some modifications as well. The front keypad has been streamlined more to enable a re-positioning of the soft-keys and the QWERTY keypad has been straightened out for easier typing. Although these are only minor changes, they do seem to make a difference in usability when put into practise.

Although the S710 well-connected, the one thing that seemed to be missing was 3G connectivity, meaning that if you wanted to check e-mails on the move for example (a common requirement for smartphone users) you would either need to be near a wireless hotspot or use the somewhat sluggish GPRS connection. With the S730, this has been rectified with the addition of 3G HSDPA enabling download speeds of up to 3.6mbps as well as all of the previous forms of connectivity (like GPRS & Wi-Fi.)

The improvement that makes the biggest impact, however, is the upgraded processor, which has increased from 200 MHz in the S710, to 400 MHz in the S730 which improves (amongst other things) the screen-switch time when changing between the 2 keypads through the sliding motion. As this was a bit of a disappointment in the S710, it\'s good to see that this problem has been adequately fixed.

To complement the Windows Mobile 6 platform, the excellent HTC home page has now been added. This allows easy set-up of alarms, checking of missed calls/appointments etc and even lets you check the weather directly through this page, all of which can be tailored to your needs as required.

It would have been the cherry on the cake if these improvements had been continued all the way trhough to the camera as well, as the same basic 2MP camera module still remains, with no discernible difference in image-quality or speed. Although it\'s very basic and lacks flash or autofocus, it is adequate if this feature is rarely used or possibly as a back-up to a dedicated camera.

Overall, the HTC S730 is a great improvement over the already-impressive S710, as it has still kept everything that was great about its earlier incarnation and improved almost everything that could be improved. The subtly-enhanced keypads coupled with a much quicker processor and 3G capabilities mean that even those who currently own an S710 the S730 still warrants at least more than a passing glance when looking for the next mobile phone.

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