First impressions: T-Mobile's myTouch 3G smart phone

The new T-Mobile myTouch 3G smart phone, the second phone to use Google’s Android operating system, is promising in some ways. Yet my demo of the phone at press preview yesterday also revealed some drawbacks – some of them possible pre-release flaws that its manufacturer, HTC, is still troubleshooting.

Available in early August, and priced at $200 with a 2-year contract, the myTouch is noticeably smaller and lighter than its predecessor, the T-Mobile G1 – which will continue to be available from T-Mobile and is recommended in our Ratings, available to subscribers.

Here are my first impressions, based on the demo:

Display. The myTouch's 3.2-in. touchscreen display (the same size as the one on the G1) seemed reasonably bright during the demo, if less sharp and bright that that of the best displays we’ve tested, like the iPhone's. It also seemed less responsive than best touchscreens. Widgets, icons and other elements sometimes "snagged" when I tried to drag them across the screen. This may be a pre-release glitch.

Interface. As with most smart phones, you can customize myTouch's menus, wallpapers, icons to suit your needs. And, as with the Palm Pre and phones that use the Windows Mobile OS, the myTouch lets you run multiple applications simultaneously. But jumping from one app to another, or shutting one down, is not as easy as on the Palm Pre. Where the Pre allows you to shuffle between apps, using card-like screen icons, the myTouch requires several key presses to change applications, or to shut them down.

Keyboard. Where the G1 had a slide-out QWERTY keyboard, the myTouch has a virtual keyboard. It seemed to work well, and when expanded to landscape mode, by tilting the phone, it displayed keys that could easily accommodate my chubby fingers. However, I found the keyboard didn't always expand when tilted, which may also be a pre-release bug. The keyboard has vibration feedback and sound effects to simulate the feedback of a real keyboard, which are always welcome enhancements. Surprisingly, the default setting for both features is "off."

The myTouch’s predictive-text feature shows you several possible word choices at the bottom of the screen as you type. On the iPhone and other phones with predictive text, you only get one word suggestion—and it's often not the one you want. You can also teach the phone to recognize uncommon nouns, such "Pappageorgios."

Searching. You can search the Web by just speaking out terms. Such searches consider your GPS location, to help find local restaurants and other merchants. There’s also a Sherpa shopping tool, with a search engine "learns" its user's likes and dislikes when recommending retailers, restaurants, and other attractions; you rate these by clicking a "thumbs up" or "thumbs down" icon. But you can't perform universal searches for contacts, applications and other items, as you can on the iPhones and Palm Pre.

Warranty. Few phones have a standard warranty that’s longer than a year, but the myTouch offers two years of standard coverage, which is a nice, er, touch.

I'll have more details on the myTouch and the Android operating system – which has been upgraded -- when we get it in our labs later this month.—Mike Gikas

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[michael zhang]

t-mobile mytouch phone design fault: Gmail account cannot be protected by password!