T-Mobile MyTouch 4G Slide Review - Photographers Wanted
by Vivek Gowri on August 12, 2011 8:45 PM EST- Posted in
- Smartphones
- Snapdragon
- HTC
- 4G
- Mobile
- T-Mobile
- MyTouch
- Slide
The software design, like the industrial design, is one of the most infuriating things about the Slide, not because it’s bad, but because it’s impossible to use it without thinking how it could have been better if there had been less design involved. The implementation of Sense in the MyTouch devices doesn’t actually add too much in the way of functionality, and it serves to slow down the system a fair amount. It doesn’t come across in benchmarks, but it feels sluggish. The asynchronous core clocking and performance-state stepping of dual-core Snapdragon plays a role compared to the dual-core Cortex A9-based SoCs, but the skin definitely isn’t helping. This is true for the Sensation too, which is why I prefer the G2x (as long as it isn’t crashing), but Sense 3.0 at least adds some significant functionality and value there that just isn’t there in the MyTouch.
And that’s really my takeaway from this device. It’s not a bad phone by any means - it’s powerful, it’s got a long list of features, a great hardware keyboard, and quite possibly the best camera on an Android smartphone at present. But it’s not a very enjoyable device to use - there’s a lot you have put up with, like the somewhat overdone hardware design or rather the intrusive UI skin. Maybe I notice these things more acutely, because I deal with so many different phones on a week-to-week basis, but it’s the same kind of thing that bugged me about the MyTouch line in the past as well.
The MyTouch 4G Slide could have been something like the GSM answer to the Motorola Droid, the same way the G2 was, but it ends up being something much less polished. It probably should have been closer to a landscape slider variant of the Sensation. There was a lot of potential here to create a more competent phone, starting with the industrial design. The thickness was probably inevitable, given the necessary camera hardware, but it didn’t need to feel so bulky. And there’s not much of an excuse to have such a competent imaging device hamstrung with such a mediocre display, especially not when the size of the device would have easily allowed for it.
But ultimately, I’m not sure that any of these complaints actually affect the Slide’s target market. For anyone on T-Mobile that’s looking for a high-end phone with a hardware keyboard, this is literally the only option. And for those people, the Slide is great, a powerful and well-built smartphone with a great camera and a long list of features. If you don’t need the keyboard, you might as well get the Sensation, which has the same hardware and a more complete version of the same software to go with the higher quality design and larger qHD display.
The only other reason I can see to get the Slide is if having the best possible cameraphone is important to you, for whatever reason (and you don’t want to deal with Symbian - sorry, Nokia.) It’s seriously one of the best smartphone cameras out there, but I’d like to see a shooter of this quality on a device like the Sensation - the Slide occupies a much smaller niche in the market due to the added bulk of the slider.
The Slide’s only true competition across any of the carriers comes in the form of the Droid 3, at least until the follow-up to the Samsung Epic 4G arrives at Sprint later this year. But the Slide isn’t one of those headline, flagship devices for a carrier the way the Droid 3 and Droid Bionic are for Verizon, the EVO 3D is for Sprint, and the Sensation is for T-Mobile. Those are all phones that are either pushing technological boundaries (Droid Bionic and EVO 3D) or phones that are just so thoroughly competent (Droid 3 and Sensation), probably some of the most well-rounded devices on the market. The Slide could have easily been in the latter category, but some of the more head-scratching decisions in hardware and software design mean it ultimately comes well short of delivering on that promise.
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Impulses - Friday, August 12, 2011 - link
" Anand is going to do a deep dive into the dual-core Snapdragon microarchitecture in our forthcoming EVO 3D review. "Been hoping it'll come out already for a while! Any ETA? Also, can you share some specifics about how the battery tests are run? I'm not doubting the results, I'd just like to do my own testing here, my EVO 3D (which I'm still unsure if I'll keep) doesn't seem to be in the same league as the Sensation despite nearly phenyl identical internals.
Impulses - Friday, August 12, 2011 - link
Great review btw, as always from AT... You guys go into way more detail than anyone else out there, it's really appreciated. I think the software side could use even more depth tho, ultimately people will customize phones and install their own apps, launchers etc but if you're gonna harp on manufacturer skins for what they get wrong, you should also highlight some of the value that some of them do add, beyond the obvious (lockscreen, camera interface, etc.).Take the print feature for instance, I dunno if the MT4G has it but the Sensation and EVO 3D sure do, and it's really really handy... True Wifi printing that works without a computer or a cloud service and seems to work even with older printers (at least it worked with my 5+ year old HP AIO).
Or how about the ringer settings for pocket mode, speaker on flip, and quiet on pickup? How about the power saver mode? Sense's FB contact integration tho done in a less-than-elegant manner (adds a tag to your Gmail contact notes) at a technical level still works better at a user level than FB's own app imo. The calendar is a vast improvement over past versions of Sense, tho I guess that's not saying much since they had really butchered it.
My biggest beef with Sense, besides the launcher (easily remedied) continues to be the browser. Generally it works pretty well, I like the big previews of open windows and bookmarks, the couple extra settings HTC tucks in, and the full screen mode... But why do they continue to limit you to four open tabs/windows at a time?! It's maddening, to an extent it keeps me from leaving stuff I intend to read/do open in the browser forever, but AFAIK everyone else is doing 8 no? 16 on tablets?
FrederickL - Saturday, August 13, 2011 - link
"But why do they continue to limit you to four open tabs/windows at a time?! "
I cannot of course say for certain but might it not be that the average smartphone even high-end still has a relatively limited amount of RAM (max currently AFAIK is 1Gb) and they are concerned about the browser crashing?
Impulses - Saturday, August 13, 2011 - link
Crashing or getting cached out of memory? I rarely see my stock browser crash on Gingerbread, I don't think it happens more than once a month... I used to see it get closed and tossed out of memory a lot on my EVO 4G whenever I switched to other apps (games, gmail oddly enough, or a combination of various apps would often do the trick). On the EVO 3D it seems to rarely happen thanks to the extra memory, which is really nice.I haven't taken notice of how much memory each tab may consume while open, but the browser as a whole usually hovers at around 100MB; higher than most other daily use apps but low enough that it still leaves 100-200MB free (while also having another dozen apps loaded I'm memory, totaling about 150MB). It seems the OS itself and Sense + the stock widgets consumes a beefy 400MB...
I've avoided customizing it too much while I make up my mind about it, freezing the Sense launcher and using ADW with some lighter widgets would probably free up a decent chunk of that 400 MB.
FrederickL - Saturday, August 13, 2011 - link
Yep, I suspect you are right as far as the amount of RAM being used by Sense in Gingerbread is concerned (although I have not had any big issues with my updated Desire Z). Certainly the less than stellar offering from HTC to its original Desire customers of a crippled Gingerbread/Sense upgrade, "install at your own risk", would seem to confirm my suspicions that the producers are (all of them) currently putting the absolute minimum RAM in most of their phones that they think that they can get away with at the time. Until there is a bit more customer pressure over the issue I do not see the tactic changing any time soon. The current attitude of the producers appears to be "if you want more than one upgrade, buy another phone". Given that the price of a modern high end smartphone lies in the range 650 - 800 dollars (unlocked), I find that attitude pretty contemptible. The only reason they can get away with it IMHO is that the US market is the leading market world wide and most in the US buy on a "plan" from the carriers. If a significant proportion of the customers in the US bought unlocked then the producers would probably be experiencing a much more negative attitude from their customers than they currently get.
Impulses - Saturday, August 13, 2011 - link
Problem is there is no incentive to buy unlocked, plans cost the same on all carriers regardless of whether you got a subsidized phone or not. T-mobile's the only exception to that and a) the discount is only like $10 b) it looks like they'll soon be part of AT&T.Nevermind that buying unlocked isn't even an option for customers withe two other major carriers (Version and Sprint), since they use CDMA.
FrederickL - Saturday, August 13, 2011 - link
Indeed, I see your point. That then raises the question of what is going on here with regard to prising. How is it, that there is no "bonus" in regard to plan costs if you buy unlocked? There is something very wrong and illogical with a "market" where that could possibly be the case. It is very strange that a deal that involves signing up for a "plan" which in *addition* provides you with a phone should (apparently) cost you the same as if you bought unlocked and *then* bought your plan. A market where such a phenomenon is possible ought to be the subject of *very* close investigation by the federal competition authorities. There is something that smells here and it is not pleasant.
andrewbuchanan - Sunday, August 14, 2011 - link
Yeah. I am pretty upset with the attitude that one or two upgrades is all you get. But I'm also upset that htc cuts corners.I had an htc dream with android 1.5, it never got any upgrades. Even though the dream got 1.6 on other carriers... The phone had very little internal flash which didn't leave much room for upgrades.
I have an htc desire, which is a nice phone, but they cheaped out on flash so it doesn't have room for htc's version of android 2.3 (the desire z, desire hd, got it because they came out slightly later and have more internal flash).
Anyways, if I had known they would stop supporting the phones after 6 months, I wouldn't have bought them. Carriers push 3 year contracts, but then the phones are only supported for 6 months. I'm sure a motivated individual could sue. And hopefully somebody does.
I'm not much of an apple lover, but they support their stuff for at least 3 years. And the microsoft ones seem to be as well.
Impulses - Saturday, August 13, 2011 - link
It'd be interesting to get those kinda memory usage stats in reviews, it'd probably explain some of the performance drags that manufacturer customizations often incur.FrederickL - Saturday, August 13, 2011 - link
Agreed, that would be most useful information.