Verizon Touch Pro unboxing and first impressions

By on Nov 26, 2008 at 8:03 AM
General November 26, 2008

verizon touch pro

Today the HTC Touch from Verizon is making its way into the hands of the people. Surprise, surprise, one arrived on our doorstep as well and we did a quick unboxing for you! The Verizon Touch Pro differs a bit from its Sprint, Alltel and AT&T cousins. The Verizon version has a different keyboard layout that features a top row of numbers and directional arrows whose location breaks up the letters on the keyboard. The up arrow falls right in between the “n” and the “m” key. No, seriously. This does make it a little difficult to type at first but we found that we got used to it rather quickly. The Verizon Touch Pro also has a flat back cover instead of the faceted diamond style cover that is seen in the Fuze. Unfortunately, our concerns about the Touch Pro being crippled have been confirmed. The device does ship with only 192MB RAM which gets eaten up pretty quickly. The OS takes up 78.71MB, other startup programs and TouchFlo 3D takes up another 67.68MB, leaving you with a mere 45.60MB left for your own applications! Yes, we know that it is more RAM than is found on the xv6800 but still 192MB instead of 288MB is a bit disappointing.

The other disappointing, but not surprising, revelation is that the GPS appears to be locked down to VZ Navigator. We installed Google Maps and it just searched and searched for a GPS satellite connection. It finally gave up and told us that “Your GPS receiver is having trouble tracking GPS satellites”. No worries, though, as the folks over at XDA developers are probably already hard at work trying to unlock the GPS for us. The one good piece of news is that phone includes both an accelerometer (rumored to have been absent) and Wi-Fi. Overall, the device is still an improvement over the xv6800 but with its dumbed down specs, you cant help but focus on what you are missing and overlook all the good things you have. It is like eating cake without the frosting. It still tastes good but you know it could have been so much better. Definitely check out our unboxing gallery, but not before you hit the jump for some screenshots showing the Device Information and the GPS failure.

Click on over to our Verizon Wireless HTC Touch Pro unboxing gallery!

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21 Comments

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  • http://bgr tblack

    sprint for life verizon goning down

  • GMoney_21

    Wait!……Why didnt VZW tell HTC to gets rid of the wifi?

  • Striggity

    Pardon my ignorance…but does this phone require (or…recommend, rather) the use of a stylus? or is it’s touch more along the lines of a Storm/iPhone? Cuz I hate styluses.

  • Bob

    I thought the keyboard was bad, but the back is fucking UGLY.

  • Dataman

    Sprint’s version of the Touch is way more superior than Verizon.
    SPRINT ROCKS!!!!!!!!!!!

  • Dtest54

    man, i still cannot get over how crappy looking WM looks compared to BB & Apple OSs.

  • http://www.k5live.com Likeabite

    Verizon is just ignorant for dumbing down this phone. Not only did they dumb it down but it also costs more than on other carriers. Makes absolutely no sense, especially considering the fact that they just released the Storm, the OMNIA and the Saga. Who are they planning on selling this piece of shit to? I was excited about this one too.

  • GoBrowns

    I’m upgrading from a Q and am curious how much I really need to worry about the RAM on the TouchPro. On the Q you constantly have to open task manager and kill running programs. Is this something that I will have to get used to on the TouchPro or the Omnia? Also will it have enough ram to run programs like slingplayer? Is anyone really going to notice?

  • Verizon Guy

    Standalone GPS support will be featured in an upcoming maintenance release; i.e. this will support standalone and aGPS just like the Storm.

  • Christopher Cox

    Why are we surprised by this? Verizon has ALWAYS gimped their smartphones and charged the same or more than everyone else. I was actually surprised when they said there WOULD be WIFI.

  • vaxick

    Bloody fuck. I was planning on getting that phone despite it having less RAM, but I didn’t expect it out of the box to use that much of it even without TouchFlo 3D turned on.

  • Orga

    There’s a thread on PPCGeeks that’ll show you how to use Sprint’s Touch Pro on Verizon’s network. The cool kids call that “the best of both worlds”.

    Also, tblack… you might want to make sure your carrier of choice isn’t actively hemorraghing customers before talking about one of the 800 pound gorillas going down.

    Then again… we both kinda sound stupid for arguing over which corporation, completely indifferent to our existence if we’re not giving them our money, is superior. So let’s agree to stop for the good of the internet.

  • Bdizzah

    @Orga
    looked for that thread and couldn’t find it. Did you see it today, or do i have to dig through to find it. if thats the case, i will be purchasing the sprint version of the hand set. problem solved!

  • http://www.k5live.com Likeabite

    @Bdizzah All you had to do was google it…here you go

    http://forum.ppcgeeks.com/showthread.php?t=44663

  • Bdizzah

    ^
    Thanks. I’m in the office tryng to get everything set before the holiday weekend and have to keep flipping back this def saves me some time.
    THX!
    although after a little research the Sprint model is a bit more expensive @ the retail price. i am wondering if its worth it for the extra RAM and usable GPS….i think it might be…

  • Tom Miller

    Boy am I glad I left VZW for the Sprint version of this phone. I was a VZW customer for 16+ years, and recently left to go to Sprint for the Touch Pro. I got tired of VZW’s crap that they lock down, eliminate, neuter, and nickel and dime you to death! For now, I am a very happy Sprint customer!

  • DebunkTheMyths

    I am finally leaving Sprint.

    I have gone through no less than 10 moguls, (8 refurbs and two news), one Treo 800 and now the service in my area is so poor it makes me wonder if they are cutting back on ground resources like towers.

    Whiel I was on the phone with Sprint, they tried calling it…they verified the complete lack of signal.

    I got the Storm and it is not out of beta yet, but has been released to the public in a less than ideal condition.

    This was a stupid move on RIM/Verizon’s part.

    I will have the new HTC Verizon version and the only thing I can say, at least I can get a signal now.

    I would rather have a semi stupid phone than an uncrippled one that has no network. What good is that?

  • ironi

    in case anyone is still wondering if the verizon touch pro is worth the buy, i bought one a week ago and it’s going back as soon as my new sprint touch pro comes in the mail. i’m going with the best of both worlds option and putting the sprint version on the verizon network. the verizon touch pro is like a tease. it looks like a real pro, it seems to be a real pro, until you try to do stuff on it. out of the box and unoptimized, it runs like crap. after 5 days worth of tweaking (and also turning off the phone dialer skin because it eats 10 extra megs of ram) it runs passably but very reminiscently of an htc diamond. laggy and constantly low on memory.

  • Sprint Guy

    DebunkTheMyths: You ditched Sprint for Verizon so you could get better service??? You do know that Sprint roams on Verizon and all of their plans include free roaming (even data roaming) right?

    Either you had roaming turned off, or there was a very weak Sprint signal causing it to change back and fourth. Worst case, you tell the phone to use roaming only, and BAM! …same exact service as VZW, on Sprint.

  • GothamCityGuy

    Set task manager to close when you click X and you will have nothing to worry about. Also, these morons on the site dont know that the chipset in teh VZW model is different from the Sprint model and it is more efficient ie you can do more with less on this.

  • chris

    Will sprints version be fully functional on verizon’s network? are you able to access vz applications on it? are they allowing it on the network? thanks, chris

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