Quick Review: HTC Ozone Review

The HTC Ozone XV6175 is a smartphone from a mobile giant that has emerged as a market leader in the past few years. I was sceptical going into this one. I had just finished reviewing a Google Android phone and I was very impressed so my standards had been raised. However, HTC have pulled out all the stops when it comes to this phone. You can even get them on a contract for less than $50.

When I picked up the device for the first time I immediately liked it. It was light enough to hold in my hands all day and the ergonomics felt comfortable in my hand even after typing out quite a few long-winded e-mails. The phone is also really thin and has cool rounded corners. The case was also shiny and doesn’t feel cheap or tacky at all, which didn't surprise me considering that most HTC devices offer strong build factors.

Let’s talk about the phone and how ‘user friendly’ it is. The functionality could be better. For example It can take a while to get through the menus and using the D-Pad can be a bit annoying when you know full well it should have offered a touch screen. None the less, I overcame my little pet peeves about the phone and started to really love the device after using it for a few days. I believe it may just be laid out so differently than other HTC devices that I had to get used to how the phone functions.

The display is also really good and is excellent for viewing photos and videos. The menus look great on the high resolution screen and the colour saturation is fantastic. However, there is only a 2MP camera and considering many smartphones have moved onto 5MP cameras I was a little disappointed at this. The quality of the camera is also pretty lousy with overtones and undertones on my photos and almost no usability in low light situations. Typical HTC if you ask me.

The internet is very good on this phone. You can browse HTML pages just as you would on your computer and can either use 3G or your own Wi-Fi connection which connects easily to secured and unsecured networks. I loaded the MSN webpage which is long and has plenty of photos and adverts in less than five seconds which isn’t too bad for a phone like this.

In terms of audio there are two really cool features I liked. One is the ‘Audio Booster’ which will allow you to amp up the audio when using headphones. The other is the MP3 editor which will let you chop up songs and paste them together, either to make a cool ringtone, or just cut out the bits you don’t like! For storing all those songs you can use the large memory cards (up to 32MB) that fit snugly under the battery, although I think it would have been better to have it pop out at the side for easier access.

The phone uses Windows Mobile 6.1. You can either choose from the HTC menu or the classic Windows one. I suggest using the Windows menu as it is what the phone was built for and it is way better than the HTC menu.

The HTC Ozone has endless possibilities in terms of apps and features (like the interchangeable charger extensions to work in any country) or the massive amounts of downloadables for the phone. It’s a very good phone overall. Although it may not be for the extreme power user it will suit most business people and average users quite well.