Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #37366 in Consumer Electronics
• Brand: HTC
• Model: TyTN II
• Released on: 2007-10-17
• Dimensions: .70" h x 2.30" w x 4.40" l, .42 pounds

Manufacturer's Description
More powerful than any mobile communications device you've seen before, the HTC TyTN II takes global connectivity to the next level.

Staying connected means staying ahead. The TyTN II supports the full spectrum of network standards, guaranteeing that you will stay in touch ANYWHERE in the world. With an internet connection via 3.5G HSDPA that is nine times faster than 3G, using the TyTN II to download files and surf the Web is a breeze.

Communicating on the go is easier than ever with an innovative, ergonomic LCD design that positions the touch screen perfectly for reading and creating e-mails, using applications, or even just playing games.

Important information is just a glance away with HTC Home™, which displays a big clock and provides live weather updates, access to a quick application launcher and one touch ring settings, easy photo dialing, and more.

With a complete suite of Microsoft® Office Mobile applications, including Outlook® Mobile, Word Mobile, Excel® Mobile, and PowerPoint® Mobile, being out of the office doesn't have to mean you're out of the loop. Always ready for business - and pleasure - the HTC TyTN II makes sure you are too.

Customer Reviews

Beats All Expectations So Far...But Let Down by WM6 operating system
It is hard to believe but it's almost another year since my last review of the N95. As I was on a 12 month contract, it was time for another upgrade and the HTC TyTn 2 was the natural choice.

After reading all the reviews here, I have to admit I was ready to send it back if it was true. However, it would seem to me that all the reviews reporting a "slow" video performance and handset performance must have somehow gotten a dodgy set.

I have been using a Fujitsu Siemens Loox C550 PDA with a top of the line Intel PXA270 520MHz processor for about two years now and the TyTn2 is at least twice as fast in terms of speed, responsiveness and screen refresh. There is no delay whatsoever in navigating between the menus or running programs despite only having a QUALCOMM 400 MHz processor on board.

Excellent built quality. The screen is beautiful, better looking than the N95 and C550. Colours vivid, text crisp and sharp. QWERTY keyboard is precise with high quality keys.

The carrying pouch included is very well made and stylish. Another small impressive detail is the inclusion of one screen protector and a spare stylus.

I am looking forward to testing the camera, GPS, Bluetooth v2.0, WiFi b/g, GSM, GPRS, HSDPA(also known as 3.5G), EDGE, 3G(also known as UMTS), TouchFlo, web browsing and Windows Mobile 6.

One thing for sure, if it's speed and responsiveness you want, you won't be disappointed.

I suspect that my N95 and Loox C550 will now be ready for an early retirement.

Update 13th April 2008:

The Windows Mobile 6 operating platform cannot compare to the Symbian S60 3rd edition on the N95 in terms of user-friendliness and speed.

Using the "Contacts" menu on the TyTn2 to organise phone numbers is a nightmare. You can only delete each contact manually, one by one, for example.

Windows Mobile is too clunky, unpredictable and unresponsive to be the OS
for a Smartphone. There is also NO fully-featured TouchFlo, which is a disappointment. However, you can still use your finger to scroll up and down. It would have been better to separate the two, and let HTC use TouchFlo exclusively for the phone user-interface.

Also, unlike the N95 and Symbian S60, you cannot disable the mobile network GPRS data connections.

This means that even if you have a home WiFi network, the phone may arbitrary connect to the mobile network for Internet data even if you are connected via WiFi on the TyTn2.

Watch out for this as you surf the net with the TyTn2 or you may end up with an unexpected huge phone bill at the end of each month.

Unfortunately, I cannot change my rating but it would have been only 4 stars due to the disappointing operating system, Windows Mobile 6, the lack of a full-fledged TouchFlo user interface and the lack of user control over your own data network configurations.

The ideal handset it would seem to be a N95-like set running on Symbian with at least a 2.8" touch-screen.

I look forward to the N96 from Nokia. This will be the first and last Windows Mobile Smartphone for me. HTC would do much better just using their own TouchFlo user-interface on their own phones.

Updated 30th April:

Have been using Navigon Mobile Navigator 5.2.6 with the in-built GPS. I don't know what chipset the TYTN2 GPS receiver uses but it is fantastic. Outperforms the Sirf-Star 3 chipset on my N100. Leaving the phone on the passenger car seat and it still manages a stable lock on to 6 satellites throughout a journey through the city centre. The Navigator software runs smoothly. No problems with processing power here.

More drawbacks, 13th May 2008:

Much to my dismay, fatal sync-errors between Windows Mobile 6 Professional with ActiveSync 4.5 and Windows XP Professional Service Pack 2 or 3 still occurs. The more mature the Windows OS, the more unreliable it becomes. Similar issues exist even if you use Vista, as can be seen on the support forums.

To rub salt into the wound, HTC branded phones bought from Orange cannot be registered on the HTC e-Club, hence not eligible for the current Windows Mobile 6.1 upgrade download.

Finally, if you need to use your phone in bright sun-light regularly, don't activate the pin phone-lock code. The default screen brightness before unlock is so dim that the screen is invisible. No way to tell what code you are typing or touching. There is no way to change this default brightness setting.

It is plain to see that the Windows Mobile 6 "Professional" OS has not been tested for actual usability in the field. HTC has clearly made a customer-losing partnership. They definitely should have stuck to their own TouchFlo user-interface. What a shame.

Needs Work!
This phone is very good in some aspects but then lets itself down badly in others. As with all Windows driven items it benefits from being re-started occasionally - something most people don't do with their phone.
Choosing it for the right reasons seems to be critical if this phone is to please you. I wanted a quad band phone that would synchronise well with my email server and act as a temporary laptop when I am abroad to save me carrying all that weight. To that extent it would strike five stars, though it it not yet synchronising my calendar dates effectively. Difficulty is that I'm not sure if it is the phone or my email server host set up - the latter is blaming the former though I am less confident!
The file management system on the handset seems almost impossible to work properly - only plugging it into a pc allows you to move files - though me doing that with some Tom Tom files recently stopped it working as it blocked paths!
The camera is of little real value so don't chose it for that reason. The video quality is ok but not great so again look elsewhere if that's your primary buying criteria.
Of the things I really wanted the music player is most frustrating - getting music on the system is difficult and the file management is once again poor meaning that getting albums onto the phone in the right order has eluded me until now. That's a real shame because that should be extremely easy by modern standards.
One aspect of how the phone behaves is relating to the powersave on the screen. It cuts in very quickly (within a minute) in whatever programme you are running even though I've set it to 5 minutes. This means sometimes having to unlock the phone mid-call - damned annoying to be honest. The other issue relates to the fact that the screen remains dark until you have unlocked it. This means that in anything other than darkness you cannot see the keys to use the stylus correctly and must 'know' the phone to achieve a successful unlock. I would have wanted a full power screen as soon as you press any relevant button to help with that unlocking process.
I would have thought HTC could have solved these things very easily with updates but their website and support are lacking. They have every opportunity, in concept, to keep me as a client for a very long time but may lose me if they don't address these problems.
All in all a great concept but as someone else said - the execution is flawed.

Bottleneck
Don't listen to the people on here that say it's a business device and not meant for games and video playback. It is useless for any complex Excel spreadsheet. It is useless for navigating any remote login web applications. It is useless for viewing any PDF documents. I couldn't care less about 3D games and video playback. To read a PDF document you cannot just scroll while you read, you have to approximately scroll, then stop scrolling to wait for it to refresh.
It is exactly like after you've installed a fresh copy of Windows XP, and try to browse and scroll in a folder before you've installed your graphics drivers. You have to constantly keep stopping to see how far along you are.

I'm finding it hard to see what it is actually good for, considering it's supposed to be an all-powerful flagship phone. The people that bought one and don't have any problems, didn't need to buy a phone as powerful as this. My old slow Nokia N90 did a better job at browsing the net and viewing PDFs.

It may have grunt for loading applications and files and processing any applications you may have written for it, but for relaying the information back to the user, it has a huge bottleneck.

HTC have announced they will not solve this problem. I feel cheated and ripped off. Do not buy a HTC until they've been out long enough for issues to come to light as they do not fix them. It's on to the next handset for them I suppose.