Over a short lunch break I was able to sneak away from my desk and run down to the downtown Minneapolis At&t store for a quick look at the new At&t HTC Pure. If you’re familiar with the HTC Diamond2, the HTC Pure will hold no surprises for you except that it is the first HTC handset to hit the U.S. streets running the new Windows Mobile 6.5 operating system. The external hardware of the At&t HTC Pure is quite similar to the original HTC Diamond2, but the base of the handset is curved, adding a distinct look to the handset. I’m not sure what At&t didn’t like about the original black and silver design. Fortunately the new all-black look doesn’t subtract tool much from the original appeal. Windows Mobile 6.5 is a welcomed sight on the new handset. I’m sure many of you have seen a million and one images of the 6.5 facelift so I’ll stick to something a bit more exciting… Windows Marketplace.
Windows Marketplace is now officially live and new At&t Pure owners will be among the first to finally get a compelte integrated app experience on a Windows Mobile phone. I got a chance to browse the Marketplace for a bit and found it to be a mix between the iPhone’s App Store and the Android Market. Fortunately for the HTC Pure owners, the Marketplace has a good catalog of apps already in the system which will help make the Windows Mobile user experience much more complete.
The camera on the HTC Pure didn’t really offer anything special. The Pure does not feature an LED flash, but the indoor images that I snapped were crisp and fully saturated. I’m glad to see that HTC’s Windows Mobile camera quality isn’t going the way of their Android powered phones. For a while I started to think that HTC was opting for cheaper optics hardware in their phones, but now it looks like BAD picture quality is something that is only plaguing Android and could be more of a software issue more than anything.
Overall, the new At&t HCT Pure is a pretty good Windows Mobile phone. The addition of Windows Mobile 6.5 and the new Windows Marketplace will be sure to change the perception of Windows Mobile phones for the better.
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