Hey everyone!
I'm Jessica Dolcourt for CNET taking a first look today at the T-Mobile MyTouch 4G Slide.
You could call it the successor to the MyTouch 3G Slide but it's much, much more advanced than that because there is 4G, a dual-core 1.2 GHz Qualcomm Snapdragon processor and Android 2.3 (Gingerbread) all on board.
It also has the most recent version of HTC's Sense 3 UI.
Like all other smartphones
in the MyTouch Family, this one is made by HTC as I mentioned.
It's got these typical brushed-metal accents around it that make it pretty darn heavy.
It's 6-1/2 ounces.
It's got a 3.7-inch WVGA super LCD screen were just pretty nice and bright.
There are five buttons here beneath the screen.
They correspond to Home, Menu, Back, and then there's the Genius button on all the MyTouch phones and this one calls up voice commands and voice-to-text features.
There's also an optical track pad here
that doubles as a Select button.
Given that it's called the slide, there is a slide-out full-QWERTY keyboard.
It's nice and spacious and it has some handy indicator lights and a few shortcut buttons on it.
But, I wasn't crazy about the keys which are pretty flat and it slowed up my typing quite a bit.
I've definitely felt much pleasure in keyboard buttons that really bounce back when I'm done pressing them and I prefer that.
There is a front-facing VGA camera here for video chats but the real story is this camera on the back.
It's an 8-megapixel camera lens.
There's dual LED flash and it has support for 1080p HD video capture and playback.
It also has a few other goodies that lead HTC to call it the most advanced smartphone camera there is.
For example, there's a special lens and a light sensor that emulates the way that digital cameras work with light.
There is a ton of fun software inside that let's you switch all sorts of shooting modes and settings.
So, for example, there is SweepShot which makes a smooth panorama.
There's Burst Mode and that takes five photos in quick succession.
And then, there's ClearShot which is for HDR mode.
There's also a picture of mode, Blink Mode, and Smile Mode.
All of which have different settings and properties.
I thought that the outdoor photos were really good but I still have some problems to some of the indoor shots and this Low Level Lighting Solutions did not work quite as well as advertised.
Granted, I really haven't had the phone so long at this point, so I will be updating my written review with more tests and some comparisons with the other camera phones
including the iPhone 4. So, back to this.
HTC also claims that there is no shutter delay which I did not find to be the case at all.
Overall, the camera is pretty good and the options are definitely more exciting than the normal.
It's really fun to use but I wouldn't say that it's quite on power with the digital camera.
Not yet, anyway.
The photo itself is a nice little package.
I can definitely compete with the big boys.
It will cost you $199.99 with the new two-year contract.
So, I think that's a pretty good competitive price for this caliber phone.
Once again, I'm Jessica Dolcourt with CNET.
This has been the T-Mobile MyTouch 4G Slide.
I've got many more details on my full review on cnet.com, so check it out.