Clove Technology’s Blog

Shaun at PDA247 has put together a short and sweet review of the new HTC Tattoo

Your can read the full review HERE or read below for a slightly shorter version!

First impressions are much, much better than I expected. The metal feel to the casing adds reassurance to the experience and strangely it feels more expensive than the Hero. It has a solid feel which takes me back to the days when most PDAs were made of metal and this is good to see. Of course the new breed of smartphone user would have been too cool, or too young, to have played with these earlier PDAs and they will just appreciate the build quality for what it is. The Tattoo is without doubt cool and will appeal to the younger market which is obviously the intention of HTC. The word Tattoo is young, rebellious and hip; at least that is what I guess the marketing people used as reasons to name it over brunch.

The marketing of the Tattoo is clever despite my cynicism and the ability to tattoo your Tattoo is a master stroke. HTC has taken the old Nokia philosophy of offering cheap and nasty mobile phone coverings (which was a HUGE success by the way) and given the customer the ability to produce their own unique designs or to choose from a varied selection of colourful and attractive front and back covers. As style becomes more important in the smartphone world, this idea nails the need for individualism perfectly and at a very good price. I suspect that a good percentage of Tattoo users will gladly pay an extra £12 to make the phone unique to them.

So, the Tattoo will appeal to the younger crowd, and I mean people who may be buying their first mobile phone, but I suspect it will appeal to those older folk who are looking for something different. My wife, 37 years old, is looking to replace her close to dead HTC Touch Cruise and for the past three hours has been fondling the Tattoo like I have not seen her fondle anything in ages. She loves it- the way her Facebook friends are automatically imported into contacts, the way her Gmail account looks so similar to how it does on her laptop and seemingly everything else from the interface to the hardware design.

She is not the one writing this review, but she is indeed the type of person HTC would be happy to add to its user base and this bodes very well for the Tattoo. She spent some time with the Hero and proclaimed it “cheap and flimsy.” I scoffed at her ignorance of course because the Hero is stunning in almost every respect, but I can sort of see her point. The Tattoo feels great in the hand and is a much more pleasant experience textually than the Hero ever will be. In fact it is one of the nicest phones I have held in a long, long time.

The 3.2 Mega Pixel camera is good for outdoor shots and the video capture is passable. The  2.8” screen may sound small, but it seems not to matter on the Tattoo. In fact, the less than stunning specs in certain areas do not seem to matter much at all. The Tattoo is very well specified overall and is capable of being your GPS device, day to day camera, organiser, entertainer and so much more every single day, and the lack of top of the range specifications makes almost no difference. In a straight fight with the Hero, the Hero will of course win because it has a better camera, better and bigger screen, bigger battery and a few other advantages, but ask me which one I prefer and the Tattoo is the winner.

It has a charm which appeals to the young side of me, but which also appeals to my need to get things done throughout a busy day. For the price it is great value and it is just so likeable. As I said at the start the specifications are important, but a good smartphone will make the user want to use it and the Tattoo is one of the few phones that makes me want to pick it up when I don’t need to. I seriously like this phone, almost as much as my wife does!

Source: PDA247