Review: HTC Tattoo

Android is becoming something of a star in the smartphone world. The operating system is finger friendly and benefits from an app store with many free – and useful – applications to choose from.

HTC is making quite a play to be at the top of the tree as an Android supporter, and has several smartphones in the market. Its user interface overlay, called Sense, adds a slick look to Android as well as enhancing its ease of use, especially when you first start to work with it.

The Tattoo combines Android and Sense in a package which is a mite less expensive than other SIM free options. It runs Android 1.6 too, which is an advance on most other handsets as we write. There are quite a few tweaks including a useful battery use indicator.

The general features list is reasonably impressive. The Tattoo sports Wi-Fi and GPS, has HSDPA to 384kbps upload and 7.2Mbps download, Bluetooth, and a screen accelerometer. The installed applications include the usual Android/HTC favourites such as Google Maps, Google Mail, Google Talk, Footprints, Peep (for Twitter), and YouTube. There is an FM radio. And of course the Android Market means you can add applications to your heart’s desire.

Unlike the Pulse, which is available from T-Mobile on Pay As You Go and as such is the other low cost Android handset of the moment, the Tattoo sports the Sense user interface from HTC. This means it has the full seven home screens, each one customisable with widgets (from both Android and HTC), and each can be given a wallpaper.

You can save your configuration of home screens so you can set up quite complex looks for different situations – work, play, holidays etc. Some samples are provided by HTC. Equally, though, if this feels a bit like overkill, you can just stick with the configuration HTC has set up as the default.

HTC hopes it can encourage a wider audience to choose the Tattoo by offering customisable casing. At the point you buy you can choose pre-defined colours or use your own imagination and customise with your own designs. We couldn’t test this service before writing, but it sounds promising.

Without good usability none of this matters, of course, and there is both good and bad news on this front. In general we found working with the Tattoo comfortable enough. Its screen is a bit small at 2.8 inches, and its 240 x 320 pixel resolution is the lowest we expect to see from any finger-friendly smartphone. But for the most part it was good enough.

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