HTC Radar

Editor's Review of the Radar

The HTC Radar is the firm's latest smartphone to run Windows Phone 7.5, following in the footsteps of the impressive HTC Titan. Can the Radar's more affordable price-tag tempt manage to tempt Windows Phone newbies, or will downgraded specs ultimately disappoint?

Design & Build

The Radar is designed to replace last year's HTC 7 Mozart, sporting a slightly larger 3.8-inch touchscreen. Although the screen lacks the pizzazz of the Titan's 4.7-incher, its WVGA (480 x 800) resolution makes it just a clear and full of detail.

Of course, this downsized screen also makes the phone much-more comfortable to hold in the hand, and its dimensions of 120 x 61.5 x 10.8mm mean that although it's not the skinniest of smartphones, it's perfectly small enough for stuffing in your pocket.

When it comes to design, it's fair to say that the HTC Radar won't go winning any fashion awards. Compared to the newly-launched Nokia Lumia 800 its aluminum chassis seems fairly uninspiring, ad its slight chin reminds us of not-so-sexy Google Nexus One.

Under the hood, it's the same disappointing story. The Radar packs Qualcomm's MSM 8255 1GHz single-core processor - the same as last year's HTC 7 Mozart. Still, we noticed little lag when scrolling through the interface, although it's noticeably slower than the HTC Titan.

OS & Interface

In terms of software, however, the HTC Radar does get a boost over the Mozart. It arrives running Microsoft's new Windows Phone 7.5 (Mango) software, which offers over 500 new features over the previous version of WP7.

Amongst these new features is Twitter and LinkedIn integration, a better browsing experience, multitasking, and a revamped People Hub. It's still not perfect, but it's a vast improvement compared to the original version of Windows Phone 7.

As we explained in our HTC Titan Review, we're big fans of the Microsoft's Live Tile interface. However, hose switching from an Android smartphone might find the software's lack of customisation options difficult to get to grips with. With Windows Phone 7, and there is no way for the phone manufacturer to change the design, add, or customise the user interface, and you're limited to changing the colour of your Live Tile interface. Boring.

Multimedia & Storage

The HTC Radar sports a 5 megapixel camera on its rear, complete with 28mm lens, F/2,2 aperture and LED flash. Although it sounds disappointing compared to the Titan's 8 megapixel shooter, the Radar's lesser-specced snapper is pretty impressive.

The camera both easy to use thanks to the dedicated camera key, and given your in a decently lit setting, snaps produced are full of colour. Saying that, we found the camera struggled in low-light conditions, and images were often unclear and noisy.

We were pleasantly surprised with the video camera offering on the HTC Radar though, which shoots in 720p HD. Although lacking the option to fire off a video straight to Vimeo or Youtube, footage comes out full of detail, and there's plenty of options to play with in the menu.

When it comes to storage we were pretty disappointed, as the Radar comes with 8GB of built-in storage and no room for microSD memory expansion. Still, the lack of expandable storage isn't HTC's fault, as, like Apple's iOS, Windows Phone doesn’t support external storage,

Everything Else

Thanks to the upgraded IE9 browser and its HSDPA and WiFi connectivity, the HTC Radar is great for browsing the web. Like with the Titan, however, the phone arrives lacking Adobe Flash support, and is yet to receive an iPlayer app.

Although it's not great for Eastenders fanatics, the Radar would be a good choice if you enjoy a long battery life. Surprisingly, this is one of the handset's strong points, and we managed to stretch to almost two days on a single charge. Being a removable battery, however, we'd recommend charging overnight.

Conclusion

The HTC Radar may be a phone designed for those who want to try Mango on a 'risk-free' handset, but it failed to get us excited at all. Although it touts a fantastic screen and a decent camera, the phone's lackluster processor is noticeably slow, and compared to the Nokia Lumia 800, it's certainly not the prettiest of handsets.