First Thoughts on the HTC Universal

As I blogged last week, Michael Gartenberg at Jupiter is one lucky gadget geek. He posts at the Jupiter Analyst Weblogs a very thorough first impression of the HTC Universal. Although he states the "Universal is clearly the Hummer of the Smartphone world" and "larger than the i730 and XV600," he credits HTC for tweaking "the device carefully in ways that make it very usable."

Gartenberg sums up his thoughts on the Universal in this concluding paragraph:

Overall, the Universal is an amazing device, there’s nothing else quite like it on the market. The combination of a QWERTY Keyboard, the VGA screen, the ability to swivel into “tablet” mode make this device one of a kind for now. The addition of 3g, BT, WiFi mean that you won’t lack for connectivity and the overall usability of the device, despite the size is amazing. I had no problems integrating the unit into my daily routine, which is something I have never been able to do with any other PocketPC based phone device. Others were simply too large with batteries that couldn’t get through a day of heavy usage. This is not a device for everyone but if you’re looking for something that can be used as a decent (if not tiny) phone with a QWERTY keyboard, VGA screen , the ability to do email and read and write MSFT Office formats with lots of connection options, then this is the device you’ve been waiting for.

Sigh...you can add the HTC Universal to my ever growing wishlist...