HTC MOBILE: HTC Tattoo

HTC Tattoo

We tested the quad-band GSM (850/900/1800/1900; GPRS/EDGE) HTC Tattoo in New York using AT&T service and call quality was good. On our end, the audio was mostly clear, with just the slightest hint of a background hiss, but no voice distortion. Friends also reported mostly positive results, though one caller said we sounded a bit robotic. Speakerphone quality wasn't anything to write home about. Though clear and loud enough to carry on a conversation, there was a bit of that hollow sound that we've experienced many times before with speakerphones. We had no problems pairing the smartphone with the Logitech Mobile Traveller Bluetooth headset and the Motorola S9 Bluetooth Active Headphones.

Unfortunately, the Tattoo doesn't support North American 3G bands, so you're stuck with surfing on EDGE speeds. CNET's full site took 1 minute and 20 seconds to load, and CNN and ESPN's mobile sites came in 15 seconds and 20 seconds, respectively. Fortunately, Wi-Fi is an option on the Tattoo so you don't always have to rely on a cellular connection, which is good, because waiting for YouTube videos to buffer and load over EDGE was not our favorite way to pass time. Our own MP4 videos played back without a hitch, but, again, the lower-resolution display degraded the experience a bit. Audio quality was good, though, through our Bose On-Ear Headphones, providing fairly rich and balanced sound.

As for the Tattoo's 3.2-megapixel camera, it does a fair job. Objects in photos came out mostly clear, but there was some slight softness around the edges. Also, colors had a bit of an amber/burnt tone to them. Video quality was pretty blurry, but it's workable if you're in a pinch.