It's no secret that Windows Mobile isn't getting a lot of love lately. But the HTC Ozone makes a great case for its aging OS. For just $49, it offers 3G, Wi-Fi, and GPS radios. The Ozone syncs with PCs, Microsoft Outlook, and Microsoft Exchange accounts beautifully, and opens and edits Word and Excel files to boot. And it's slim, comfortable to type on, and looks sharp. If you can get past the creaky operating system and stingy software bundle, the Ozone is a winner.Most of what applies to the HTC Ozone also applies to its near-twin the HTC Snap on Sprint; for more details on the unit's performance, read that review. Instead, I'll focus on the differences here. The Ozone measures 4.5 by 2.5 by 0.5 inches (HWD) and weighs 3.7 ounces; that's half an ounce lighter than the Snap. The Ozone trades the Snap's hard black plastic battery cover for a soft touch, contoured grey version that feels more comfortable to hold. The Ozone's keyboard has slightly larger, straight rows of keys, compared with the Snap's curved layout. The Ozone's key arrangement makes more sense; the A key is back at the left of the keyboard where it belongs. The 2.4-inch, 320-by-240-pixel screen isn't a touchscreen, but it's sharp and bright.
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Unlike the Snap, the HTC Ozone is a true world phone, with dual band (800/1900 MHz) CDMA EVDO Rev. A and quad-band (850/900/1800/1900 MHz) GSM/GPRS/EDGE radios. The SIM card slot is locked, but Verizon will unlock it for you once you're a customer for 60 days in good standing. Voice calls sounded loud, punchy, and clear in both directions, albeit with a low-level but persistent hiss in the earpiece. Reception was also a touch below average. The Ozone sounded clear when paired with a Plantronics Voyager Pro Bluetooth headset, and its speakerphone was just about loud enough for outdoor use. Battery life was excellent at 6 hours and 18 minutes, almost two hours longer than what the HTC Snap scored on Sprint.
Most of the rest of the Ozone's hardware and software features worked the same as the Snap. The UI is very responsive for a Windows Mobile 6.1 handset, due in no small part to the Ozone's copious 192MB RAM and its speedy 528 MHz CPU (as well as the fact that it's running Windows Mobile 6.1 Standard instead of Professional, which has a smaller footprint in memory). The home screen is a little cluttered, but it scrolls smoothly between messaging, photos, local weather data, and other tasks with a push of the 5-way control pad. One key difference here is the lack of Sprint's Inner Circle feature, which helped prioritize e-mail from selected important contacts. That was nice, but I'll take the Verizon handset's world phone capability and lower price any day.
A few other changes: The Start menu shows all icons immediately here, instead of first showing a condensed version like on the Snap. Verizon trades the TeleNav-powered Sprint Navigator software for its own VZ Navigator, which has a different UI but works very well; it costs $9.99 per month or $2.99 per day of use. The Ozone also works with Verizon's visual voicemail service, and can be used as a modem for PCs. Unfortunately, the IM client is Verizon's usual, cheesy SMS-based version that charges by the message. The Ozone also comes with the weak Internet Explorer Mobile browser, though you can easily remedy that by installing the free Skyfire 1.0.
The Ozone lacks Sprint's robust lineup of music and video services. But in a world of DRM-free music downloads, it's easier (and usually cheaper) to buy songs from Amazon MP3 and then sideload them onto the Ozone. Music tracks sounded crisp, clear, and detailed over a paired set of Motorola S9-HD Bluetooth headphones. That's a good thing, since the Ozone requires a clumsy dongle in order to plug in standard-sized, 3.5mm stereo earbuds. Video files played back very smoothly, though a few audio sync issues marred the experience. The 2-megapixel camera took crisp, detailed pictures with flat colors and little contrast, and recorded dim but smooth videos at 352 by 288 resolution. The microSD card is underneath the battery cover and works with 16GB cards; my 8GB Kingston card worked fine.
Our Editors' Choice for Verizon smartphones remains the new BlackBerry Tour 9630, which has a more robust OS, stellar push e-mail, and a much higher resolution screen than the Ozone, although it's considerably more expensive. The older BlackBerry Curve 8330 is a real deal for bargain shoppers and also has the same excellent push e-mail as the Tour. But the Curve 8330 isn't as fast or powerful as the Ozone, and the latter is just as inexpensive. In fact, the Ozone leaps ahead of other Windows Mobile smartphones on Verizon. If you or your employees need compatibility with Microsoft's ecosystem, the Ozone is an excellent way to do it on the cheap.
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