HTC P3300 Artemis Pocket PC Phone
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Introduction
HTC has started selling its excellent Windows Mobile devices under its own brand. The HTC P3300 and P3600 mark a new naming scheme convention for HTC as well. The P3300 still has the cool "Artemis" code name, but under the HTC brand it is sold as the P3300. Artemis, of course, is the goddess of the hunt according to greek mythology. While this device can't communicate with wild animals, it can do just about everything else.
The HTC P3300 is currently only available in the "Taster Edition" flavor, which includes TomTom Navigator 6, but only allows you to download one City map of your choosing. A "Premium Edition" will also be available which will include TomTom Navigator 6 along with a DVD containing many more mapping data sets for your region as well as a 512Mb MicroSD card to store the maps on. If you're at all interested in this device, take a look at this review before making a decision. We've got some suprises ahead. Read on for the review!
Review Date: November 15, 2006
Picture Highlights
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| The P3300's matte grey body is reminiscent of the old Palm V. | The P3300 after launching TomTom Navigator 6. For some reason, TomTom takes a couple seconds to recognize that there's a GPS receiver built-in and then it will begin acquiring a fix for the current location. |
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| On the Today screen, you'll notice HTC has included a new item at the bottom with some useful shortcut buttons. The first one shows the battery level and gives you access to the power settings. | HTC made their own green phone dialer skin as well. You might notice that with AKU 3.0, the directional pad hardware shortcuts for accessing the Speed Dial and Call History have returned! |
Overall Impression
While I'm a big fan of the original HTC Magician's breakthrough formfactor, the P3300 builds on the great size by shaving off some pounds, thinning down, and added some great features. I think the best part is the scroll wheel interface. It makes scrolling through long lists much easier than the old D-Pad style buttons. The second best part is the inclusion of a SirfSTAR III GPS receiver, however I don't like that it doesn't work with my preferred GPS software (iNav iGuidance).
The TomTom Navigator 6 software is a very capable program though. It is stable, accurate, and very easy to use. I will certainly consider purchasing a more extensive map set of North America when it becomes available. The single downloadable Taster map of Westchester is not going to be sufficient for my navigation needs.
If you don't need UMTS/HSDPA and want to stop carrying a separate bluetooth GPS receiver, the P3300 could be your ticket to ride.
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