Introduction
They made a promise and kept it. What can we say – nice phone this Nokia 5250, but not an N8. Yeah we know, we need to be respectful and professional. But it’s easy to be a jerk to a 100-euro smartphone.The Symbian-powered Nokia 5250 is bottom of the smartphone barrel. The low price suggests the feature set is going to be pretty spartan. Which doesn’t mean it’ll fight in the shade. It’s rather going to get into brawls with some pretty basic dumbphones.
Nokia 5250 official photos
The question here is who’s ready to sacrifice most of the features that make a smartphone, to save a few bucks. Alright some of Nokia’s touchscreen smartphones have been going around for peanuts but the 5250 is the lowest bidder by far. Some of the value-adding options don’t cost that much any more. But the Nokia 5250 encourages exactly the opposite kind of thinking. No budget is too tight and no feature is too important.
Key features
- Quad-band GSM, EDGE support
- 2.8" 16M-color 360 x 640 pixel resistive touchscreen
- S60 5th Edition (a.k.a. Symbian^1)
- ARM 11 434 MHz processor; 128MB of RAM
- 2 MP fixed-focus camera
- VGA (640 x 480 pixel) video recording @ 30fps
- Stereo Bluetooth v2.0
- microSD slot, microUSB port
- Accelerometer and proximity sensor
- Standard 3.5 mm audio jack
- FM radio with RDS
- Stylus tucked inside the phone's body
- Excellent loudspeaker performance
- Good audio quality
- Web browser has Flash video support
Main disadvantages
- No 3G, Wi-Fi and GPS receiver
- Poor screen quality
- Doesn’t charge off USB
- No preloaded Office document viewer
- No support for DivX/XviD videos out-of-the-box
- Gets sluggish as the memory card starts filling up
- No USB cable or memory card in the retail package
There is no Wi-Fi, even 3G is missing from the specs sheet. And you won’t find an inbuilt GPS receiver either. But the bare minimum is covered. You still get quad-band GSM support and stereo Bluetooth and a decent 2.8 touchscreen.
Nokia 5250 live shots
The 2 megapixel snapper lacks autofocus, LED flash or geotagging but it can at least shoot VGA videos. There is a great music player, an FM radio with RDS and a reasonably stocked app market.
Now, let’s see what’s inside that tiny retail box. And then we’ll take a look at the phone’s build and finish.
Reasonable retail package
The HTC Aria comes in a standard looking box with standard issue stuffing. There’s a microUSB cable in there, a one-piece headset and a very sleek charger. The microUSB cable is used for both data connections and charging.The HTC Aria box and its contents
There’s also a 2GB microSD card to get you started – if you want more storage, the HTC Aria can handle up to 32GB cards. You’ll find the usual pile of user guides too.
HTC Aria 360-degree spin
The HTC Aria stands at 103 x 57.7 x 11.7 mm – the exact dimensions of the HD mini. The handset ranks well among other compact smartphones in terms of pocketability. The weight of 115 grams is more than we expected, but combined with the screws and the seamless casing, it gives an impression of a rock solid phone.HTC Aria vs. Apple iPhone 3G vs. Samsung I5800 Galaxy 3
It’s never in a state where it’s not covered in fingerprints. Glossy black plastic isn’t very good at hiding smudges (though they are harder to see when light isn’t hitting the back directly).
The yellow inner body under the cover is actually quite nice to the touch – shame that it’s covered – it’s better than the piano black rear and it gives the Aria a more industrial look.
Design and construction
The HTC Aria is all black with a seamless minimalist design. There’re barely any physical controls – a power/lock key, volume rocker, and the optical track pad. It’s by no means drab though, several chrome accents and the four screws on the back give it a very interesting look.The Aria is a bit of a Jekyll and Hyde – it’s sleek and elegant, but the black/chrome combo and the exposed screw heads give it a bit of an “off-road” appearance. It would make fashion-conscious geeks quite happy.
The HTC Aria is in the middle of the pack in terms of screen size – it’s got a 3.2” TFT capacitive touchscreen of HVGA resolution. The 3.2” screen of the HTC Wildfire has half the resolution (QVGA) and the HTC Legend has a 3.2” HVGA screen but it’s AMOLED.
The Aria display in the dark
Still, the LCD on the Aria looks pretty good – it’s bright with good colors (not as good as OLED though) and the viewing angles are fine too. Sunlight legibility is not among the display’s strong points though: direct sunlight makes it very hard to read.
The HVGA resolution is the most common Android screen res, and also the minimum resolution that looks good on a 3+ diagonal.
If you’re coming from a WVGA screen though, you’ll spot the difference. It’s easily visible in the browser for example – you can’t fit as much text on the screen as you can on the HTC Desire.
Below the display there are the four capacitive keys – home, menu, back and search. The HTC Aria also has an optical trackpad, which comes in handy when editing text and you need to go back a few characters to fix a typo.
There are four capacitive keys and an optical trackpad below the display
Above the HTC Aria display is the earpiece dead center and a status LED to the left of it. On the right, there’re the proximity and ambient light sensors.
The earpiece is above the display
The left side hosts the volume rocker, which works throughout the interface, controlling the ringing and system volumes. It’s well sized and solid to press.
The volume rocker works throughout the interface
The right side is completely bare – by now you probably know HTC aren’t too fond of putting shutter keys on their phones. Instead you’ll have to rely on continuous auto focus and the optical trackpad serving as a shutter key. There’s touch focus too.
There’s no camera key on the right
The mouthpiece is at the bottom of the HTC Aria, right next to the microUSB port. There is no cover over the connectivity port to keep dust and moisture away.
The unprotected microUSB slot is next to the mouthpiece
The same holds true for the 3.5mm audio jack on top. It is placed on a sloping surface so the jacks you plug in will always slightly stick out even if they are properly connected. Also on top, sitting on the nice chrome accent is the power/lock key.
The 3.5mm audio jack and the power/lock key are on top
The HTC Aria back hosts the unprotected but deeply embedded camera lens and the speaker grill, which are combined in one chrome element. There’s no flash, so low-light shots won’t be easy.
The 5 megapixel camera and the loudspeaker grill
The other prominent feature rearside are the four screws in the corners. They look like they’re holding the back cover – they aren’t really, but it’s enough to give it that rugged look. Once you pop off the back cover, you’ll notice that under the piano black cover is the matte yellow plastic of the inner body – even the battery is yellow.
Taking a peek under the hood
It’s a missed opportunity if you ask us – the yellow is the same as some power tools which, coupled with the prominent screws, could have made the HTC Aria one of the toughest looking handsets around.
Anyway, once you get over the color, under the hood you’ll find the SIM card compartment, the microSD card slot (for cards up to 32GB) and the 1200 mAh battery. Despite its location under the rear cover, the microSD card is fully hot-swappable.
Going back to the battery cover for a moment – it adds a good couple of millimeters to the width of the Aria. This is mostly for the sake of rounded edges, which give the illusion of a thinner phone, so it’s a fair trade-off.
The HTC Aria is powered by a 1200mAh Li-Ion battery, which is quoted at fifteen and a half days of standby and 6 hours of talk time. This is a bit less than the Wildfire, but it has a slightly larger battery and a lower res screen, which helps.
The HTC Aria not only looks sturdy, but it feels sturdy too. The back cover envelops not only the back but also the sides of the phone, and it fits very firmly with no creaks at all. Plus, it does create an impression of seamless bodywork.
The HTC Aria held in hand
The Aria is compact and will fit into any hand with the controls easily reachable. Pocketability isn’t an issue either, but you’d better have a napkin handy to wipe off all the fingerprints off the piano black plastic.
That plastic is very smooth and quite hard – after the few days that the Aria spent with us, there weren’t any scratches on it. But it does look likely to eventually get scratches, taking away some of its luster.
We should note that the AT&T version of the HTC Aria has the same matte back as the HTC HD mini, unlike the one we got. It’s a regional thing. Anyway, check in the store before buying it - it’s not a deal-breaker but the matte back is much better at hiding fingerprints.
Messaging has everything
The HTC Aria can handle all standard types of messages – SMS, MMS and email. Google Talk is in charge of instant messaging. Email support is excellent with support for Exchange out of the box and social media buffs will be pleased with the level of integration of that content as well.The on-screen full QWERTY keyboard on the HTC Aria works in both portrait and landscape modes. The individual button size is decent and sensitivity just fine and we had no problems typing.
The on-screen QWERTY is quite good in landscape
Like on other Androids, if you have only one SMS message, a line in the notification area displays the sender and part of the message itself. If you have two or more messages, you are simply informed of the number and the SMS section is opened once you hit the icon.
The SMS and MMS department is quite straightforward and simple at first glance. There are no folders here, just a new message button. It doesn't stay like that for long - under that button is a list of all your messages organized into threads. Each thread is labeled by the names of the recipients and shows the number of messages in the thread and part of the last message.
All threads • viewing a specific thread
When viewing a thread, the most recent message is placed at the bottom, just like on the iPhone.
Composing a message is a little frustrating as the text box only takes a small part of the screen even if you hide the keyboard, which really only gives you little to work with.
To add recipients, just start typing a name or number and choose from the contacts offered. After choosing a name it’s added in a bubble under the main textbox, where you can view or remove it by single tap.
Adding recipients
A tap-and-hold on the text box gives you access to functions such as cut, copy and paste. You are free to paste the copied text across applications like email, notes, chats, etc. and vice versa.
Copy, cut and paste are here
Converting SMS into MMS is as simple as adding some multimedia content to the message. You can just add a photo or an audio file to go with the text, or you can choose to go into a full-blown MMS editor, depending on your needs.
Attaching a multimedia file turns the SMS to MMS
Two-headed mail
Gmail is one thing that you can't expect to have changed much compared to other Android handsets. There are a few HTC add-ons, but nothing major. Batch operations, which debuted on the HTC Magic, allow multiple emails to be archived, labeled or deleted.Batch operations lets you nabnage multiple conversations
The user interfaces of both the Gmail and Mail apps have been slightly polished with several icons in the menus changed. The extended Gmail features include spam report and of course conversation-style email view mode.
When replying to an email you can opt for either Gmail or the generic mail client, and set one of the two options as default. The reason behind most Android handsets coming with two email clients is the added corporate Exchange ActiveSync support.
The standard HTC Mail app has been slightly tweaked up too. The general Inbox displays the last sync time, the sort order, the current email account and of course the actual messages.
At the bottom, there are five virtual buttons to filter the inbox: you can opt to display conversations, only emails with attachments, show only the unread mail or display the messages from your VIP mail groups.
The conversation view tries to mimic the original Gmail client threaded view, which is otherwise missing in the generic inbox. The option to only display emails with attached files is a good one to have on hand. Attachments are not automatically loaded by default.
The standard HTC email app
Email sorting is possible (in either ascending or descending order) by date, subject, sender and size. The chosen filter is displayed in the top right corner of the display.
The standard mail with new looks and features • Sorting email and viewing email folders
There's hardly anything the HTC Aria lacks in terms of email capabilities. What you basically have is a local copy of your Gmail account bundled with its main functionality plus a Microsoft Exchange compatible alternative client, which can manage multiple POP and IMAP accounts.
The usual image gallery
The gallery has the usual main menu list-with-thumbnail structure. The Albums app automatically locates images and videos, no matter where they are stored. Images and videos stored in different folders appear in different sub-galleries that automatically get the name of the folder – which is quite effective file management.Unfortunately, the gallery undertakes reindexing of the content each time you access it and it does so even when you open a file for an instant and then get back to the thumbnail view. And that's a bugger as when cards are full of content, it's quite slow to complete.
Right next to the folder's name is a figure indicating the number of images stored. Each sub-album has a thumbnail of the latest image. The contextual menu of the main Album view has only one shortcut to the settings menu. There is also a camera shortcut, but it’s only available once you start browsing any of the sub-folders.
The Albums and some of the simple menu settings
At the bottom of the main album there are three virtual buttons – one for the actual folder list, another for Facebook and, finally, Flickr. The latter two display images from either account or those posted by your friends.
The Facebook app in Albums is great
Anywhere in the gallery except the main Album view you can launch the camera or camcorder to capture new images, share them on Facebook, Flickr, Gmail, HTC Mail, Messages, Peep and Picasa, and delete the current image.
Taking an image is possible even while browsing Facebook photos, direct uploading is even easier
In the HTC Aria image folders you can choose between grid and filmstrip layout. You are also able to mass delete images, but still no mass copy and paste options.
While you cannot copy/paste images from folder to folder (you'd need a proper file manager for that), you can still share multiple images from your albums on Facebook, Flickr, Gmail, HTC Mail, Messages, Peep and Picasa.
Sharing images is easy • Grid and filmstrip type of views
HTC Aria supports multi-touch and you can take full advantage of this while browsing your images. Zooming in and out is done in the same fashion as on the Apple iPhone. You can zoom to 100% with simple double tap on the screen. The implementation here is extra smooth too.
Smooth finger-sweep browsing of images and pinch zoom
MP4/3GP only video player
Video files can be accessed only from the Albums subfolder as there is no separate icon for the video player in the main menu. The video files can also be viewed as a grid or filmstrip and can be shared over Gmail, HTC mail, Messages or YouTube.Portrait and landscape views
The video player application on the HTC Aria has undergone some cosmetic changes, but is still quite basic. There’s a full screen mode, where the clip gets stretched / cropped to fit the screen.
Quite as expected, the player is capable of playing only 3GP and MP4 videos, which means that you will have to convert most your videos for watching on the go HTC Aria.
Playing video files from the Gallery
The Aria handled all of the MP4 files we threw at it with ease: no dropped frames or out-of-sync audio. We tested up to 640x360 videos at 30fps, which is good enough given the native screen resolution and the 600 MHz processor. In fact the results are quite impressive, compared to the Hero, which wasn’t capable of playing anything more than QVGA @ 25fps.
There is already a player in the Android market that supports DivX and XviD videos. The yxflash player managed all the files we tried although anything above VGA resolution was obviously too much for the hardware. The bad news is that you only get the trial version for free and after it expires you need to pay 9.9 US dollars for the full app.
Music player
As with the rest of the multimedia department, the music player is the same as on the Desire and the Legend.The standard music library view is the Artists section, but you can easily switch to one of the other six tabs beneath, which are for Albums, All Songs, Playlists, Genres, Composers and Purchased.
The music library
The now playing user interface, though very sleek and more comfortable doesn't offer new features.
The new player interface is nice, though no new features inside
We were disappointed to find no contextual search in the music player for songs and related stuff on YouTube or Google. The other music player weaknesses of the Android platform still need addressing too – no equalizer presets, nor any alternative skins.
FM radio
The HTC Aria is also equipped with an FM radio, which has a pretty simple interface. It automatically scans the area for the available stations and allows you to mark some of them as favorite for easier scrolling between them. It also supports RDS and allows loudspeaker playback.The FM radio UI
Very good audio quality
Starting with this review we are making the two-audio-quality-tests per device a part of our regular reviewing routine. We will publish two rows of data for each handset, which would include the performance of the device when plugged into an active amplifier (i.e. your car stereo or your home audio system). It's the best the handsets can deliver as there is no additional resistance they have to deal with. The other row shows the performance when a pair of headphones is plugged. We use a pair of AKG headphones with impedance of 32 ohms for this test.As you can see the HTC Aria did greatly in our test and its audio quality deteriorated very slightly when headphones were attached. The stereo crosstalk reading took the biggest hit but the noise level, dynamic range and frequency response of the device remained great. The distortions levels were also nothing to frown at, even though they aren't the best we have seen.
Check out the table and see for yourself.
| Test | Frequency response | Noise level | Dynamic range | THD | IMD + Noise | Stereo crosstalk |
| +0.12, -0.58 | -84.5 | 86.9 | 0.022 | 0.172 | -85.4 | |
| +0.37, -0.15 | -87.0 | 90.4 | 0.026 | 0.400 | -52.3 | |
| HTC HD mini | +0.15, -0.68 | -83.7 | 86.7 | 0.024 | 0.158 | -84.1 |
| HTC Legend | +0.13 -0.56 | -83.4 | 86.5 | 0.024 | 0.191 | -83.5 |
| Samsung I5700 Galaxy Spica | +0.26 -3.47 | -88.6 | 88.5 | 0.011 | 0.774 | -80.2 |
| +0.01, -0.07 | -90.5 | 90.6 | 0.0041 | 0.011 | -92.0 | |
| Samsung I9000 Galaxy S | +0.03 -0.04 | -90.7 | 90.6 | 0.014 | 0.019 | -90.6 |
| +0.01, -0.07 | -90.4 | 90.4 | 0.0036 | 0.092 | -68.4 | |
| Samsung I9000 Galaxy S (headphones attached) | +0.40 -0.12 | -90.7 | 90.6 | 0.018 | 0.329 | -43.3 |
HTC Aria frequency response
Excellent 5 megapixel snapper
The HTC Aria is equipped with a 5 megapixel camera for a maximum image resolution of 2592 x 1936 pixels. While premium Android handsets are already on the 8MP notch, the HTC Aria is content with a spot in the middle.With Android 2.1 inside, the HTC Aria also has a camera interface that can be competitive outside the Google OS world. There are a number of customizable settings ranging from ISO speed to aspect ratio and auto focus.
We are also pleased to see face detection on board, though some other modern-day features are yet to come such as smile and blink detection.
HTC Aria camera interface
The camera interface isn’t the ultimate in user-friendliness, with most of the options sitting on a retractable tray at the left side of the viewfinder. It can either be dragged out by a finger sweep or by pressing the menu key.
You get shortcuts to exposure compensation and the camera album right in the viewfinder but that’s all.
The actual shooting isn’t quite as comfortable as we would’ve liked – mostly for the lack of a proper shutter key. Continuous auto-focus seems to take its time – each time you reframe you have to wait a bit longer than we’d expect for the device to focus. Touch focus on the other hand seems to work well, but it’s potentially affected by the shaky hand issue.
It seems they could’ve put the optical trackpad to better use – touch to lock focus, press down to capture – but in the end, nothing would replace an actual two-press shutter key.
The image quality of the HTC Aria is not that great. Perhaps it’s on the better side of the spectrum as far as HTC reach, but it’s still way worse than the best 5 megapixel cameraphones we’ve seen.
Colors turn out natural but suffer from low detail and relatively high level of digital noise in the uniform surfaces such as the sky. Let’s just say the HTC Aria camera performance is equal to that of HTC Legend and HTC HD mini. The now elderly HTC Diamond2 remains the best cameraphone we’ve seen from HTC.
You can see how good the camera is from the samples below.
HTC Aria camera samples
Synthetic resolution
We also snapped our resolution chart with the Aria. You can check out what that test is all about here.HTC Aria resolution chart photo • 100% crops
VGA video
HTC Aria manages VGA videos at 30 fps, which is quite good for a mid-range Android handset.The interface of the camcorder is similar to the one on the still camera and there are lots of customizable options with this one. You can set the video resolution, encoding type and recording limit.
As far as image settings go, you get exposure compensation, contrast, saturation and sharpness, as well as color effects and white balance settings.
Camcorder has plenty of options
Auto focus is also there for you to enable but the Aria only focuses before the recording starts and acts as a fixed focus camera after that.
Video quality is decent at the finest settings with good amount of resolved detail and nice colors however they could have been slightly sharper.
Connectivity is well-geared
The HTC Aria offers an identical set of connectivity options as its aluminum-clad sibling, the HTC Legend. And this is a pretty decent package to have on your phone.There’s worldwide roaming-ready quad-band GSM/GPRS/EDGE and dual-band (900/2100 MHz or 850/1900 MHz) 3G with HSPA. Download speed is quoted at 7.2Mbps and uploads can reach up to 2Mbps.
In terms of local connectivity, the Aria offers USB v2.0 via a microUSB port, Bluetooth v2.1 with A2DP support and Wi-Fi. Now that they’ve enabled Bluetooth transfers, there is very little more to ask for.
Internet tethering is also available over USB and it’s as easy as it gets to use. Just select tethering when prompted to choose computer pairing mode and you are good to go. HTC have also thought of people without a data plan and allow you to explicitly forbid the handset to use mobile network data.
Selecting a USB connection type
Synchronizing your data couldn't be easier - it's just that you mainly sync with the Google services. For those of you who prefer desktop syncing, the HTC Sync comes in handy. It is a nice tool for quick syncing of your contacts, calendar events and web browser bookmarks with PC (Outlook or Outlook Express). With its help you can also easily install third-party Android apps on your smartphone, and transfer photos, videos, music and playlists as well as documents.
Finally, we have to mention that the built-in microSD card slot can also be used as a data transfer tool. Card-readers are going for peanuts these days so having one around is quite likely and they give some pretty impressive speeds.
A great Flash-capable web browser
Solid web browsing has been an inherent part of the Android deal since day one. Now that we are at version 2.1, things are even sweeter with the intuitive user interface even more polished and the functionality reaching new heights.The user interface is pretty much nonexistent at first sight. With pinch-zooming enabled you don’t even need the +/- zoom buttons that we have seen on most other Android handsets.
The address bar is docked at the top of the page so you can scroll down and get it out of the way too. However you don’t need to scroll to the top every time you want to tap a new address – just press the menu button and bring it up anywhere on the page.
The Aria browser also supports double tap zooming and text reflow, which make it extremely easy to read even longer texts on the phone display. Without text reflow you will either have to zoom out until the text fits (but then it’s too small to read comfortably) or scroll sideways to read each line.
The minimalist UI is still quite powerful – hit the menu key and six keys pop up. You can open a new tab, switch tabs, refresh the page, go forward, open bookmarks. The final button reveals even more options (text copying, find on page, etc.).
The HTC Aria offers an identical set of connectivity options as its aluminum-clad sibling, the HTC Legend. And this is a pretty decent package to have on your phone.
There’s worldwide roaming-ready quad-band GSM/GPRS/EDGE and dual-band (900/2100 MHz or 850/1900 MHz) 3G with HSPA. Download speed is quoted at 7.2Mbps and uploads can reach up to 2Mbps.
In terms of local connectivity, the Aria offers USB v2.0 via a microUSB port, Bluetooth v2.1 with A2DP support and Wi-Fi. Now that they’ve enabled Bluetooth transfers, there is very little more to ask for.
Internet tethering is also available over USB and it’s as easy as it gets to use. Just select tethering when prompted to choose computer pairing mode and you are good to go. HTC have also thought of people without a data plan and allow you to explicitly forbid the handset to use mobile network data.
Selecting a USB connection type
Synchronizing your data couldn't be easier - it's just that you mainly sync with the Google services. For those of you who prefer desktop syncing, the HTC Sync comes in handy. It is a nice tool for quick syncing of your contacts, calendar events and web browser bookmarks with PC (Outlook or Outlook Express). With its help you can also easily install third-party Android apps on your smartphone, and transfer photos, videos, music and playlists as well as documents.
Finally, we have to mention that the built-in microSD card slot can also be used as a data transfer tool. Card-readers are going for peanuts these days so having one around is quite likely and they give some pretty impressive speeds.
The user interface is pretty much nonexistent at first sight. With pinch-zooming enabled you don’t even need the +/- zoom buttons that we have seen on most other Android handsets.
The address bar is docked at the top of the page so you can scroll down and get it out of the way too. However you don’t need to scroll to the top every time you want to tap a new address – just press the menu button and bring it up anywhere on the page.
The Aria browser also supports double tap zooming and text reflow, which make it extremely easy to read even longer texts on the phone display. Without text reflow you will either have to zoom out until the text fits (but then it’s too small to read comfortably) or scroll sideways to read each line.
The minimalist UI is still quite powerful – hit the menu key and six keys pop up. You can open a new tab, switch tabs, refresh the page, go forward, open bookmarks. The final button reveals even more options (text copying, find on page, etc.).
Web browsing is a pleasurable experience on the HTC Aria
The bookmark list shows a thumbnail view of the bookmarked pages and you get a “most visited” list in addition to the regular history.
The bookmarks, Most visited and History lists
And to further sweeten the deal, HTC Aria has Flash support in its web browser. The performance is far from spectacular but it’s better than nothing. You should definitely pick simpler Flash games, but it’s good at least those run just fine.
Flash video support is also dodgy enough with the Aria failing to open the Vimeo and Netcafe videos that we tried. YouTube works fine but it uses the preinstalled YouTube application so it doesn’t really count.
The YouTube application
Mind you, the Android 2.1 browser has support for HTML5 and its video tag but since that is a few years (at best) away from becoming the norm we won’t be crediting it with extra point on that account.
That’s the Quickoffice app, which has support for viewing Word, Excel, and PowerPoint, including the Office 2007 versions.
For editing, you will need to get the paid app though. There is also a PDF viewer to handle PDF files.
The Quickoffice handles .doc, .xls and .ppt files seamlessly, but needs a paid upgrade for editing
The doc viewer integrates with the Gmail app, which makes viewing attachments a cinch. You can’t download them to the phone’s internal memory however. Attaching saved files (and we mean all kind of files) is possible though.
The PDF files are handled by the dedicated PDF reader
The calendar has four different types of view: daily, weekly, monthly and agenda. Adding a new event is quick and easy, and you can also set an alarm to serve as a reminder.
The HTC Aria organizer centerpiece – the calendar
The Agenda view shows a list of all the calendar entries from the recent past to the near future. It’s a very handy tool when you need to check your appointments for the next few days
The built-in calculator
The HTC Aria features an alarm clock application, which allows a lot of alarms to be set, each with its own start time and repeat pattern. The Desk clock app turns your Aria into a… well, Desk clock. It displays the current time and date and allows you to switch off the display backlighting to save battery power or not disturb at night.
The alarm clock and desk clock apps
The World clock app allows you to quickly check the time in different time zones, while the stopwatch and timer apps might come in handy if you plan to take the Aria with you when doing sports.
World clock
The Stocks application gives you quotes from Yahoo finance.
The Stocks app
The Voice recorder might be quite useful for making audio notes and the weather app brings Yahoo’s weather forecast for your area a click away.
Making a voice memo with the Voice recorder
Facebook and Twitter fans will appreciate the preinstalled Facebook and Peep apps, which allow you to update your profiles on the world’s largest social networks. Not that you couldn’t have downloaded it yourselves but it’s nice of HTC to have saved you the effort.
The Facebook and Peep apps let you update your Facebook and Tweeter profiles
And, finally, if those two don’t seem enough, you can certainly give Plurk a try (that’s yet another SNS). There’s a dedicated app to let you access Plurk on the go.
The Plurk app
Google Maps is a standard part of the Android package and of course makes an appearance on the Aria as well. Its voice-guided navigation version, the Google Maps Navigation is still only available in select countries though.
Google Maps is an incoherent part of the Android platform
You can still plan a route and track your current location so it’s better than nothing but you have to rely on network data for downloading the map info. At least, pinch-zooming is available here as well so on-screen controls and double-tap zooming won’t be your only zooming options.
The Street View mode is supported in Google Maps and it’s probably the most fun part of Google Maps. It gives you a 360-degree view of the surroundings where available. When the digital compass is turned on it feels like you’re taking a virtual tour of the location.
There’s worldwide roaming-ready quad-band GSM/GPRS/EDGE and dual-band (900/2100 MHz or 850/1900 MHz) 3G with HSPA. Download speed is quoted at 7.2Mbps and uploads can reach up to 2Mbps.
In terms of local connectivity, the Aria offers USB v2.0 via a microUSB port, Bluetooth v2.1 with A2DP support and Wi-Fi. Now that they’ve enabled Bluetooth transfers, there is very little more to ask for.
Internet tethering is also available over USB and it’s as easy as it gets to use. Just select tethering when prompted to choose computer pairing mode and you are good to go. HTC have also thought of people without a data plan and allow you to explicitly forbid the handset to use mobile network data.
Selecting a USB connection type
Synchronizing your data couldn't be easier - it's just that you mainly sync with the Google services. For those of you who prefer desktop syncing, the HTC Sync comes in handy. It is a nice tool for quick syncing of your contacts, calendar events and web browser bookmarks with PC (Outlook or Outlook Express). With its help you can also easily install third-party Android apps on your smartphone, and transfer photos, videos, music and playlists as well as documents.
Finally, we have to mention that the built-in microSD card slot can also be used as a data transfer tool. Card-readers are going for peanuts these days so having one around is quite likely and they give some pretty impressive speeds.
A great Flash-capable web browser
Solid web browsing has been an inherent part of the Android deal since day one. Now that we are at version 2.1, things are even sweeter with the intuitive user interface even more polished and the functionality reaching new heights.The user interface is pretty much nonexistent at first sight. With pinch-zooming enabled you don’t even need the +/- zoom buttons that we have seen on most other Android handsets.
The address bar is docked at the top of the page so you can scroll down and get it out of the way too. However you don’t need to scroll to the top every time you want to tap a new address – just press the menu button and bring it up anywhere on the page.
The Aria browser also supports double tap zooming and text reflow, which make it extremely easy to read even longer texts on the phone display. Without text reflow you will either have to zoom out until the text fits (but then it’s too small to read comfortably) or scroll sideways to read each line.
The minimalist UI is still quite powerful – hit the menu key and six keys pop up. You can open a new tab, switch tabs, refresh the page, go forward, open bookmarks. The final button reveals even more options (text copying, find on page, etc.).
Web browsing is a pleasurable experience on the HTC Aria
The bookmark list shows a thumbnail view of the bookmarked pages and you get a “most visited” list in addition to the regular history.
The bookmarks, Most visited and History lists
And to further sweeten the deal, HTC Aria has Flash support in its web browser. The performance is far from spectacular but it’s better than nothing. You should definitely pick simpler Flash games, but it’s good at least those run just fine.
Flash video support is also dodgy enough with the Aria failing to open the Vimeo and Netcafe videos that we tried. YouTube works fine but it uses the preinstalled YouTube application so it doesn’t really count.
The YouTube application
Mind you, the Android 2.1 browser has support for HTML5 and its video tag but since that is a few years (at best) away from becoming the norm we won’t be crediting it with extra point on that account.
A fine organizer on board, office doc reader too
The HTC Aria comes with the usual set of organizing apps. It also has a preinstalled document viewer, which handles office files just fine.That’s the Quickoffice app, which has support for viewing Word, Excel, and PowerPoint, including the Office 2007 versions.
For editing, you will need to get the paid app though. There is also a PDF viewer to handle PDF files.
The Quickoffice handles .doc, .xls and .ppt files seamlessly, but needs a paid upgrade for editing
The doc viewer integrates with the Gmail app, which makes viewing attachments a cinch. You can’t download them to the phone’s internal memory however. Attaching saved files (and we mean all kind of files) is possible though.
The PDF files are handled by the dedicated PDF reader
The calendar has four different types of view: daily, weekly, monthly and agenda. Adding a new event is quick and easy, and you can also set an alarm to serve as a reminder.
The HTC Aria organizer centerpiece – the calendar
The Agenda view shows a list of all the calendar entries from the recent past to the near future. It’s a very handy tool when you need to check your appointments for the next few days
Organizer (continued)
There is also a calculator aboard. It is nicely touch optimized with big, easy to hit buttons.The built-in calculator
The HTC Aria features an alarm clock application, which allows a lot of alarms to be set, each with its own start time and repeat pattern. The Desk clock app turns your Aria into a… well, Desk clock. It displays the current time and date and allows you to switch off the display backlighting to save battery power or not disturb at night.
The alarm clock and desk clock apps
The World clock app allows you to quickly check the time in different time zones, while the stopwatch and timer apps might come in handy if you plan to take the Aria with you when doing sports.
World clock
The Stocks application gives you quotes from Yahoo finance.
The Stocks app
The Voice recorder might be quite useful for making audio notes and the weather app brings Yahoo’s weather forecast for your area a click away.
Making a voice memo with the Voice recorder
Facebook and Twitter fans will appreciate the preinstalled Facebook and Peep apps, which allow you to update your profiles on the world’s largest social networks. Not that you couldn’t have downloaded it yourselves but it’s nice of HTC to have saved you the effort.
The Facebook and Peep apps let you update your Facebook and Tweeter profiles
And, finally, if those two don’t seem enough, you can certainly give Plurk a try (that’s yet another SNS). There’s a dedicated app to let you access Plurk on the go.
The Plurk app
GPS navigation without voice-guidance
The HTC Aria comes with a built-in GPS receiver. It managed a satellite lock in just over two minutes without A-GPS on, which isn’t too bad at all.Google Maps is a standard part of the Android package and of course makes an appearance on the Aria as well. Its voice-guided navigation version, the Google Maps Navigation is still only available in select countries though.
Google Maps is an incoherent part of the Android platform
You can still plan a route and track your current location so it’s better than nothing but you have to rely on network data for downloading the map info. At least, pinch-zooming is available here as well so on-screen controls and double-tap zooming won’t be your only zooming options.
The Street View mode is supported in Google Maps and it’s probably the most fun part of Google Maps. It gives you a 360-degree view of the surroundings where available. When the digital compass is turned on it feels like you’re taking a virtual tour of the location.
