A Taiwanese company of HTC, which is an ODM/OEM manufacturer of Windows Mobile devices, follows existing traditions in its release of new platforms. Just remember after a successful HTC Himalayas, a keyboard model with an integrated Wi-Fi module, we mean HTC Blue Angel, appeared only in a while. And after it in the beginning of this year we introduced a renewal of HTC Himalayas. It had no keyboard, however was equipped with Wi-Fi. That was HTC Alpine with the same body and a slightly improved camera. By its appearance, HTC Magician gave a stimulus to a new gadget line, which is intermediate between Pocket PC and Smartphone. And even till now this device keeps high sale. And the company decided to develop its new branch using an approved way - HTC Wizard with Wi-Fi and a keyboard and run by a new operating system came out quite in a while. Now similarly to HTC Alpine, just at the same period after HTC Wizard, a new HTC Prophet comes. It has no keyboard; however Wi-Fi and an improved camera are both present.

Review of HTC Prophet by the example of GSM communicator Qtek S200

Magician, wizard and… a prophet. Magician, Wizard, and Prophet are code names of the platforms. They will appear under various brands of operators and other companies like qtek, Dopod, I-mate, T-mobile, O2, Orange and others. The first two trade marks belong to HTC (and cover a European and Asian regions correspondingly). At that these models can have different design, body colour and some elements, extra software. And gradually HTC introduces more and more variations of the same platform. We tested Qtek S200 in black, and it differs from other models in nothing principal, so a code name of the platform will be used in the review.

On the one hand, HTC Prophet is a complete copy (both software and hardware are meant) of HTC Wizard. On the other hand, it's equal to HTC Magician in appearance. That is why today review will be quite short, we will only discuss external elements and a new camera, all other aspects were highlighted in the review of HTC Wizard. The appearance has not changed much from the HTC Magician's time, it just got rounder. Side edges are not splay as earlier, but slightly project. The body is made of a less smooth, almost dull black material (the front part is of metal, and the back and sides are made of plastic). I found this plastic pleasant to touch and it looks like expensive. A negative point is that the dull surface is easily soiled, and fingerprints remain on it.

As you can see the quality of macrophotos is on the high level. Small text fields will be the most suitable for taking photos, and taking photos with later recognition of visit cards is an ideal solution for macromode. But still this utility is not integrated; though such a program has already become standard on Windows Mobile communicators by Samsung. And I hope it will appear here also by the commercial launch of the product. Photos in macromode are ones of the best among smartphones. Let us see camera capabilities in a usual mode. You can see that outdoors photos are highly detailed, details are not blurred and no area is whitened. They look good, which makes a considerable progress as compared with the previous models. Although, the photos still lack picture brightness and vividness. I suppose that is a software problem - having slightly edited photos in Photoshop, you will make them much more attractive. Indoors photos are also very qualitative, incorrectly shown white colour and bright objects is the minus. White colour turns into yellow and bright objects like a lamp will get a special aura, extra luminescence. I was not really surprised by video recording. The maximum resolution (176x144 pixels) and the quality are low. There is a conclusion I made for the camera part. That is a giant leap for HTC, however still there is much to develop for the level of Nokia's and Siemens' smartphones (no autofocus, normal flash, normal nightmode, good software image developer). So, the developers should finish with the camera software before the release, a program for recognizing visit cards would be very suitable.

Conclusions, impressions HTC Prophet showed no problems with the connection quality. The best call melody should be MP3 or WMA. The call signal and vibro are average in power, so you can miss a call in a noisy place (the volume is now lower than in HTC Magician, which will be corrected by the commercial launch). The Prophet is some kind of a cocktail of the HTC Magician's appearance and HTC Wizard inside. Some negative and positive moments can be mentioned when comparing with HTC Wizard. Positive: * Smaller size and weight; * Full-size SD/MMC connector (more memory is available); * Extra buttons under the screen for comfortable control of the OS without a stylus. * Smaller price; * Considerably improved camera. Negative: * No keyboard; * No flash (that is hard to consider a disadvantage, since the one in the Wizard has not coped with its functions); * Two extra loudspeakers are absent, that is why the device sounds lower; * Later on the counters. And a similar comparison with HTC Magician. Pros: * A new OS, which prevents your data from loss even at significant battery discharge, comfortable control without a stylus, improved Office Mobile; * Integrated Wi-Fi version g; * Longer battery life; * The ergonomics of the control elements is slightly improved; /li> * The camera is a bit better. Cons: * CPU 200 MHz instead of 400 MHz (hard to play video, and work with Skype); * Less RAM. The model will appear on the counters on the joint of the first and the second quarter of 2006. Obviously, the price will be on the level of HTC Magician Dark (Qtek S110), but less than of HTC Wizard (extra pay for the keyboard). Some of HTC Magician's users, who need Wi-Fi and a new OS, however the presence of a keyboard is not as principal, will buy the Prophet. And the majority of the owners, who do not consider the presence of Wi-Fi crucial, will not exchange the device for HTC Prophet. The reasons are - nothing principally new, piratical software with the new OS for the Magician can appear. And the last is you may find it hard to part with megahertz and megabytes psychologically. And people used to changing the devices often will also change the smartphone. So, we see the ode is targeted at new users. And if HTC Magician had no rivals by the launch moment, then HTC Prophet will face well-deserved competitors in the person of E-Ten M600 and O2 XDA Atom. Still the model will compete with HTC Magician (qtek S110) for the first time. And at the same time, there is no evident advantage in any of the mentioned models; it is hard to call any a leading one.