HTC Snap Windows smartphone has incorporated many stylistic elements of the Blackberry Curve. It seems HTC is blatantly trying to lure potential buyers of Blackberry Curve which is most notably available in India with Reliance.

HTC Snap has many positives such as a great screen, well built and user-friendly keyboard, GPS onboard support and quick HSDPA support. Design-wise it has the Blackberry-like black finish.

A metallic strip goes through the middle across the handset in which you’ll find the trackball and other six buttons. The rest of the body has a slightly rubberized feel that makes it easy to hold and reduce its chances to slip from your hands when you’re busy sending a message or business document.

In the track ball and overall appearance, including the keyboard, HTC Snap appears to mimic the Blackberry Curve 8900, which means it’s quite a good looker in the business phone category. It is also quite light at 120g, making it quite easy to hold and use.

HTC Snap is a Windows phone with Mobile 6.1 Standard operating system. This is one of the advantages since many organizations insist on employees having a WinMo (Windows Mobile) phone. This could lure potential Blackberry customers to the Snap.

It is powered by the Qualcomm 528MHz MSM 7225 processor and HTC has equipped it with 192 MB RAM. While HTC has the Touchflo interface in its touchscreen handsets, Snap is a keyboard-only smartphone with no touchscreen. Snap offers quite decent performance even with other applications running in the background.

The standard WinMo interface has a confusing layout which is a drawback with HTC Snap too when you enter the menu section of Windows Mobile. But Microsoft has upgraded the Windows Mobile 6.1 operating system, so you get a homescreen with sliding panels.

HTC has also made its own contribution to the Snap’s software with its unique Inner Circle. This software, which can be accessed through a button on the keypad, helps users prioritise messages received from their important contacts. Quite like Circles on the Google+ social network platform, users need to add contacts from their email or address book to their Inner Circle.

This helps the software to store the entries. When users press the Inner Circle key they’ll get all the emails (arranged according to date of course) from these contacts at the top of their inbox.

The 3G support facilitates download speeds of up to 7.2 Mbps. There is also quad-band GSM support on offer, and the quality of calls appears to be great too. The screen size is of 2.4 inches. It only has one 2.0-megapixel camera at the rear, so video conferencing is strangely not an option on business phone such as the HTC Snap!

Overall it is a good handset, but glaring omissions such as the lack of a front facing camera and the sometimes confusing WinMo interface are negatives. HTC Snap is expected to be available in India for a price tag of around Rs.22,000.

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