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I’m notoriously slow when it comes to updating my phones, or maybe I just don’t destroy them as fast as some other folks. I’ve noticed looking back through my blog I’ve been in the Motorola camp for a long time. Back in 2004 I talked about the Motorola V180, which was mediocre at best. Then, around 2006 I migrated to the Motorola L7, which overall was a very good phone in general minus a few hiccups with Bluetooth functionality. In 2008 I moved on to the Motorola RAZR2 V9, and my opinion about it was that it was mediocre at best. Now true to my two year cycle, I’ve finally upgrade to a Smartphone, namely the HTC Aria. Why not another Motorola? Well, simply put the only available Motorola Android from AT&T at the time was the Backflip and frankly put I found it quite ugly and cheap looking with all the plastic. Additionally, it also felt a little thick and bulky due to the keyboard. I played around with the Samsung Captivate, which had an amazing screen, and the Sony Ericsson Xperia X10 which had a nice display as well and felt more comfortable when gripped over the Samsung. However, both of these devices with their 4” screens were simply a bit on the large side making them a little awkward to hold when talking on the phone. Their size also makes them a bit large when stored in a pens pocket, which could make them more prone to damage when sitting down whatnot. Why not an iPhone? Let’s just say that me and Apple products don’t generally get along very well :).

In general I’ve started to accept that I like my electronic devices small and light since it make them a lot more pleasant to travel with. Case in point, I used to go for laptops with large screens, but nowadays I’m perfectly fine with having a large screen at home, but for travel purposes I’d much rather have a thin and light laptop. Similarly, the 3.2” display size on the Aria is one of the things that won me over in the end. Sure the screen is not as gorgeous as the ones in the aforementioned devices; however, this screen size makes the phone more compact and lighter, and thus much more comfortable to hold in the end. But there is more to the Aria than size alone. Another nice feature is the rear cover which has a rubbery feel to it and can almost act as a protective cover. Due to the rubbery nature I might drop this phone less than usual, but this remains to be seen. In the car this cover has already proven itself worthy, preventing the phone from sliding all over the place and I tend to take corners with more speed than the average person on most occasions. Finally, one of the Aria’s major advantages is responsiveness. This phone, with the HTC Sense user interface is lightning fast. Running Android 2.1, this phone ran circles around the other Android offerings even though it is powered by a rather underpowered 600MHz processor. Games and applications shave been running fast and problem free so far.  The only slow thing has been the loading of web pages which have not been optimized for mobile devices. This however, might well be a function of the 3G AT&T network, so the jury is out on this one.

Now, the HTC Aria is not perfect by any means. The battery life which lasts me just about two days without a charge, not bad by Smartphone standards, could be better. Forget your charger once, and the next day you start worrying about if people will be able to reach you. Another shortcoming is the button on the top of the phone which is utilized to turn the phone on or off, or to bring it back from suspend mode. The flaw with the button is the placement, which makes it difficult to press when holding the phone with one hand. HTC should have moved it up a little more which would make it much easier to press. The volume level on the HTC also leaves a bit to be desired. It simply is not loud enough which might be a problem if you plan on using it in noisy environments. Finally, taking off the phone cover is a very awkward process. The first few times doing it you will think you are braking the phone apart, which is not a very pleasant experience. HTC should consider redesigning that mechanism for sure. I’ve not used the camera much and in general I tend to not use phone cameras, so I can’t really comment on the picture quality. For those that do, notice that this phone does not have a flash, so pictures in dim conditions are likely to turn out less than stellar. Overall though, I’m very pleased with the phone thus far and with the Android 2.2 upgrade just around the corner things are likely to only get better.