android dome

The HTC Tattoo (formerly known as the HTC Click) is a phone manufactured by the HTC Corporation for the Android platform, as part of the A series. It is the second phone to feature the HTC Sense interface. The phone was announced on September 8, 2009.

From the appearance of the Tattoo, HTC looks like it has gone retro by moving away from its Android designs for the Magic and Hero and instead produced a design much closer to its first Touch handset of early 2007. Instead of going for the moleskin feel of its original touchscreen mobile, the Taiwanese phone maker has opted for a flush metal casing, although different designs are available for the handset and even personalised, custom-made fascias are possible.

Unlike other Android handsets from HTC, the Tattoo has a resistive touchscreen instead of capacitive. The device's designer explained that it was tested with a capacitive display, but that multi-touch simply wasn't practical on such a small screen, while the company's Twitter feed states that a capacitive screen is insufficiently accurate at this size. The resistive screen may also reduce costs. It has been confirmed by HTC that all future Android handsets will use capacitive screens, making the Tattoo the last one to use resistive.

At times the Tattoo's touchscreen is a tad unresponsive, and one needs to be precise using one's fingers. This could all be down to the smaller screen size of this mobile, as the touchscreen area is much tighter than on other phones. There were also some bothersome issues with the smaller screen with regard to text entry. On the HTC Touch of yesteryear the portrait keyboard on the Windows 6 OS phone took up a good deal of the screen, where on the HTC Tattoo it's really small and cramped, and struck us as not as useful due to its small size. The only manageable way to enter text on the Tattoo is with the keyboard in landscape mode where rather deliberate, careful typing is needed due to the smaller screen.

This phone is by your side 24/7 and looks do matter. With HTC Tattoo, you don’t just pick the look, you make the look, by designing your own personal skin for the phone. Next, you decide what really matters to you on your phone. So if you’re into chatting, texting, and tweeting, you’ll put all your communication widgets and apps right on your front screen. If you’re into games, you’ll visit Android Market and download all the games you want. Put them right on the surface - ready to kill boredom whenever it tries to come out.

HTC has cost-cut once again on the hardware front from the specs seen in the Hero and Magic, all to offer an affordable Google OS powered mobile. These other cost cutting measures affect the camera megapixel count and ability, which is only 3.2MP and without a flash but it still takes some nice shots. HTC could have hampered the audio connections by sticking to the accompanying miniUSB/ExtUSB socket for headphone connectivity as previously seen in the HTC Magic, but thankfully it hasn't done so. On board is the welcome 3.5mm audio socket, catering for the user's own choice of headphones and not forcing reliance on dodgy OEM listening devices.

HTC also didn't scrimp on the battery either, as it included a 1100mAh unit. In our tests the battery survived six hours and ten minutes worth of calls and, in a separate test, the phone lasted five hours and thirty-five minutes receiving calls. All the while the Tattoo was connected to WiFi, updating itself with Tweets, Facebook status updates and emails, making it useful for a good solid day out and about.