Review of HTC Aria (Gratia) Smartphone
Introduction, Positioning
I'm a big fan of small touchscreens, this is why my personal phone is Nokia 5530, which I just had to buy once I got my hands on it shortly after its release. It was small, light, touchscreen and, on paper, had everything I was looking for. While I have experienced more frustration with it than with any phone I have ever owned (it basically serves as an alarm clock now), I kept on dreaming about a similar size touchscreen with something more advanced than Symbian inside, Android for example. HTC Aria comes very close to that phone of my dreams, but, besides Aria working only on AT&T, a couple of minor deficiencies keep me from going with it.
Before we get there, let's take a look at what competition Aria is stuck up against – other small touchscreen (3.2" LCD or less) smartphones. Let's start with AT&T network itself – Aria is priced at $129.99 with a 2-year contract or $379.99 without one. For the same amount of money or less you can get yourself a Palm Pre ($49.99/$399.99) or a Sony Ericsson Vivaz ($79.99/$429.99). As you can see, the competition within AT&T network uses other OS (WebOS and Symbian respectively) and is cheaper with a contract, but more expensive without one.
Verizon offers the same Palm Pre ($49.99/$599.99), LG Ally ($49.99/$369.99) and LG Fathom ($99.9/$379.99). Palm runs WebOS, Fathom – WM 6.5 and Ally "naked" Android. Ally has a better screen and a hardware shutter button, but a weaker camera (3.2MP vs. 5MP), is larger and has no HTC Sense.
Sprint has the rugged Motorola i1 ($149.99/$349.99), aging Hero ($149.99/$429.99) and the same ever present Palm Pre ($49.99/$349.99). Both Android handsets have small screens, but are physically considerably larger than the Aria.
T-Mobile sells a variation of Hero called myTouch 3G ($99.99/$399.99), aging Samsung Behold II ($299.99/$379.99) and most importantly Nokia 5230 Nuron (Free/$179.99). Why most importantly? Because Nuron and Pre are the only full touchscreen smartphones on the major US networks that can compete with Aria size wise.
As you can see, HTC Aria, (a.k.a. HTC Liberty, a.k.a. HTC HD Mini with Windows 6.5 OS and a.k.a. recently announced for other markets HTC Gratia) has very little competition and none running Android. This puts it in a rather unique position – it becomes the ideal Android phone for people upgrading from a regular phone to a smartphone, who are not ready to deal with a top-of-the-line smartphones screen size and cost.
What is also interesting, is that Aria is de facto the first Android phone on AT&T network, who was so married to iPhone, it snubbed the Andy for the longest time (of course, we cannot count a thoroughly castrated Motorola Backflip as a real Android smartphone).
Conclusion
While the lack of a camera flash and a dedicated camera button prevent this phone from being the "ideal" phone for me personally, it comes pretty damn close (of course, AT&T is a deal breaker too). Overall HTC Aria is a great phone if this is what you need – a small touchscreen smartphone, fast, with the full set of wireless interfaces, etc, plus it effectively replaces the Personal Navigation Device like Garmin or TomTom at least in the US. I have to add that it also represents a good value – at the moment of writing with a new 2 year contract AT&T sells it for $129.99 after a rebate, without a contract for $379.99, cheaper than most other current Android 2.1 phones. Hopefully this review will help you decide whether this phone is something you want.
I'm a big fan of small touchscreens, this is why my personal phone is Nokia 5530, which I just had to buy once I got my hands on it shortly after its release. It was small, light, touchscreen and, on paper, had everything I was looking for. While I have experienced more frustration with it than with any phone I have ever owned (it basically serves as an alarm clock now), I kept on dreaming about a similar size touchscreen with something more advanced than Symbian inside, Android for example. HTC Aria comes very close to that phone of my dreams, but, besides Aria working only on AT&T, a couple of minor deficiencies keep me from going with it.
Before we get there, let's take a look at what competition Aria is stuck up against – other small touchscreen (3.2" LCD or less) smartphones. Let's start with AT&T network itself – Aria is priced at $129.99 with a 2-year contract or $379.99 without one. For the same amount of money or less you can get yourself a Palm Pre ($49.99/$399.99) or a Sony Ericsson Vivaz ($79.99/$429.99). As you can see, the competition within AT&T network uses other OS (WebOS and Symbian respectively) and is cheaper with a contract, but more expensive without one.
Verizon offers the same Palm Pre ($49.99/$599.99), LG Ally ($49.99/$369.99) and LG Fathom ($99.9/$379.99). Palm runs WebOS, Fathom – WM 6.5 and Ally "naked" Android. Ally has a better screen and a hardware shutter button, but a weaker camera (3.2MP vs. 5MP), is larger and has no HTC Sense.
Sprint has the rugged Motorola i1 ($149.99/$349.99), aging Hero ($149.99/$429.99) and the same ever present Palm Pre ($49.99/$349.99). Both Android handsets have small screens, but are physically considerably larger than the Aria.
T-Mobile sells a variation of Hero called myTouch 3G ($99.99/$399.99), aging Samsung Behold II ($299.99/$379.99) and most importantly Nokia 5230 Nuron (Free/$179.99). Why most importantly? Because Nuron and Pre are the only full touchscreen smartphones on the major US networks that can compete with Aria size wise.
As you can see, HTC Aria, (a.k.a. HTC Liberty, a.k.a. HTC HD Mini with Windows 6.5 OS and a.k.a. recently announced for other markets HTC Gratia) has very little competition and none running Android. This puts it in a rather unique position – it becomes the ideal Android phone for people upgrading from a regular phone to a smartphone, who are not ready to deal with a top-of-the-line smartphones screen size and cost.
What is also interesting, is that Aria is de facto the first Android phone on AT&T network, who was so married to iPhone, it snubbed the Andy for the longest time (of course, we cannot count a thoroughly castrated Motorola Backflip as a real Android smartphone).
Conclusion
While the lack of a camera flash and a dedicated camera button prevent this phone from being the "ideal" phone for me personally, it comes pretty damn close (of course, AT&T is a deal breaker too). Overall HTC Aria is a great phone if this is what you need – a small touchscreen smartphone, fast, with the full set of wireless interfaces, etc, plus it effectively replaces the Personal Navigation Device like Garmin or TomTom at least in the US. I have to add that it also represents a good value – at the moment of writing with a new 2 year contract AT&T sells it for $129.99 after a rebate, without a contract for $379.99, cheaper than most other current Android 2.1 phones. Hopefully this review will help you decide whether this phone is something you want.