By Melvin Seah

I AM usually much faster on a numeric keypad when it comes to churning out SMS messages but the Qwerty keyboard is my thing when it comes to lengthy typing.

If you are like that too, the HTC S740's dual keyboards might earn your praise.

You are likely to take to the phone's sleek design: It has a flush mirrored finish across the 2.4-inch screen and keypad and its back is adorned with a matt black rubberised coating with distinctive diamond patterns, much like the popular HTC Touch Diamond.

That said, with its elongated body, it is easy to mistake the S740 for a remote control.

Not only did I like the HTC S740's design, I enjoyed typing on the keyboard too, thanks to its good tactile feel.

This is important as the phone does not have a touchscreen so you will need to rely fully on its buttons.

I must add, however, that it took me a while to get used to the keyboard because the keys are unnaturally broad and my fingers had to move a fair distance when typing.

What is inadequate is the number pad keys, which felt rather 'soggy' to the touch. Also, the call and hang up buttons are so slim that I kept hitting adjacent buttons accidentally.

Fans of HTC's TouchFLO interface will also be disappointed. Without a touchscreen, you will not get to use this cool feature that lets you swipe your fingers over the screen to navigate and control programs.

The specs: They are impressive, with a Qualcomm MSM7225 chip at 528MHz and 256MB of RAM, HSDPA, WLAN and a 3.2-megapixel camera.

It is also enabled for GPS and the more advanced A-GPS, although it does not come preloaded with navigation software.

The S740 runs on Windows Mobile 6.1 Standard OS but its interface has been tweaked to suit a non-touchscreen phone. The menu is arranged in a three-by-three grid like in non-Windows Mobile phones.

In software, the usual suspects are there - Office Mobile, MSN Messenger, Internet Explorer and HTC's proprietary home screen. If you are a heavy Office Mobile user, do note that you cannot create documents from scratch - you can only edit existing ones. A tad troublesome, if you ask me.

To try out the GPS feature, I downloaded Google maps. With assisted GPS, which uses downloaded data from satellites, the phone is able to pick up a satellite signal very quickly, usually within 30 seconds from a cold start.

There were inaccuracies though: Every once in a while, it showed me to be over 50m away from where I really was.

The phone was reasonably responsive and voice quality was decent. However, I was unable to use the phone for a conference call as its speaker sounded muffled.

Final say

The HTC S740's strongest selling point is its dual keyboards. Its good looks don't hurt too.

By Melvin Seah, a freelance writer.

This story was first published in The Straits Times Digital Life on 17 December 2008.

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