I’ve owned my Fuze for about a month. It’s my second WinMo smartphone (I previously owned a Samsung Blackjack II), and I do WinMo software development in my spare time.

Out of the box, the phone has many features that put iPhones and Blackberries to shame.

Pros:

+ VGA touchscreen (twice the resolution of iPhone’s display, and 4 times the resolution of QVGA)

+ QWERTY keyboard has lots of keys that are small, yet easily accessible with my large hands.

+ Accelerometers- might seem gimmicky at first (Teeter is a fun game), the ability to mute a phone call by turning it face-down is surprisingly useful

+ Opera as default web browser. It blows Pocket IE away in terms of speed and usability.

+ Community support- even though HTC doesn’t seem to care about customer’s support (“We don’t care if 3rd party software can’t run on your device…”), the folks at xda-developers.com are great about tweaking HTC phones to near-perfection.

+ Wireless connection options are great. Supports AT&T’s 3G/HSDPA network. Connection to a Wifi network is surprisingly fast for this little device (I wish my laptop could do this).

+ Supports HSUPA (needs to be unlocked), which increases upload speeds ten-fold (for me at least), which allows much snappier web-browsing

+ MicroSDHC expansion slot, allowing up to 32 GB of extra memory

+ TouchFlo3D front end

+ WinMo has more available apps than most (all?) other smartphone platforms, and is very easy to develop new apps for WM

+ Extra little surprises like the light sensor, very bright LED flash, snazzy notification LED (looks very cool), TV-out functionality (requires $20 cable), and a capacitive touchpad below the screen.

Cons:

- Small screen

- Crappy settings out of the box… Touchflow is jerky on default AT&T rom, GPS lag, hardware Direct3D support (easily fixable with a custom rom from xda-developers)

- AT&T bloatware, trial software wasting precious rom space (again, easily fixable with new rom)

- Glossy black finish = fingerprint magnet and very slippery device. The HTC Touch Pro overseas had a rubber matte back that was much nicer and felt more solid in your hands. No idea why they changed this for the US version.

- Lack of proper hardware drivers for video and 3D acceleration.*

*This is unacceptable. Even after HTC made assurances after the Kaiser driver debacle that future “devices” would be better supported. This thing has awesome hardware that is being advertised as one of the fastest mobile chipsets out on the market (Qualcomm MSM7201a, which has impressive specs on paper), but it runs video and games slower than my Dell Axim PocketPC produced back in 2003.

Overall, this is a great phone that with an impressive number of features. If you can excuse the mediocre video playback and lack of OpenGL ES support, this is an ideal phone. But if you’re looking for a robust multimedia device that can handle 640×480 videos as well as 3D games, I’d suggest avoiding HTC phones until they fix their drivers.
Rating: 3 / 5

I bought a Fuze a few weeks, upgrading from a Treo 680. I must say that they are totally different animals. The Treo was an effective, rather basic tool for work and communication. The Fuze is a highly sophisticated pocket computer that has an incredible range of uses from business to play. Here are more specific thoughts:

1. Choices: I looked at the Treo Pro, Samsung Epix, and the Blackberry Bold. The Fuze sold me on all of the issues I will discuss below.

2. Form factor: I’m not one of those business guys you see in airports with their phones in their belt holsters (not a good look in my view). I always keep my phone in my pants or shirt pocket, so the Treo (and just about every other smartphone) is just too big for that. The smaller size is great for me. Admittedly, the Fuze is a bit heavy and thicker than most, but the smaller over-all size makes up for that.

3. Keyboard: I might have been tempted to get an iPhone, but I use my phone a great deal for emailing while traveling and I just couldn’t get the hang of typing on a virtual keyboard. The Fuze’s slide-out keyboard is expansive compared to the Treo’s and other smartphones of that style. I love the top row of punctuation because I use punctuation much more than numbers and it’s nice not to have to press the Fn key for such a necessity while writing.

4. Tweakability: In researching the Fuze I found some amazing web sites devoted to it, including fuzemobility.com and xda-developers.com. Though I love technology, I’m no technophile, so I was really stumped when I began to install apps and tweak the Fuze. But thanks to some great people in helpful forums at xda-developers.com, I was able to install many great programs (e.g., FM radio, free GPS, more attractive theme, even convert the camera flash into a flashlight) and tweak its functioning and appearance so it can do so much more than just out of the box. I was also able to remove that annoying bloatware that AT&T puts on the phone.

5. Windows Mobile: Though Windows Mobile is often criticized, once I got the hang of it, and learned where everything was located (not at all intuitive), I’m able to move around the Fuze easily. I’ve also set up my menus and tabs so those apps I use most often are readily available. It is a bit slow periodically.

6. Syncing: The integration with my PC, primarily my Outlook calendar and contacts, is a breeze. I was concerned about transferring my Palm data to Outlook, but after researching different options, I found the easiest is to simply reinstall the Palm software and designate Outlook as the program I would be using.

7. Screen: It is incredibly sharp and detailed. I find the TouchFlo screen generally easy to use. Coming from a Palm, I usually use the stylus. I must admit that the screen often confuses swiping with opening, which can be annoying. But over all, I find it beats a scroll wheel.

8. Camera: No smartphone I found had a 3.2 camera that can take real, useable pics. Nice to have when I forget my camera.

9. Voice Command: Amazingly enough, the Voice Command actually works for calling and opening programs.

10. Annoyances: no 3.5 headphone jack, two different Programs pages, can’t move around icons on the various screens. All very minor.

Over all: A powerful business tool and a great toy.

Rating: 5 / 5

Let me preface this review by saying I was upgrading from a Verizon Treo 700w, which had a measly 32 MB of RAM and an unreliable docking connector.

Windows Mobile phones are right now the most flexible phones in that they have thousands of software titles written for them. iPhone comes in close second on this front, but only when jailbroken.

I almost went for the Samsung Epix (also on AT&T) instead due to its QWERTY keyboard on the front of the phone, but it was just too hard to pass up 256 MB of RAM, beautiful VGA screen, and a better (bur not ideal) connector scheme. Also, HTC phones have the wonderful benefit of having the myriad resources of “xda-developers” to provide new ROMs with bugs fixed and added capabilities. Also, Android may well be fully running on this phone in the next year as a result.

TouchFLO is a bit cumbersome, and at the moment I’m planning on swapping the default setup out for a less AT&T-branded one. I prefer the default black HTC color scheme.

Call quality is great, although the speaker could be a little louder. There is a built-in application for making the speaker and speakerphone louder.

Some of the AT&T-included software is great: a Java emulator for games and 3rd party apps, best-in-class Opera browser, a YouTube app available in the Windows Directory, Music ID based on the famous “Shazam” iPhone version, and Google Maps and TomTom Navigator (GPS software) can easily be added. There is also a Java-based Wikipedia viewer, which is surprisingly functional.

If you want a simple phone, this is not for you. If you want a simpler taste of Windows Mobile, go for the Treo Pro with its more basic interface and front keyboard.

However, I will note that I have a horrendous amount of functionality in my pocket. An 8 GB Class 6 MicroSDHC card means I have GPS maps for all of Europe, US, Canada, Mexico, Australia, New Zealand in my pocket at any given moment. I have push IMAP e-mail via SEVEN’s Beta, (my university doesn’t support BlackBerry or Exchange, which are MUCH easier to set up with AT&T’s BlackBerry Connect or the default OTA ActiveSync) as well as FM radio, great-looking internet on one of 6 great browsers, full YouTube access, and the ability to stream live TV from my media center for free via a zero-configuration VPN called Hamachi and a plug in for my Windows Media Center PC called WebGuide. (Slingbox is much simpler)

This is a wonderful and highly flexible phone. Be warned though, you won’t get the most out of it unless you’re willing to put in a bit of time figuring it out. I have to admit, if I could use Exchange I’d probably buy a Mac and an iPhone, and if I could only use BlackBerry, I’d probably buy a Bold.

But the flexibility of this thing is simply astounding.

(An additional guiding piece of advice: If you’re a basic Windows user buy a Blackberry Bold; if you’re an advanced Windows user buy this HTC Fuze, if you’re a Mac user buy the iPhone 3G, and if you’re a Linux user figure out a way to bring the HTC Google G1 on AT&T)
Rating: 4 / 5

AT&T replaced my Tilt with a Fuze after my Tilt broke for the third time in eight months. I must say I’m impressed by the Fuze, but it will take some tweaking to capitalize on its enormous potential.

First, from a design standpoint:

1. The Fuze is a downright beautiful phone. All my previous PDA phones looked… well… ugly. I never complained because the features were what I cared about most, but the Fuze is a reminder that a PDA phone can be funcitonal and stylish.

2. The addition of a fifth row of keys is a nice improvement, though as a previous Tilt (and before that, 8125) user I wish there was a Tab key on the Fuze. Instead, four keys are wasted on shortcuts to Calendar, Contacts, Messages, and Internet, all of which are easily accessible through menus.

3. The phone is a fingerprint magnet. Be prepared to constantly wipe the screen to keep it clear. Get a good screen protector, not like the cheap one included in the box.

4. The battery door on the back is faceted, not smooth. As a result, the phone can wobble when it is laid on a flat surface. This seems downright stupid, as style clearly won out over practicality on this one.

Features:

1. Wide range of connectivity options. In addition to cellular, there are still wi-fi and bluetooth. Supports the A2DP profile, so it can be paired eastily with bluetooth headphones.

2. GPS. A built-in radio means you can load GPS software and maps and navigate without having to use AT&T’s subscription-based offering.

3. Powerful hardware. 528MHz processor and 512MB of built-in memory.

4. High resolution screen. 640×480 full VGA is quite impressive given the screen’s size. The touchscreen is not quite as responsive as the one on the iPhone, but it’s still quite nice.

5. Battery life. As with any PDA phone, the Fuze cannot rival traditional handsets, but its battery life is much improved over previous models (the Tilt being my reference point). If you don’t use data, you can disable 3G using third-party utilities and this will enhance your battery life.

All of this considered, it will take some considerable tweaking to get your Fuze running at top speed. AT&T’s bloatware really slows down the Fuze, and on top of it all the custom AT&T interface is ugly. I guess according to the user guidelines, I’m prohibited from linking to third party websites, but if you do a Google search for “ATT Fuze NOOBs only” the first result is the easiest, most straightforward guide I have come across for a speedy, bloat-free Fuze. I’m much happier having spent about an hour customizing my Fuze – it’s faster and prettier, I get better battery life, and best of all I avoided all the dangers of flashing a cooked ROM (which voids your warranty – do not recommend).

All in all, a worthy successor to the Tilt.
Rating: 5 / 5

If you are already familiar with Windows Mobile and or love to tinker with the workings of applications and the Windows environment, you’ll really like this phone.

We ordered both an iPhone and the Fuze at the same time. I use the Fuze and my wife uses the iPhone. Both have allot of terrific features and work very well, but they each have their niche of optimal user. It is very much like comparing a Mac to a PC. Whereas the iPhone is a relatively seamless package that just works, the Fuze provides customization options and access to countless outside applications that can keep one tinkering endlessly. Sure, you could just stick to the AT&T provided interface and applications and get a very decently working smartphone, but that’s like asking Michael Phelps to break world records while wearing a business suit.

I’m not going to go down the list of pros and cons outside of that because there are plenty of other reviews here and elsewhere to do that for you, but to sum it up: If you just want something that works well and never want to tinker with how it works, there are better options, like the iPhone. But if you want something that can do virtually everything the iPhone can do (the most noteable exception being no multi-touch on the Fuze) with the option to expand and modify it, the Fuze is a great platform to do that.

Other points worth noting if you are the type to keep your mobile devices for several years are that you can simply replace a dying battery yourself with the Fuze, vs. sending the iPhone back to Apple, and the microSD card slot allows slick and easy memory swaps and upgrades. Plus you are not tied to using iTunes to manage your applications and data when connected to a computer, with the option to use Microsoft ActiveSync or simple drag and drop style file transfer. But don’t expect it to be as easy either.

The bottom line is that while my wife loves her iPhone and would never think to edit a registry setting, I love the versatility to tinker with the Fuze in ways that you simply cannot with the iPhone. Similarly, I would never give my non-tech savvy mother a Fuze, whereas the iPhone would keep the “Can you fix my computer?” type of calls to a minimum.

I only took away one star for two reasons. The first of which was all of the useless demos and applicatons cluttering up the menus that AT&T has included to sell you more stuff, and for the bulkiness of the package. Sure it’s allot to ask to stuff that much technology into something so small, but the similarly powerful iPhone manages it in a package half the thickness, although without the physical keyboard which I have found to be indispensable.
Rating: 4 / 5