When the specifications for the HTC Elf, the platform the HTC Touch is based on, were released some time ago it was met with little...

OK, I have my Touch now and it's great. The smallest phone I've had for years and i really don't notice the speed difference between the Touch and Ameo (That said, I do have the world loaded onto the Ameo and am keeping the Touch minimalist. But, from the pouch in the box to the screen protector and 1Gb card I don't need to buy anything for this (Except for SPB full screen keyboard - the fingertouch doesn't cut it on this small a device). Credit to T-Mobile for not removing WiFi, but I HATE the pink branding in the comms manager! Although it's the only pinkness on the device - black is the new black. PC-Pro slated the Touch recently for not following through the Touch-UI into WM6. Their follow-on article states the main thing he would change is buy fullscreen keyboard and I agree.

I get the wow-factor from the Ameo and Touch now, and am interested to see if Jim uses this more than the Treo now!

Have you tried PocketCM keyboard Des? I find fullscreen keyboard is not necessary on the Touch, this does the trick.

Hopfully my touch will be there when I gtet home!

I have tried fingertouch, pocketCM, tengo thumb and fullscreen keyboard. Fingertouch, whilst on my Ameo, just isn't the same balance between strike area, size and speed compared to Tengo and fullscreen keyboard. PocketCM, is good if you want one-letter-at-a-time rather than typing words IMHO. I've also installed the Touch settings from XDA-devs which is the business as you can not only modify the launcher shortcuts, but also have the same selection of weather sources as in SPB Menu! Add the softkey config utility from T-mob and this device is now very useful indeed! And did I mention how small it is!

I've found the predictions are good enough for me to only really type half of what I need to with PocketCM and because it's that smidgeon bigger I can type quite rapidly with it.

Well after a week now, the Touch really is the best device I have used for a long time! The speed with a basic app set is just as fast as a fully loaded PPC such as the Ameo/Hermes IMHO. The apps I have loaded are as follows:

Pocketbreeze
Tengo Thumb
PCM
PCM keyboard
SK Tools
Contactbreeze

The battery life is awsome for such a small device and I can easily last two days now. The speed of response is really impressive, in fact the only slowdown I noticed was trying to run a complex powerpoint file. In short, as a smartphone this is excellent and given the you get the full suite of software from T-Mobile (Sprite, SPB GPRS monitor, HTC backup and AV) plus a 1Gb Sandisk MicroSD card, then it has to be excellent value for money too. Once the new SIPs come out then I would state that this is an iPhone beater without question, and if HTC can get true integration with something like PocketCM for contacts processing then life will be rosy!

I've found the transition to the on-screen keyboard a bit difficult, mainly due to not being able to strike in the correct place, although I've also found that PocketCM for contacts can be a little slow to start, not sure if that's because I have a lot of contacts though...

Only the whole, the Touch is one sweet, svelte device, and actually managed to turn some heads at my team meeting over the last couple of days....

I do think they could have gone a bit further with the touch cube and added more to it, as I think it's great!!

Yeah, I agree the Touch cube needs work. I must admit I never use it. They're supposed to have done a bit more with the Touch Slidey what-not though.

What's the Touch slidey what-not mate, I'll have to have another look now!

I got to admit, I like the cube & I use it quite a bit!