Review: HTC myTouch 3G Slide
Calls
The constant presence of the software phone button helps alleviate the pain of not having a real phone key, somewhat. Press it, and it takes you to the dialpad. The most recently placed/missed call is placed above the dial pad. Press it to re-dial, or dial a new number directly if you want to talk to somebody else.
As you type, the phone sorts through your phone book in one of the coolest ways I've seen. Say you dial an area code. All the matches in that area code are immediately pulled up into a cover-flow-esque graphic. You can then swipe left or right through those contacts to find the right contact/number. It will also tell you how many matches you have for the digits dialed, and preview Facebook profile photos if you've synced a Facebook account. Touch the face of the person you want to call, and the Slide connects you. Neat! If you use the physical keyboard, it will sort through names rather than numbers.
The usual call history, calling groups, faves and online directories are all supported.
Contacts
Android 2.1 is very adept at handling contact databases. It seamlessly merges Google and Facebook contacts, and automatically cross-populates data when it is incomplete in one of those databases. That means if you have somebody's email address in Gmail, but their phone number only in Facebook, you'll see both in a single contact page for that person. The usefulness of this feature cannot be understated. It will also pull down Exchange contacts if you have them. All of this happens automagically from the internet in the background. God I love modern technology.
HTC has added its own touches to make things better/different. The Slide comes with a version of its "Faves" contact program, which is borrowed from Sense UI. Users can populate the program with their most-often contacted friends, family, colleagues, etc. The graphics are fun, and the UI does this neat little flippy card thing when you interact with it, but it's also useful. When a Fave is displayed on the page, there are icons that appear under the Fave's picture that let users easily call, compose an SMS, send an email, or interact with them on Facebook.
Good stuff, HTC.
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HTC myTouch 3G Slide
