It seems like HTC is focusing completely on a particular group of people, specifically women. Seriously, now. Tough job building a ladies phone – but hey, that’s what accessories are for. Before we get to them though, the HTC Rhyme is a delicious little phone, except that it’s not that little at all. The good thing is the trademark unibody design is less industrial but softer and more delicate. And the colors… Apart from the accessories, the paintjobs are the only thing that makes the handset different. Feminine?
The HTC Rhyme is hard to define. It almost feels like they didn’t plan this one as a phone for girls. When they later decided to target the female audience, they came up with all sorts of relevant accessories. You’ll never hear anyone at HTC call it the ladies smartphone. But it’s being marketed as one. They are extra careful to avoid references to Android and don’t even call it a smartphone in any of their ads.
That’s not what we’re gonna do. We’ll look at the smartphone inside the Rhyme. And see if it could be his smartphone too, as much as hers. That’s what HTC would gladly have people think. It’d be a win-win for them.But let’s see what’s in the HTC Rhyme for users. We have the full list of features and possible deal-breakers coming up.
HTC Rhyme : The Package
- Quad-band GSM and tri-band 3G support
- 14.4 Mbps HSDPA and 5.76 Mbps HSUPA
- 3.7″ 16M-color capacitive S-LCD touchscreen of WVGA resolution (480 x 800 pixels)
- Android OS v2.3 Gingerbread with HTC Sense 3.5
- 1 GHz single Scorpion CPUs, Adreno 205 GPU, Qualcomm Snapdragon MSM8255 chipset
- 768 MB RAM; 4 GB storage
- microSD card slot (class 4 8GB card in the bundle)
- 5 MP autofocus camera with single LED flash; face detection, geotagging, HDR mode, image auto-upload
- 720p video recording @ 30fps, slo-mo videos (2x at WVGA)
- Wi-Fi b/g/n and DLNA
- GPS with A-GPS
- Stereo FM radio with RDS
- Accelerometer, proximity and ambient light sensor
- Front facing camera, video call
- Standard 3.5 mm audio jack
- microUSB port (charging) and stereo Bluetooth v3.0
- Smart dial, voice dialing
- Office document editor
- DivX/XviD video support
- HTC Locations app
- HTCSense.com integration
- HTC Portable Hotspot
- Ultra-fast boot times
- Rich set of accessories
HTC Rhyme – Flaws
- Average display
- Non-user-replaceable battery
- No dedicated camera key
- Pricey for a single-core smartphone
- Wi-Fi death grip issues
So there you have it the “not so girly” specs of the HTC Rhyme. But what indeed makes it seem girly are the accessories and the colours HTC has decided to splash on the rhyme. You can get the plum (pink/magenta), the clearwater ( No not transparent.. full white) and hourglass ( mettalic sandy.. uh I know not how to describe it) . And the accessories – you get a very different looking pair of earphones, a docking station and a pouch of matching colours apart from the standard package with the charger and the adapter. You also get an additional 4GB memory card . We really are not sure what HTC has tried to pull of here but hope it gets the expected sales with the HTC Rhyme
