HTC Aria

The first decent Android phone for AT&T, the HTC Aria is a cute, usable, and fun little device. It just has one problem. While the Aria sports a sharp screen, great camera, and excellent social networking features, AT&T has larded it down with a dump of bloatware that ranges from the redundant to the actually evil.

Size and Weight :

The Aria looks like an HTC EVO 4G that shrunk in the wash. At 4.1 by 2.3 by .46 inches (HWD) and only 4.1 ounces, the Aria fits easily into even small hands, and it's navigable one-handed. It's classy-looking, with a glossy black front and a soft-touch black back that appears to be screwed into place.

Network and connectivity:

Surfing is the Aria’s major low-resolution deficiency. Tiny text, especially on Web pages (not so much on e-mail) is often heavily pixelated and difficult to read quickly. With its 600MHz processor (and perhaps because of AT&T’s New York 3G network), Web pages don’t load nearly as quickly as they do on competing devices, including the iPhone. Mobile optimized pages take around five to six seconds to load, around twice as slow as other recent phones, and non-mobile optimized pages in 15 to 25 seconds.

Camera and Video:

The Aria's 5-megapixel camera is one of the best I've seen in a while. It takes very sharp photos, even in low light. The autofocus is pretty smart; though it's slow at 1.7 seconds when it kicks in, it tries to gauge whether or not it's necessary, and subsequent photos in the same focus range are speedy at 0.4 seconds. The video mode records clear enough 640-by-480 videos at 30 frames per second. All in all, this is a good phone for capturing your memories.

Memory and Display:

The Aria's biggest asset is the fact that it's small. While other smartphones are chasing the ''big is beautiful'' trope, the compact Aria is constructed to fit comfortably in your pocket. The 480 x 320 touchscreen is a tight 3.2 inches and the phone's overall velvety black chassis is gussied up with sleek chrome accents. The super-glossy front is subtly outfitted with touch-sensitive softkeys below the screen, and the tiniest optical trackpad. To be fair, this diminutive design might frustrate the sausage-fingered but it's a minor quibble considering how intuitive the rest of the Aria feels. HTC's two touch keyboards are pretty small given the screen size, but your tolerance for this will really be about your fingers' size and nimbleness. I didn't have a problem, but I have small hands. The bones are there it takes microSD cards up to 32GB, and syncs with doubleTwist on PCs or Macs through a standard MicroUSB cable.

Entertainment Features:

It comes with plenty of useful software, including multiple home screens, an excellent Web browser, Twitter and Facebook clients, and a graphical grid of favorite contacts. It works with most of the 70,000 currently-available Android apps (all the ones that run on Version 2.1). Games ran smoothly and YouTube videos played clearly, even in HQ. Speed tests showed around 1.2 megabits down on AT&T's 3G network not bad at all. With its small, low-resolution screen, the Aria really isn’t designed as a serious video viewer. It’s adequate for viewing HD YouTube or MMS videos, and MobiTV and AT&T’s home grown Mobile Video app (both subscription-based) are included, but you’ll have to bring the screen up to about six inches of your nose, soon be squinting, after watching for around five minutes. Audio-wise, the Aria includes an FM radio app and, as per usual, Android’s music playing app. But sound from the rear speaker is as dainty as the Aria’s looks – barely discernable even at the aforementioned six inches from your nose in a quiet room. In any other ambient conditions, you’ll have to hold the speaker to your ear to hear anything.