Top 10 things we hate about the Fuze!
Now this isn’t something that you would normally hear from a winmo/fuze/ppc site, 
but we figured it would only be fair to look at our own toys to see what we hated the most about them and for your convenience we have posted links to most if not all of the fixes to the problems below in our forums! As always, be sure to let us know how or where we messed up and how stupid you think we are…
10. TP2/Fuze2? WTF HTC? Why do you launch a great phone and THEN launch essentially the SAME great phone that quick! This is hardly something to hate, but dont get like apple! Next phone from them may have NO SCREEN!
9. GPS. Does it work? Well it does sometimes. From a cold start it’s a few minutes. Sometimes it won’t start at all and we need to use third party apps to warm it up a bit. We didn’t have to do this with past phones so it’s time for HTC to fix it. It’s a cell phone first, but HTC doesn’t need to ignore the features in its own product.
8. Battery Life. Yup, it’s a Windows device so you can make it through the day…and run home to get it on the charger. It is better than past devices but if 3G is on with push email we all know at some point during the day we will be thinking about if we’re going to make it. We don’t even have to mention GPS or WiFi. Once that starts up you can watch your battery drain!
7. The Camera. Don’t get us wrong, the 3mp camera is really great in bright light. Especially when things aren’t moving too fast(or at all). If you’re in low light and arms are waiving you may as well not embarrass yourself and just leave the phone in your pocket. Yes, I know it’s a cell phone, but I still feel that they can work out a little more functionality here to get less lag. And the flashes on most cell phones leave much to be desired… the LED “flashes” make people look like ghosts. Some fixes for these problem are here.
Keep reading to see the rest!!!
6. Games. It is nearly impossible to play any games on the Fuze except for the touch screen ones. This is a combination of the DPad being difficult to press the proper button and not having a left and right key that works or is easy to use. Remember, we’re talking out of the box experience and a lot of games are harder to play than they should be. And to date there are two commercially developed GSen games. Something is wrong here…
5. TF3D. We like it… It’s informative and pretty slick looking. It’s also sometimes a little slow and why is it that it requires a tutorial on how to modify it? This is a Windows device so I expect to be able to change every inch of my phone. If I want white font I should get it. Less tabs, more tabs, no curtains…why do you make us tweak it manually? I still haven’t figure out how to change the order of the people in my People tab so I have to look at the picture of someone who isn’t my favorite favorite every day. Here you can learn more about TF3D.
4. So Shiny! Almost had to see a doctor because of the glare from the sun… Not really, but the back is so shiny that it picks up on the SMALLEST smudge. We can live with it because it doesn’t look like a brick, but a little matte finish wouldn’t kill you. There are other options like Sprints version or buying a new back, but we’re cheap. And while we’re at it, you know those products like Invisible Shield and Body Armour? Why isn’t my Fuze coated in that by HTC? I want a phone that I can take a key to and not scratch and if I can apply a coating after I buy it then they can apply it before I buy it. And on that topic, screen durability… you can take a knife to a storm, why cant i take one to my fuze?
3. The DPad. Even knowing where to press the DPad doesn’t mean you will get it right every time and you have to accept at some point you’ll accidentally hit the home key when you tried to go right. It’s finicky and while it’s a very pretty design this needs work. Not to mention no Scroll Wheel. And the DPad functionality out of the box is mostly crippled (not even working in email). We shouldn’t be jealous of BlackBerry’s. Here is some info on the D-Pad.
2. Landscape. Out of the box the landscape TF3D is essentially just an app launcher with little functionality at best. Often, when switching to landscape you pop out of the application you are in and are forced to go back into it again. At this point in time there should be literally no delay (we have over 500mhz in a phone – that should be plenty). And the necessity to turn my phone every time I need to type an email is starting to get old. Maybe a slide-down keyboard should be considered (ala Palm Pre) or just always be in landscape (like the Side Kick). Fine, none of those are perfect either, but we all know that candy bar style phones will win a draw to send a text message. In an email our huge keyboard will likely win…
1. Turns off when talking. How irritating is that? Not that we often take notes about people or need to load up apps but it might be nice to be able to just HANG up the phone without having to turn it back on! I know there are hardware buttons, but it has such a pretty touch screen that you just want to TOUCH IT! Davidk in the forums (and here, and in theory DiamontTweak should do it) has worked on this for a while and found some tweaks that work for some people but it should be just a basic "turn phone off while talking" checkbox somewhere that we can UNCHECK!
Thats all we got for now… How does this matchup to your list? We didnt even TOUCH PTT OR the fact that AT&T will most likely NOT provide an update to 6.5… Hate me for making this list? TOUGH! Leave your tears at the beep!
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Comments
Ash well, there is an a-gps fix which made my gps lock on in less than 30 seconds! requires flashing a new radio (not 100% sure, but i did), adding a new dll (not 100% sure, but i did) and a cab file…
a-gps thread on xda
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=489887
new radio thread
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=487994
DanHalen I would add mappable hardware buttons to the list. I do sometimes miss the ‘utilitarian’ aspects of my 8125.
Cory Most of these reasons you listed are minor irritants at best and are fixable.
10. The only two pluses are the bigger screen and tilt. TP2 has same internal hardware, so expect even slower performance when rendering TF3D, games, and video at 800×480. Unless HTC fixes the driver situation, that is (which will benefit Fuze owners also).
9. Flash a different radio. Seriously. I’m using the leaked one from the ATT Test rom (1.12.25.19), and GPS seems to work as well as my Garmin one. In some cases, it even works better, since I can get a lock from within my home.
4. I got a rubberized battery cover online. It’s perfect, and no longer slips from my hands and attracts fingerprints.
3. I think the genius that is the D-pad hasn’t been exploited to its full potential. The area around it is a capacitive touch pad, yet all we use it for is zooming.
2. Again, fixable. Plenty of TF3D updates/themes with landscape manila.
1. There are cabs to fix this as well. I think you even posted a fix a while back.
But I would have to agree about the dismal battery life, screen durability, the lack of snappiness from a 528Mhz device, lack of dedicated audio jack. For $600 (minus rebates), I’d expect more from this.
Let me add that HTC needs to ditch Qualcomm’s crappy MSM platform (after TP2, ugh), and use nvidia’s Tegra (p.s.- provide drivers), add a capacitive touchscreen, audio jack, and HDMI out. Yeah, that’s the ticket.
Dude1 I wonder why it is so difficult to make significant forward progress on the devices, improving with each and every new product?
Dude1 I wonder why it is so difficult to make significant progress with each and every new devise and product announcement?
DanHalen Cory, dude, take it down a notch. Its not that the issues are not fixable or livable. Its that there are enough minor instances that it requires a lot of tweaks. If you have a Fuze, chances are it is not your first HTC smartphone. The previous phones had a lesser ratio of problems/capabilities. The bulk of the fixes you listed could have easily been fixed by HTC in development. We all have Fuzes, we all love them, but they could honestly be better.
Cory @Dude1
Cost. It seems that HTC is playing very conservative with its R&D, hence not much in terms of updates with each generation. It’s the reason why the MSM72xx has been used for Kaiser, Raphael, Rhodium, etc. They only change a small number of features with each generation. This ensures less time+money is spent fixing new bugs, and it milks the early adopters the most.
Don’t expect anything revolutionary from one generation to the next. I concede it also helps customers like me, since I don’t feel any buyer’s remorse (the TP2 likely won’t be available from American carriers for a while anyway).
SCDavis Heh… @cory/ash I was looking at what comes out of the box… I know that we can fix most of it with a new radio and ROM but as DanHalen said they could/should be fixed…
and @dan, I want people to give me big lists of what they think 
wanna know how they really feel… hehe
and finally @ stefan, I sort of agree, but I like just having the single connector instead of multiple and atleast its a standard instead of proprietary like AT&T…
-SCDavis
DanHalen When I read Cory’s first comment, for some reason I had misinterpreted his comments as malice against the article. In re-reading it, I see I was a bit off base. Apologies.
Cory DanHalen,
Funny thing is, this is my first HTC smartphone. I’ve had several Winmo smartphones before, and my Fuze has been the most featured and tweakable. I love it. Not to say that HTC is perfect, but they rather tied down by carriers. Hence, we need to hack our phones to enable features like tethering, HSUPA, FM radio, remove bloatware, etc. I wouldn’t be surprised if ATT is responsible for the decision to make it shiny too.
I’m just thankful they haven’t tried to stop consumers from modding and customizing their devices as they see fit. In fact, I would rather have a very tweakable device with more bugs out of the box than have a more solid stock device locked and forced to use an app-store that only contains apps/games/etc that are manufacturer-approved.
Chris (aka webbahboy) This list is SPOT ON!
And yes, despite those annoyances, I love my Fuze!
Brian Speaker sound quality doesn’t match up to my older flip-phone. My flip’s ringtones used to sound like they were from a boom box, now they sound like there from an X-Men walkie-talkie. This is my first win-mo device, I love it, and all my co-workers are jealous. 
dave s http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=478827
This solves your #6
I usually set home and back to the two soft keys, and the two call buttons to additional left and right.
ggg My list in no particular order!!!
-Speakerphone weak
-Camera blur
-Dpad unusable and i loved fast tetris on the 8525
-TF3D uncustomizable to the average person
-Keyboard #’s are not 1 click away ridiculous
-Fuze2 coming out soon grrrrrrr
-Scratched beyond re-sell-ability
-Screen turns off talking, voicemail=surgery
-Why did ATT leave PTT on?
-Have yet to figure out what each volume control does lol
-Battery gets a barely passing grade
ggg id like to put out there maybe for a blog post or some really smart programmer to fix, why is it that I can play music loud as hell but in-call speakerphone is weak sauce????!!!!
TVDinner Guys
I LOVE this site, but I would PAY YOU to make your links open up in a new window. I read your posts and you have links in them. I click on one and this site closes as the new site opens in the same window. This is a wordpress blog like all of mine and you CAN make EVERY link “open in a new window”.
Just a suggestion.
I love the site. Keep up the good work. Thanks!
James
i would say the lack of 3.5mm jack is pretty crappy too. bluetooth headphones are the way to go, but then battery life comes into play x-(