The HTC Touch Dual has been met by a world of controversy following the removal of WiFi. By rights it should have it, because the HTC Touch did. We can only presume that it’s been removed to try and push the 3G / HSPDA capabilities of the new handset. We wanted to be sure though, so we tried this – it’s an… ermm.. unofficial connection manager for the HTC Touch Dual and it’ll give you the ability to turn WiFi on or off… if it’s on board. Forum member “floc_” pointed us towards this CAB and, although you’re not strictly supposed to be installing it, I wanted to give it a go. Read on for the result!
I also wanted to give you a flavour of what it’s like to use the handset, so in time-honoured fashion I sat in the car yesterday and filmed this video which shows it compared to the original HTC Touch.
Following a tip-off by a Coolsmartphone forum member I visited xda-developers.com and used a CAB file to get myself an all-new connection manager which allows you to turn WiFi on and off. Here’s the “official” Connection Manager….
…and, following the install of the CAB file, here’s the “unofficial” Connection Manager…
The new connection manager gives me the ability to turn WiFi on and off, whereas the old one didn’t have that option. Unfortunately, when I click “WiFi” the spinny “wait” symbol appears and then it tells me that the WiFi is still off. If I press the “Settings” option I do get “Wireless LAN” showing, which it wasn’t before, so I’ll click this…
Despite all my best efforts and incessant clicking of the “Turn on Wireless LAN” link, nothing happens. The final damning evidence comes from the “Network Adaptors” screen, which you can see below…
So, even when you do hack the phone and try to turn Wireless on, it won’t let you because, quite simply, there is no wireless hardware on board. 🙁
Still, you can at least have a look at our video of the HTC Touch Dual in action, plus we’ve tested out the new enhanced HTC TouchFLO system too…