First impressions. They’re important. So is an instruction manual, which the PR company who sent the gorgeous, just-weighty-enough-to-feel-substantial HTC Tattoo completely forgot to include. Which led to me having a total crisis for about an hour as I attempted to open the damn thing up. Rescued by my male boss which kind of defeats the purpose of female reviewers but to be fair, if I’d had the instruction manual I’d have been dandy so no fault of the phone there. Luckily the manual in its entirety was in PDF format on the net.

[Ed’s Note: We have since been advised that the HTC Tattoo manual is only available via PDF, online. Please consider this when purchasing the device. If you do not have online access at home and cannot (or are reluctant) to print the PDF out at work, this could hinder you enormously. That said, we appreciate the overall aim of HTC to be more environmentally friendly and indeed reduce costs.]

Once inside and Sim-card safely installed, the HTC really is a wicked little phone. I’m not normally a fan of touch-screen phones having had an annoying Samsung F700 previously. I don’t have fat fingers. The Samsung F700 made me feel like I had four bricks and one breeze block on the end of each arm. Not so with the HTC Tattoo, which even with a smaller screen and ‘keys’ picked up every single letter I popped at correctly. Marvellous.

Also the fact it auto-locks the screen comes in handy - averting that habit of constantly calling whoever’s unlucky enough to be first in your phone book. Plus the cool touch-screen unlocking device where you drag your finger in a pattern across the screen joining the dots is kind of James Bond cool and also pretty impenetrable if someone does happen to nick your phone.

Internet-wise it’s pretty standard although it does have all the widgets and gadgets built in to the standard menu. They’ve obviously got a feel for the new generation who want to upload photos and info at the touch of a button to whatever platform you’re most fond of. Facebook, Twitter, even Flickr, they’re all there on the main menu and inside the camera menu.

Speaking of the camera, the only downside with that is that there’s no flash. Pretty stupid omission if you ask me. As a clubber or even if you’re just out in a bar, it’s kind of dark and there’s nothing more frustrating that taking a fab picture of a stunning moment, looking to see what beauty you’ve captured to be faced with a blackened screen. Mini-gripe but still important particularly if you’re a social creature.

The big thing with the HTC Tattoo is that you can move all the widgets around so that the most important things are straight to hand on the ‘home page’.

Being perfectly honest, I’ve got a Blackberry and you can do this on that, and I’m sure on the iPhone too so it’s not exactly that revolutionary.
Also the battery wasn’t too hot, if you don’t turn it off at the button it can run itself down very quickly.

Overall though I was pretty impressed with the HTC. It’s slim but not so slim that you feel you’re talking into a Dime Bar (or Daim Bar whatever the hell they call it these days – I miss the days of Marathon Bars), it’s weighty in your palm without being a total brick, it looks good and if you’re into your social networking and constantly on the net then it’s got everything you need and more.

At heart I’m a Blackberry girl but if this was the other option I wouldn’t run all the way back to the Carphone Warehouse demanding a refund, put it that way ;)

The Tattoo is available from Orange (free on a £25pm contract) and Vodafone (free on a £30pm contract)

For more details see HTC.com, and visit tattoomyhtc.com to buy additional covers.