Toshiba TG01 review

We'll warn you now – the Toshiba TG01 uses Internet Explorer Mobile 6, and while this is dubbed a desktop experience on a mobile phone, even the inclusion of Flash Player doesn't help it achieve such a promise.

The first problem is that despite a speedy loading time (thanks to HSDPA connection and the Snapdragon processor) web pages sometimes lag when you're trying to scroll around them.

The problem with Internet Explorer Mobile is not just that it's a bit unintuitive when it comes to the mobile experience (compared to the desktop) it's that the whole program hasn't moved on in the face of competition from Opera and Safari.

For instance you need to head into the settings once more (WinMo... grr) and change the default from mobile version to full desktop, as there's no point in having a screen this large and a processor that powerful if you're simply going to run a website that can be produced on the screen of a handset like the INQ1.

Browsing to a webpage is fairly quick, as stated before. But when trying to read text, the phone will only let you zoom in so far (using the odd touch strip at the bottom, which judders about rather randomly when doing so).

This means that not only will the screen never lock onto text, it won't let you get close enough to read it comfortably. When you compare this to the recently released HTC Hero, which will reformat text no matter how close you get to fit the screen, it seems a real shame.

One of the things Toshiba is also crowing about with the TG01 is the addition of Flash on board, and heading over to YouTube shows that this is indeed the case.

However, taking said video fullscreen (the screen doesn't adequately show it in the browser) and the whole thing grinds to a confused halt. When you imagine the likes of the Archos Internet Tablet range, admittedly not a smartphone, have had Flash integrated with both fullscreen and browser playback for movies, you wonder why a more powerful device can't do the same with aplomb.

And heading to other sites working with Flash was also a letdown, with a number of times the browser telling us we either didn't have the latest version of Flash, or the content wasn't working. Hardly the same as a desktop experience in our eyes.

YOUTUBE FAIL: We couldn't get YouTube to enter fullscreen on the internet browser

We tried to fix the problem by adding Opera Mini, but the phone wasn't really excited by that notion either. While it was improved in the day to day visiting of websites, it still didn't have the zip and excitement of other mobile browsers.

We're just waiting for the day Firefox Mobile / Fennec officially arrives for these types of phones, and then we're going to see a whole new side of WinMo internet browsing.