HTC Tattoo (stubborn device from 2009)

October 2, 2022 Luisa Rey

In this edition of ‘The forgotten smartphone’ we discuss the HTC Tattoo released in 2009. Equipped with a compact design, a remarkably small screen and a very low price, HTC managed to put an interesting device on the market. We’ll keep you up to date on the HTC Tattoo.

HTC Tattoo

In the fall of 2009 HTC released the HTC Tattoo. It was the first smartphone to come standard with Android 1.6 Donut. HTC had built their well-known beautiful skin on this version of Android: HTC Sense. The device was also given the name Tattoo, because you could exchange the cover for all kinds of fancy covers and had a compact appearance.

Because the HTC Tattoo was so compact, the device had one major drawback: not all applications could be installed due to the deviating aspect ratio and resolution. The screen was 2.8 inches in size and had a resolution of 240 by 320 pixels. Because not all developers had adapted their apps to this screen size, it was not possible to install all apps that were available for other devices.

HTC Tattoo covers

The hardware buttons were placed below the screen. The Tattoo had only one camera. This was placed on the back of the device and shot photos in a resolution of 3.15 MP. These were stored on the internal memory of the device, which was 512MB in size. This memory could be expanded with an SD card. The working memory was 256MB and the processor had a clock speed of 528 MHz.

The HTC Tattoo had to make do with a 1100 mAh battery. Unfortunately, the battery was rather mediocre compared to other devices from that period. The device supported HSDPA networks and of course also GPS, WiFi and Bluetooth 2.0. There was also an FM radio on the device. The HTC Tattoo was launched for 299 euros. This was not expensive at the time.