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Windows Phone 7

T-Mobile HTC HD7

Review

 

 

Overall

Windows Phone 7 is a very solid new platform. It may be lacking some features, but it is extremely good at doing what it can do. If you're looking for a phone that not only "just works", but looks good while doing it, then WP7 is for you. If you are a hacker or like customizing your phone, then stick with the old Windows Mobile or Android.

 

The hardware I have for WP7 is a T-Mobile HTC HD7. This phone is the flagship device for HTC and T-Mobile, featuring a 4.3 inch screen. There is also the Dell Venue Pro available from T-Mobile, which features a slide-out portrait keyboard. This review will be based off the HD7. Watch the video playlist embedded below for a lengthy and in-depth review, click here for a link to the video playlist, click the links in the written review's headers, or read the written review below.

 

 

 

 

Hardware (YouTube video)

The HD7 has pretty good specs compared to the other Windows Phones.

  • 16 GB of memory (in the T-Mobile USA version)
  • 576 MB of RAM
  • 4.3 inch WVGA 480 x 800 LCD screen
  • Weighs 162 grams (5.7 ounces)
  • 2.68" by 4.8" by 0.44" (68mm by 122mm by 11.2mm)
  • 1 GHz Qualcomm Snapdragon Processor
  • 5 Megapixel, 720p camera. Autofocus and Dual-LED Flash
  • 3.5 mm headphone jack and MicroUSB port
  • 3G HSPA compatible (up to 7.2 Mpbs downloads) (however it is not 4G HSPA+)
  • WiFi 802.11 b/g/n, Bluetooth 2.1 with A2DP
  • GPS, Digital Compass, G-Sensor, Proximity Sensor, and Light Sensor
  • 1230 mAh Lithium-ion battery (up to 6 hours and 20 minutes talk time)

 

 

Positives (YouTube video)

  • The Operating System is extremely fluid, fast, and simple to use.
  • Voice Commands are accurate and useful
  • The Back button is great at remembering what you did last
  • Internet Explorer is actually fast and works well!
  • The On-Screen Keyboard is accurate and easy to use
  • Pinning tiles to the Start screen is helpful
  • 720p video recording is great during the daytime, camera's flash is awesome at night
  • Zune integration. Spectacular. That includes WiFi syncing of your phone!

 

 

Negatives (YouTube video)

  • No visual voicemail (T-Mobile might add an app later possibly?)
  • Some apps don't resume when you leave them or turn off the screen
  • No copy/paste (You need that if you're posting in a forum and want to include a link)
  • No multitasking of third-party apps (That means no Slacker and Last.fm in the background)
  • No universal search
  • Camcorder is terrible at nighttime (see video)
  • Buttons are tough to press, especially Camera button (using a case makes it better)
  • Can't send voice or video messages via MMS. Only picture messages right now

 

 

 

 

People Hub and Phone (YouTube video)

The People hub gives you access to all of your contacts (which can be synced from Windows Live, Gmail, Yahoo, Facebook, or Exchange). It will automatically link your contacts together, so that someone who is in your Live, Gmail, and Facebook will have one unified contact card. You can set Facebook integration to sync every contact you have or just the contacts that match your existing contacts.

 

You also have access to your What's New section in the People hub, where the phone downloads your Windows Live and Facebook news feed, agrigating it into one list. You can comment and like posts there, view pictures that your friends posted, and view the videos they post.

 

In addition to the traditional scrolling list of contacts, you can click on a letter header, like "B", to be taken to a list of the other contacts, which makes finding a contact easier. Or, you can click the search button and type to find a contact. Finally, you have a Recent People section in the hub where you can see who you recently communicated with and access them quickly. You can pin someone to the Start screen if you want to quickly access them.

 

One thing I feel is missing in the People hub is the ability to view a friend's Facebook pictures directly from his contact card. In order to do that, you'll have to open the seperate Facebook application. Facebook is already so well integrated with the phone, why not add this feature?

 

The phone application in WP7 is very basic. It gives you shortcuts to your call history, Voicemail, Keypad, or contacts list. Pressing the Search button while in your Phone allows you to search your call history or contacts. There's no visual voicemail yet. You can multitask while talking on the phone, and if you want to return to the call, you just tap on the little popup overlay that remains on the top of your screen while in a call. The in-call volume is somewhat low on the HD7, as in you will have trouble hearing when you are in a somewhat noisy place like a mall.

 

Voice dialing works really well, you can hold down the Start button and say "Call 444-5555", "Call Mom", or "Call Brother Mobile" and it will dial for you. Bluetooth headsets work well with WP7. When you start a voice command, it will automatically pause your music, just like when you get a call.

 

 

Voice Commands (YouTube video)

Read the paragraph just above this one to learn about Voice Dialing contacts. In addition to calling contacts with your voice, you can also perform searches and start programs. To start Voice Command, from anywhere in the phone, hold down the Start button, and then say "Call ____", "Find ____", "Search For _____" or "Start ______". Find and Search For will pull up Bing web or local results. Start will start the program that you tell it to. The commands are actually really accurate, even web searches work well.

 

 

Messaging and Keyboard (YouTube video) 

Text messaging on WP7 is really simple yet fun to use. Everything is in conversation view, there is no option to view messages in the traditional non-threaded fashion (some people actually want that, but most don't). Replying to messages is super fast, and typing on the keyboard is a breeze. You can send picture messages, but not video or voice messages. Unlike some phones, the text messaging hasn't slowed down after using it for awhile.

 

The on-screen keyboard is really big on the HD7, and is easy to use. If you make a mistake, it will either automatically correct it if the word is really close, or offer a list of suggested words which you can click on yourself. This fashion of auto-correcting is unintrusive and really nice. If you did make a typo a few words ago, you can simply click the word with your finger and it will highlight it. Then you can type it again, or choose from a list of suggested words.

 

 

E-Mail (YouTube video)

Email is pretty basic, but powerful. It is basic since it's lacking threaded conversation views and a unified inbox, but it is powerful since it renders emails really well and makes working with your mail an efficient task. For each email account you have, you are given a live tile on the homescreen. You can remove this and simply use the link in the programs list. You can have your mail pushed to you as it arrives, or set an interval on a time period for it to sync your mail. It just works, well.

 

 

Bing Search/Maps (YouTube video)

Click on the Search button and you are usually taken to the Bing application, where you can type a search or perform a voice search. When you search, you are given Web, Local, and News results, depending on the type of your search. Local results takes you to a mini map of the results and a list of the results. Tap on the map to view it in fullscreen. Tap on a result to get the business' phone number, hours, reviews, and more.

 

There is no free Turn-By-Turn GPS in Bing Maps yet, so you're stuck with the traditional directions. However GPS does work pretty well in WP7. Bing Maps is really great for the United States, but for other countries, the results might be worse than Google Maps.

 

 

Music and Videos (YouTube video)

Zune is the heart of the entertainment experience on Windows Phone 7. If you have a Zune Pass, you can stream unlimited music from the Marketplace, and download unlimited songs, for $15 a month. Zune on the PC will also be used to syncronize content to and from the phone. You can wirelessly sync your phone if you are connected to a WiFi network.

 

Other applications, like Lyrics apps, can integrate into the Music hub, so you can view lyrics for a song that is playing. Since there is no multitasking in third-party apps, streaming internet radio applications will stop playing when you go to do something else with the phone. Overall, the Zune experience is really nice in WP7. You don't have Channels in Zune yet like you do on the computer software, but that should be added in a later update hopefully.

 

 

Internet Explorer (YouTube video)

Everyone loves to hate on Internet Explorer, but it's actually really good! It loads fast, allows for 6 tabs to be open at once, and even allows you to find words on a web page. You will notice that some text on web pages is larger than other text, but that is done on purpose. It identifies what content of the page is the body text, and increases the font size of it so you can read while being zoomed out. There isn't Flash yet, but that might be coming in a future update. But don't judge Internet Explorer for WP7 until you try it. Pinch to zoom, scrolling, and everything else, is extremely fluid.

 

 

Pictures and Camera (YouTube video)

The camera on the HD7 is pretty decent at 5 Megapixels. It has autofocus (no tap to focus), and 720p video recording. Check out the Sample Video from the HD7, it is really impressive. However, the quality dramatically decreases when you are in low light conditions, as seen in This Video. In normal outdoor lighting, the camera can pull close to 30 frames per second (my video sample was an average of 25), but in low light, it drops to about 10 frames per second. Taking pictures in the dark is, however, really possible thanks to the bright dual LED flash. Check out the Sample Pictures page to see the quality of the images.

 

 

Marketplace (YouTube video)

The Marketplace is where you get your apps, games, AND music, all in one. Their "app store" is growing daily, and already has a great number of apps like Netflix, IMDb, Fandango, and more. You can look through their apps from your browser by visiting This Page. As that page shows, there are 2,025 apps currently in the Marketplace.

 

You can try most applications for free, which downloads the entire app but keeps the majority of it locked until you buy the full application. You can rate and review the applications. Uninstalling an app is as simple as going to your list of programs, tapping and holding on the app, and then clicking Uninstall.

 

 

Microsoft Office (YouTube video)

All Windows Phones come with Office preloaded, including Word, Excel, PowerPoint, OneNote, and SharePoint. However, the functionality of some are quite limited. In OneNote, you can sync with your computer's notes through SkyDrive, but the phone doesn't support ink that was written using a Tablet PC, it only supports text and pictures.

 

Word is very basic, allowing some general formatting options and editing capabilities, but even lacks the ability to create bullet point lists. Excel is similarily lacking since writing formulas are a lot tougher because you can't highlight a number of cells after writing the "=SUM(...)". PowerPoint is nice for viewing presentations or making quick spelling edits to a presentation. Essentially, Office will be useful when you are emailed a document to look over, but not for creating actual essays or workbooks.

 

 

HTC Hub (YouTube video)

The HTC Hub which is included in any HTC phones brings you to a fancy weather screen and giant clock, and their other applications. You can get a 4 day weather forcast for your location, or download their other HTC apps. Right now, the apps in their store are MyAccount (for T-Mobile), Stocks, Sound Enhancer (featuring Dobly Mobile), Photo Enhancer, Converter, Flashlight, Love (you pick petals off a flower, "He loves me, loves me not...), Attentive Phone (can turn your speakerphone on when you flip the phone over, etc), Calculator (a HTC version), Lists (to-do list), and Connection Setup. Some of the apps are nice, but others, like the Calculator or Love, are basically useless.

 

 

Third-Party Apps (YouTube video)

Right now, there's a decent number of third-party applications for Windows Phone. To view all of them from your browser, visit This Page. There are some common advantages and disadvantages of the third party apps. First, the positives: There are some really awesome applications, like IMDb, which is pretty fluid. Many of the apps follow the WP7 design features, so they fell like they're part of the OS. There's a great number of free apps, from Netflix to Facebook.

 

There are a number of cons, however. Some apps won't resume, meaning if you go to respond to a text message and then want to go back, the entire app will restart. Also, some apps haven't updated themselves to run with the screen off, so when you turn the screen off, the app will have to restart when you open it. And, some games are over 20 MB large, even if their graphics are really basic! It'll take some time for a few of these negative points to work themselves out in WP7 as the developer platform matures, but there are at least a few great apps now.