As I mentioned yesterday, I’m trying out a switch to a Windows Phone 7 smartphone. I bought an HTC HD7S Monday night. Now that I’ve had it for a couple of days I have some more quick, early impressions to share – which I’ll break down into likes and dislikes, relating to the device and […]
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Trying Out Windows Phone 7 – Quick Likes & Dislikes

Sep 22nd 2011 by

HTC HD7S

As I mentioned yesterday, I’m trying out a switch to a Windows Phone 7 smartphone. I bought an HTC HD7S Monday night.

Now that I’ve had it for a couple of days I have some more quick, early impressions to share – which I’ll break down into likes and dislikes, relating to the device and to the OS.

HTC HD7S – Likes

— It’s a solid feeling and handsome device.

— The big 4.3 inch screen is very nice to work with.

— It has three buttons on the bottom of the bezel that I’m finding very handy – Back, Start screen, and Search.

— The camera seems good, but I’m not a great judge in this area.

HTC HD7S – Dislikes

— Battery life seems far from great in my first few days with the device. I have 3G and Bluetooth turned off, WiFi on, and brightness at medium (rather than the default auto-adjust that seemed to keep it at high way too often).

My first rough measuring stick for battery life is always whether it feels like the phone will make it through a day of heavy use on a full charge, even if it limps home with barely any juice at the end of the day. If it can do that, it’s easy enough to charge it each evening and not fuss with chargers and backup batteries when you’re out and about. The HD7S so far looks like it can make it through a day of moderate use – no videos, not a lot of web browsing, mostly using mail and phone and apps.

I haven’t measured this carefully yet – but my distinct impression is that battery life is going to take some managing with this phone.

— There’s a hardware button for the camera app on the right hand side of the HD7S – about 3/4 of the way down that side. While it can be handy to have a hardware button to call up the camera quickly, it can also lead to pulling it up when it’s not wanted if you hold the phone certain ways when doing things.

— The big screen is a HUGE fingerprint and smudge magnet. Worse than the iPad – and that’s saying something. The back of it also picks up smudges very easily.

Windows Phone 7 – Likes

— The on-screen keyboard is very, very nice to use. Not sure how much of this is the OS and how much the individual device – but I’ll list this here for now and I like it very much either way.

— I like the innovative new hubs and tiles Start screen interface. Although I’ve used iPhones for many years and it will take a bit to get to know my way around better, it already feels pretty comfortable to use. I do wonder though how well it will ‘scale’ for me –as right now I only have a handful of apps installed and a handful of items added to the start screen.

— One thing I *love* is the presence of an old friend from back when I used a Windows PC – OneNote. It’s such a gorgeous app and a real pleasure to use.

— The swipe up at the unlock screen is nice. actually a more natural feeling motion than iOS’s sideways swipe.

— Swiping at the top of the screen to toggle the status bar is quite a nice little interface feature too.

— I was happy to discover that there is a Mac App Store app for syncing photos, videos, and music from Mac to the HD7S. The device’s Quickstart guide had mentioned needing to use Zune, and maybe I will have to somewhere down the road – but for now I’m fine with an occasional sync via the Windows Phone 7 Connector app.

— The email app has quite a nice and different UI. It feels very clean to me.

Windows Phone 7 – Dislikes

— There are no settings at all for notifications. You get what you get as far as I can see. I also haven’t yet found a Boxcar equivalent to offer notifications for Twitter and Facebook. The two official apps do not offer notifications. Isn’t iOS supposed to be the ‘closed, restricted’ OS?

— There’s no built-in ability to take a screenshot, and no 3rd party solution that I can find so far either. Hence the lack of them in this post.

— Crappy carrier apps. I wish Microsoft would follow Apple’s lead and banish built-in carrier apps. They generally suck and have generally sucked for years. Let them put their sucky apps in the Marketplace but don’t let them be built in apps or litter the Start screen. There was also an HTC apps hub on the Start screen that I removed pretty quickly – but I didn’t mind that one as much as seeing AT&T apps.

— I knew apps would be an issue when trying out Windows Phone 7, and I’m already seeing some of that. For instance, there is no Skype app – didn’t Microsoft buy them recently? Isn’t it a little embarrassing to have no Skype app on the mobile platform belonging to your new owners? There’s also no official Dropbox app. The Evernote app does not look good so far after a couple uses.

— The default payment method is via your carrier bill. What the? That is the absolute last way I’d ever like to pay for mobile apps. Oh, and no Paypal option as payment method.

— Toggling services like Bluetooth and 3G on and off is no better a process than the lame one on iOS. You have swipe right at the Start screen, scroll down to Settings, scroll to Bluetooth (or cellular data) and the tap to toggle it on or off.

— I can’t add OneNote to the Start screen. It’s by far and away my favorite app, but I can’t add it to the Start screen for quicker access. I can individual OneNote notes, or the Office hub – but I don’t need of the other Office apps and I’d far rather have the app itself on the Start screen than just individual notes.

— No multitasking or rapid app switching.

One more dislike to mention – for many of the things I’m missing or asking about I keep hearing the ‘just wait for Mango’ response. I get the vibe from various people that they Windows Phone 7 is still such a new mobile OS that it shouldn’t yet be judged too harshly.

It is a little shy of one year old – but I’m not sure that’s a fair way of looking at it. Microsoft has had a mobile oS for well over a decade, closer to 20 years I think. It has had various different names, from Windows CE to Windows Mobile and now Windows Phone 7. So for me this isn’t a delicate little fledgling OS – this is Microsoft’s brave new mobile platform. One they were long overdue in releasing, after letting Windows Mobile become old and terrible and neglected for years.

It almost feels to me as if Microsoft is continually in no real hurry when it comes to mobile. And they should be in a hurry. They let themselves fall way behind Apple and others, so why not have some sense of urgency.

So the whole ‘just wait for Mango’ response doesn’t make me feel any better. Especially when it’s not yet clear to me whether Microsoft is doing the right thing with updates – managing them themselves – or leaving them in the hands of the carriers. If it’s the latter, that can go straight to the top of my dislikes list. Nothing like knowing that there’s a major new update out but you can’t have it for weeks or months while AT&T has a hand in it.

Well … those are my very early days likes and dislikes of this new device and old / new mobile OS.

Once again, any of you who are Windows Phone 7 users or fans, please steer me right if I’ve got things wrong above and hit me with your best tips and recommendations.

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