Windows Mobile 7 Review

[Renegade]

http://www.telegraph...-7-first-review.html

It's a video review.

Summary: Looks good. Massive leap forward for Windows Mobile. If you buy one, we're not going to call you an idiot. Very promising.

[Darwin]

Very promising unless you live in Canada and you are a Telus subscriber. Telus is seriously fouling the bathwater these days - they're offering feature crippled versions of some smartphones (a lesser version of the Samsung Galaxy S, for example) or not offering others at all. With the Windows 7 phones that they've announced, they're not bringing in any of the high spec phones that I've read about and drooled over, offering instead a couple of base models from LG and HTC. If I'm going to live with a phone for three years, I want to start off with something cutting edge.

I guess I'll have to go carrier shopping...

Canada - great place but cursed by a huge land mass and a small population. Apple has the Canadian population so mesmerized that other manufacturers have been steadily pulling out/scaling back on the productst that they offer here. The potential sales aren't enough to offsest the marketing and shipping costs.

[app103]

Here is another review: http://arstechnica.c...7-the-ars-review.ars

Better set aside a big chunk of time for this one...it's almost 20 pages!

[Renegade]

Very promising unless you live in Canada and you are a Telus subscriber. Telus is seriously fouling the bathwater these days - they're offering feature crippled versions of some smartphones (a lesser version of the Samsung Galaxy S, for example) or not offering others at all. With the Windows 7 phones that they've announced, they're not bringing in any of the high spec phones that I've read about and drooled over, offering instead a couple of base models from LG and HTC. If I'm going to live with a phone for three years, I want to start off with something cutting edge.

I guess I'll have to go carrier shopping...

Canada - great place but cursed by a huge land mass and a small population. Apple has the Canadian population so mesmerized that other manufacturers have been steadily pulling out/scaling back on the productst that they offer here. The potential sales aren't enough to offsest the marketing and shipping costs.

-Darwin (October 22, 2010, 09:20 AM)

I didn't know it was so bad. (I'm Canadian, just haven't lived there in 15 years.)

But it's not very surprising. Carriers regularly screw things up. They're the same people that haven't improved audio quality in umpteen decades since the origin of the phone.

I need to get a phone here in Australia, and simply dreading every step of the way. Options?

* iPhone - Ummm... Nice phone. Evil company. MonoTouch makes the platform tolerable to deal with.
* Android phone - Skeptical about getting something decent as the market seems a tad thin there. MonoDroid is still under development.
* Windows Mobile 7 - Too new for here I guess. I doubt I'd be able to get one for a while anyways. This would be best though as I could easily write software for it better than any other platform. Microsoft simply has the best tools and platforms out there. .NET and C# is the way.
* Blackberry - I don't have the business need for it.
* bada - Very attractive platform for development, but it's really a first mover situation now, and I'm too small for that. C++ beats Obj-C any day. Uses Eclipse as the IDE, so it's better than Xcode, but still not Visual Studio.
* Symbian - Meh. Never been really interested in it.
* Other - Huh? Like what's left that's viable?  

I'm leaning towards an Android at the moment. Still not too sure though... The carrier contracts here don't thrill me. I'll end up paying double for half as much as I had before, if I get that much. (The carriers are just insanely expensive for what they deliver.)

Still, if things go well, I may very well end up buying different phones to develop on. It's really about what *I* want as a starting point.

[Darwin]

Hmm... regarding the Windows 7 phones offered by Telus, perhaps I am being too hasty - the specs set by MS for the hardware is high-end, so maybe it isn't so important which phone I get?

Processor 1 GHz Qualcomm Snapdragon
GPU Qualcomm Adreno 200
RAM 256 MB
Flash storage 8 GB
Screen resolution 800 × 480 (exactly)
Touch Capacitive multitouch with at least four contact points
Cellular connectivity GSM/GPRS/EDGE/UMTS/HSPA (HSPA+ optional)
Wireless 802.11b/g (802.11n optional), Bluetooth 2.1 + EDR, FM radio
Hardware buttons Start, search, back, volume, power, and camera (with half-press focus)
Camera 5 MP, dedicated flash
Sensors A-GPS, accelerometer, compass, proximity, light
Ports Micro-USB, 3.5mm TRS headphone jack
Miscellaneous options Hardware keyboard, user-accessible microSD slots

[CWuestefeld]

I've been a PocketPC user for many years now (I'm on my third PocketPC device). I've watched the capabilities of ActiveSync march backwards over the last few years -- they've literally removed features from it in each version (e.g., WiFi sync, converting fonts). And the situation I've been in for the last several months is that of three different PCs, I cannot get a single one to synchronize successfully at all.

On top of that, Microsoft now officially does not support (and it doesn't work) syncing with 64-bit Outlook.

So from my perspective, the Windows Mobile platform is dead. You won't find me buying a new WM device. When my current PocketPC dies, or I just can't deal with its refusal to sync anymore, I'll most likely get an Android.

[Darwin]

Hmm... thank you for that perspective! I suppose there are advantages to having tech released later in Canada than in the US, Asia, and Europe. Hopefully, I'll have some time to pore over reviews.

[Eóin]

Screen resolution 800 × 480 (exactly)

I hope that increases to iPhone 4 resolutions soon because I won't be upgrading my phone until a non Apple product gets that resolution.

[Darwin]

Screen resolution 800 × 480 (exactly)

I hope that increases to iPhone 4 resolutions soon because I won't be upgrading my phone until a non Apple product gets that resolution.

-Eóin (October 25, 2010, 01:57 PM)

I'm both with you and against you on that one (though I am not a usual case, I don't think): on the one hand if higher resolution screens are available, I want the higher resolution! On the other hand. It's a phone with something between a 3 and a 4 inch screen. How much difference is higher resolution going to make?

[Eóin]

True, my current phone with the 480x800 res is perfectly good, in fact it's fantastic. But still, I feel like an upgrade would be difficult to justify if it doesn't have the best screen.

BTW, screen resolution, and in particular, pixel pitch, are my vices. I don't have the same hangups in terms of wanting the best of the best in other features.

[xtabber]

Microsoft's support for their PDA's has always been lousy. For years, the only way to get decent mobile support for Office applications  (Word, Excel,  Powerpoint) was to use Dataviz's Documents To Go on a Palm or Blackberry, and now, Android -- Dataviz has apparently been bought by RIM (Blackberry), but they have just released DTG 3.0 for Android a few days ago, and it is a real winner.

[Lashiec]

Here is another review: http://arstechnica.com/microsoft/reviews/2010/10/windows-phone-7-the-ars-review.ars

Better set aside a big chunk of time for this one...it's almost 20 pages!

-app103 (October 22, 2010, 07:36 PM)

I see it, and I raise you AnandTech's own. It's worth your time just to see all the nice photographs of the devices and the OS, which are much better than the ones at Ars Technica (no fingerprints everywhere :D)

Gotta say I'm extremely surprised with the quality of the final product, being Microsoft and all. It's a shame Microsoft requires the use of the Zune player for firmware updates and music syncing, because otherwise it looks like a very serious contender against the iPhone and Android phones.

[Darwin]

Thanks for the link to the AnandTech review - very interesting! I'm feeling pretty good about Telus offering the HTC Surround now... Of course, I AM wondering if it wouldn't be prudent to wait until the Spring of 2011 (or so) before leaping... I"m not thrilled about Zune Pass being a requirement, but if I can uninstall Media Player (can I?) I wouldn't mind too much.

[xtabber]

David Pogue reviews the Windows 7 phone in today's NY Times:

http://www.nytimes.c...e&ref=technology

I can't understand why Microsoft would  bring out a phone OS that does not support multitasking now, unless they hope it will can be a placeholder until they can put together something competitive. That's not going to work.

[Darwin]

I watched an English review of the other Telus offering, the LG 7, and it looks fine as well. The reviewer said that it's a nice little phone that should be decently priced compared to higher spec'd brethren. The other issue, it turns out, is battery life - none of the phones are particularly efficient, but as one would expect, those with larger screens are even less efficient...

I'm watching/reading all the reviews that I can at the moment - hadn't picked up on the non-multitasking thing, to be honest. Must be more vigilant! I guess it boils down to me being a bit overwhelmed by the damn things - they do SO much and there is so much to be reviewed that details get lost in the shuffle for me... 

[CWuestefeld]

I can't understand why Microsoft would  bring out a phone OS that does not support multitasking now

-xtabber (October 28, 2010, 09:34 AM)

While I complained about Windows Mobile and I won't be buying it myself. However, it most certainly does multitask. I routinely use my WM6 device to execute multiple applications simultaneously.

Just to clarify, here's what the referenced article said:

And there’s no multitasking. You can play your own songs while working in other programs, but you can’t listen to, say, Pandora Internet radio.

Although he says there's no "multitasking", he's misusing that word. I'm not sure exactly what he does mean by it.

[Darwin]

David Pogue reviews the Windows 7 phone in today's NY Times:

http://www.nytimes.c...e&ref=technology

I can't understand why Microsoft would  bring out a phone OS that does not support multitasking now, unless they hope it will can be a placeholder until they can put together something competitive. That's not going to work.

-xtabber (October 28, 2010, 09:34 AM)

Heh, heh - I was just scratching my head over that one myself!

[xtabber]

While I complained about Windows Mobile and I won't be buying it myself. However, it most certainly does multitask. I routinely use my WM6 device to execute multiple applications simultaneously.

-CWuestefeld (October 28, 2010, 10:11 AM)

Windows Mobile did support multitasking, but W7P is NOT based on WM6. It is a completely new operating system derived primarily from the Zune media player operating system. That is why many of the reviews refer to it as a "1.0 version."

In the context of a mobile OS, multitasking means allowing processes connected to one app to run in the background while another app is in the foreground. Android is a Linux variant and allows developers to write their own background services.  iOS4 provides a limited set of background services that developers can access through an API. I don't know what mechanism RIM and WebOS provide for multitasking.

From what I understand, W7P allows some multitasking between the Microsoft built-in applications, but does not provide any mechanism for third party applications to have anything continue running in the background when switching to another foreground application.'

[Darwin]

Ghacks/Windows 7 have just started an in-depth review 

The first installement, unboxing an HTC Mozart - the HTC HD 7? or is it the Surround? - is here. Promises to be a good series, I'm looking forward to reading the rest of it.