htc hd7

johnny sublime · 28 Oct 2010 at 23:49

just got my hd7 and i love it already upgraded from an iphone it takes a litle getting used to but it is awsome just tryin out a few apps at the mo and all seem to work really good

muon · 29 Oct 2010 at 00:03

Its a shame that its using the first generation snapdragon chipset though.

johnny sublime · 29 Oct 2010 at 00:56

all seems well so far ive been on it since 16:00 and the only prooblem i found was with the xbox live extra app

LM101 · 29 Oct 2010 at 04:14

As long as the marketplace keeps expanding, the hd7 could get microsoft back in the game.

Christo · 29 Oct 2010 at 17:44

I have one of these but might send it back.. The only reason being the HD2 is almost exactly the same hardwarewise and Windows Phone 7 may well be ported for general use (there is a video to prove this). Effectively we would have a phone exactly the same for half price that also runs Android.

As for the software - beautiful, functional and I love the way it is tightly integrated with facebook/contacts. There are a few things that need ironing out (not being able to 'scroll' through tracks/videos). But its all forgivable imo.

PS HTC need to sort out their cameras, its really not the best, as is the same for all HTC phones.

sarge78 · 29 Oct 2010 at 20:07

Its buttons are the biggest pita, taking a picture is... challenging. I hope they add touch screen support soon (touch to focus/hold for picture etc) so I never have to use that shutter button again

Goksly · 29 Oct 2010 at 21:35

LM101 said:
As long as the marketplace keeps expanding, the hd7 could get microsoft back in the game.

Every review I've read has said third party apps are where the WM7 platform is the weakest... very poor performance / features (always losing data from phone lock / wake) etc. Shame

PoD · 29 Oct 2010 at 23:12

Goksly said:
Every review I've read has said third party apps are where the WM7 platform is the weakest... very poor performance / features (always losing data from phone lock / wake) etc. Shame

Are the apps really that bad?
Links please!

Goksly · 29 Oct 2010 at 23:30

look on engadget (about 4 winmo 7 reviews on there) and anandtech - they all said the same, great phone rubbish apps (except the ms ones).

PoD · 30 Oct 2010 at 09:03

Goksly said:
look on engadget (about 4 winmo 7 reviews on there) and anandtech - they all said the same, great phone rubbish apps (except the ms ones).

Sorry but I fail to see anywhere on the reviews where it mentions poor applications. Infact the only thing I can see from your quoted sources of the apps are praises for the way the marketplace works.

Also I would think it would be fair to say that some early applications are going to need polishing as these are release level applications and so you can hardly expect someone to have already made a Windows Angry Birds equivalent in such a short time period.

From my personal experience I found all the applications to be of similar level to the iphone and this is the first time I have heard mention of sub par applications.

Buddah · 30 Oct 2010 at 11:09

LM101 said:
As long as the marketplace keeps expanding, the hd7 could get microsoft back in the game.

I see you've downloaded the joke of the day app already

danielanthony · 30 Oct 2010 at 11:37

I'll take a look in 21 months time when its time to change my DHD. By then Microsoft should have released a couple of revisions but right now I bet hd7 is more like a beta release.

Goksly · 30 Oct 2010 at 17:40

PoD said:
Sorry but I fail to see anywhere on the reviews where it mentions poor applications. Infact the only thing I can see from your quoted sources of the apps are praises for the way the marketplace works.

Also I would think it would be fair to say that some early applications are going to need polishing as these are release level applications and so you can hardly expect someone to have already made a Windows Angry Birds equivalent in such a short time period.

From my personal experience I found all the applications to be of similar level to the iphone and this is the first time I have heard mention of sub par applications.

http://www.engadget.com/2010/10/20/windows-phone-7-review/

In day to day use, the lack of multitasking proved to be an even bigger annoyance than we expected. Not only is there no third-party support for the function, but if you lock your screen while you're in a third-party app (say, Twitter), the software must reload when you unlock! This can be especially annoying when you're playing a game which has a substantial load time (more on that below). It doesn't freeze your state, so you have to reload the app and your saved game all over again. It's not just bad -- it's nearly unforgivable. We'd be a little more lenient here if everyone hadn't already seen the light on this, but coming to the table with such hampered functionality just seems sloppy to us.

http://www.engadget.com/2010/10/20/windows-phone-7-review/

Unfortunately, we have to report that Microsoft has a serious third-party issue on its hands right now given the software we've seen. In almost every application we used besides some of the Xbox Live titles, there were major problems with either loading, rendering, navigation, or stability. Even from respected app-makers like Seesmic, the results seemed second rate in comparison to same applications on other platforms.

First, there are basic problems with the way in which Microsoft allows developers to use the WP7 platform. Because there's no multitasking here, not only do apps not run in the background, but they can't even sustain themselves during a screen lock. This would be fine if the applications had an instant save state that they woke up from, but they don't. Instead, no matter what you do, you have to reload the app all over again. This is incredibly frustrating, as app load times on the platform are somewhat lengthy for most of the third-party titles we tested. In particular, Seesmic and Twitter (which is still in beta) were nearly unusable in their current states, thanks to a combination of slow loading times, no backgrounding or save states, and a very buggy scrolling mechanism.

It's not all doom and gloom -- Shazam and Foursquare worked as expected, and there were other glints of hope out there in the Marketplace. Unfortunately, a few rays of light do not a platform make. The general feel we came away with from third-party apps was that the OS clearly needs time to mature, and developers will have to work a lot harder to get their apps up to spec with the competition. That's a tall order right out of the gate.

Please note that the main concern is the OS features (lock state / no multi tasking)... the fact it's a new platform, of course it will take developers a while to get used to, but this isn't the main problem.

PoD · 30 Oct 2010 at 23:15

I believe they announced changes to the lock screen functionality today, but yeah multi tasking is a problem and if the apps are still having trouble saving then that sucks.

The_Biggles · 31 Oct 2010 at 10:32

Was looking forward to the HD7 but it looks like it might take a while for the apps to appear. Might be superceeded by then also.

Might have to go down the HD2 route with android instead (have Touch HD currently).

PoD · 31 Oct 2010 at 11:26

I am personally going to go for the Mozart over the Omnia 7 or HD7.

The HD7 has a bigger screen, but you get less pixel density (like buying a 19" flatscreen over a 17").
The battery on the Mozart is better
The Mozart has a better resolution camera and flash

So the only thing the HD7 does better is an extra 8gig of space, which is quite a big thing, but I think we might see more Skydrive/Mesh integration, so space might become less important

http://bigphonefight.com/htc-hd7-vs-htc-mozart-review

As for the Omnia 7, well the screen is nice, but I found the contrast to be quite poor and so although it made colours look very nice, it seems to lose sharpness in doing so.
Also the build quality of the Omnia 7 compared to the Mozart is something to be desired

The Omnia 7 has plastic buttons that rattle if you shake the phone and I have visions of that Windows button flying out of cracking over time.

Where as the Mozart feels like a real smart phone, it looks swish, it is compact, but has some really powerful features under the hood (also a removable battery).