EDIT: Title should be Windows Phone 7 released. Can a mod change it please. thanks.



Windows Phone 7, the major revision to Windows Mobile was released last night. Reviews of the Phone are largely positive:

http://blogs.technet.com/b/microsoft...e-7-recap.aspx

http://gizmodo.com/5661083/windows-p...s-look-awesome

Some stalwart Microsoft haters are more negative:

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2010/10...ndows_phone_7/

Either way this is a very important pitch for MS. Despite the general feeling of 'why on earth would you buy a phone running windows ?' from the usual crowd, the phone is very well positioned as a business handset and also should appeal to many consumers for what is reported to be a good user experience and a solid gaming performance.

Any news when they are released here, 21st October in the UK!

Saw the phone at Tech Days in London a few months ago, look pretty amazing and nice that developers can use Visual Studio 2010.

Unoficially, from an Orange contact early Nov.

Bob

WP7 looks better than I expected it would and some of the hardware is pretty cool, too. However, I'll wait at least 6 months until I form an opinion on this. I thought WebOS was pretty cool, too, and Palm now has a market share of 0.zip percent. So before I invest money into trying out a new platform, I want to see thousands of new apps pop up on it and a rising market share.

Peter

I had a play with a HTC Titan running Windows 7.5 Mango, and have to say I was extremely impressed. It was snappy, fun, clean and had everything i need in a smartphone. This is a true challenger to the iPhone, not Android which I've been struggling to like over the last 7 months. I'm quite tempted to swap my Galaxy S II for the Titan or the new Nokia Lumia 900 running Windows.

I've had two WP7 phones over the last year (bought both of them for less than 150 Fr. new). In principle, I still like WP7. However, the platform really isn't taking of. The New Nokia 800 things aren't selling at all here - they're already being massively discounted.

The problem with WP7 isn't WP7 but the fact that Google Mail / Calendar integration is abysmal on the platform. After having used Android for so long, it's just not the same. Even on the iPhone, Google integration is much much better. I also can't stand BING, which is omnipresent on WP7 and can't be gotten rid of. The complete lack of Google Maps also isn't funny. The Outlook e-mail client is overloaded with eye-candy. The interface isn't clean and practical as the one on the iPhone and lacks almost all of the features of the Android GMail client. Multitasking still doesn't work well on WP 7.5.

Of course, if you don't use GMail and google calendar and don't need Google Maps these things don't matter.

Overall, the platform is nice, but the design is very daring - which is probably the main reason why it's just not taking of. Nobody buys WP7 phones, that's a fact.

Can you share any discount locations to buy aim free 800's I am very keen tobtry the phone out before making any decisions.

Digitec has them for 429.- (and the 710 for 329.-)

Standard Retail is 550 für the 800

My dad won a Lumia 800 (apparently the first thing he ever won in his life :-) last week. I had the chance to play with it extensively (as he wants me to sell it - he already has the OK-Mobile Android brick).

Here are some general notes:

- Speed: excellent. Except for Nokia's own "App Highlights" App, everything runs extremely smoothly, just as on the iPhone 4S. The only time you actually see the difference between the Lumia's mono-core processor and the iPhone 4S's dual-core equivalent is when apps load. The loading time is slightly longer on the Nokia

- Screen: bright, great colors, easily readable both indoors and outdoors. The resolution is ok, but the pentile matrix shows (much more than on the Galaxy Nexus). It wouldn't be a deal-breaker for me because that micro-level pixelation has never bothered me on any phone.

- Screen size: slightly too small for my taste - but then I like my screens big. It's bigger than the iPhone 4S's

- The phone is extremely well built. I've never seen a sturdier-looking phone. The policarbonate mono-block design is absolutely awesome. The screen's slight curvature makes the phone look really good (downside here: because of that, screen protectors don't stick - but the phone has gorilla glass). The only part of the phone that isn't well designed is the small lid that covers the USB-port. Sooner or later that'll break off. Not that it matters much - I don't think the port even needs to be covered. And the lid is (from what I've read) user-replaceable.

- Camera: pretty good. Not as good as the iPhone 4S's but almost in the same league. The photos seem to have a slight purple tint, which is easily removable in post-processing, though. In good light, the photos are as good as or better than the iPhone 4S's - in low-light, it has more color noise, which is a shame.

- Ergonomics: also very good. The keys are very well built. I'd prefer an on/off key that isn't directly adjacent to the volume keys so that it can be found more easily, but that's a minor quibble. The phone weighs about the same as the iPhone 4S.

- Battery life: well, let's put it that way: it lasts a day. The iPhone 4 was much better in that respect, but the iPhone 4S is about the same. Battery life isn't great, but it's alright and won't get you in trouble. The positive aspect here is: the battery charges very quickly. Also, the charger itself is very nicely designed. Probably the nicest I've ever seen on a phone.

- WP 7: Since I last used it, the OS has been massively improved - multi-tasking works the same way as on the iPhone (apps are "frozen" when moved to the background and "unfrozen" when activated again). This isn't quite as quick as real multi-tasking on, say, Android, but it works. Switching between the apps works the same way as on Ice Cream Sandwich - meaning that it actually works well (as opposed to iOS). What has improved most, however, is the number of apps. There's pretty much everything. The 20min.ch app on WP 7 is the nicest-looking of all 20min apps I've seen so far. Generally speaking, WP 7 apps look nice out of the box. While developers need to put some massive effort into building nice-looking apps on Android, on WP7 (as on iOS), most apps just look great. Most major app developers seem to be on board with WP7. However, there are some very annoying absences, which would, at this time, keep me from using WP7: Dropbox is missing, so are ALL Google Apps (no Google maps - and Bing Maps REALLY sucks, no Google+ etc.), Skype is missing (apparently going to be released very soon, though - but the Lumia 800 doesn't have a front-facing camera anyway, not that I'd use it), Instagram is missing (not available on Android, either) etc. What isn't missing, however, are Nokia Maps and Nokia Navigation - both are excellent.

Overall, WP 7.5 is a very nice experience, although Nokia chose to remove tethering on the Lumia 800 - they promised, however, that it would be brought back through a software-update. The OS is decidedly more "mature" in terms of the GUI quality than Android, despite the fact that it came late to the party. It's as easy to use as iOS and looks much much better than Android. However, I found that because it doesn't have any kind of folder system, it tends to "clutter up". Apps are organized in long lists and scrolling through those is unavoidable. Depending on how many apps you use regularly, even pinning them to the home screen will eventually result in a long list of tiles that needs to be scrolled through. This is one aspect that Microsoft should fix.

Overall, the Lumia 800 is a great phone, comparable to the best. The OS is pretty, fast and the apps are slowly trickling in. I have changed my mind: WP 7 is definitely a contender now and I'd be very surprised if its market share didn't grow drastically over the next couple of months and years.

Peter

I bought an HTC Titan over the weekend and am currently putting it through its paces. I'll give it a week before I come to any conclusions, but so far there are quite a few positives and some niggly negatives. BTW this is my first HTC since the loathed HTC TyTN, they seem to have improved somewhat since then

Make sure to keep us updated!

Here are my thoughts on my new Windows Smartphone, the HTC Titan and the WM7.5 OS. Before I do that, just wanted to state that I've been an iPhone user for about 4 years having had every single generation of handset upto the 4 (my missus has a work 4S so I've played with that too), and then an Android user for the last 8 months. Hopefully that makes me fairly platform agnostic :-)



Pros:

• The phone itself is sturdy, well built and the glorious 4.7" screen is fantastic for watching movies, surfing the net and browsing your photos
• The battery life on the Titan is excellent, easily 2 full days with moderate/heavy use
• Excellent GPS performance, I'm getting locks within 10 sec and even indoors
• The Windows 7.5 (Mango) interface is intuitive, friendly and very snappy... and I love the live tiles
• Most of the key Apps I want are available on the Windows Store (+44,000 and growing)
• Zune Music is amazing, for ~CHF 11 a month you can listen to and download/sync any song/album/playlist you want (DRM protected of course)
• Its a continually growing, developing ecosystem and each iteration of the OS seems to have fresh improvements (e.g. Mango had multi-tasking, tethering etc.. and Apollo will push the boat out even further with multi-core processor support, 4 different resolutions)
• I personally like the fact that Microsoft have locked their OS down, it means a better, slicker end user experience. I'm tired of having to tinker with Android for basic functionality
• Skydrive (25GB of cloud storage) is fully integrated into the OS
• Microsoft Office is awesome on the Titan, I can review perfectly rendered powerpoint presentations, Word docs, Excel spreadsheets etc.. on the GO with no Zooming needed.. and with the right cable I could probably also project it onto a screen .

Cons:

• The Titan, although thin is pretty hefty.. and after the plasticky Galaxy it does feel very cold and hard to the touch
• OK, there are a few Apps that I miss e.g. The Times, Comparis etc..
• Prefer Google to Bing search, why can't I have the option to change?
• Upload videos to Youtube missing, but present on both iOS and Android
• 480*800 and single core processor means that it lags behind the iPhone and some of the higher res Android in terms of hardware
• The Metro UI is an aquired taste, and it is sometimes wasteful of screen real estate
• No alternative to Internet Explorer, all the browsers in the App store are simple wrappers for IE. What I miss is bookmark sync (which iCab and Opera both have)
• No free Navigation software (e.g. Google Maps navigation) on the HTC but it is present on Nokia.. hopefully Bing Maps will have this functionality soon

All in all a worthy upgrade from my Galaxy SII and should keep me going until the iPhone 5 :-).

Does Zune music work directly from the phone or only on the desktop app? I don't use a Windows computer at home yet (waiting for the HP Envy 14 Spectre I just pre-ordered) - and there's no sign of Zune music on the Zune Connector for Mac OS.

As for Google search: I hate BING. I just hate it. Thankfully, Google has its own Google Search app in the Marketplace. I just pinned that to the main screen.

The navi software on the Lumia ist pretty good, however, I ended up purchasing Navigon (*). The only thing I really miss now is a proper Google+ client. I can use the service using the browser (which is pretty good, btw - I really prefer that one over the stock Android browser, which tends to render lots of websites incorrectly. Of course, Chrome Beta was released today - that one solves all the rendering issues but is, at the moment, REALLY laggy on the Galaxy Nexus).

As for the Metro UI: yupp, definitely an acquired taste. But after a week or so with it, I have to say I really do like it. The live tiles are awesome.

As for speed: can't complain there - the Lumia has a 1.5ghz processor, which pushes it right up there with the iPhone 4S.



*) in case you were asking yourself that: yes, I still have it. I was supposed to sell it for my dad but ended up giving him 200 bucks for it (he wouldn't take more). I really like that phone.

Oh, and some app recommendations - there are quite a number of good WP7 apps, even tough the media seem to think that 60k apps aren't enough (of course, that's where the iPhone was 1 1/2 years ago and back then everybody was saying that it's a crapload...):

- 1Password reader (syncs nicely using dropbox)
- 20 Minuten (best 20 min app on any platform!)
- Apict (takes nice polaroid-style pictures)
- Board Express Pro (board software, based on tapatalk)
- eBay
- Engadget
- Facebook
- Flickr
- Google Search
- GPS Speedometer (for the car)
- handyscan (scan documents into PDFs)
- IMDb
- Leo dictionary
- local.ch
- Navigon
- News 360
- Parcel Tracker
- Phonos (if you have a Sono system at home)
- Pulse
- SBB Mobile
- Shazam Encore
- Spotify
-TuneIn Radio
- Twitter
- USA Today
- WeatherPro
- Whatsapp
- Where's my car
- Wonder Reader (very nice google reader / RSS client with excellent mobilization)

Indeed, Zune Music Pass works fine on the phone. I regularly download tracks to listen to on my journey home from the office. When you get your Envy, give it a spin with your 14 day free trial. The Smart DJ list (similar to iTunes Genius) creates playlists around whatever you're currently listening to so its a great way to broaden your musical palate. Again Zune Pass is a killer feature for me which makes iTune look miserly in comparison ~CHF 2 a song.... Pah!!

Its great that Nokia are back in the game, I think Elop's decision to go Windows has been somewhat vindicated. Had Nokia joined the Android bandwagon, I fear they would have been lost in the Milieu, slowly fading into insignificance. Anyway its still early days, WP still has a lot of growing up to do.

I stopped using the iTunes Store for music purchases a long time ago. They're way too expensive. When I purchase music (and that doesn't happen very often - I'm a Spotify Premium subscriber), I do so on amazon.de

I'll definitely give Zune Music a try, though.

As for Nokia: yupp, I'm just not sure if it's too little too late for them. The company's in deep s**t - I'm not sure they'll actually last until WP7 has secured its place amongst the top 3

Peter

HTC have now amended this with their Locations app, giving downloadable (offline) maps for most countries. Very nice upgrade and kudos to HTC for catching up with Nokia maps.

After a 2 year hiatus, am thinking about going back to WP with the Nokia Lumia 930. My Orange contract is up for renewal and neither the LG G3 or Galaxy S5 are doing much for me. The 930 looks good, has a HD 5" screen, flawless 20mp camera and I think there has been much improvement on the OS front since I last looked. Any thoughts?



P.S Since I already have a work iPhone 5S, I don't think its worth getting a private iPhone 6 if the only major difference will be screen size. Would rather have two different ecosystems to play with.

What's wrong with the sony Z2? I was optimistic about WP, but the barren desert that is the app store after all this time has changed that outlook.

I am using WP since half a year with a Lumia 920 (Missus has the 925).
App store is a bit limited but the operating system is superior to Android and Apple.
And of course, Nokia phones have the best build quality.