Experience using Windows Phone 7 on the example of HTC HD7
After the first presentation of the platform from Microsoft Windows Phone 7 at the beginning of this year, I, as a fanatic, every day followed the new announcements, subscribed to the developer’s Twitter feed and joined the group on Facebook. Read news about how WP7 was ported to HTC HD2 and more. At that moment, I was also interested in a new platform from Google - Android. In the beginning, I put it on Samsung Witu, for this I even bought a 2GB microSD card. The first experience on a non-Android phone disappointed me. But I did not give up and decided to buy HTC Desire. In this article, I will compare WP7 with Android, as well as HTC HD7 and HTC Desire.
The HTC HD7 is a descendant of the HTC HD2. From the latter, he got a big screen, a fast processor. Compared to Desire, HD7 looks like a huge shovel. In the beginning it was not customary, but after 2 days I got used to it and now I use it with great pleasure. I will not conduct a scratch screen resistance test, as Boomburum did, since I still feel sorry for my phone. But the quality of the glass should be at least as good as in HD2.
I can say that the phone with a small minus - it has the control keys Back, Windows, Search - touch. And they are very sensitive, sometimes being in landscape mode you can touch them with your thumb and return to the main screen, for example. The complexity of taking pictures and playing some games is related to this.
Also very recessed key and key to take photos. To turn on, sometimes you have to use a nail. It is difficult to make a photo “humanly”, since the key for photographing has two positions. The first to focus and the second to take a picture. Due to the fact that it is drowned, it is impossible to either hang on normally or take a picture. So the presence of hard keys for a photo can hardly be called a perimeter in this case.
In my opinion, the usual buttons, like Desire or HD2, would be more suitable for this phone. But the design was a priority for the creators.
Apparently, in Russia and Ukraine HD7 official sales should not be expected before the spring of 2011. But you can already buy a smartphone on European Amazone or Ebay.
I bought my HD7 on Ebay, since it was cheaper there. That is, if in Europe it costs 600 euros, then in the USA it is $ 600. The difference is palpable.
Delivered to me within 1.5-2 weeks. Reached without flaws and problems.
For the past couple of years, I have admired iOS: the simplicity of the interface, the ease of application installation and simple use. After that, Andoroid appeared, but it seemed to me less interesting.
The first inclusion of WP7 caused delight, either because I had been waiting for a phone for so long, or because it had a completely new interface that was intuitive and easy to use.
Yes, you can not do customization of everything, but, honestly, it is not needed. You put the picture only on the lock screen. You can change the color scheme of the system elements, replace the black background with a white one. I honestly say no more. I ate with old WM, starting in 2003 and ending with 6.5.3.
Frankly, I did not expect that the phone will work very quickly, and everything will be so convenient!
The next Update MS promises in January 2011, that is, in about a month. The following features should appear in it:
Updates will not be distributed through phone manufacturers, but directly from MS servers. Those. 100% of WP7 phone users will get it. I think this is the right step, unlike Android - in which updates, as in the old WM, come from phone manufacturers.
')
In my opinion, Market Place is made a little better than the same App Store or Android market. To date, it has about 3-4 thousand applications. True, most of them, as in Android - cheap crafts. Apparently, MS is not yet very actively filtering the market, as there are applications that are unstable or do not start at all. Those who developed them, or did not test at all on real devices, or I do not know what else you can think of.
The purchase is made through a Windows Live account that is linked to your Zune profile. Those. You must have a registered account for the USA in order for it to work in Zune.
To buy something, you need to bind a credit card. BUT! The credit card must be in the same region as the account, i.e. registered in the USA. With this, I suffered a little. As a result, I bought a virtual card of the US Bank. At the moment, I have already bought applications for $ 30.
Learn more about the HTC Hub here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-xb9rP6_QM4
In short, this is a beautiful view of the weather, + add-on at the Market Place and mini apps from HTC:
I started using Zune on a PC a month before WP7 appeared on my hands. In the beginning, I just watched how many applications appeared for WP7 (you can watch it yourself, just install Zune and change the region in the system settings for the US, otherwise you won't even have a market in Zune and you will use it as just a media player).
Zune Music + Video in WP7 is a collection of your songs, videos, podcasts and radio in WP7. Everything that you listen to and watch is happening in Zune. Also, Youtube videos look through it when you click on them in the browser. In Zune, you can buy listen and buy songs from the market.
Minuses:
I did not expect from Microsoft such a breakthrough in the mobile version of IE. It works not fast, but very quickly. On the Internet, I even found video comparisons with iOS and Android. The video confirmed that MS’s mobile browser is a bit faster.
The video here is for anyone interested: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TN7hr7hjyOU
Very thoughtful UI, fast work with tabs.
Minuses:
Mail
I have not yet tried to set up receiving from third-party servers manually, but by adding a Google account, the Google Mail icon immediately appeared on my main screen. Mail is received immediately, work is convenient. Plus, unlike Android, it is possible to mark all messages to mark as read or unread.
By the way, I have a Google Mail account on a different domain, i.e. not on gmail. I was surprised that there were no problems, and WP7 configured everything by itself!
Since I am the happy owner of the Xbox, a phone with WP7 was another way for me to earn Game Point. If you have an Xbox and you like to earn Game Point - WP7 is for you!
Xbox Live on your phone is a repository of games that are on your phone. In the Market, games are divided into those that can earn Game Point and others. Also, right from the phone you can chat with your friends on Xbox Live by setting up an avatar and much more.
All contacts are uploaded from your Windows Live profiles, Facebook and other social networks. Automatically loaded phones, photos, news feed of your friends. From People, you can easily write a personal message to your friend on Facebook or Windows Live, comment on any events. In theory, thanks to People, you can opt out of the Facebook client on the phone, since it completely duplicates the necessary functions.
This section is completely dedicated to your profile. It can track your Facebook and Windows Live actions: what's new with you, your photos, personal messages from your friends, view all your comments and actions in social. networks.
Turning on Bing Map, being in Russia (namely, in Moscow), I was a little disappointed. Map in English. It looks unusual in comparison with Yandex.Maps or Google Maps. It also works very slowly, both on Wifi and on 3G Megaphone.
Bing Map, as a navigation on the ground, is pretty bad. I have already managed to write a letter to Yandex with a question, and when should I wait for the version for WP7, to which I was answered - “Follow the announcements on the site”. So, we are waiting for both the cards from Yandex, and the more familiar map from Google, from Google.
The camera in WP7 is combined with a photo album. As soon as you take a photo, it moves to the left, something like a slide comes out.
Any photo can be easily saved on Live SkyDrive, as well as stash on Facebook, Live.Com.
My personal opinion is that WP7 has a good future. If you are not confused by the lack of a Russian keyboard, multitasking and copy-paste (all this was done from the iPod Touch and iPhone 3 years ago) - you can safely order a phone right now on Ebay.
In the future, the Russian language will appear, and for writing SMS and Email, you can now use third-party software, under the name “Rus SMS Email”.
All questions are asked in a personal, as the moderators have deprived me of the opportunity to comment, for what I said badly about Alexander Akopov for his copyright attitude ...
Posted by: FlexIDK
Screenshots are here (bad quality)
About HTC HD7
The HTC HD7 is a descendant of the HTC HD2. From the latter, he got a big screen, a fast processor. Compared to Desire, HD7 looks like a huge shovel. In the beginning it was not customary, but after 2 days I got used to it and now I use it with great pleasure. I will not conduct a scratch screen resistance test, as Boomburum did, since I still feel sorry for my phone. But the quality of the glass should be at least as good as in HD2.I can say that the phone with a small minus - it has the control keys Back, Windows, Search - touch. And they are very sensitive, sometimes being in landscape mode you can touch them with your thumb and return to the main screen, for example. The complexity of taking pictures and playing some games is related to this.
Also very recessed key and key to take photos. To turn on, sometimes you have to use a nail. It is difficult to make a photo “humanly”, since the key for photographing has two positions. The first to focus and the second to take a picture. Due to the fact that it is drowned, it is impossible to either hang on normally or take a picture. So the presence of hard keys for a photo can hardly be called a perimeter in this case.
In my opinion, the usual buttons, like Desire or HD2, would be more suitable for this phone. But the design was a priority for the creators.
Purchase
Apparently, in Russia and Ukraine HD7 official sales should not be expected before the spring of 2011. But you can already buy a smartphone on European Amazone or Ebay.
I bought my HD7 on Ebay, since it was cheaper there. That is, if in Europe it costs 600 euros, then in the USA it is $ 600. The difference is palpable.
Delivered to me within 1.5-2 weeks. Reached without flaws and problems.
About Windows Phone 7
For the past couple of years, I have admired iOS: the simplicity of the interface, the ease of application installation and simple use. After that, Andoroid appeared, but it seemed to me less interesting.
The first inclusion of WP7 caused delight, either because I had been waiting for a phone for so long, or because it had a completely new interface that was intuitive and easy to use.
Yes, you can not do customization of everything, but, honestly, it is not needed. You put the picture only on the lock screen. You can change the color scheme of the system elements, replace the black background with a white one. I honestly say no more. I ate with old WM, starting in 2003 and ending with 6.5.3.
Frankly, I did not expect that the phone will work very quickly, and everything will be so convenient!
The next Update MS promises in January 2011, that is, in about a month. The following features should appear in it:
- Multi-task
- Copy & paste
- and something else =) promise a lot.
Updates will not be distributed through phone manufacturers, but directly from MS servers. Those. 100% of WP7 phone users will get it. I think this is the right step, unlike Android - in which updates, as in the old WM, come from phone manufacturers.
')
Experience using Market Place
In my opinion, Market Place is made a little better than the same App Store or Android market. To date, it has about 3-4 thousand applications. True, most of them, as in Android - cheap crafts. Apparently, MS is not yet very actively filtering the market, as there are applications that are unstable or do not start at all. Those who developed them, or did not test at all on real devices, or I do not know what else you can think of.
The purchase is made through a Windows Live account that is linked to your Zune profile. Those. You must have a registered account for the USA in order for it to work in Zune.
To buy something, you need to bind a credit card. BUT! The credit card must be in the same region as the account, i.e. registered in the USA. With this, I suffered a little. As a result, I bought a virtual card of the US Bank. At the moment, I have already bought applications for $ 30.
HTC Hub
Learn more about the HTC Hub here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-xb9rP6_QM4
In short, this is a beautiful view of the weather, + add-on at the Market Place and mini apps from HTC:
- Notes - notes
- Torch
- Stocks - quotes
- Calculator
- Equalizer
- And much more.
Zune Music + Video
I started using Zune on a PC a month before WP7 appeared on my hands. In the beginning, I just watched how many applications appeared for WP7 (you can watch it yourself, just install Zune and change the region in the system settings for the US, otherwise you won't even have a market in Zune and you will use it as just a media player).
Zune Music + Video in WP7 is a collection of your songs, videos, podcasts and radio in WP7. Everything that you listen to and watch is happening in Zune. Also, Youtube videos look through it when you click on them in the browser. In Zune, you can buy listen and buy songs from the market.
Minuses:
- Not enough buttons to mix songs. You can mix the entire library, but you can not mix an album or a set of songs.
- You cannot use your finger to rewind a song or video to the right moment.
Internet Explorer
I did not expect from Microsoft such a breakthrough in the mobile version of IE. It works not fast, but very quickly. On the Internet, I even found video comparisons with iOS and Android. The video confirmed that MS’s mobile browser is a bit faster.
The video here is for anyone interested: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TN7hr7hjyOU
Very thoughtful UI, fast work with tabs.
Minuses:
- No support for HTML5 as it is done in Android and iOS.
- In the landscape you can only read. To enter the address you need to turn the phone.
- No story.
- There is no such thing as a start page. The last one opens where you were.
- In my opinion, it renders in a mixture of IE7-8 and a bit, something from IE6 =) so some bugs appeared as in IE6.
I have not yet tried to set up receiving from third-party servers manually, but by adding a Google account, the Google Mail icon immediately appeared on my main screen. Mail is received immediately, work is convenient. Plus, unlike Android, it is possible to mark all messages to mark as read or unread.
By the way, I have a Google Mail account on a different domain, i.e. not on gmail. I was surprised that there were no problems, and WP7 configured everything by itself!
Xbox live
Since I am the happy owner of the Xbox, a phone with WP7 was another way for me to earn Game Point. If you have an Xbox and you like to earn Game Point - WP7 is for you!
Xbox Live on your phone is a repository of games that are on your phone. In the Market, games are divided into those that can earn Game Point and others. Also, right from the phone you can chat with your friends on Xbox Live by setting up an avatar and much more.
People or Address Book
All contacts are uploaded from your Windows Live profiles, Facebook and other social networks. Automatically loaded phones, photos, news feed of your friends. From People, you can easily write a personal message to your friend on Facebook or Windows Live, comment on any events. In theory, thanks to People, you can opt out of the Facebook client on the phone, since it completely duplicates the necessary functions.
Me
This section is completely dedicated to your profile. It can track your Facebook and Windows Live actions: what's new with you, your photos, personal messages from your friends, view all your comments and actions in social. networks.
Maps
Turning on Bing Map, being in Russia (namely, in Moscow), I was a little disappointed. Map in English. It looks unusual in comparison with Yandex.Maps or Google Maps. It also works very slowly, both on Wifi and on 3G Megaphone.
Bing Map, as a navigation on the ground, is pretty bad. I have already managed to write a letter to Yandex with a question, and when should I wait for the version for WP7, to which I was answered - “Follow the announcements on the site”. So, we are waiting for both the cards from Yandex, and the more familiar map from Google, from Google.
Camera
The camera in WP7 is combined with a photo album. As soon as you take a photo, it moves to the left, something like a slide comes out.
Any photo can be easily saved on Live SkyDrive, as well as stash on Facebook, Live.Com.
Conclusion
My personal opinion is that WP7 has a good future. If you are not confused by the lack of a Russian keyboard, multitasking and copy-paste (all this was done from the iPod Touch and iPhone 3 years ago) - you can safely order a phone right now on Ebay.
In the future, the Russian language will appear, and for writing SMS and Email, you can now use third-party software, under the name “Rus SMS Email”.
All questions are asked in a personal, as the moderators have deprived me of the opportunity to comment, for what I said badly about Alexander Akopov for his copyright attitude ...
Posted by: FlexIDK
Screenshots are here (bad quality)
Source: https://habr.com/ru/post/109587/
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