are windows 7 phone actually any good yet?

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CdTDroiD

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Topic # 74450 30-Dec-2010 16:33

Hi guys, i know theres a big hype about windows 7 mobile but is it actually that good yet or are there to many little pain in the butt issues still? was thinking of either getting a desire HD or one of the HTC windows 7 phone... ive just heard lots of people complaining about little annoying issues? Opinions?

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Reply # 422676 30-Dec-2010 17:56

I've had my HTC trophy for almost a month now, and I must say I've been pleased and don't regret moving off iOS to try out this platform.

What kind of little issues have you heard about? I've been using it pretty productively, it's so easy to setup and get going, simple to sync etc, and has all the features I've needed - google + outlook contacts, email and calendar sync, and as a bonus I get facebook contacts integration as well, which is great for keeping up to date easily without having to bother with a dedicates facebook app.

Office hub is great, messaging and phone are great, the apps are pretty good, yes obviously not there yet in terms of popularity and quantity, but apps are constantly showing up on the market place which is great.

By the way, they are yet to release a software update (first one due in Jan), so if you've heard of anything after production things haven't changed, if it's issues with prototypes and beta editions of the OS then yeah probably! If you have any impressions about WP7 from the windows mobile image (winmo 6, 6.1, 6.5), then forget them. This is a totally different platform, and if you ask me about the platform with the best UI out there (snappy, easy to use, looks simple but presents lots of content), I'll tell you it's WP7 for sure. It has taken smartphone UI to another level from what Android and the iPhone put on offer.

So - let me know what issues you've heard about and I can tell you whether or not they're gone (or were never there?) :)

nitrotech

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Reply # 422687 30-Dec-2010 18:36

I look forward to the day when microsoft get serious about releasing this product - one phone available on one network in NZ months after 'launch' should be an embarrassment to everyone at Microsoft NZ.

You're never going to know how good it is (or not) if you can't get your hands on it.

billgates

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Reply # 422693 30-Dec-2010 18:48

nitrotech: I look forward to the day when microsoft get serious about releasing this product - one phone available on one network in NZ months after 'launch' should be an embarrassment to everyone at Microsoft NZ.

You're never going to know how good it is (or not) if you can't get your hands on it.

?

It's been 2 months since wp7 lanuch and Gen-I offers the LG Optimus 7Q running windows phone 7. When google launched android, it was available on t-mobile only and only G1 handset was available in 1 country forr so many months (6~7?). Anyways telecom retail will also start offering wp7 from early 2011.

Microsoft launched wp7 on 10 different handsets in 30 different countries on 60 different carriers compared to 1 by google. More handsets and more countries/carriers will be added in 2011.

@OP. I have been using wp7 for a while now and I love it. Email client/integration is the best along with office, xbox live, facebook, windows live setup and the best feature which is the zune expereince. Marketplace is now filled with over 5000 apps and there are 30+ xbox live titles in the marketplace alone. Roughly 30% of the apps are free. A major update is due out in either Jan or Feb 2011 which will add copy and paste and give developers access to more API's so they will be offer to more and better apps/features.

HTC 7 Trophy is a very light weight phone and quite speedy performance wise. With android, good luck getting updates from HTC or your carrier in a timely fashion. That's not really the case with WP7 or iOS.

Do whatever you want to do man.

Kickass

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Reply # 427175 14-Jan-2011 15:43

just got myself a windows phone 7 and i must say the interface is very cool!

one big issue is the lack of google maps? bing is useless for looking for anything unless you know the address.

MackinNZ

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Reply # 427213 14-Jan-2011 16:52

I've had an HTC Trophy since they were released and I'm very happy with Windows Phone 7.

As has been mentioned already, it's light years ahead of Windows Mobile 6.5, and I personally like the interface much more than the iPhone OS.

Quick and easy to connect to my SBS server for e-mail, contacts, calendar etc.

SteveON

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Reply # 427216 14-Jan-2011 17:00

nitrotech: I look forward to the day when microsoft get serious about releasing this product - one phone available on one network in NZ months after 'launch' should be an embarrassment to everyone at Microsoft NZ.

You're never going to know how good it is (or not) if you can't get your hands on it.

I dislike your statement... It takes years for this kind of platform to explode!

nitrotech

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Reply # 427236 14-Jan-2011 18:04

SteveON:
nitrotech: I look forward to the day when microsoft get serious about releasing this product - one phone available on one network in NZ months after 'launch' should be an embarrassment to everyone at Microsoft NZ.

You're never going to know how good it is (or not) if you can't get your hands on it.

I dislike your statement... It takes years for this kind of platform to explode!

You may dislike the statement however there are many commentators throughout the world saying exactly the same thing (remember that it's the launch i'm talking about here not the phones)

http://blogs.computerworld.com/17342/windows_phone_7_launch_what_went_wrong

The comparisons with google's android launch don't stack up, because at that time, carriers who couldn't get the iphone were scrambling to get their hands on a 'smart' device and even put their own $ into marketing, look at what telecom has done with android as an example.

The fact is that times have changed - MS needed to onboard carriers early they face competition from RIM, Apple and Google.

So lets review the launch in NZ.

Little to no marketing in NZ
One phone (out of 10) launched on one carrier in NZ (out of 3)
The small amount of stock on hand sold at half a dozen locations in NZ sold out in a day.
More stock took quite some time to arrive.

Forward to now:

Little to no marketing in NZ
One phone launched on one network (vf) and one phone only available to corporate customers (xt)
Phones still scarce at retail stores

I think it's excellent that you see this as successful and as you say only time will tell if it's enough.

I'm not knocking the phone os or devices themselves as I have not used a WP7 device and cannot comment on it, but sitting back and waiting for something to happen may not be enough for MS to break into this very competitive smartphone market.

pjnet

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Reply # 427247 14-Jan-2011 19:03

You've obviously forgotten what happened with the NZ Android launch. 1 official handset, no updated handsets from the telco for over a year. At one point they appeared to actually stop selling the Magic too! To be fair Telecom did a bit better, but still no real choice when there was quite a few handsets available else where and at least within a few months of the launch.

May the farce be with you!

pjnetnz
:)

nitrotech

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Reply # 427256 14-Jan-2011 20:07

pjnet: You've obviously forgotten what happened with the NZ Android launch. 1 official handset, no updated handsets from the telco for over a year. At one point they appeared to actually stop selling the Magic too! To be fair Telecom did a bit better, but still no real choice when there was quite a few handsets available else where and at least within a few months of the launch.

I hear you, and who can forget the on again off again iphone 4 launch last year.

It just seems that phone companies can't put together a decent launch.

MS however have a bit more to lose, their mobile market share is declining at a rapid rate and with the move towards tablet computing they need a successful mobile OS, if the handset makers don't adopt the platform and/or the carriers don't get behind it there will be little money for OS developent especially after the disaster of the KIN.

Think of the opportunities that were available to MS around launch eg:

The new pay monthly plans on 2degrees
Telecom / Vodafone's christmas marketing budgets
Telecom's christmas double bonus

Once again it's no skin off my nose if people think the WP7 launch was a success, or that the current handset selection is more than adequate - it's just my opinion and of course I respect the right of others to disagree.

KevDaly

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Reply # 427269 14-Jan-2011 20:58

At the time of the launch Telecom were in the middle of a big TV push for Android - I don't see where there would've been much of a window of opportunity there.

Vodafone cocked up their end of the launch, but then they normally do.

I think Microsoft were strangely paralysed with their non-US messaging, perhaps partly because their checklist of features to promote include some that are still basically US-only (extended Bing services, voice search)...they really need to cure themselves of the assumption that the world ends at their borders - they know better than that. But most importantly though the problem is general cluelessness when it comes to selling things to real people as opposed to the suit-wearing class. If only there were more "life-optimisers" in this world...(when I was young we called 'em "Yuppies")

Still, I bought an HTC Trophy and I'm very happy with it.
Alarms even still work after the New Year :-)

freitasm

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Reply # 427272 14-Jan-2011 21:06

I have a HTC Trophy and I am using it overseas, seeing I actually have a Telecom account and there's no Windows Phone 7 for the masses with Telecom.

I think it's a good device, with some interesting features - although there are some that I'm missing, and some that are certainly implemented in a strange way. My impressions have been relayed to Microsoft on this (not the local office though).

I find it interesting how Telecom seems to be giving all the preference for their business customers through Gen-i in all new launches. I understand supply has been very low due to manufacturers' problems, but still, being late almost three months since the "launch" in New Zealand is a bit bad.

Full disclosure: the HTC Trophy I am using was supplied by the PR company providing services to Microsoft. I am an active Windows Phone MVP as I post this.

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dmw

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Reply # 427302 14-Jan-2011 22:52

My HTC Trophy is going very well. Most people I show it to, who have a good look, are very impressed. I know of at least one who has bought one as a result.

But I'm disappointed every day when I drive past a bus shelter with a Vodafone ad for an iPhone4. They are the only network in NZ selling WP7, but they are not even advertising them!

paulspain

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Reply # 427319 15-Jan-2011 01:18

As most people on here know - I've been quite impressed by Windows Phone 7. To the point that I've recently launched a local website dedicated to the Windows Phone 7 platform in NZ.

Sure, there is more that I would like to see from the platform (such as VOIP), but I think they're off to a great start with a very easy to use and fluid user experience. The live tiles and hub concepts are fantastic, as are the 'toast notifications' which things like Beezz (Twitter app) use to provide full push notifications without the memory and battery overhead of running the entire app in the background. The two-way wifi synch of photos, music, podcasts and video is truely brilliant - nothing else comes close for media synchronisation. And the Office hub is handy - especially the synch to the cloud of OneNote documents.

It's probably too early to tell just how well the Windows Phone 7 will do - and it certainly has very strong competition - but I get the impression Microsoft will invest whatever it takes to be extremely competitive in this space in the long term.

Paul Spain
Founder: Gorilla Technology, NZ Tech Podcast, Cloud Labs, UFB.org.nz

Jed

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Reply # 427562 16-Jan-2011 08:49

Just as an aside, as someone who was there at the launch (my wife was #5, we were part of the van who drove up from Hamilton), it was a very strange experience.

We only found out about the launch the day before, and it was by pure luck that Jourdan (who ended up being #1) "knew a guy", who leaked to him the details of the event a tad early, giving us enough time to organize a van-load. I was very surprised that Microsoft was very tight-lipped about the details, the official press release about the event was supposed to be released like 24 hours before (or something like that, can't remember). Given the size of Aotea Square, wouldn't they want word to get out early, to give them a better chance of filling it with raging nerds?

Instead, "crowds" could be easily counted. Almost everyone there I could recognize. Threre were no hoards from Geekzone, no Student Partner masses, no 13-year-olds who had just learnt about the event and were trying to score a free phone. Most were people who I would've thought already had a free phone anyway, given that they'd had a pre-production device.

My favorite bit; they were giving away free coffee. About 5 mins before the doors opened, there were more people in the line for the free coffee than there were people in the line to buy a phone...

Oh, and one of the Vodafone displays blue-screened. But that's almost expected at some point these days, no?

lyonrouge

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Reply # 427563 16-Jan-2011 08:49

MackinNZ: I've had an HTC Trophy since they were released and I'm very happy with Windows Phone 7.

As has been mentioned already, it's light years ahead of Windows Mobile 6.5, and I personally like the interface much more than the iPhone OS.

Quick and easy to connect to my SBS server for e-mail, contacts, calendar etc.

I've not used WM6.5, but I have used 5 and 6.1 and 7 is a giant leap backwards, self-signed certificate installation was the most complicated operation (especially comparing with iOS and Symbian ^3), it has no inbuild RDP client (JasJar & Touch Diamond had this included OTB) and even worse, it does not support BlueTooth keyboard (Touch Diamond & N8 do, the N8 also supports mouse). Note also, you can only get music on via Zune (ironic they have chosen to follow the model that made me hate my iOS devices).

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