HTC HD7 Review - read honest HTC HD7 reviews

 HTC HD7 Review

The good people at O2 just provided us with a demonstration model of the new HTC HD7 as part of the push to launch the newWindows Phone 7 operating system. There had been a lot of scepticism here at Best Mobile Contracts regarding Microsoft´s new interface but admittedly my first impressions were positive. The most striking thing about WP7 is that it feels remarkably un-Microsoft. As this was a demonstration model much of the phones functionality was out of bounds and there were plenty of self-promotional emails and messages lurking around on the handset.

 

Aside from the new OS, the HD7 has a lot of other impressive features to shout about. As far as touchscreen phones go the HD7 is a bit of a beast with a gigantic 4.3" LCD screen. There is also an HD video camera on board and plenty to keep you entertained with Zune and Xbox LIVE. Seeing that I was more smitten with WP7 than anyone else here at Best Mobile Contracts it was left to me to have a play around with the phone and offer my thoughts. So here they are.

 

Windows Phone 7

 

Firstly, although people here aren´t generally fans of Microsoft operating systems on phones I actually found the Windows Phone 7 interface to be surprisingly good. It seems that Microsoft have finally stopped trying to cram a scaled down PC OS into a phone and truly designed an interface fit for the purpose. Although I still personally favour Android, Windows Phone 7 has become a close second due to being exceptionally easy to navigate and pretty good looking too. The touch-oriented design no longer feels like an afterthought and more like an integral part of the interface.

 

The homescreen provides a variety of large easy to tap icons directing you to all areas of the phone’s functionality, including messaging, email, Office apps and Xbox LIVE. If you prefer you can slide this to the side and make use of smaller icons in a list view. These boxes can be moved around or removed from the main page, and can also provide you with quick access to your most recent contacts. These boxes and the background can be changed between a variety of different colours and themes to personalise the look and feel of the phone.

 

Display and Screen Quality

 

Upon hearing that the HD7 had a 4.3" screen my initial reaction was that this was far too large for a phone. But when holding the HD7 it does not feel imposing and actually feels more ideally suited to many of the phones operations than more standard sized touchscreens. This is certainly true for watching videos and of course making use of Xbox LIVE, where I feel that even a marginally smaller screen would not be as favourable.

 

Somehow HTC have managed to cram in a large screen and all the benefits that entails without producing a handset that feels chunky and oversized. Strangely enough I found the HD7´s screen to be less dominating than that of the Samsung Galaxy S which is smaller by 0.3 of an inch.

 

I was very impressed with the quality of the HD7´s LCD screen which was very sharp and vivid. There was the inevitable acquisition of smudge marks but these were only noticeable when the phone was switched off. The screen was highly responsive to finger movements and multitouch input gestures like pinch to zoom are available in many areas of the phone, such as the web browser and photo album. The only times there seemed to be a problem with responsiveness was with momentary lag from intensive apps such as Xbox LIVE.

 

Physical Design

 

There are a number of physical design features of the HTC HD7 that are worthy of note. One is the battery cover, which is extremely light and flexible and can literally just be pulled off the back of the handset with a finger and thumb. I found this to be a highly convenient feature, as I do not like fiddly battery covers, but my colleague felt it to be quite flimsy. Another nice little addition is the stand that folds out next to the camera lens on the back of the HD7, which can be used for propping the phone up to watch videos. This is remarkably sturdy considering how small the stand is but I can foresee many instances where this excellent feature could quite easily be snapped off by mistake.

 

Web Browsing

 

The HD7 does not come with native support for YouTube although an app is downloadable. I was unable to test this out due to using a demo model and not having a valid Windows Live ID. Although Google is accessible the standard search engine for the HD7 is not surprisingly, Bing. While I do not mind using Bing I am aware that many people have a strong preference for Google.

 

One of the main problems I had when using the HD7 is that I found myself inadvertently brushing the search button and finding myself using Bing when I was trying to do something else. This could say more about my hand eye coordination rather than anything else but it was my main grievance with the HD7. Just for the record, I would have been equally frustrated if it had been loading Google instead of Bing.

 

Typing and Messaging

 

The onscreen keyboard was easy to use and pretty accurate, in landscape mode anyway. However, the number of squiggly red lines did increase in direct proportion to my typing speed. The keyboard does compensate for misplaced fingers by trying to guess the words you might be trying to type, sometimes with funny results. The demonstration emails in the phone’s inbox were keen to point out how they could send me Office documents that I could read straight from my phone. I did not manage to find a PDF reader installed, but no doubt there will be many available from the app store.

 

Despite the revamped interface, Microsoft is still trying to push Office as one of the key features it possesses. While it will certainly be of benefit to some people I don´t feel that in this day and age there are many people who purchase a phone purely for its ability to edit Excel documents. Still, for the professionally minded phone user it is always comforting to know that they can update their documents on the way to a meeting.

 

Threaded SMS is put to good use with Windows Phone 7, and a variety of contact methods are provided for each contact on your phone. Social networks did not appear to be directly integrated here although the option was offered. You can add boxes to your most favoured contacts directly to the phone´s homescreen so it is not even necessary to go to the contacts list to keep in touch.

 

Camera and Entertainment

 

Gaining access to the camera is straightforward enough, by just holding down the camera button on the side of the phone. The still photos it captured were pretty good quality, and with the preinstalled visual enhancer app you can apply a number of pointless filters. I found the video camera more enjoyable to use and found this to be of more impressive quality than the still camera. The only problem here was that I did not find an easy way to scroll through recorded videos with any degree of accuracy.

 

The HD7 comes with Zune player on board although only one song was included on this demo model and I did not feel any urgent need to listen to it. One slight setback of Windows Phone 7 handsets is that their internal storage is set to 16GB as they lack microSD support and I can see this being a serious problem for ardent music lovers. New music is available through Zune and you can also get hold of media and apps through the HTC Hub.

 

Gaming with Xbox

Like all new Windows Phone 7 handsets the HD7 comes with Xbox LIVE support as standard. The model I got to play around with came with three games included and I must admit I was quite impressed. I can easily foresee Windows Phone 7 becoming a serious rival to more conventional handheld consoles.

Using Xbox LIVE was the only time I felt that the phone was struggling to keep up with the tasks it was given although this did mainly apply just to the loading of games. The games that were available were pretty fun to play and I was very impressed with the quality of the graphics. It is easy to see Xbox LIVE being one of the key selling points of Windows Phone 7 handsets and it is probably the main advantage that WP7 has over its rivals.

Final Thoughts

All in all I found my experience with the HD7 to be quite a positive one. A lack of Windows Live ID limited what I was able to try out with this phone and I had quickly played around with everything on offer. As the functionality of this demonstration model was limited I found myself returning more and more to play with the Xbox games. This could prove to be a deal breaker for those torn between Windows Phone 7 and some rival OS but, like the music and video features, I can´t help but feel that the fantastic gaming on board will be let down by the limited storage space.

In itself the HD7 is a truly high quality phone although I can see that a number of people may be turned off by the thought of Windows Phone 7. All I can say is give it a try, you might be pleasantly surprised by what Microsoft have done.