The Windows Phone 7.5 Review, A Month-Long Experience

[striker410]

There looks to be a small typo on the second page. "Its home screen follows the same basic tents of Microsoft's desktop and Start menu formula." I think Andrew meant "tenets" instead of tents

WP7 looks like it's gotten even stronger. I do wish it had the tweakability of Android though.

 

[chomlee]

I currently own an ipad, an iphone, and an android tablet. I recently took a look at windows 8 consumer preview and I have to say that if it catches on, they might help dethrone Apple. The problem with apple is that it is begining to get old hearing "this new release of this phone/tablet is tottaly revolutionary..... It has.... wait for it..... BETTER SPEAKERS Yayyyyy". There is not much more you can do to improve the iphone/ipad unless they plan on adding anatomically correct orifices.

What windows 8 might bring to the table is a totally seemless integration of phone/tablet/pc. One of the problems they face is that microsoft will want to charge an arm and a leg for the OS. If they were smart, they would sell Windows 8 for the PC for $50 and count on recouping the money on the app store and purchases of other windows devices. People might not want to get a windows phone if they have to spend $100 to upgrade the OS on their computer.

I also own some stock in Apple. I am thinking of selling and then purchasing Microsoft. If it truly is seemless, they could convince people to get XBOX 720, windows tablet, windows 8 on the PC, and a Windows phone. Unfortunately, they couldn't become the bohemoth of apple because they don't make money on the hardware like apple does.

 

[g-unit1111]

When I got my new phone I was having a ridiculously hard time deciding between the Droid (Samsung Galaxy S2) and Windows Phone 7 (HTC Titan). I decided to give the Droid a try coming off of owning two iPhones. I love this phone and I'll never go back to iPhone, I may have to give Windows Phone a try when I'm eligible for an upgrade next year.

 

[jacobdrj]

[citation][nom]g-unit1111[/nom]When I got my new phone I was having a ridiculously hard time deciding between the Droid (Samsung Galaxy S2) and Windows Phone 7 (HTC Titan). I decided to give the Droid a try coming off of owning two iPhones. I love this phone and I'll never go back to iPhone, I may have to give Windows Phone a try when I'm eligible for an upgrade next year.[/citation]
I'm glad you are into switching. However, for a lot of us, switching platforms is a huge financial hit in terms of repurchasing the same apps, or in apple's case, music, over again (assuming any DRM). It hurt when I switched away from BlackBerry. Not just because of the loss of my universal inbox and the keyboard, but because I lost all my apps going to Android.

 

[Maziar]

Great article.
About 3 months ago,I decided to switch from iP4 to HTC Titan(WP7) and I've been impressed.WP7 is butter smooth and slick and has awesome features such as the deep facebook/twitter integration along with xbox live etc.
The only downside is the lack of apps(compared to iOS) which hopefully gets better with W8.

 

[Marcus52]

My Dad bought an Asus Transformer Prime and brought it over, so I got a chance to play with it a little bit. Now, I don't have a smart phone and never used a tablet of any kind before, but to me the supposedly great Ice Cream Sandwich version of Android wasn't intuitive at all. I wasn't just unimpressed, I was annoyed.

Between my little experience with Android and having used the Win 8 Customer Preview, parts of the latter my not be obvious to a desktop user, but it was definitely better than Android, for me.

 

[g-unit1111]

[citation][nom]jacobdrj[/nom]I'm glad you are into switching. However, for a lot of us, switching platforms is a huge financial hit in terms of repurchasing the same apps, or in apple's case, music, over again (assuming any DRM). It hurt when I switched away from BlackBerry. Not just because of the loss of my universal inbox and the keyboard, but because I lost all my apps going to Android.[/citation]

I had two iPhones - the first iPhone 3 - which I really liked, but then upgraded the OS and hated it, and then when I got the iPhone 4 - I had so many problems with dropped calls and missed service that I couldn't wait until I got my upgrade, I run all my music on MP3 (and I hate proprietary formats) and I really don't buy a lot of expensive apps so I haven't run into that issue yet. I really like my Galaxy S2 so far - it's probably the best phone I've ever had, the screen is worlds beyond what the iPhone has. I have had an interest in Windows Phone 7 and almost bought the Titan but the people at the AT&T store all said that Droid was better in terms of applications and what it can do. But now with this review I may give it another shot some time when I'm eligible for an upgrade again.

 

[eddieroolz]

I have hopes in Windows Phone 7, 8 and the upcoming BB10. They all look slick and ready to usher in a new generation of mobile OS.

 

[robholden]

[citation][nom]beta tester[/nom]Windows Phone 8 is also soon to be released, and it won't work on current Lumias.[/citation]

Not sure where you are getting that from. Not sure if there has actually been an offical statement or not, but microsoft reps are claiming that current WP7 devices can be upgraded to WP8...

http://wmpoweruser.com/reliable-leaker-also-claim-windows-phone-8-is-coming-to-all-handsets/

 

[gogogadgetliver]

This is a really great article BTW. The author gives only the slightest opinion and otherwise lets the detailed analysis do all the talking.

 

[RedJaron]

After a long string of clumsy mobile releases,

Older Windows Mobile devices got panned for being sluggish and unresponsive. That wasn't due to a poor OS by MS but because a lot phone manufacturers used underpowered hardware. Try running your fancy Android or iOS devices on a 400 MHz processor with 64 MB RAM. Why do you think MS has exercised so much more control and lockdown on WP7? The older phones that had decent specs, like the Samsung i760 ( still sometimes wish I had my old one, ) and HTC Touch Pro2 ( at least until HTC killed it with MRC updates, ) were considered some of the best phones of their day.

We are with Verizon and are so pissed about how they are totally ignoring the WP platform...I walk into the local store and it's all iOS, Android, and a couple BBs; the only WP they carry is the Trophy which is just plain silly, considering the AT&T store right across the street is rocking the Titans and the 900 (soon, if not already).

I'm in the same boat, and indeed the Trophy is utterly mediocre. I look at the Focus S and Lumia 900 and I just hope that Samsung and Nokia will make a CDMA model sometime soon. But I'm losing hope. My contract is up right now and I'm considering changing carriers. But I just really enjoy Verizon's coverage, especially in rural areas. I wouldn't mind trying the Arrive, but I've heard getting a Sprint phone to work on Verizon can be difficult. I think I may buy a used Trophy just for the WP7, but not to waste my upgrade credit.

The biggest complaint I've seen from people is the lack of apps on WP7. If you don't count the copy-cat apps, the actual count of useful apps ( no, your trivial flatulence generator and tri-corder simulator don't count, ) on iOS and Android is much lower than advertised. And as pointed out, the most common usage apps are already included in the platform, including Office Mobile which is a huge impact to people who usually have to pay for productivity on their iPhone and Android. True, you won't have as many game options as you o on other platforms. For some people, that's big, for others, nothing at all.

 

[descendency]

FAS has been supported on Android and iOS for a while. Microsoft didn't support FAS on Windows Phone 7 initially, but it was added with the Mango update. Overall, this feature is easier to use on WP7 than on Android or iOS because each individual application is represented by a large picture that displays the status of each program. In order to switch to a previous application, you just have to hold down the back button to enter the FAS interface and swipe between apps like you would a deck of cards.

What a load of crap. Multitasking is a clear 3rd on Windows Phone. First, the "cards" you see only show 1 app at a time. You get half an app above and half below.

Then you have some apps that have been updated to support multitasking and some that haven't. Have fun reloading your apps. Don't blame it on developers for Microsoft handing them a broken OS from the start. Multitasking should have been a feature, "day 1". If it were, this problem wouldn't exist at all.

Fortunately for WP7, iOS doesn't do it (much) better... but at least you can see more than 1 app at a time that you may want to switch (back) to. However, Android is by far the best multitasking experience, hands down. Especially if you have Android 4.0 (ICS). In ICS you get a very pretty menu overlay that shows you something similar to the cards, but shows you 4 apps at a time. You get the same swipe to "close" as WP. You get the same previews as WP. Oh, and no app reloading. It just resumes, like you would expect.

If you don't have ICS, then you hit and hold the home button showing the 8 most recent apps you opened (all on the same screen). Arguably that's not as good in some ways, but it's still better in most ways than iOS or WP.

WP may be awesome, but multitasking isn't one area that is.

 

[xAlex79]

If I can't browse my local network and stream music or videos from it, I will not buy a windows phone. If I need to "sync" them to my phone using whatever, I can just do that with my android phone as well. Wake up MS.

 

[schwizer]

Few notes
1. No Skype, it's not in the marketplace last time i searched. There is a beta available for direct download from skype but it's not that great, won't run in the background and crashes a lot.
2. No microsoft office communicator. Lync is available but that requires a lync server, good luck.
3. Both of the above are available on iPhone
4. Both of the above are programs owned by microsoft
5. Some of the early windows phones were not able to connect to hidden networks because there was never an option to manually set up a wireless network profile. Sort of a big deal if your work network is hidden...
6. Wireless tethering not enabled on some early phones and no updates released to enable it.
7. Battery life is quite good if you turn off wireless/bluetooth and turn on battery saver. I've made it to over 3 days before but that's with almost no phone use.
8. Setting up outlook is a breeze.
9. $100 dollars to sign up for a developer account, so much for encouraging developers.
10. Bing is just fine, really, google it. Stop hating.
11. Huge lack of accessories for some models, bigger batteries, not even a case or cover, nevermind funky stuff available for iphones like the camera addons.
12. Camera and video are reasonably solid for general use.

 

[mockrocker]

Why did I get so many downvote for my link? Is anyone here working as a microsoft employee? Everyone who have experienced the same thing in my link sure will be very upset. I don't really understand the crowd here. Something's wrong with you guys.

 

[tipoo]

How about some benchmarks vs other phones like page load times, app load times, multi tab speed, etc?

 

[Guest]

I fall into the category of owning a Windows phone and using a Mac. I was very disappointed with the Phone sync App provided by Microsoft. I also have a Windows 7 PC and did not really like Zune software either. I am surprised something better could not be done. Probably one reason I will not buy another Windows phone. My other issues is no way to in crease font size especially in messaging. Lack of a decent browser, some Apps are poorly done. For me its a decent phone for a starter smartphone. But you will grow tired of it.

 

[blazorthon]

[citation][nom]silverblue[/nom]A few more notes about Mango...1) The ENG key on the keyboard will only appear if you have more than one language selected under the keyboard settings menu.2) On the camera mode, you can scroll between the live camera feed and the last photos you took; in essence, you can have both on screen at the same time. I suspect this isn't just a Nokia thing.3) If you tap the left-hand edge of an e-mail in the list, it will invoke the select function.4) Office can explore Excel, Word and PowerPoint, however it cannot create documents for the latter.5) I can't believe you missed this one, unless it's not an issue on your end... the Toms site glitches to hell and nearly crashes the phone!!! This was present on the 8500 update as well as on the current 12070 update on the Lumia 800; unsure if it's just a Nokia thing.In response to beta tester, I wasn't aware of Apollo not being available on the 800/900. Ah well![/citation]

Tom's seems to run poorly on every device I access it on and some web browsers fail with it. For example, Lunascape and Opera both don't work properly with it in my experience (neither lets me re-size comment boxes and both glitch often). Tom's doesn't work well with the mobile versions of Opera on my Android either, but the stock Android browser seems to work with Tom's well. I think that Tom's could use a full revamping, especially with the glitchy articles (the best gaming CPU and the best graphics cards articles from multiple months get skewed together in weird ways).

[citation][nom]blackened144[/nom]I know what you mean.. I prefer having a phone with a dpi of under 15.. That way I get the crisp look of items like they were printed on a 1980's dot matrix printer.. Its refreshing..[/citation]

Many of the Android displays are FAR superior to Retina, which is just somewhat better than the standard iPhone screens.

[citation][nom]mockrocker[/nom]Why did I get so many downvote for my link? Is anyone here working as a microsoft employee? Everyone who have experienced the same thing in my link sure will be very upset. I don't really understand the crowd here. Something's wrong with you guys.[/citation]

Most of us don't care much about the marketing ploys. I know that I use a password after swiping to enter it on my Android's keyboard and all that the test in the link you gave us shows is that the Android only won because it could be turned on and then automatically at the home screen without being unlocked by swiping. Using that link tells us that you cared more about the Android being able to beat the WP if it uses a security reducing setting to get a split second advantage in opening up an app immediately after powering on the phone.

None of that is very important. If a WP seems better than an Android for whatever reason in truly relevant ways, then I couldn't care much less about whether or not M$ was marketing it falsely because it was better for whatever reason was important to me. However, I'm fairly certain that I'd stick with Android if I was given the choice, so I don't care much else.

 

[junixophobia]

[citation][nom]mockrocker[/nom]Why did I get so many downvote for my link? Is anyone here working as a microsoft employee? Everyone who have experienced the same thing in my link sure will be very upset. I don't really understand the crowd here. Something's wrong with you guys.[/citation]

I notice that also, it seems like paid posters of m$ are lurking around. i bet i'll get voted down for these as well

 

[RedJaron]

I fall into the category of owning a Windows phone and using a Mac. I was very disappointed with the Phone sync App provided by Microsoft. I also have a Windows 7 PC and did not really like Zune software either. I am surprised something better could not be done. Probably one reason I will not buy another Windows phone.

Similar thing can be said about having to use iTunes to use an iPhone. I know some people like it, but I know a lot more people, even Apple faithful, who loathe iTunes. It's something that makes no sense to me. How can Apple develop a fairly slick interface like iOS and then release something as clunky as iTunes?

In a similar vein, I actually like the Zune interface for media, but I don't understand why I can't directly sync my contacts, calendar, etc to Outlook on my desktop. Really a head scratcher.

 

[gaborbarla]

[citation][nom]gogogadgetliver[/nom]The troll is strong with this one. Windows Phone has absolutely nothing to do with Windows Mobile but you knew that already didn't you? Although the music players are gone Zune is alive and well. The UI on the PC version blows iTunes away and always has. What good is a subscription service with free music if you don't know what to get? Mixview, subscriptions, smartDJs are powerful. (protip: click the top listener of a song you dig and see what else that user likes). The artist bio and relations are from Pandora. Video rentals are 1080p, 5.1 and stutter free. iTunes sucks but ignorance is bliss for it's users.Bing? Sorry man but Bing rocks too. Do like this reviewer did. Flip over to Bing for a month. If your search doesn't come up on the first page check and see if it does over at google. The images are gorgeous and video day is always a treat. As for Microsoft people using Google? Pfft. I'm sure somebody somewhere does but you better source this "vast majority" tripe or I'm calling BS... FUD has to be believable for it to work you know.[/citation]

1) Zune is dead. I know I have one on my desk. Google or Bing "zune discontinued"

2) I agree on the itunes part.

3) It is a little know fact that it is built on windows CE 6.0, so they have a lot in common. (http://books.google.co.za/books?id=sXv6Pp3AevMC&pg=PA16&lpg=PA16&dq=wp7+built+on+6.5+ce&source=bl&ots=syAXo4URm0&sig=YkaVsstqkGwOq1srMxR3rC8PKGg&hl=en&sa=X&ei=5vKHT5H7BM2AhQeozLHmCQ&ved=0CB8Q6AEwAA#v=onepage&q=wp7%20built%20on%206.5%20ce&f=false)

4) I am unsure about that bing comment. I forced myself to use bing after Google went BOSS on the privacy policy recently. I even had my home page set to bing. The biggest screwup with bing is that it doesn't even have suggest in the search text-box. It is basically google back in 2004 or whenever. Without suggestions popping up as you type people just won't use it, maybe in 2004, but not today. Let's not mention the gmail gdocs calendar. It saddens me that google is going beserk after it has us by the big ones. Alternatives are important but microsoft doesnt have any at the moment.

How can you say this guy is a troll you are like a giant ice troll or something.

 

[ahthurungnone]

I've been using the Win7 mobile operating system for month's now. Previously I had used an Andriod and an iPhone for over a year each. I thought is was time to give Windows a chance.
Upon first use of the Windows phone, I noticed how much simplier to use and more elegant its layout versus the others. Although the Win7 mobile OS lacks a good navigation software, many secondary apps on its market, and needs to be able to zync without Zune, it is still a vastly superior OS. Android and iOS remind me of Windows 3.1, and we should expect more from a mobile OS. It's time to get out of the 90s people and welcome the 21st century Windows phone.

 

[gogogadgetliver]

@youngster

1) Please reread. I'm running zune on my desktop and xbox so it's clearly not dead.

2) Glad to hear. I wish more people knew about this

3) Sharing WinCE doesn't really give them anything noteworthy in common. By that measure Windows Phone is more closely related to the coke machine in our cafeteria since it runs a newer version of WinCE that Windows Mobile did.

4) Bing does indeed have suggest in the search box. I don't recall taking any steps to enable this either. Give it another shot maybe? I know it's totally subjective but I reeeeally dig the images. The weekly video loops are a treat. It doesn't impact page load time in the slightest.

They also have this Win7 wallpaper (see the 'get more themes' in desktop settings) that does a constantly rotating RSS feed of bing images in high res.

I called that guy a troll because he started spewing things that he surely knew were false (and not just some matter of differing opinion).

 

[jaquith]

[citation][nom]gogogadgetliver[/nom]3. No, we don't all know that. Bing searches are the same as google plus the integration of image, music, and voice search with bing on WP is seamless. Shazam has no use on WP7 now. I now prefer Bing to Google on my desktop as well.5. This is patently false. These are features of the mango update.[/citation]
Troll WTF are you talking about? At least I've owned several Window based Phones -- How about you! As I've said, "it would require it to be a Holly S*** Phone!" The burden in on Microsoft.

I cannot help Microsoft pooched themselves with Windows Mobile, if they were 'so fantastic' I'd own one now!!! The the proof in in the sales numbers. Ahh, apparently I'm in the Majority here - who's the Troll!

I don't give a rip if you love or hate the Windows Phone -- Prove you OWN WP7 or WP 7.5 now?! Post an image with "gogogadgetliver" on your Windows Phone. IMO you're taking out you 'back side' like Polly the Parrot blabbing a bunch of BS.

After my extensive experience with Window Mobile if you get one then only get one from HTC; I had the least problems with HTC.

The carry over is Windows Mobile still uses a frigging OLD Registry which was present from Day 1. Google or better for you Bing:
* Windows Mobile 7.5 registry
* Windows Mobile 7.5 freeze
* Windows Mobile 7.5 IE Rendering problem

 

[RedJaron]

1) Please reread. I'm running zune on my desktop and xbox so it's clearly not dead.

To clarify, Zune hardware is dead ( sadly, since I rather like my Zune HD. ) Yes, the software and service keep running on desktop, XBox, and Windows Phone.