Htc Hd7 Review

Design The HTC HD7 smartphone measures 4.8 inches tall by 2.7 inches wide by 0.4 inch thick and weighs 5.7 ounces.The HTC HD7 build quality of the phone is solid, and the soft-touch finish on the back prevents it from feeling too plasticky and slick.The extra screen real estate makes it great for multimedia, playing games, and Web browsing--features which are well-implemented on Windows Phone 7. When the Amazon Kindle app for Windows Phone 7 is released, you'll also be able to read e-books right on the phone.Windows Phone 7 already offers a pretty great and accurate keyboard, and we had no problems using it on the Samsung Focus and HTC Surround, but we did find we were able to type much faster using the HD7. One thing that doesn't change, however, is the number of tiles and apps that are viewable from the Start screen and apps menu list.Scrolling and pinch-to-zoom were also smooth. Overall, the display is bright and clear, showing off 480x800 pixels, but we definitely noticed a dif ference in quality compared with some of the higher-resolution displays on some of the today's latest smartphones.Below the display, you will find the back, start, and search buttons, which are required by Microsoft. They're of the touch-sensitive variety, but there are also several physical buttons on the device, including a volume rocker and a camera key on the right side, and a power button on top of the phone.Rounding out things is a Micro-USB port and a 3.5-millimeter headphone jack on the bottom, and the camera and dual-LED flash on back.The HTC HD7 phone's speakers are visible just above and below the touch screen.

Interface The HTC HD7 start menu (home screen) aggregates these panels into tiles aligned in a very simple vertical grid of two columns and multiple rows. Each tile takes up a fair chunk of the screen, with only 8 tiles fitting on the screen at any one time.Slide the homescreen out of the way (a swipe from right to left will do the job), and Microsoft bestows a simple list of applications on your screen.Accent colours are applied to app tiles and standout text. To compensate for the minimal choice of background, these can be one of 11 colours, green, red, blue, orange, pink, brown, lime, teal, purple and magenta. This simplicity lends itself to an identity Microsoft are clearly trying to attribute to Windows Phone 7, with a sophisticated font, Segoe WP, large, clear tiles and smooth Zune type experience.

Phonebook The phone HTC HD7 book falls under the people tile. This offers very tight integration with Facebook, with a right swipe from your contact list taking you to friend's recent updates. The search capacitive button adapts its function depending on which menu you're in, so contacts can either be scrolled through or searched for directly as expected.

Messaging The HTC HD7 keyboard looks so clean and simple with no gradients in sight that the minimalist in us can't help but enjoy it. Without copy and paste, functionality is hampered slightly, though Microsoft promises this in the near future. Organizer The calendar is the most finger friendly we've used in a while, looking very clean and feeling really intuitive.Adding appointments is simple, and the whole experience was a pleasure in every aspect other than the aforementioned section regarding multiple Google calendars (you can't choose which calendar under your Google account to use). All other organizer features work predictably well.

Camera and Multimedia With dual LED flash, the HTC HD7 won't blow any minds, but nevertheless does a good job of making snaps look half decent. With little delay between shots and a speedy interface, everything ticks along nicely.The music experience is a giant step up above the WinMo phones of old. In fact, the music feels more integrated on Windows Phone 7 than on any platform other than the iPhone OS, and if you own a Zune, even more so than that. It's slick, simple enough to get to grips with and well integrated, with access to basic music functionality on the lock screen for example. Audio quality is good and the Dolby Mobile and SRS Surround offers a great range of output options.

Internet and Connectivity The HTC HD7 is a quad-band GSM, tri-band 3G phone and comes loaded with Wi-Fi, Bluetooth and GPS on board. Connections include a 3.5mm headphone jack and a a microUSB port. Despite lacking expandable memory, it does have 16GB on board, the most out of any Windows Phone 7 launch device. The only things we might have liked to see are DLNA functionality and a mini HDMI port.

Software The HTC HD7 runs Windows Phone 7, and for now, all Windows Phone 7 handsets work pretty much the same. They all have first-generation Qualcomm Snapdragon 1 Ghz processors, 800-by-480 screens, and the same interface of "live tiles." For more about the OS itself, check out our full review of the Windows Phone 7 OS.

Performance The quad-band (GSM 850/900/1800/1900) HTC HD7 in New York using T-Mobile service, and call quality was good. On our end of the conversation, the audio was rich without any type of voice distortion.peakerphone quality wasn't all that great. Even with the volume cranked up to the highest level, we had a hard time hearing our callers in a room with an open window, and voices sounded tinny.the HTC HD7 doesn't support T-Mobile's HSPA+ network, but we still had good data speeds over its regular 3G network. CNET's full site loaded in 16 seconds, while CNN and ESPN's mobile sites loaded in 8 seconds and 5 seconds, respectively. YouTube videos took a few seconds to load but played back without interruption and with synchronized audio and video. T-Mobile TV episodes also took several seconds to load, but looked great on the HD7's large screen. As you would expect, video quality was better over a strong Wi-Fi network than over a 3G connection.Read more Cellphone Review & Guide

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