So the time has come! I’ve had my HTC Mozart review handset for a week now and I’ve written here about various aspects of Microsoft’s new smartphone operating system.
If you missed any of the previous parts of this review, you can catch up with them here…
Windows Phone 7 Review, Part 1 – Unboxing
Windows Phone 7 Review, Part 2 – Setup & The OS in General
Windows Phone 7 Review, Part 3 – The Main Apps
Windows Phone 7 Review, Part 4 – Living with Windows Phone
But the time has finally come for a verdict on the OS and my recommendation on whether you should actually buy one.
Now I’d like to think that I’ve praised Windows Phone 7 where it deserved it, and criticised it where it didn’t deserve any. One thing is very clear and this is that Windows Phone is 7 a version 1 product but the mistakes and problems that exist are all minor. Microsoft have released a much more polished OS than Apple managed with the first iPhone, and I would expect some of these problems to be fixed early in the new year and the rest by the end of 2011. We can be certain that, for the next year at least, updates to this phone will be regular and frequent.
For the last part of this review I want to focus on switching to Windows Phone for owners of various different mobile phone operating systems and handset types.
Windows Phone for iPhone users
Windows Phone and the iPhone couldn’t be more different as platforms. Both will live or die on the quality and quantity of the apps available for them, and in this the iPhone has a head start that Windows Phone will never be able to catch.
What the iPhone lacks, proper integration between apps, platforms and social networking, is the entire foundation of Windows Phone. For some people this won’t really matter, and those people will be hard-core iPhone users.
I let an iPhone owner play with the Windows Phone for some time and she came back saying she loved it. But how easy she would find the transition to Windows Phone remains to be seen. If you’re not so fussed about the app-based iPhone then you will most likely find Windows Phone very simple and intuitive to use as many of it’s funcions work in identical ways to the iPhone.
I can only think that if you have gotten used to the iPhone’s way of working and enjoy the app-centric nature of the OS then switching to Windows Phone will probably annoy you. You can modify the Windows Phone start screen to emulate the iPhone app interface to an extent, but you’ll end up doing a lot of scrolling up and down.
Windows Phone for Android Users
Android users fall broadly into three camps. People who wanted a smartphone but who didn’t fancy going down the Apple route, traditonal phone owners who wanted to upgrade to a smartphone and who either couldn’t afford an iPhone or who had an Android recommendation from a friend and power smartphone users.
If you’re the latter then stay away from Windows Phone. It’s not overly configurable, it doesn’t need to be, and there are no options for tweaking it or even seeing memory usage. As a power user myself I found that the phone taking this level of control away from me was quite annoying at times as I was so used to having it.
For the other two camps this entirely depends on how comfortable you are with Android essentially being a ‘desktop’-based smartphone OS. I would guess that a great many of these Android users have learned to work the way Android does rather than have a smartphone that adapts to them instead. These people would definitely benefit from moving to Windows Phone.
Again, Android users who bought into the Google platform because they didn’t fancy going with Apple should consider how happy they are with the ‘desktop’ approach Android offers. If having a cursor is even an occasional irritation then switching to Windows Phone will be of benefit to you.
Windows Phone for Blackberry users
There are only two reasons to stick with a Blackberry phone these days. The encryption security they offer and the hardware keyboards.
While I have been critical to an extent of the standard keyboard in Windows Phone, all on-screen smartphone keyboards these days are generally of a very high quality and the word suggest and error correction features in Windows Phone are second to none. If you must have the hardware keyboard, the moment you can get a Windows Phone in the format, and Dell already has one available in the US, then you should definitely make the move.
Windows Phone for Nokia, Sony Ericsson and Smaller Platform Smartphone Users
For heavens sake make the switch to Windows Phone now! You will never regret it.
Windows Phone for Traditional Mobile Phone Users
Finally we come to the rest of the mobile user-base. The people who have a traditional phone with buttons and the like.
My guess is that for a while you’ll be annoyed by the move to a smartphone platform but as traditional handsets become harder to find you should be open to the possibility.
For this group of users Windows Phone is without doubt the most suitable platform to move to as it’s at least partly these users its been designed for. It’s far superior to both Android and iOS in this regard, so when you make the switch, get a Windows Phone.
The Verdict!
Whatever category of phone user you’re in you’re probably wondering if I consider Windows Phone a worthy upgrade. While there are problems it’s also, as I said earlier, an incredibly polished and thorough operating system and while I’m not sold on the ‘overstyled’ HTC Mozart, I’m going to have a nightmare going back to Windows Mobile 6.5 on my HTC Touch HD for the next month and a half, until my own upgrade comes around.
But will I switch to Windows Phone in December and is all the fuss and commotion I’ve made about this platform over the last six months worth it? Absolutely. This is a fantastic platform and it’s a joy to use. Regardless of what phone you use and when platform it runs on, if you have a friend getting a Windows Phone you should ask to have a good long play with it, I promise you’ll be either pleasantly surprised or completely delighted.
Windows Phone 7 is a triumph and for Microsoft to have engineered this in only 18 months is nothing short of astounding. Get one and do so soon. I will!
I don’t think we can brush off all the shortcomings in Windows Phone 7 as minor.
The fact that 3rd party apps cannot access the phone’s compass or video camera is major to me. Lack of Copy & Paste is major to me, as it stops me working with text, even though this is the one feature that Microsoft said it will fix next year.
For enterprise users, the lack of support for the full set of Exchange policies (WP7 only supports a small subset) will rule it out, as will its lack of networking sockets, which prevents security features like SSH and IPsec. It also can’t read secure Office document permissions.
For the average teenager, lack of ability to install a custom ringtone will be a big deal, as will the lack of a front-facing camera. Lack of real-time multiplayer games takes away much of its advantage of Xbox integration.
There are also lots of faults coming through from early handsets. Some faults may be hardware and/or software related. Some of the HTC phones are exhibiting a pink camera problem (images in low light go completely pink). Numerous brands are having trouble connecting to secure WiFi networks.
So it’s a version 1.0 product, or maybe a version 0.8 product. Problems are to be expected. BTW, the first iPhone (almost 4 years ago) had no apps. Microsoft must compete against today’s phones, not January 2007 phones.
I was about to purchase a WP7 phone (a Samsung Focus) and had diligently waited for Nov 8th to roll around. On Nov 7th, I was doing some last minute research and happened to stumble over the fact that WP7 would not communicate with desktop Outlook except via a very convoluted Hotmail connector process.
What? What happened to WMDC? Why would MSFT make such a decision that effectively divorced us non-exchange Outlook users? That was a shocking revelation that took awhile to sink in.
But since I live or die with Outlook and all of its functionality, I made the decision to purchase a Samsung Captivate (Android 2.2) and then purchased Companionlink 4.0 to sync with OL for calendar, tasks, notes and contacts.
So why couldn’t WMDC be updated to handle WP7?
I use an iPhone 4 jailbroken. I love it. I’m definitely a power user. Lately Android has been looking more and more compelling, but the combination of style but being outside Apple’s wall has given me a really good experience. I havn’t had a chance to mess with a W7P but the UI looks pretty interesting. I think I do like the “app centric” take in the iPhone though…
I will receive my Samsung Omnia 7 on Tuesday, and I am looking forward to it. My current phone is an “old-school” Sony Ericsson, and since I didn’t change my handset when I last extended my contract, I got the opportunity to extend it again with a new handset, and save a bundle on the cost of the phone and new contract.
I’d also like to say that one reason for my decision to go for WP7 versus Android was due to the information provided in your 5-part series – Android and iOS don’t offer the flexibility (iOS, regarding price plans and physical handset choices) and standardisation (Android, by its very nature, can get completely overhauled by network operators, leading to a horrible experience in most cases).
Windows Phone 7 is available on any handset which meets the basic requirements for it, and due to its more restrictive policy regarding modifications, can’t be made completely useless by “value add” from network operators. Oh, and I won’t need to worry about whether my handset will actually support the next version of the OS, since Microsoft has a good track record of compatibility with it’s mobile OS releases.
I guess we’ll see from Tuesday onwards whether I am still agreeing (with myself), but since my old sony ericsson has started to become a little flaky, I’m sure I won’t be disappointed.
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I just purchased the Samsung Focus on 11/16 after using the HTC tilt for a little over a year. It’s an excellent phone – light, quick, slick and powerful. I’m not much of an app person so that’s not a compelling reason for me to buy or not to buy a cell phone. I would agree with the reviewer that most of the features that are not currently present are minor and probably will be there within a few months – no big deal to me. I think this is a quality phone. Calls are crisp, the speaker phone has loudness without being distorted and the basics like contacts, dialing and messaging is really simple, straightforward and readily available on the start screen. Having the images embed themselves on the start screen tiles is a very nice contextual touch also. One last word to those who don’t like this or that with WP7 – don’t get if you don’t like it – you’ve got a whole lotta choice out there!
The fact that I cannot run whatever applications I want, nor use whatever development language I please to create applications, I have but two words for Microsoft and their Apple approach: Up yours.
The phone is MINE and I have a right to do whatever I bloody please with it. None of your bloody business.
This sort of approach is really criminal, if you ask me.
Grow up, Microsoft. Don’t become Apple. IF, and only if, you do this might I consider getting a Windows Phone in the future. For now, I’ll stick to Symbian.
Mike (the author) would have given the windows phone a “10″ no matter what. He came to the product already pre-judging what he thought about it (ie it was fab). Hardly a balanced view.