Features - Living with Microsoft Windows Phone 7 - six weeks on from launch

[HEXUS]

So just how good is Microsoft's fledgeling phone ecosystem? We find out.

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[TheAnimus]

As someone who also jumped in (mostly because I can dev it in Silverlight, this is almost infinately nicer than ObjectiveC for apple, and much more advanced than Java which seems to have not evolved in the last 10 years).

Can I ask out of vulgar curisosity how much you pay for your 2 year? Been scared of commitment it might have jaded me, but one of the nice things about the WP7, is they have the price quite low, which is fair as its a very immature platform.

Xbox Live games thing drives me nuts too.

The search button, the guidlines, a game can not disable it. Hopefully they will realise the error of their ways with this.

Marketplace search, its crap. Its begging for a Metro UI style sliding view, one for apps, one for music etc.

But Bing search surprised me, I was expecting it to be a veritable nugget of medicoraty, its not. Its actually really good. Its easy to use, it breaks things down nicely between web and local. The only downside is I can't switch between say Images, Shopping, Videos.

So I'd agree with pretty much the whole review, its clearly a not fully featured platform, but has shown great pace of development.

Out of curiosity, have you tried Zune Pass? For me its the best thing about the WP7 when I'm wearing my consumer hat, but it seems missing in almost all reviews. There is a 14 day trial, but myself I think its absolutely the best music rental service!

[taowu]

Most of what you voiced in this article is what has me on the bench still. I have been due an upgrade about 2 months now and can not decided between iOS, Android or WP7.

Being a user a WinMob 6.5....I'm use to a phone falling flat, yet the little niggles in each OS and me being too picky is prolonging this decision.

The lack of automatic resend is a huge let down for me. My 6.5 phone drives me insane with the lack of it and being in my Uni flat were the walls might as well be lined with lead it is a must have.

I think I will be on the bench a little while longer at least till WP7 gets its first major update and hopefully address the issues putting me off.

[Tunnah]

after my hissyfit about it a few weeks ago (check threads started by me, too lazy to link ) i decided to stick it out, i'd gotten used to it and remedied most the problems i had with apps from the app store.

a few notes for people - yes the facebook intergration isn't perfect but there's a free app for facebook which covers everything else you'd need to do, and if you get emails about your facebook you can jump into this app to check updates messages requests etc.

i don't bother trying to use the app store on the phone its far too annoying, i instead do it through zune with the phone connected its a dream doing it like that.

as for cost theanimus i pay £40 for 2 year contract, thats 600 mins unlimited text and..either 750mb or 1gb not sure which, and that's with O2. O and i pay £10 more for insurance.

I still have a few gripes with it; no xvid support, videos don't play full screen on youtube (insanely annoying, but i rarely youtube anyway) and zune support for VA albums is poop to say the least

o and if you set an alarm for it, your ringer volume is your alarm volume..

[captainpie]

I've got a htc Mozart running wp7 having eagerly been awaiting its release for the past year or so. I'm not normally an early adopter but I have used ios and android and neither have totally won me over from my old blackberry, so I thought why not.

so far I'm not missing the cut & paste, the search button does annoy me though as i am constantly knocking it! I still haven't worked out how to get my group calender from exchange over either, but my colleague has the same problem with his iphone. The slickness is the best thing about it, and the back button is a total winner; just very easy to use!

I think that there is supposed to be a big update in Jan (cut and paste, turn by turn navi etc) so it may be that wp7 will be more aggressively marketed after extra functionality has been put in or tweaked.

[HowardAbraham]

I have been using the Dell Venue Pro since the U.S. launch on November 8th. It seems most of the articles criticizing WP7 are written by people who have never used it so it is refreshing to see a piece written by an actual user.

I am very impressed with what Microsoft has done. WP7 is easy to learn yet there is hidden depth and ease-of-use flourishes abound. The Marketplace is strong and the apps I have tried are generally very high quality.

I love my phone and can't wait to see what MS does with future patches.

[TheAnimus]

so far I'm not missing the cut & paste

I'm not because I've got the dev update which turns it back on

Its an OK implentation so far, but there are plenty of for want of a word, 'dead spaces' brought in by this update.

[3dcandy]

Not wishing to be pedantic, but the lead singer of Tubeway Army is Gary Numan...
Still not decided that W7 on phones is a great idea. Tying the hardware so tightly means there is no differential between phones like Android....why should you choose X over Y? I quite like the idea of choosing a phone for myself based on the things I believe important, and perhaps the styling....however, the long times between updates (or not at all, HTC Tattoo and Sony Erricson phones spring to mind...) could also be a factor!

[perthcomputers]

I bought on of these for my personall phone when they first came out, and returned it within a few days. The UI was poor and the camera was appalling.

I now have a Nokia N8 which is hugely better, particlulary the camera and HDMI output is astonishing. Check this out... i simply plugged the HDMI in to the phone and TV and it worked instantly. The picture and sound where astonishing, no lag, no sync issues.... and it was 1080p!!!

At the end of the day no one is remotely close to Apple IPhones UI and apps. but the N8 blows all phones away in terms of camera, ability to add sd storage (32gb per card) and simply stick in a HDMI to watch blu-ray def on your TV.

[Acute]

I just hope they give more options with playing music and stuff. Cos you can't make a that playlist easily or tell it to ignore certain tracks or put tracks in certain categories if you wanted to shuffle through all your music.