i've just got a HTC HD7 and i am absolutely gutted

[Tunnah]

dropped my old phone (SE k850i) so thought it's time for an upgrade
knew i should have gone for an android phone but wanted this 1 for its size and heard good things about winmo 7

now the phone itself is superb but jesus its so inflexible
simple things you expect from every phone aren't doable as far as i can tell..like, it vibrates once then rings, and you can't change this..changing ringer volume is a pain in the ass..it just seems like windows are saying this is how your phone is gonna run and you're not changing it!

and don't even get me started on the media side of it...zune is nothing short of AWFUL

sending it back tomorrow, gonna get the desire HD (same hardware near enough but android)

maybe i'm writing winmo 7 off a lil too easily but i'm not willing to have to mess about just to change some pretty basic settings

o, and no flash support...

[muppet_hat]

Wow... that's horrible.. that's why I never jumped on the windows mobile bandwagon. And sorry, but I find the new tile design really corny and lame... I thought it was the ugliest thing ever, and couldn't help laughing when THAT was what all the windows 7 hype was all about. I think Android home screens like on the Desire series with the clock and what not is the most elegant thing ever, that's why I'm hoping onto that wagon

I'm also deciding whether I should get the Desire HD or the Desire at the moment

[dangel]

Wow... that's horrible.. that's why I never jumped on the windows mobile bandwagon.

Windows Mobile was way more flexible than anything else out there. Windows Phone 7 is far more locked down (a la iPhone). Just to be clear as to which bandwagon you failed to hitch to

Hope the OP finds something that suits him anyway

[kasavien]

To add balance to the debate, i've just got a HD7 and I love it. It's very responsive and intuitive to use, there didn't appear to be an instruction manual with it but I didn't need it, everything has been where I thought it should be. As for the interface, I really like it, and the readiness and availability of information is a big plus side.

One thing which has really impressed me is the sound quality from music I've played from it, paired with my sennheiser headphones the sound is better than any mp3 player I've used recently.

The camera appears to work well and takes clear pictures with low noise, but I haven't played around with it much and I doubt I'll use it much as I have a DSLR for pictures.

The only downside I can see at the moment is a lack of apps. Having said that I've found all the apps I need for now - facebook, weather, news, games etc.

I'll let you know if my opinion changes down the line, when i've had it more than a few days.

[Chris P]

When you can design the home screen and menu's of a phone in Paintbrush in a few minutes you know it's a fail. The rest of the OS is pretty standard and not very appealing at all.

MS came out with coffins, saying death to Android, I think in actual fact there just hammering more nails into their own.

[[GSV]Trig]

Glad I picked the Desire HD...

[Spud1]

Windows Mobile was way more flexible than anything else out there. Windows Phone 7 is far more locked down.

This really needs to be repeated, as it shows the massive mistake that Microsoft made in transitioning from a very customisable, flexible OS with developer support that HTC and the like were just starting to bring to consumers, to a very restricted locked down platform which, in terms of being restrictive, has so far shown to be worse than iOS.

I nearly bought one this week as my iPhone got stolen..but had a play in the shop and decided I didn't like it. I love the was you develop for it..despite getting started with iOS development recently I still prefer and know .NET much more, but from a user side I just didn't get on with it. Android is still the Windows ME of the mobile world imo and it's just not for me, so that left me with another iPhone 4 after the insurance paid out. I regretting not changing at first, but then..I remembered why I love my iPhone. Get past all the bull about it being a fashion phone and you realise just how much better it is than anything else out there. I hate apple for it but they created a masterpiece..its just a shame that many people won't see past the fashion exterior.

All that said, if MS had decided to improve upon WM 6.x i'd be using a windows mobile phone again right now, no question.

[dangel]

Windows ME? Ouch. Why so?

Personally I love it - it's a huge step up for me from WM.

[Spud1]

Well i'd characterise it as the windows of the mobile world as its the single OS that runs on many different hardware configurations, with the main tweaks being drivers.

It brings with it the same problems in terms of application support being hit and miss (developers of the larger applications do generally cope very well with this, but as with windows, its not the case with smaller ones). It brings many features which are just not quite right/ready/needed and are unstable - mainly taking flash here..which is where the ME comparison came from. We're also already seeing the wide variation in platform versions from 1.6 (and earlier in some cases) up to 2.2, with no guarantee to a developer which version your customer will be running or able to run in the future.

It's definitely the techie choice for most people who wan't to heavily customise their phone now, but I just don't get on with it. Fun to play with and definitely a better consumer platform than WM7, but it lacks a lot of polish - just like ME.

[TheAnimus]

When you can design the home screen and menu's of a phone in Paintbrush in a few minutes you know it's a fail. The rest of the OS is pretty standard and not very appealing at all.

Actually I think this is the point been missed.

Now adays no one is impressed by a 'glass' button effect. We want information, information (number 6) and its to do with presenting that in a manner that is quick and un-cluttered.

As a result everything is done in a simple manner, but it really comes together quite well, simple things such as the text messages have a :-) motif, but that changes to :-o and :-( depending on how many unread you have, if you have a message waiting for signal to be able to send.

I would also disagree with the music interface, its frankly brilliant. The downside is that its hudgely different to anything else we've seen, its also again to me a sign that the 'web html type' of interface just is offering limited experiance.

There are however many things very wrong with it. Why, as someone who has a dev unlock, auth'd for the marketplace and all that jazz, why can't I record audio with the built in mic or headset jack? I mean ffs.

Why can't I view call history.

Why can't I view txts?

Why can I only update a 'Live Tile' every 15min or reactively?

What happens if I want to exchange data between apps without the cloud (ie for use on the tube?)

But most of these things are not design flaws, they are missing APIs. When it comes to programming for it, well no one says "oooh I really like programming object-c" do they? And even the Java types admit that andriod isn't exactly modern.

XNA + Silverlight make me like the platform, all MS need to do is help it mature at the same speed it has over the last year, and keep the phone price dropping, these devices shouldn't cost much to make, and get them out to the operators and the shelves for £200. Then the cost benefits of deving for it should be massive, large market of very similar devices (no Angry Bird type andriod dev issues), very low dev cost (re-use xbox code, and lets face it dev'ing with the MS stuff is not just quicker, its nicer).

[Spud1]

... all MS need to do is help it mature at the same speed it has over the last year, and keep the phone price dropping, these devices shouldn't cost much to make, and get them out to the operators and the shelves for £200. Then the cost benefits of deving for it should be massive, large market of very similar devices (no Angry Bird type andriod dev issues), very low dev cost (re-use xbox code, and lets face it dev'ing with the MS stuff is not just quicker, its nicer).

If they can do this, and if they add the needed APIs in the next few years, then the platform could mature very nicely and become the best out there, and it does have the potential to topple iOS. There are a lot of if's there though, and i'm just not sure Microsoft have the ability to do it. They tried and failed with WinMo..but I guess that was largely as the market wasn't ready for it, and they didn't have a touch UI which is where things went.

We'll see..but I fully agree that the best thing they have going for them is the development potential, in particular the RAD approach. They also have tight control of the hardware which will help them no end in supporting their developers, which is something that google/android doesn't have..and as I lamented above its one of the big disadvantages of that platform.

I suppose I should put down on this thread that mobile phone platforms is a very personal choice when it comes to techies, and whilst I stand by my opinions they are just that - not meant to rubbish anyone elses choice or say people are stupid for making a different choice, it's very much each to their own in this market

[dangel]

Well i'd characterise it as the windows of the mobile world as its the single OS that runs on many different hardware configurations, with the main tweaks being drivers.

That I can agree with.

It brings with it the same problems in terms of application support being hit and miss (developers of the larger applications do generally cope very well with this, but as with windows, its not the case with smaller ones). It brings many features which are just not quite right/ready/needed and are unstable - mainly taking flash here..which is where the ME comparison came from.

This not so much - flash isn't OS specific so I don't quite get where your coming from with this (or why pick Windows ME which was a hideous version of 98) tbh. In fact, it's got bugger all to do with the core OS (Android) which to me works extremely well - it's sleek and easy to use (neither of which I would ever say about ME!).

We're also already seeing the wide variation in platform versions from 1.6 (and earlier in some cases) up to 2.2, with no guarantee to a developer which version your customer will be running or able to run in the future.

That's true to an extent - but not as much as you'd imagine. Stats put the vast majority of Android users on 2.1/2.2. I'm never convinced by the 'fragmentation' argument based on OS version alone since it's not that difficult to deal with and doesn't seem a world away from Apple who have four devices out there with a variety of OS' too (although I definitely agree that forcing upgrades is the way to go). I think Google with work to reduce this (MS seem to be saying they'll do the same on WP7) though.

It's definitely the techie choice for most people who wan't to heavily customize their phone now, but I just don't get on with it. Fun to play with and definitely a better consumer platform than WM7, but it lacks a lot of polish - just like ME.

Fair enough (your choice of course) but I still think that analogy needs work

[Spud1]

yeah wasn't the best analogy but I was only mid way through my coffee hehe

On the plus side we only have 3 major smartphone platforms now, and all have dedicated developer support..that's got to be a good thing for the industry. Competition, constant feature development and consumer choice..it's a step forward regardless of our personal opinions on each of them.

edit: OK technically 4 as I forget blackberry in the UK..but I know that's still pretty big in the USA, for the moment...

[muppet_hat]

When you can design the home screen and menu's of a phone in Paintbrush in a few minutes you know it's a fail. The rest of the OS is pretty standard and not very appealing at all.

MS came out with coffins, saying death to Android, I think in actual fact there just hammering more nails into their own.

Well said haha.

[TheAnimus]

Well said haha.

Have you actually tried it, on a physcial device thou? And I don't mean an in store 5 min play.

The phone has many issues, mostly the API been too limited, no copy + paste, internal (non-networked) data exchange (and no, I don't want DDE), restriction on multitasking, issues on navigating multi-tasked apps...

But the interface is the best in the market by a long shot, having something that can be made quickly and understood quickly is hardly worse than having buttons which convey no information, are all uniform regardless of what they convey and have the same glass effect which the photoshop macro does in 1 second.

[kopite]

I had a mess about with the HD7 in the o2 shop and thought the interface was pretty good. very smooth.

I was very tempted to get it for my next upgrade which is due atm but I`m going to get the desire hd for now and wait for the windows 7 platform to mature.