The Windows Phone 7 Review
by Anand Lal Shimpi & Brian Klug on October 20, 2010 7:00 PM EST- Posted in
- Smartphones
- Windows Phone 7
- Microsoft
- Mobile
Pictures Hub
While you can view photos in a somewhat ad-hoc manner from within the camera application, there’s a much better photo viewer tucked into the aptly named pictures hub. Unfortunately however, WP7 makes the same mistake that Apple does, tossing videos inside under the domain of pictures as well. Oh well.
Fire it up and you’ll get three options - all, date, and favorites. You can pivot right and see some random thumbnails of favorite photos and recently captured media, and pivot one more to see photos from facebook under what’s new. Tap all, and you’ll get transported into a gallery listing which includes your camera roll on the device, as well as all your associated facebook galleries.
Inside the camera roll gallery, you get just what you’d expect - a grid of photos. Unfortunately, this doesn’t work in landscape. It’s portrait only here.
Viewing photos is a landscape or portrait experience, and thankfully the grid view and photo viewer are both incredibly speedy. Hit the ellipsis to expand options, and you get the same options I mentioned earlier for sharing to SkyDrive, Facebook, marking as favorite, or deletion. Videos however only show up in landscape, and again can only offer deletion from the device. Getting those movies off-phone requires a desktop sync.
The interface is definitely pretty though:
As Anand mentioned, all your facebook albums are treated like they’re stored locally. What’s really well done here is that all the photos come down with comments and captions completely intact.
Photos works well, but it’s still missing some obvious functionality the competition has. There’s no ability to select multiple photos in the grid view and send all those to the cloud, delete, or email them off. After shooting a ton of photos in quick succession to make sure the camera app didn’t slow down, I was then forced to delete individually - bleh. The other missing thing is slideshow functionality which is occasionally handy but not critically important. Honestly, both of these are things that are easily fixed with a software update.
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bplewis24 - Thursday, October 21, 2010 - link
Check out page 26. It's dedicated completely to how the "update" process works. In short, it's more like iOS than Android....which is sounds like you'd prefer.ishbuggy - Thursday, October 21, 2010 - link
Yeah I accidentally skipped that page :PI really hope it works out as well as Microsoft hopes it will
Voldenuit - Wednesday, October 20, 2010 - link
Will AT be reviewing the Nokia N8 and E8 Symbian phones? Nokia is pretty obscure in the States (since they mainly sell direct from their website, with no carrier subsidy), but are pretty big in Europe and Asia.epyon96 - Wednesday, October 20, 2010 - link
Anand,With such a glowing review from you, it's almost enough to bump Windows 7 above my initial choice of getting a blackberry. I need a physical keyboard. I'm very picky about it. You are simply a very engaging writer.
I really hope Windows 7 mobile comes up with a superior keyboard version
VashHT - Thursday, October 21, 2010 - link
The Dell phone coming out looks like it will have a really nice keyboard, I think it is called the venue pro. Also ATT is supposed to have a keyboard phone by LG I think.heelo - Thursday, October 21, 2010 - link
The Venue Pro *looks* great, but it's somewhat of a monster in size and weight.If I weren't stuck on a T-Mobile family plan, I'd probably opt for that LG Quantum. Like Anand said, WP7's interface is extremely usable on smaller screens, and the reasonable form factor and physical keyboard likely make for a very convenient real-world user experience. The drawback is that the looks and (supposedly) build quality are sub-par.
EarthwormJim - Wednesday, October 20, 2010 - link
OMG a screenshot of me in action is on the Xbox Live page!! Woo-hoogstrickler - Thursday, October 21, 2010 - link
That's the ugliest and least interesting home/start screen I've ever seen on a smartphone. It may be functional, but even a 6 year old crackberry looked better (and I don't like the BB). The rest of the UI doesn't look too bad, but the start screen needs some work.bplewis24 - Thursday, October 21, 2010 - link
I couldn't agree more. I find it funny that people are claiming this UI is "100% right" as if everybody is going to like it. Obviously it's a matter of preference, but I just cannot see the overwhelming majority of people getting into this UI. I find it appalling to look at and couldn't imagine using it every day.Brandon
B3an - Thursday, October 21, 2010 - link
Dont know what you're smoking but most people prefer an easy to use simple looking UI thats functional rather than cluttered eye candy.From the vids i've seen it seems to be the smoothest running, most functional, fastest, and natural UI on any phone to date.