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
The First Phones: LG Optimus 7
We will have full reviews of all of these devices in the coming days, but we didn’t want to leave you with nothing on the hardware at launch so here are some brief thoughts on the three Windows Phones we’ve been playing with.
The LG Optimus 7 isn’t actually destined for US sale, it’ll be available tomorrow in Europe and Asia. The phone sports a 3.8” 480 x 800 TN LCD and unfortunately that’s both its biggest asset and its biggest weakness. The LCD sips power compared to the Super AMOLED in the Samsung Focus, but LG also sacrificed quality. Viewing angles and black levels just aren’t very good. The orange theme looks yellow on the phone when viewed at an angle.
The display is bright but it lacks the integrated design that you get from the iPhone 4 or Samsung’s Focus. There’s a perceivable gap between the touch screen and the LCD beneath it.
The display is the biggest problem, the rest is smooth sailing. The form factor is great, albeit a little thick. LG opted for quality materials including a brushed aluminum battery cover. The device is heavy compared to other WP7 phones but it’s a luxurious sort of heavy, not a brick-like heavy.
The Optimus 7 comes with 16GB of NAND on board with an empty microSD slot for future expansion. Remember the rules though, you need to perform a factory restore on the phone with the microSD installed to use it.
LG preloads the device with three apps: Play to, Panorama shot and ScanSearch.
The Play to app is the most interesting as it supports streaming of all of your non-HDCP content to DLNA devices.
The Panoramic photo stitching app is super easy to use and works well in practice. My only complaint is the live view frame rate leaves a lot to be desired.
ScanSearch is a location based augmented reality app for Windows Phone 7. Eventually it'll be able to identify products but today all it can do is point out nearby locations of points of interests using your GPS and WiFi.
Battery life is the best out of the three phones we tested here today. We got over 7 hours in our WiFi browsing test and just over 5 hours on 3G. We’re still running talk time tests.
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Crono - Thursday, October 21, 2010 - link
A lot may not have been taken from the Kin One and Kin Two, but the square, multi page Start is the same concept that was implemented in the Kin phones.Looking forward to moving from my Kin One to the Surround. Microsoft is offering 3 months free Zune Pass for those who sign up to be notified about preorders.
heelo - Thursday, October 21, 2010 - link
You might be the only owner of a Surround.That thing has a "value proposition" that I'm really struggling to relate to.
peter7921 - Thursday, October 21, 2010 - link
I have to give recognition to Anandtech for another great review. I have been looking for a detailed review on WP7 and you guys delivered. Not only is it extremely informative but it's also very well written. I read through it all, not once feeling bored or skipping ahead.These types of articles are the reason Anandtech is my first source for all things tech!
Keep up the great work guys!
Confusador - Thursday, October 21, 2010 - link
OK, wow. I mean, even by Anandtech's unusually high standards that was intense. Just one thing I'm not clear on, though... am I reading this correctly?"WP7 calls presents its browser user agent as “Mozilla/4.0 ...""
If that's correct we've come a long way from the days I had to have Firefox masquerade as IE to be effective.
Guspaz - Thursday, October 21, 2010 - link
IE has *always* done this, including on the desktop. IE6 reports as as Mozilla/4.0 too. IE2 also did it (a different version of Mozilla, though). A quick search didn't turn up IE1 user agent strings, but I assume it also did.Spivonious - Thursday, October 21, 2010 - link
Remember back when IE was introduced, Netscape was king. Netscape is based on Mozilla. That's the only reason it's in there - so pages made for Netscape would load correctly in IE.arturnowp - Thursday, October 21, 2010 - link
IT seems strange that WP7 cannot pass test, has very slow JavaScript engine but still pages are fluid and displayed porperly. Maybe Microsoft renders pages remotely and serves them to the phne?UCLAPat - Thursday, October 21, 2010 - link
Wow! After reading this review, it makes all the other reviews look like previews. Definitely going to be considering WP7 when it's time to upgrade my phone. Still have time to burn on my current 2 year contract. By the time it's up, LTE should be up and running and Verizon will probably have a WP7 device for us to consider as well.Apps will come. But they're not a huge part of my life anyway. I want a rock-solid core experience for a phone. A smartphone has to nail the basic experiences first (calls, messaging, calendar, etc). I never liked the main screen completely filled with app icons. That reminded me too much of my old desktop computer before I cleaned up the desktop.
Belard - Thursday, October 21, 2010 - link
But very detailed... tells us pretty much everything anyone can ask.Thanks...
While I'm not exactly PRO-MS... its good to see good design.
I still like Google's a bit more and its shortcoming are easy to spot. Hopefully Android 3.0 will improve on its weaknesses.
The icon / naming is well thought out and is used by others... including Apple, but not on a phone.
silverblue - Thursday, October 21, 2010 - link
"...displays up to 8 tiles of people you’ve either recently communicated with or whose profiles you’ve viewed/stalked."LOL.