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: Samsung Focus
The Focus is a launch device on AT&T. It’s a Windows Phone Galaxy S. The Samsung Focus is incredibly thin and very easy to pocket. It’s very lightweight thanks to its all plastic construction. The Focus doesn’t feel like it’ll fall apart, but it doesn’t inspire the same confidence as the LG Optimus 7.
The screen is the best looking out of the three we’ve got here today. The 4-inch Super AMOLED display delivers vibrant colors (a perfect match for WP7’s color based themes) and perfect black levels. Overall brightness leaves much to be desired. We only measured 234 nits at its brightest setting. Medium is more than bright enough for indoor or use at night (thanks to the excellent contrast ratio), but outdoors during the day you need to leave the device on high.
Battery life is absolutely abysmal, thanks to that Super AMOLED display. We measured 4.6 hours on WiFi, 3.75 hours on 3G but a respectable 6.4 hours of talk time (the display is shut off for our talk tests). This translates into a single charge lasting well under a full day’s worth of heavy use, or just under a day of moderate use.
Personally I prefer the 3.8-inch form factor of the LG to the 4.0-inch Focus. Unlike Android, Windows Phone 7 seems better suited for smaller displays thanks to its very simple UI and the fact that everything you need to tap on is already ginormous.
If you want more of a balance between size, screen and battery life you’ll want to look at the final phone in our trio: the HTC Surround.
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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.