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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Lapoki - Thursday, October 21, 2010 - link
I think WP7 has potential and could very well be my next purchase. Great article guys, it was long but very detailed.. got me through a boring afternoon.One thing seems missing though... the infamous signal strength comparison that you have been doing for all other phones ever since iPhone 4.
wht1986 - Thursday, October 21, 2010 - link
One of the most informative WP7 reviews I have read. I actually didn't skip to the end just to read the conclusions. I read it all and enjoyed every page. Well done.epyon96 - Thursday, October 21, 2010 - link
Did I read that right?Only Mp4 and WMVsupport?
strikeback03 - Friday, October 22, 2010 - link
I'm guessing that is the audio codecs allowed for videosTanclearas - Thursday, October 21, 2010 - link
"When Apple introduced the iPhone, Steve Jobs made the point that a virtual keyboard was preferable to a fixed keyboard because you shouldn’t always be stuck with the same keyboard layout. Some applications would require a slightly different layout and other applications wouldn’t need it entirely. A physical keyboard requires you to pay the space penalty regardless of what you’re doing with the phone."Really? So, by that argument, Google/Android is the better choice of phone. You shouldn't always be stuck with a single choice of phone layout. I use my hardware keyboard regularly on my G1. As for "applications requiring a slightly different layout", that's a load of crap. When typing, I always want letters and numbers, and I want QWERTY with number keys above. I don't want an on-screen QWERTY with a separate button to press to switch back-and-forth between letters and numbers.
The "applications that require a slightly different layout", perhaps like the phone keypad, can still use an on-screen keypad when necessary.
DP-16D - Thursday, October 21, 2010 - link
Windows 7 Phone must be absolutely phenomenal given the writers' incredible Mac-centric slant (especially with the Windows 7 desktop non-sequitor at the end of the review). Furthermore: The e-mail and messaging pages don't include comparisons to Blackberry, the de-facto standard for communication on smartphones. In fact, I cannot recall that line of phones being mentioned at all. As an existing Blackberry user considering a switch to Windows 7 Phone your review is nearly worthless, because 99% of my phone experience is about functionality and not whether or not my handset can sing and dance better or worse than iOS and Android.Normally I enjoy reading Anand for very thorough reviews, but this review's omission of the essential and inclusion of the irrelevant will make me reconsider reading any future submissions by these two writers.
beefnot - Thursday, October 21, 2010 - link
C'mon man, although Blackberry is a mkt share leader, it is a 20th century platform with very little innovation. It is walking dead with respect to consumer devices, which is the segment that Windows Phone 7 is currently targeting. I own a blackberry for work, but there is no way in hell I would consider it for my personal mobile device, and I don't give a rat's ass that it is excluded from comparison.Reven - Thursday, October 21, 2010 - link
I'm happy with my iphone 4 for now, but I will seriously consider getting the next generation of Windows Mobile phones when I eventually upgrade.anona6 - Thursday, October 21, 2010 - link
Hey I live in Tucson, and I was wondering if anandtech was based out of Tucson or something.This article made it a little more exciting for me just because it was local to me, and you have
one of my favorite coffee shops there that's nearby my University.
Zstream - Thursday, October 21, 2010 - link
Do you know what the talk time is for the LG? It's not showing on the graph