Windows Phone 7 Series (1 Viewer)

[Sam Posten]

Looks like crap to me but others seem to disagree. Still slow and clunky.

http://www.engadget.com/2010/02/15/windows-phone-7-series-hands-on-and-impressions/

Full 30 minute walkthrough:
http://ecn.channel9.msdn.com/o9/ch9/wp7.mp4

 

[Sam Posten]

http://gizmodo.com/5471805/windows-phone-7-series-everything-is-different-now

http://www.engadget.com/2010/02/15/windows-phone-7-series-is-official-and-microsoft-is-playing-to/

http://www.mobilecrunch.com/2010/02/15/hands-on-video-windows-phone-7-series-in-action/

http://technologizer.com/2010/02/15/windows-phone-7/

http://www.mobilecrunch.com/2010/02/15/first-impressions-windows-mobile-7-now-known-as-windows-phone/

http://www.techmeme.com/goto/channel9.msdn.com/posts/LauraFoy/First-Look-Windows-Phone-7-Series-Hands-on-Demo/

 

[Sam Posten]

http://gigaom.com/2010/02/15/windows-phone-7/

 

[Sam Posten]

Big talk:
http://gizmodo.com/5472235/windows-phone-7-apps-what-we-know-what-we-dont

 

[Adam Gregorich]

I'll give them props for throwing out the book and starting from scratch. This is an early beta I'll reserve judgement until we are closer to ship date.

 

[Sam Posten]

I agree. If that were true. But it doesn't seem to be, except from the platform sense. They still have anchored themselves to IE, Zune, and 15 year old Xbox. Which may be advantages or not, too early to tell.

But, based on these two articles all I can add is "good luck with that"
http://blogs.zdnet.com/microsoft/?p=5272
http://www.betanews.com/joewilcox/article/Windows-Phone-7-Series-The-good-the-bad-and-the-ugly/1266263193

 

[Sam Posten]

Great overview from Ars Technica:
http://arstechnica.com/microsoft/news/2010/02/microsoft-unveils-windows-phone-7-series.ars

Here's the thing. Apple shows off their new hotness and you can get it TODAY or at worst, a month later. And they aren't showing it on prototype hardware that may or may not be better performing when it ships. These Win7 phones arent going to ship until December and by then the iPhone and iPad will both be running Version 4 software. Lets come back in December and see which is more exciting then....

Here's the other thing. People keep bashing Apple because they don't do flash and don't do multitasking. Duh, it's the battery life. WinPhone7 doesn't do either of these, either:
http://www.wired.com/gadgetlab/2010/02/no-flash-on-windows-mobile-7/
http://www.wired.com/gadgetlab/2010/02/hands-on-with-windows-7-phone-series/

Check the post above for the bad news on multitasking too. And this:
http://gizmodo.com/5472240/is-there-app-multitasking-in-windows-phone-7-hint-its-a-lot-like-the-iphone

 

[Sam Posten]

No copy and paste? Good luck with that...
http://www.mobilecrunch.com/2010/02/15/first-impressions-windows-mobile-7-now-known-as-windows-phone/

http://www.lukew.com/ff/entry.asp?1002

 

[Sam Posten]

In depth analysis:
http://gizmodo.com/5473947/

 

[Sam Posten]

Ihnatko's on the case:

http://www.suntimes.com/technology/ihnatko/2056139,ihnatko-windows-7-phone-021710.article

 

[mattCR]

Windows mobile phones have always been junk. I count on them staying that way

I'll stick with my Blackberry. I want a phone that is actually a phone and manages messaging the way I want it to. So far, I still haven't found anything that comes close to it. I -love- my Ipod touch, and I love the apps on the iPhone.. but I've found nothing even close to Blackberry BES.. it kills me that RIM has such better connectivity then any Windows phone to an Exchange server. And it's not "kinda better" it's night and day better.

 

[Sam Posten]

Ouch. But note Tuftte sounds very fanboyish here.
http://www.edwardtufte.com/bboard/q-and-a-fetch-msg?msg_id=0003cy&topic_id=1&topic=Ask+E.T.

 

[Hanson]

Actually, I love my WinMo phone (6.1). It's endlessly customizable, it has enormous quantities of free software, and I can play all sorts of media and dump them on to the phone via file explorer. And remote desktop and MS Office apps come with the OS. IE is dodgy and slow, but no biggie since I use Opera Mini 5. And that's what's so great about WinMo -- don't like the default program? Download an alternative.

But Windows Phone 7 is such a crushing disappointment to me. It's like they took everything I hate about iPhone and incorporated it into WP7. WP7 looks like a locked down failure. I don't get why MS keeps trying to ape Apple at every step. There are people who love Apple and won't switch. Then there are lots of people who hate Apple and won't switch to the "Apple-fied" OS. Who do they think will buy this thing?

I'll probably move over to Android for my next phone unless the rumored Touch Pro 3 is running WinMo 6.5. And with 4G coming to my area by the end of the year, it looks like my next phone will be a WiMax phone.

 

[Parker Clack]

I am hoping to pick up the 4G EVO next week (If they get some in on Sunday). I played around with it some and web pages, programs, etc. come up instantly. And the real eye opener for me was how fast HTF loaded. It literally loaded in about 2 seconds. No delay. No waiting on the banner ads to load. It rendered the whole page faster than my PC at home does. And with the extra wide screen I was able to read the web pages without having to enlarge the text and scroll around. Best Buy will sell it to me at what Sprint sells it for (I am in a contract already so have to pay full price for the phone). Best Buy normally sells it for $599 but will sell it for $449 to price match. Then I have $100 in Premier Rewards dollar for it will end up costing me $349.

As fast as it is I can only imagine what it is going to be like with Android 2.2.

 

[Hanson]

I've seen the EVO and it only a matter of time before it's my new phone. Like you said, the web pages load so quickly it's actually amazing. And the battery performance is nowhere nearly as bad as advertised -- there may have been some bad battery units or older firmware in the review units, but the people I know who have the 4G say the battery issue is overstated and it lasetd a good day in one charge out of the box. After the most recent firmware upgrade, the unit is getting 1.5-2 days on a charge.

I may wait and see how Android 2.2 looks, but there is a media player out now that plays .avi and .mkv files natively, so that's pretty much sealed the deal for me. There are also multiple emulators that run the gamut from NES to GBA. So it's not really matter of "if", but "when" I'll switch to the EVO.

 

[Parker Clack]

When I get my EVO (hopefully in the next couple of days) I will do a review of its performance, battery life and what ever else I can figure out about it. I am really looking forward to getting my hands on one and putting it through its paces.

I would like to find an app that allows you to push one icon and have all the running apps closed so you can use it as a phone only. Then when you want to run an app you just start that particular app up but it keeps the other apps closed. I really don't need to have all the apps that start up with the phone initiated. I would rather just be able to pick and choose.

I do like the fact that with Froyo you will be able to load your programs on to the SD card instead of loading from the system RAM and JIT looks awesome.

 

[TonyD]

Couldn't you close the apps that aren't being used without using an app to do that? then wouldn't you have to close that app too?

 

[Sam Posten]

Infoworld says give up on Windows Phone 7 before they even ship:
http://www.infoworld.com/d/mobilize/windows-phone-7-dont-bother-disaster-211?page=0,0

Wow.

 

[Hanson]

Bye bye Windows phone OS. But truthfully, only a few diehards like me were propping this zombie OS up in the first place. Windows on the phone died years ago when Apple made touchscreen the de facto smart phone interface.

 

[mattCR]

About a year and a half ago, there was talk about MS buying Blackberry. Honestly, that is the move they should have pulled the trigger on. MS is too terrified of government enforcers etc. that they have went from a dominant position to far less then one.
There is market for things not iPhone.. and a big segment of it is enterprise. If MS had Blackberry, who's readying OS6, you'd hear talk about: (a) We're the only active phone provider with support for multiple Exchange Feeds. (b) We properly support IMAP (c) Need context and history searches of mail? Read Receipts that tag your calendar? We do that stuff.

Microsoft is too busy trying to ape Apple. It's the wrong solution for them. Let Apple have that market. RIM doesn't have 42% of the market space because they keep trying to emulate Apple. You go after different audiences. That audience is out there for Microsoft. Leverage their products better.
If you're not going to take out RIM, then say "we will have the best Exchange client out there on a phone", "we will have Microsoft Office 2010 that runs on a phone", "SSL exchanges" "VPN Pass-Throughs" etc. Go after the enterprise market.

Because right now that's all RIM. It's not even a competition because no one else is even really trying. And the one company that -should- be trying is so busy about end users they aren't making an effort there either.

Competing with Apple at their own game is stupid. Think Different.