HTC HD7 review

Does familiarity really breed contempt? Chris Finnamore finds out after having spent some quality time with the HTC HD7 Windows Phone 7 smartphone.

IT Pro Verdict

HTC's HD7 has a great screen and feels well-built, although battery life needs improvement. The Windows Phone 7 operating system is fast, easy-to-use and looks great. It's also a very capable office tool, thanks to powerful email and calendar apps and useful document editing capabilities.However, the numerous rough edges in Windows Phone 7 are just as grating now as they were when the operating system first became available. From the lack of copy and paste, the simplistic file and app management, the odd contacts handling and the connectivity issues with our Exchange 2003 server are all big drawbacks for serious business use.As much as we like the HD7 as a piece of hardware and as promising as Windows Phone 7 is, we can't recommend either over the iPhone or an Android phone until these issues are resolved.

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Music playback was one area which highlighted another of Windows Phone 7's shortcomings third-party apps don't multitask. While we could listen to the Zune player in the background, leaving the Last.fm app stops the music. There's also no Spotify client for Windows Phone 7 as yet - the number of available apps is limited, but we're guessing it will grow quickly. The phone also has relatively poor battery life, lasting only 15 hours 20 minutes in our MP3 playback test. We needed to charge it every day with moderate to heavy use.

So what's our verdict?

Verdict

HTC's HD7 has a great screen and feels well-built, although battery life needs improvement. The Windows Phone 7 operating system is fast, easy-to-use and looks great. It's also a very capable office tool, thanks to powerful email and calendar apps and useful document editing capabilities. However, the numerous rough edges in Windows Phone 7 are just as grating now as they were when the operating system first became available. From the lack of copy and paste, the simplistic file and app management, the odd contacts handling and the connectivity issues with our Exchange 2003 server are all big drawbacks for serious business use. As much as we like the HD7 as a piece of hardware and as promising as Windows Phone 7 is, we can't recommend either over the iPhone or an Android phone until these issues are resolved.

Connectivity: GSM 850/900/1800/1900, 3G 900/2100 Display: 800 x 480 pixels, 4.3 inches OS: Windows Phone 7 Camera: Five megapixels GPS: A-GPS Processor: Unspecified 1GHz processor Bluetooth: v2.1 + EDR Wi-Fi: 802.11 b/g/n Memory: 16GB internal Dimensions: 122 x 68 x 11mm Weight: 162g Battery: Li-Ion 1230 mAh

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