HTC HD7 Review

Introduction:

You want a sexy touch screen smart-phone with good, solid hardware, but you're stuck on operating systems. You think iPhones are way too expensive, BlackBerry OS doesn't give you a good enough online experience, Android 's cluttered and Symbian's dated. Up until now, you might have been bashing your head against a brick wall, longing for a clean, elegant solution that delivers an up to date user interface coupled with some smooth web browsing. Our advice? Stop head bashing and start reading: Microsoft and HTC have reunited to give you the HTC HD7. A fine piece of hardware cut from the same cloth as the EVO 4G and the HTC Desire HD. The HTC HD7 sports a 4.3 inch screen, a host of connectivity options, a 5MP camera with autofocus and dual LED flash as well as the enigmatic OS that could be the answer to the above dilemma - Windows Phone 7.

Design:

Being likened to the HTC Desire HD is for the most part a good thing in our eyes, and when we set eyes on the HTC HD7, we were hopeful. Its big fascia, curved, smooth back, solid look and feel all come together nicely. You may recall our niggle with the HTC Desire HD lay with the battery cover and card cover being  fiddly, this is remedied with the HTC HD7, which adopts a more traditional battery cover on the back. Other than the shiny new phone, inside the box, you'll also find a microUSB connector, a mains charger in-which the USB cable plugs in, headphones, foam ear pieces and a range of pamphlets on the topic of your new phone. Our HTC HD7 has 16GB of memory on board with no option for expanding memory (despite there being a microSD card slot under the non-removable back panel).



You can compare the HTC HD7 with many other phones using our Size Visualization Tool.

The HTC HD7 is a very recognizable sibling of the Desire HD and EVO 4G, largely due to the screen. Delivering very similar results at the same 480x800 resolution, the Super LCD display gets the same positive remarks - big, bright and ultimately, a real eye popper. On the downside, it's also slightly dull when compared to a Super AMOLEDs, with blacks on it looking a dark shade of grey and colours lacking that AMOLED saturation people just can't seem to get enough of. Standalone, needless to say, it's a real pleasure to use.



The fascia and in call speaker are encased in a finger print loving chrome frame that lavishes all sides of the handset. There are two recessed metal grills at the top and bottom of the fascia. While these look like stereo speakers (we should be so lucky), the bottom grill is decorative while the top provides a place for the in call speaker and light sensor. These may be attractive design elements that do a decent job of framing the screen, however soon become a deposit for dust and dirt.  What's worse is that they are a pain to clean being so recessed. We much prefer the HTC Desire HD's smaller single grill up top. The fascia itself plays host to the screen and three capacitive buttons below. Unlike on the HTC Desire HD, we did find ourselves accidentally pressing these occasionally. To the left is the volume rocker and two stage camera button, both being chromed, on top is the power button and jump down to the bottom and you'll find the microUSB port, the 3.5mm headphone jack and the in-call mic. Flip over the HTC HD7 and on the back you'll find the 5MP camera with dual LED flash and a loud speaker. One element that HTC have resurrected from their EVO 4G which lay absent on the Desire HD is a flip out kick stand, though on the HD7, it subtly frames the camera on the top half unlike on the EVO 4G, which kicked out from the bottom half. As mentioned earlier, the battery cover panel secures on the back part of the phone along the top half and does a fine job of this. It is plastic, but is matted with a gun metal finish, and feels good to the touch.



Overall, the phone is a good size with a nice even weighting behind it. Despite its plastic construction, it feels pretty solid, with our biggest gripe being the grills above and below the screen and their propensity to attract dust. Despite the large form factor, it fits comfortably in the pocket and hand, and doesn't feel like a brick when held against the ear.

Interface:

If there's one word we'd use to describe the HTC HD7's OS, Windows Phone 7, it would be 'unified', with the OS visually bringing all its functionality into a Zune inspired system of panels and panning, on the great big HTC HD7 screen, it looks very immersive, clean and controlled. The start menu (home screen) aggregates these panels into tiles aligned in a very simple vertical grid of two columns and multiple rows. Each tile takes up a fair chunk of the screen, with only 8 tiles fitting on the screen at any one time. On first glance, it seems simplistic for a home screen, blurring the lines between home-screen and menu, however, it is also cleverer than it looks, displaying key live information within tiles, encouraging the user "glance and go", as Microsoft put it, and dip in when appropriate.


Slide the homescreen out of the way (a swipe from right to left will do the job), and Microsoft bestows a simple list of applications on your screen. All these can be pinned to the start menu with a long press, or just opened from the list. It’s worth noting, if you’re left handed that it’s not as usable as if you’re right handed as your thumb will cover the tiles and swiping right to left to get the menu up is un-intuitive.

Now we've covered the two start-up pages (the start menu and application list), we can move on to one standout feature of Windows Phone 7, the visual flourishes. Select anything (and we mean anything), and rather than a simple menu transition, there will be a cascade of current tiles revolving out of the frame, and a stream of new elements either panning, revolving, or emerging into the frame. These would look like overkill on any other OS, however, thanks to the styling of Windows Phone 7 being so very simple, it works to have this one extravagance.

At the heart of this simple styling are the themes. Go into settings, press the themes option and you can "Change your phone's background and accent colour to suit your mood today, this week or all month" as Microsoft puts it. As far as background colour goes, your options are whittled down to black or white, which is a good, minimalistic way to ensure the user doesn't make Microsoft's shiny new phone OS ugly. Accent colours are applied to app tiles and standout text. To compensate for the minimal choice of background, these can be one of 11 colours, green, red, blue, orange, pink, brown, lime, teal, purple and magenta. This simplicity lends itself to an identity Microsoft are clearly trying to attribute to Windows Phone 7, with a sophisticated font, Segoe WP, large, clear tiles and smooth Zune type experience.

The interface is intuitive with very few layers of menu and is very clearly marked out. We found ourselves looking for an Android menu button at times with many applications lacking the extensive functionality their Android counterparts may have (i.e. selecting which Google Calendar to display if you have multiple under one account), however, Microsoft have clearly placed limits on the things doable on a Windows Phone 7 handset in order to keep the experience simple and clean, and they succeed for the most part. It won't be for everyone, but thanks to the ease of use, visual flare and the fact that there really is no lag, there is definitely a place in the market for this OS with nothing else like it available.

Phonebook, Messaging and Organizer:

As a phone, the HTC HD7 works well, with a good dialler sporting big responsive keys. Type a number in and there is a save button underneath the dialler. It's all very easy and intuitive. The phone book falls under the people tile. This offers very tight integration with Facebook, with a right swipe from your contact list taking you to friend's recent updates. The search capacitive button adapts its function depending on which menu you're in, so contacts can either be scrolled through or searched for directly as expected. Long press the Windows capacitive button to activate the voice dialler. We found this worked exceptionally well out of the box.


Messaging is also a pleasure for the most part. The keyboard is a fantastic size on the HTC HD7 both in portrait and landscape thanks to the 4.3 inch screen and the predictive text is very good indeed. We could type full messages with very good speeds with few if any mistakes. There are no long pressing on the keyboard (except to caps lock) and there are two layouts of letters (upper and lower case), and two layouts of symbols. The keyboard looks so clean and simple with no gradients in sight that the minimalist in us can't help but enjoy it. Without copy and paste, functionality is hampered slightly, though Microsoft promises this in the near future.


Organizer features pre-installed include alarms, calculator, calendar and HTC's unit converter. The calendar is the most finger friendly we've used in a while, looking very clean and feeling really intuitive. Adding appointments is simple, and the whole experience was a pleasure in every aspect other than the aforementioned section regarding multiple Google calendars (you can't choose which calendar under your Google account to use). All other organizer features work predictably well.

Camera and Multimedia:

With a 5MP autofocus camera with dual LED flash, the HTC HD7 won't blow any minds, but nevertheless does a good job of making snaps look half decent. With little delay between shots and a speedy interface, everything ticks along nicely. Camera options include scenes (portrait, landscape, sports, beach, backlight, candlelight and macro), Effects (greyscale, negative, sepia, solarize), resolution (VGA, 1MP, 2MP, 3MP, 5MP), metering mode (center, average, spot) as well as flash (auto, on, off).



Colour reproduction is okay, though outdoor shots can look a bit washed out. Well lit indoor shots tend to deliver the most accurate colour reproduction as no light source is overpowering. Detail is ok and we don't feel the HTC HD7's 5MP camera performs significantly worse than, say the HTC Desire HD with its 8MP sensor. It does suffer from a couple of similar exposure issues, though this can be corrected for with the metering function. Dynamic range isn't fantastic, with high contrast scenes lacking detail in the extremities and noise being a big issue as with most camera phones. The twin LED flash is very bright indeed and should help counter this to a point, but not for low light dusky landscape shots. An area the HTC HD7 is noticeably worse than its Android sibling is in macro shots. While both cameras tend to have a couple of focusing hang-ups, the HD7 is markedly softer when taking pictures of close up items. Indoor shots come out ok, largely thanks to the on-board flash, just be careful not to take pictures of people too close in fear of A, blinding them, and B, turning your shots into washed out, blue tinted mistakes. See the sample of the two subjects to see what we mean.



HTC HD7 Sample Video:



On the whole, you're certainly getting an upper middle level camera phone experiences on your new HTC HD7, but certainly not something that could give your compact a run for its money. 

Needless to say with Zune on board, the music experience is a giant step up above the WinMo phones of old. In fact, the music feels more integrated on Windows Phone 7 than on any platform other than the iPhone OS, and if you own a Zune, even more so than that.  It's slick, simple enough to get to grips with and well integrated, with access to basic music functionality on the lock screen for example. Audio quality is good and the Dolby Mobile and SRS Surround offers a great range of output options.


When it comes to videos the Zune software integration lends to compensate for the lack of codec support on the HTC HD7. The phone will play MP4 and WMV files, and the onboard software will convert other video formats to your phone's optimal resolution which is handy, but will leave you waiting a while for your movies, depending on the performance of your computer. With a couple of TV shows watched on the HTC HD7, the experience can be likened to that of the HTC Desire HD once more, with the Dolby Mobile and SRS on board, it was a 4.3 inch auditory and visual immersion.  Colours could have done with being a bit punchier we have to admit, but brightness is adequate, playback is smooth and detail is good.

Internet and Connectivity:

Connected pretty much every which way, the HTC HD7 is a quad-band GSM, tri-band 3G phone and comes loaded with Wi-Fi, Bluetooth and GPS on board. Connections include a 3.5mm headphone jack and a a microUSB port. Despite lacking expandable memory, it does have 16GB on board, the most out of any Windows Phone 7 launch device. The only things we might have liked to see are DLNA functionality and a mini HDMI port.

“Internet Explorer Mobile”

Once upon a time, these words sent shivers down mobile users’ spines, with Opera saving WinMo users from web browsing peril. So has Microsoft fixed the stigma of years of bad browsing it has created? You bet your bottom dollar they have.

Completely in line with the latest and greatest achievements in the area, the new Internet Explorer delivers fast loading times and silky smooth scrolling. The same goes for zooming, which you can do by either double-tapping or using pinch-to-zoom. Both options work flawlessly, with double-tap being very accurate, more so than on Android, and about equal to what you get on the iPhone.


The user interface is also an important part of a mobile internet browser though. There are good and bad things we can say about the one of the new Internet Explorer. First off, we don't like that there is no full-screen option in portrait mode. Fortunately, you can view web pages in full-screen when in landscape mode, but then another issue arises. There is no address bar at the top, meaning that you have to return to portrait mode to enter a new web address. This isn't a big deal, since switching orientations is very snappy, but still we cannot see a clear reason why they didn't put a simple address bar at the top of the page. However, Safari isn't without its issues either, lacking full-screen mode whatsoever.


Internet Explorer lacks Flash or Silverlight support, which is on one hand unpleasant, but on the other, it guarantees flawless operation, so we can live without it. Android has the advantage here, but we shouldn't forget the fact that scrolling when a Flash element is present is far from smooth in Google's OS.

The email client works great. As soon as you've entered your account details, your emails start to populate the app. Everything works super smooth. Unfortunately, you do not get a universal inbox like in bada or iOS, so your different inboxes are displayed as separate tiles. However, this isn't much of an inconvenience high-speed of the HTC HD7. Emails are displayed in HTML and look fantastic.


Google has Google Maps, Nokia has Ovi Maps, Microsoft has Bing maps and it's the latter that'll get you from A to B on a Windows Phone 7 device. Panning the map around in the app is very smooth, same as pinch zooming. The available options are pretty standard – you can search for a specific location, go to you position, and get directions from A to B. Unfortunately, there is no support for voice-guided directions so far.

Searching for POIs on the HTC  HD7 is very intuitive, of course, and once you open a POI in order to see more details, you are presented with the exact address, an option to get directions and a phone number. You can also pin a certain POI to the home screen, as well as share it via text or email.

The GPS managed to get our location fixed very quickly after a cold start, however, for some reason, the map took a pretty long time to load on our unit, even over Wi-Fi which was the only real let down.

Software:

We were a bit underwhelmed by what we found in the Office Hub of the HTC HD7. While the panoramic user interface is great for the purpose, we found Word Mobile's options to be quite limited. Stuff like word correction and find is present, plus there's even the option to place comments, but when it comes to formatting, available options are should just be enough if you just want to add some finishing touches to a document, or write something basic, little more.

You can also create, view and edit Excel files (with a range of available functions to choose from), as well as view and edit PowerPoint presentations. However, editing here comes down to just editing text. You can also take notes using the included OneNote software, or collaborate through SharePoint.


Thankfully, you can find some of the functionality that you find missing in the new Marketplace Hub. Right now, the selection of apps there should include about 2000 titles, which is a good start, but of course we expect that number to rise quickly. We are positive towards Windows Phone 7's gaming capabilities as we tried a few of the available offerings, and have to admit that they looked really good. The Xbox Live integration in WP7 lets you do stuff like personalize your avatar, track various achievements and scores, as well as see requests, providing a nice mix of playfulness and function.

Performance:

Call quality on the HTC HD7 is good, with decent in clarity on the handset itself and good volume levels. Listeners on the other end of the line found that the phone produced a good sound with no muffling or interference. The loud speaker delivers an overall good noise, though is slightly tinny with a few muffles, but nothing major. With there being no issues with regards to reception or mobile browsing, the HTC HD7 gets an overall thumbs up as a phone.

Get the HTC HD7 up and running and you will find the overwhelming smoothness and visual flare of the OS coupled with the 4.3 inch screen works a treat. Given the hardware and software, 99% of the time, it all runs like a dream. There are two occasions this is not the case.

The first is when you are using an app that is heavily web dependant, such as Facebook. This can take a long time to load content and is jerky until it does. The whole OS is a data grabbing tool, so to get the most out of it, both in terms of functionality and smoothness, you will need to feed the beast some MBs in the form of an online tariff or regular Wi-Fi access.

Our second concern is a little more noteworthy. Before we explain, we'd ask that you visualize yourself using a Windows XP PC. You may recall, when it went into overdrive, dragging a window could cause a cascade of shadow windows enabling you to create an attractive buggy pattern until everything caught up with you. In a similar vein, our unit created some interesting visual effects after not being switched off for a couple of days. A simple soft reset solved the problem and it hasn't re-appeared, however, has left us feeling the OS could be more stable. Then again, it might have been just our unit.

One final point on performance is a lack of true multi tasking. This didn't ruin the experience by any means, but meant, for example a half written text was lost on a couple of occasions when hitting the search button by mistake.

Battery life on the HTC HD7 is just okay. With a quoted 6.3 hours talk time and 17 days standby time, in reality, with fair usage, it lasts a whole day, but that’s it. Markedly better than the HTC Desire HD, it’s still not great and we hope HTC start pumping more juice into their future releases with screens of this size. 

Conclusion:

The HTC HD7 is an all in all pleasure to use. Unfortunately however, it isn't as much of a wow device as its Android 4.3" siblings, having been released far later than the EVO 4G, therefore lacking the edge and without the build quality of the HTC Desire HD or the new Sense UI's functional implementation. HTC's overlay upon Windows Phone 7 comes only in the form of HTC Hub, and is pretty underwhelming as it’s not intended to be another Sense UI. Also, while Windows Phone 7 is a promising OS, it could use a hand in the functionality department. Nevertheless, this doesn't take away from the 4.3 inch screen being great for movies, and the fact that it does real justice to the super smooth OS. Like all Windows Phone 7 handsets, the HTC HD7 will get better as the OS matures. In the meantime, it comes recommended by us, though admittedly not to the same extent as we might have hoped. Alternative considerations would be the Samsung Omnia 7 if you want to stay with the OS but want a Super AMOLED screen. If the form factor appeals, depending on where you are in the world, the EVO 4G or HTC Desire HD would provide great Android alternatives, or the iPhone 4 could offer a more established OS, though the screen is considerably smaller.

HTC HD7 Video Review: