Best GSM WP7? - Prefer T-Mobile

[tchaten]

Hello - I am brand new to the WP7 world - I'm trying out all of the mobile OSs and I'm intrigued by the OS.

I am kinda confused on the hardware end. What is the best GSM WP7 phone out there? I'd like it to run natively on T-Mobile - AT&T would be fine if the device is that much better on that network.

Is there anything new on the horizon in the near future - when will Mango ship and will it be updated to older hardware like iOS/iPhones?

Thoughts on this would be greatly appreciated - right now considering the HD7 on T-Mobile ...

 

[smartpatrol]

Venue Pro Smartphone with Windows 7 Phone

Dell Venue Pro: $299 unlocked. If you buy the phone unlocked, you can save $10/month on T-Mobile's plans. Or else you can order it for $0.99 with a 2-year contract.

I haven't actually held one of these in person because you can only buy them online. But they have 4.1 inch AMOLED displays, Gorilla Glass covering, metal body, and a portrait slide-out keyboard. The build quality and display are supposed to be excellent. The only downsides are that it's heavy and a little on the big side. Also the camera is supposed to be mediocre.

I'm a current HD7 owner. I would've gone with the Venue Pro instead, but they were having lots of issues at the time. Thankfully, all the stability issues have been fixed with the latest firmware update.

HD7 is just okay. The selling points are the huge screen and the fact that it's on T-Mobile. The camera is pretty bad in low-light conditions. Battery life is not very good. The display quality is decent but not amazing. I love the phone, but it's more because of the awesome OS than because of the hardware. The physical hardware isn't bad, but it's hardly exciting.

So if I were in your shoes, I would jump on that Venue Pro in a heartbeat.

 

[palandri]

If you can wait a little longer, Nokia has a couple of Window phones coming out. If Nokia stays with their pentaband frequencies, the phone will work on either AT&T or T-Mobile.

Of course, nobody know if U.S. Wireless Carriers would sell/let Nokia make a pentaband phone for Windows .

 

[cckgz4]

Right now the HD7 is pretty damn good. I own it. But I'd wait a little while to see what these slew of new phones are going to offer

 

[wolf1891]

Venue Pro Smartphone with Windows 7 Phone

Dell Venue Pro: $299 unlocked. If you buy the phone unlocked, you can save $10/month on T-Mobile's plans. Or else you can order it for $0.99 with a 2-year contract.

I haven't actually held one of these in person because you can only buy them online. But they have 4.1 inch AMOLED displays, Gorilla Glass covering, metal body, and a portrait slide-out keyboard. The build quality and display are supposed to be excellent. The only downsides are that it's heavy and a little on the big side. Also the camera is supposed to be mediocre.

I'm a current HD7 owner. I would've gone with the Venue Pro instead, but they were having lots of issues at the time. Thankfully, all the stability issues have been fixed with the latest firmware update.

HD7 is just okay. The selling points are the huge screen and the fact that it's on T-Mobile. The camera is pretty bad in low-light conditions. Battery life is not very good. The display quality is decent but not amazing. I love the phone, but it's more because of the awesome OS than because of the hardware. The physical hardware isn't bad, but it's hardly exciting.

So if I were in your shoes, I would jump on that Venue Pro in a heartbeat.

as a DVP owner I can confirm everything that was said here. The phone is beautiful and works great (now that the firmware issues appear to be resolved at last), but the camera sucks (took some pics outdoors yesterday around noon with the sun shining brightly and they still looked like crap when I synced them to my PC). Other than the camera though, it's well worth consideration (note, the HD7 is also a very good phone to consider, especially if you don't want/need the slider keyboard on the DVP).

 

[Pronk]

If you want a bargain and can live with something smaller than the HD7, the Mozart is the way to go. It seems to be the cheapest second-hand model despite its really quite nice aluminium unibody, at 8MP it has the best camera of the 1st-gen WP7 phones (and is the only one with a proper xenon flash), you can upgrade the battery to a 1800 mAh one that can last for a couple of days without needing to have a bulky new back cover, and it has a good size SLCD screen.

 

[tchaten]

Thanks for the feedback - I went with a Dell Venue Pro for $230 on eBay - not really curious about new hardware coming out as it will be very pricy without a contract and I'm a guy that likes to have a bunch of phones that I switch between month to month.

Pretty excited - WP7 is one of the few Microsoft products I like from what I see ...

 

[TheRewardisCheese]

I think you will be pleasantly surprised and pleased with how nice, smooth and sleek the WP7 OS is.....loving my Omnia 7