My first impressions

[astraith]

Here is what I think of HTC Arrive:

So the HTC Arrive arrived this week. It?s been a few days for me and I have had time to take in the OS and the phone itself to to judge how I like it. In a few words, I love it. It?s quite simply the best phone I have ever had. Not only is it fast, smooth and wonderful, but it does everything I want it to do, when I want it do something. It doesn?t freeze like my BlackBerry Curve 8330 did when I first got it. It doesn?t lock up when trying to send a picture via email/text.

The Hardware:

The hardware is pretty amazing. It feels like it can be dropped and would be safe (although would scratch, but still function) and I in fact did drop it in water for a few seconds and hardly any water got in the battery, and the phone works like a charm right now (other then being completely and utterly out of power, of course). The keyboard is easily one of the best keyboards I have felt and used. It?s tied with the Samsung Epic 4G -- I am a stickler for Samsung keyboards and phones. But I like the added backlit keyboard and I both love and hate the slider being stiffer then the Epic. It?s good because makes it feel less like a toy, hate it because it?s hard to open it and I always touch a button I don?t want to touch, either physical or virtual. Sometimes I completely exit out of what I am trying to do. Thats slightly annoying, but nothing to terrible.

Windows Phone 7 (WP7):

WP7 is a very good OS. Compared to the others out there -- BlackBerry OS, iOS, WebOS, Android -- it ranks right there at the top. I can?t with good faith call it better then iOS -- but it?s right there tied. It?s definitely better than the like of BlackBerry OS. Android has nothing on WP7 and WP7 is better than WebOS in some ways but fail in others (and fails in ways WebOS fans love and live on).

Things I like about WP7 is how unique it is. There is nothing like it. The best way to describe it is iOS is app centric ? your home screen is littered with your apps. WebOS is built like a desktop ? you scan through your app?s on demand when you want, and switch apps like you do on a desktop (like OS X, actually). And WP7 is info centric. It tries it?s best to give you the most info in the palm of your hands. Whether it be on your Start Screen or your Lock Screen, you see all the info you need to know. Speaking of the Lock Screen, it will tell you the day, the date and time, and any unread alert. Whats great if you have multiple email accounts, it will tell you you have 5 unread emails in gmail and 3 unread in Hotmail. Of course it does not tell you WHICH inbox has the unread emails, just that one, two or more mail boxes need some attention. Whats also great ? or not so great, depending on your taste ? is once you look into your inbox, it will remove the reminder that you have more unread mails. Since I do that all the time, I enjoy this feature. Others might not like it.

Notifications are good. They don?t get in the way, and they let you know what?s happening. Are they better than WebOS? To be honest, I don?t know. But they are better than Android and iOS. And of course better than BB OS. What I don?t like is the lack of multitasking. Of course this is coming soon, but it?s so annoying not being able to use third party apps like Last.FM. It?s also annoying there is no way to switch between apps. It?s one thing not being able to use the app in the background but having to go back by going to the Start Screen and choosing the app is time consuming. For a device that gets you in and out of your phone quickly, it seems kind of backwards.

It?s not all bad news, however, and I will end this first impression on a good note. Zune and WP7 music player is by far the best in the industry. I have used and loved my iPod Touch but there is nothing better than Zune and WP7 Music Player. Some might disagree, but mostly it?s because Zune wants you to spend money and the players (and the phones) don?t come cheap. But it is worth every penny. So do I like WP7? Yes. Is it good enough for me to stay and not leave? Ask me in thirty days when I release my 30 Day Review!

 

[omi205]

Good Stuff

I have had my Arrive for about one month now. And like you said its great...its fast, battery lasts longer then most, both virtual and physical keyboards are wonderful, I can go on and on. There are many small things that you notice that are really neat too. Like the loading bar although its not a bar but more moving beads across the screen, I thought that was cool.

About hardware its nice but it sucks knowing that its only running at 800mhz rather than the standard 1ghz and vary soon to be standard 1.2ghz dual core which some phones currently have. But its important to note that 800mhz runs WP7 just fine and without any hick ups. I guess its a less demanding operating system. The actual phone itself is built like a tank which you wouldn't think considering the weird sliding hinge. I can testify to this...just yesterday I forgot the phone on the trunk of my car and drove off. After a few seconds I realized it was not in my pocket. After about 20 minuets of searching I found it on the street about a block from my house (were I made the sharp turn when I realized I didn't have it to head back home were I thought it was). Long story short the back of the phone was scratch less but the front screen shattered completely, I mean it was really really shattered. BUT the touch screen worked perfect, as if nothing had even happened. The loud speaker also stopped working. But other then that it was operating just fine. The virtual keyboard actually seemed to be working better lol. I got the front screen fixed as my brother works for Sprint and I am going to handle the speaker issue tomorrow. If it were any other phone I am sure it would have ripped into pieces.

All in all its a great OS, WP7, on a great handset maker, HTC.

 

[starblade876]

About hardware its nice but it sucks knowing that its only running at 800mhz rather than the standard 1ghz...

Where'd you hear that? Every specs sheet I've seen says 1GHz processor and I'm pretty sure that 1GHz is still in WP7's "official" minimum requirements for now. One of the CDMA bands the phone has is 800MHz, so maybe you confused that?

 

[astraith]

Where'd you hear that? Every specs sheet I've seen says 1GHz processor and I'm pretty sure that 1GHz is still in WP7's "official" minimum requirements for now. One of the CDMA bands the phone has is 800MHz, so maybe you confused that?

Yea I want to know where he heard that too. However the story with the shatterd screen ... I i would be so mad if I did that! Good luck on fixing it man!

 

[kingp]

Arrive specs

The Arrive runs the same Snapdragon processor as the HTC EVO, which is a QSD8650 (@1Ghz) and the same Adreno 200 graphics chip, which is capable of 22 million triangles per second. Not bad for a 2008 hardware fab. The newer gen 2 snapdragons (like the 8655) are much faster and more energy efficient (drains less battery) than the gen 1 chips. Take the EVO Shift for example. It uses a 2nd gen snapdragon (MSM7630) @800Mhz but has Adreno 205 graphics, which is capable of 44 Million TPS. For more info, check out the Wiki article on Snapdragon chips: Snapdragon (system on chip) - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Anyways, the purpose of this drawn out post, is basically for me to say that the Arrive runs on the 1Ghz 8650 chip, and it runs perfectly well. I own both the Arrive and the EVO and I can say that Windows Phone 7 is a much smoother OS. My Arrive has no issues running it. My EVO struggles with Android (stock 2.2, rooted).

I can't wait to see the 2nd Gen WP7 units coming out. I hope we get a 4G HD7s on a 2nd Gen Snapdragon.

For anyone interested, here is my review of the HTC Arrive. I wrote is back in late March/April, shortly after it was released. http://enterconnected.com/index.php/acessories-reviews/hardware-reviews/review-htc-arrive

 

[kg4icg]

I myself came from the Evo to the Arrive and I haven't looked back 1 bit. And the audio thru the headset with SRS engaged is fantastic when listenning to music.

 

[jimski]

On the comment regarding not knowing which inbox has messages on the lock screen, not sure about Gmail, but my three accounts; Hotmail, AOL and Yahoo all have unique icons so I can tell which is which. Also the lock screen notification setup works first in/first out. So the second account you setup will move the first account to the left, and so on. Chosing which account to install next/last can position them in amore familiar manner.

Sent from my HTC Surround using Board Express

 

[omi205]

Sorry

Ok you are all right just double checked. I dont know were I heard/read that? It must have been a CDMA band spec that I confused as Starblade876 said. This makes me soooo much happier. All this time I thought I had a phone with a lower end CPU LOL. Either way it worked great so I didn't let it get to me. But now that I know its the same as the EVO, it just makes it that much better!!!!

Actually you know what I think confused me. Was the EVO Shift. Because when it come to buying it came down to the Arrive and the Shift. And I am pretty sure the Shift has an 800mhz cpu? right.

 

[kingp]

@omi205 you are correct. The Shift has an 800Mhz 2nd gen Snapdragon. The graphics chip is also twice as powerful as the EVO and Arrive.

 

[astraith]

On the comment regarding not knowing which inbox has messages on the lock screen, not sure about Gmail, but my three accounts; Hotmail, AOL and Yahoo all have unique icons so I can tell which is which. Also the lock screen notification setup works first in/first out. So the second account you setup will move the first account to the left, and so on. Chosing which account to install next/last can position them in amore familiar manner.

Sent from my HTC Surround using Board Express

you know I bet I just haven't noticed that yet. I don't get much mail from my live account. Let me test it out some and on my thirty day review I'll come back to it. Thanks!

 

[sketchy9]

you know I bet I just haven't noticed that yet. I don't get much mail from my live account. Let me test it out some and on my thirty day review I'll come back to it. Thanks!

Yeah the order of the new mail icons on the lock screen is constant. So if Exchange #2 is on the right, it will always be on the right, even if Exchange #1 has no new mail. This helps me a ton b/c I'm rocking two Exchange servers-- another perk of WP7! (ok, WebOS can do two Exchanges as well).

-R

 

[astraith]

Yeah the order of the new mail icons on the lock screen is constant. So if Exchange #2 is on the right, it will always be on the right, even if Exchange #1 has no new mail. This helps me a ton b/c I'm rocking two Exchange servers-- another perk of WP7! (ok, WebOS can do two Exchanges as well).

-R

Yep, just noticed the two different icons! Cool cool! Lovin' WP7 so much so far Just bought my first app. It's a tower defense game

 

[kingp]

That's awesome! I had no idea that WP7 could do multiple exchange accounts. My EVO can barely handle 1...and I love my EVO!

 

[eric12341]

how is wp7 not better than iOS? explain, that's the only flaw i found with this write up.

 

[astraith]

how is wp7 not better than iOS? explain, that's the only flaw i found with this write up.

I think you misunderstood that statement. I might not have been entirely clear. Windows Phone 7 is not worse than IOS but is on par. For everything WP7 does better, it also has some weaknesses that -- at least for now -- makes it not better then IOS. For instance, multitasking. Some might not think that's a big deal. But I just had a call at the end of a level of my game. I have to start over now because of that call. Maybe I did something wrong but the point is if that happened in IOS the game would pause and then I can start the game again.

Its also odd that not all apps rotate when I use the slider. It should be standard that when a keyboard is out the screen rotates. That's a small thing, sure. But when dealing with Apple its the little things that count.

Even with that said, IOS is not perfect and nor is it better. Its on par with WP7. Hopefully that clears things up for you.

 

[dtreo]

That's awesome! I had no idea that WP7 could do multiple exchange accounts. My EVO can barely handle 1...and I love my EVO!

I am curious too about day to day use of exchange full calendar/contacts functionality as well as gmail calendar with an Arrive vs EVO, which I have some struggles with now.

 

[disposed]

Ok you are all right just double checked. I dont know were I heard/read that? It must have been a CDMA band spec that I confused as Starblade876 said. This makes me soooo much happier. All this time I thought I had a phone with a lower end CPU LOL. Either way it worked great so I didn't let it get to me. But now that I know its the same as the EVO, it just makes it that much better!!!!

Actually you know what I think confused me. Was the EVO Shift. Because when it come to buying it came down to the Arrive and the Shift. And I am pretty sure the Shift has an 800mhz cpu? right.

I wouldnt get too excited about that the processor in the shift may run at 800MHZ but its just as fast as the old snapdragon in the arrive and uses less power and on top of that comes with a faster GPU.

 

[astraith]

I wouldnt get too excited about that the processor in the shift may run at 800MHZ but its just as fast as the old snapdragon in the arrive and uses less power and on top of that comes with a faster GPU.

Very true. However since the eco shift is running Android I be willing to bet the arrive seems faster because wp7 generally runs smoother.

 

[Dave Blake]

I have both the EVO Shift and the Arrive I can tell you that the Shift is crippled by its OS. When OC'ed to 1.5 and running a hacked version of Cyanogen the Shift flies but why should I have to hack my device just to make it usable. My Arrive on the other hand is just smoking fast out of the box. I would love to see what WP7 could do and how fast it would be running on the Shift hardware. Hopefully some of the next generation phones will incorporate this new hardware.

 

[astraith]

I have both the EVO Shift and the Arrive I can tell you that the Shift is crippled by its OS. When OC'ed to 1.5 and running a hacked version of Cyanogen the Shift flies but why should I have to hack my device just to make it usable. My Arrive on the other hand is just smoking fast out of the box. I would love to see what WP7 could do and how fast it would be running on the Shift hardware. Hopefully some of the next generation phones will incorporate this new hardware.

I agree. I can't wait till next year with Nokia putting its weight behind windows phone 7. Its going to be awsom seeing newer, powerful hardware with Microsoft smoking fast OS.