When I got this phone I immediately updated it to mango. So i've never used a windows phone without mango and can't comment on what it used to be like. My wife owns an iPhone 4. I have an iPod touch and an iPad. I also had a Motorola Atrix up until last week when I sold it. So my review is based on my experiences with the above. I got this phone last week and have been using it extensively since then. It hasn't left my hand unless i've been sleeping.
I also primarily use an iMac. I do have a win 7 desktop, laptop, couple of HTPC's and a WHS2011 machine. I own an xbox but rarely touch it. I have no brand loyalty. I buy what I feel is best at that moment and I have no issues about jumping platforms.
The phone is a Samsung Focus
Hardware:
I wish it had a notification LED on the front like android phones do.
Battery life is not as good as iphone 4 or my motorola atrix. I can usually get a day out of it with my usage. But I was getting two days with those other phones.
Not a fan of speaker placement directly on the back as when you lay the phone down it muffles it. On my atrix the speaker was right where the back began to curve up so when you laid the phone down it would bounce audio off the surface which made it sound better, louder.
I wish the screen on/off button was on the top. I'm always accidentally hitting it. I suppose i'll get used to it in time.
Screen needs a higher resolution. I can see the pixels. However the contrast of the SAMOLED screen is just amazing. Breathtaking really.
Camera is ok. Better than my atrix, not as good as my wife's iphone4 in terms of image quality with stock settings. However the amount of manual control you have on the camera is second to none. There are settings for the camera that I have on my DSLR! Love it!
Voice quality is good. My atrix may have been a touch better but not enough to declare it a winner.
I don't like how when I turn the screen off, wifi turns off shortly after. So all notifications have to come in over 3g. On both android and iOS I can turn off 3g data when i'm in a place with wifi and still get my notifications. I found that on android turning 3g off and leaving wifi was better on battery life than the opposite. I spend most of my time in two places, home and work, and I have wifi at both. Most businesses I visit also have free wifi. So I really don't need 3g data that much.
I do use 3g for streaming slacker radio when driving. Typically I plug the phone in while i'm sitting in my driveway and then off I go. The phone still picks up my wifi in the driveway but when I leave it has to switch to 3g. On my atrix this switching was seamless and I never missed a beat in the music. On WP7 when I leave wifi range I lose all data and it takes about 5 minutes to get the app switched over to 3g. Probably an app issue and not a phone issue but it's annoying.
Software:
Based on handset specs it's clear to me that WP7 is the best optimized mobile OS on the planet. For the specs it has it runs incredibly smooth. And at times when it's less than smooth it seems to be isolated to select 3rd party apps.
My biggest gripe is with software, most of it 3rd party. There are some missing apps that I would like to have. I have contacted some of the developers(words with friends, pokerist) who tell me WP7 apps will be available in a few months. I still need to get ahold of dish and i'm waiting for a response from Tivo.
Need more theme customization. Granted all we can change is color but why not be able to pick shades of color?
The mail app needs a dark background option.
Need to fix turn by turn so we don't have to tap for the next direction. But we all know this.
Would be nice to be able to download files in the browser and save them to dropbox or skydive. I used both iOS and android to download files, drop them in dropbox and then my desktop at home monitors that folder and can start downloads from it. It was handy.
Not as many free apps, pay for apps are more expensive on average than android/ios
Would be nice to have a favorites list so I don't have to search through all the contacts and can quickly call the people I do regularly. -EDIT- I found that I can create groups and assign people to it. Helpful for reaching them quickly and keeping up on their specific social updates should I want to.
Love the xbox live integration. I'm not a big console gamer at all but I still like that my achievements carry over.
Most people view the live tiles as just huge icons. And I can't blame them. 3/4 of my live tiles aren't live at all. And some of the ones that are, are only live enough to be a novelty and not beneficial.
Many apps I use are still not updated for mango. Some could benefit from running in the background and push notifications. I'm sure it's just a matter of time.
I really wish the messenger app had gtalk built in. I don't know a single person that uses live messenger but everyone I chat with is on gtalk. So having that would allow me to eliminate another app.
I wish microsoft had their own google voice app. The API's are there, they just need to develop it. There are several 3rd party apps but none are perfect. When I had my android phone I spent a lot of time in the android community doing research and I found that many people who had android phones said their number one reason for android was the level of google voice integration. Having this on WP7 would net a few converts.
I'd also like them to separate out Facebook and twitter in the people tile. It just gets to be a huge mess for me to go through all that content. Sure, I can use separate apps and usually do.
EDIT - from J4rrod - under What's New, you'll see that it says "all accounts," tap that and from there you'll have the option to select what feeds you want displayed.
On the calendar, in the month view it shows very tiny, unreadable text for a days events. I'd rather they just appropriately color coded the dates to quickly draw your attention instead of super small unreadable text letting me know I have an event on that day.
Landscape mode doesn't work for everything.
IE9 doesn't word wrap everything. Most stuff. But i'm still finding pages I have to scroll side to side just to read a paragraph. Word wrap on android worked great on everything.
I love the lock screen! Better than android even when using the popular widget locker customizing app.
I like having the choice of default apps on android. It lets me choose which app to use depending on the file/website and the apps tend to be more aware of other apps you have installed and lets you choose which to use. For example, the camera app I downloaded let me share to multiple social sites. When I install the google+ app it also then had an entry that let me share with that.
The reasons I switched from android despite the fact that my phone was fast and stable and had tons of apps is it also felt a bit disjointed. Not as cohesive as iOS or WP7. Layers upon layers. Felt like a bit of a mess. And although it worked well for me I wanted to try something new.
I also like having a desktop app to manage my content and sync with. Primarily for podcasts. Android lacked this and podcast management was frustrating. Now I do prefer iTunes to zune(zune is organized poorly IMO) but it does work fine. The WP7 for mac allows me to continue to use iTunes for my content management and I can still use zune in windows if I so choose. So i'm happy with my options.
The reason I ddn't switch to an iPhone despite having a iPod touch/ipad and my wife having a iphone4 was primarily cost. I wasn't eligible for an upgrade and I got this focus for free with the funds from selling my atrix. I would have had to pay far more for an iPhone. I also mostly like the GUI on WP7. I like the dark background. It's easier on my eyes and pleasing to look at. ios5 finally brings the iPhone up to a level with WP7 and android in several of the remaining areas. And I think ice cream sandwich and jellybean will be game changing updates for android by unifying the tablets and smartphones as well as letting google push updates directly to the users and not have to wait on carriers.
And as we all are, i'm very interested to see what comes in Tango and Apollo and if the current batch of phones will get those updates.
So to summarize, WP7 is a good mobile OS and it can only improve with time. I do feel faster on this phone. Just my activities, getting info, brining up apps, is faster for me in WP7. I have most of the apps I want/need or have started using an alternative. However there are still a few i'd like.
I think with aggressive marketing(sounds like it's gearing up) there is no reason it's marketshare couldn't match apples for mobile phones. If you live and breath microsoft services(mail, messenger, xbox, zune, office) then it's a no brainer. I don't. I use a mix of microsoft, google and apple but WP7 is still pretty close to having it all. I will be keeping this phone till i'm next eligible for an upgrade in early 2013 and will re-evaluate where things are then.
But overall, quite happy with the phone.
I will add to this as I come across new things.
I also primarily use an iMac. I do have a win 7 desktop, laptop, couple of HTPC's and a WHS2011 machine. I own an xbox but rarely touch it. I have no brand loyalty. I buy what I feel is best at that moment and I have no issues about jumping platforms.
The phone is a Samsung Focus
Hardware:
I wish it had a notification LED on the front like android phones do.
Battery life is not as good as iphone 4 or my motorola atrix. I can usually get a day out of it with my usage. But I was getting two days with those other phones.
Not a fan of speaker placement directly on the back as when you lay the phone down it muffles it. On my atrix the speaker was right where the back began to curve up so when you laid the phone down it would bounce audio off the surface which made it sound better, louder.
I wish the screen on/off button was on the top. I'm always accidentally hitting it. I suppose i'll get used to it in time.
Screen needs a higher resolution. I can see the pixels. However the contrast of the SAMOLED screen is just amazing. Breathtaking really.
Camera is ok. Better than my atrix, not as good as my wife's iphone4 in terms of image quality with stock settings. However the amount of manual control you have on the camera is second to none. There are settings for the camera that I have on my DSLR! Love it!
Voice quality is good. My atrix may have been a touch better but not enough to declare it a winner.
I don't like how when I turn the screen off, wifi turns off shortly after. So all notifications have to come in over 3g. On both android and iOS I can turn off 3g data when i'm in a place with wifi and still get my notifications. I found that on android turning 3g off and leaving wifi was better on battery life than the opposite. I spend most of my time in two places, home and work, and I have wifi at both. Most businesses I visit also have free wifi. So I really don't need 3g data that much.
I do use 3g for streaming slacker radio when driving. Typically I plug the phone in while i'm sitting in my driveway and then off I go. The phone still picks up my wifi in the driveway but when I leave it has to switch to 3g. On my atrix this switching was seamless and I never missed a beat in the music. On WP7 when I leave wifi range I lose all data and it takes about 5 minutes to get the app switched over to 3g. Probably an app issue and not a phone issue but it's annoying.
Software:
Based on handset specs it's clear to me that WP7 is the best optimized mobile OS on the planet. For the specs it has it runs incredibly smooth. And at times when it's less than smooth it seems to be isolated to select 3rd party apps.
My biggest gripe is with software, most of it 3rd party. There are some missing apps that I would like to have. I have contacted some of the developers(words with friends, pokerist) who tell me WP7 apps will be available in a few months. I still need to get ahold of dish and i'm waiting for a response from Tivo.
Need more theme customization. Granted all we can change is color but why not be able to pick shades of color?
The mail app needs a dark background option.
Need to fix turn by turn so we don't have to tap for the next direction. But we all know this.
Would be nice to be able to download files in the browser and save them to dropbox or skydive. I used both iOS and android to download files, drop them in dropbox and then my desktop at home monitors that folder and can start downloads from it. It was handy.
Not as many free apps, pay for apps are more expensive on average than android/ios
Would be nice to have a favorites list so I don't have to search through all the contacts and can quickly call the people I do regularly. -EDIT- I found that I can create groups and assign people to it. Helpful for reaching them quickly and keeping up on their specific social updates should I want to.
Love the xbox live integration. I'm not a big console gamer at all but I still like that my achievements carry over.
Most people view the live tiles as just huge icons. And I can't blame them. 3/4 of my live tiles aren't live at all. And some of the ones that are, are only live enough to be a novelty and not beneficial.
Many apps I use are still not updated for mango. Some could benefit from running in the background and push notifications. I'm sure it's just a matter of time.
I really wish the messenger app had gtalk built in. I don't know a single person that uses live messenger but everyone I chat with is on gtalk. So having that would allow me to eliminate another app.
I wish microsoft had their own google voice app. The API's are there, they just need to develop it. There are several 3rd party apps but none are perfect. When I had my android phone I spent a lot of time in the android community doing research and I found that many people who had android phones said their number one reason for android was the level of google voice integration. Having this on WP7 would net a few converts.
I'd also like them to separate out Facebook and twitter in the people tile. It just gets to be a huge mess for me to go through all that content. Sure, I can use separate apps and usually do.
EDIT - from J4rrod - under What's New, you'll see that it says "all accounts," tap that and from there you'll have the option to select what feeds you want displayed.
On the calendar, in the month view it shows very tiny, unreadable text for a days events. I'd rather they just appropriately color coded the dates to quickly draw your attention instead of super small unreadable text letting me know I have an event on that day.
Landscape mode doesn't work for everything.
IE9 doesn't word wrap everything. Most stuff. But i'm still finding pages I have to scroll side to side just to read a paragraph. Word wrap on android worked great on everything.
I love the lock screen! Better than android even when using the popular widget locker customizing app.
I like having the choice of default apps on android. It lets me choose which app to use depending on the file/website and the apps tend to be more aware of other apps you have installed and lets you choose which to use. For example, the camera app I downloaded let me share to multiple social sites. When I install the google+ app it also then had an entry that let me share with that.
The reasons I switched from android despite the fact that my phone was fast and stable and had tons of apps is it also felt a bit disjointed. Not as cohesive as iOS or WP7. Layers upon layers. Felt like a bit of a mess. And although it worked well for me I wanted to try something new.
I also like having a desktop app to manage my content and sync with. Primarily for podcasts. Android lacked this and podcast management was frustrating. Now I do prefer iTunes to zune(zune is organized poorly IMO) but it does work fine. The WP7 for mac allows me to continue to use iTunes for my content management and I can still use zune in windows if I so choose. So i'm happy with my options.
The reason I ddn't switch to an iPhone despite having a iPod touch/ipad and my wife having a iphone4 was primarily cost. I wasn't eligible for an upgrade and I got this focus for free with the funds from selling my atrix. I would have had to pay far more for an iPhone. I also mostly like the GUI on WP7. I like the dark background. It's easier on my eyes and pleasing to look at. ios5 finally brings the iPhone up to a level with WP7 and android in several of the remaining areas. And I think ice cream sandwich and jellybean will be game changing updates for android by unifying the tablets and smartphones as well as letting google push updates directly to the users and not have to wait on carriers.
And as we all are, i'm very interested to see what comes in Tango and Apollo and if the current batch of phones will get those updates.
So to summarize, WP7 is a good mobile OS and it can only improve with time. I do feel faster on this phone. Just my activities, getting info, brining up apps, is faster for me in WP7. I have most of the apps I want/need or have started using an alternative. However there are still a few i'd like.
I think with aggressive marketing(sounds like it's gearing up) there is no reason it's marketshare couldn't match apples for mobile phones. If you live and breath microsoft services(mail, messenger, xbox, zune, office) then it's a no brainer. I don't. I use a mix of microsoft, google and apple but WP7 is still pretty close to having it all. I will be keeping this phone till i'm next eligible for an upgrade in early 2013 and will re-evaluate where things are then.
But overall, quite happy with the phone.
I will add to this as I come across new things.
Last edited:
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