The Best WP7 Device

[Invizibleyez]

I have looked at all 3 AT&T WP7 phones out so far and here is what I found so far.

Samsung Focus - The "Screen Phone". It has an amazing 4.0" AMOLED screen. The colors are more vivid than the others. It is the largest screen of the group as well at 4". I wonder how the battery life will hold up compared to the others.

LG Quantum - I finally got to see one of these the other day. It has only a 3.5" screen but looks fine when not compared side by side to the Focus. This is the "keyboard phone". One unexpected surprise is that this seems to be the only phone of the 3 that you can input a web address into when the phone is sideways. If you are in the web browser and slide the keyboard out, It will allow you to type the web address in, the other phones must be upright for you to be able to see the web address bar at all.

HTC Surround - The "Speaker Phone". This phone really doesn't stand out for any feature other than having a nice speaker setup. I personally use only headphones typically with my phone. I can see how this phone could be fun for sharing youtube videos with friends, given it's kickstand and speakers. For the limited amount of time I do that, I think I would choose one of the others over this phone.

Post what you have found about the WP7 phones and which is your favorite, and why.

[spudtrooper]

battery life on my focus is better than my 3gs.. i don't have to rush home and charge it after tons of use. The only downside of my focus is how long it takes to charge, that little battery in there is a large battery to charge.

I was going to get the Surround since i love my zune music but the size/weight/screen on samsung was a amazing. Going to go to ATT friday to see if i can get in on the BOGO and upgrade my wifes iphone out of the picture now.

[Omen1393]

battery life on my focus is better than my 3gs.. i don't have to rush home and charge it after tons of use. The only downside of my focus is how long it takes to charge, that little battery in there is a large battery to charge.

I was going to get the Surround since i love my zune music but the size/weight/screen on samsung was a amazing. Going to go to ATT friday to see if i can get in on the BOGO and upgrade my wifes iphone out of the picture now.

About how long does it take to charge? I'm most likely getting the Focus for Christmas, so it would be useful to know.

[bob_c_b]

The Focus is amazing, same hardware (basically) as my Samsung Captivate and after a day of heavy use at during work hours, I still be the evening out of it and have only hit critical battery once around 11:30 pm after a couple hours of gaming on top of my typical use. No idea how long it takes to charge since I put it on the charger when I go to bed, but I get around 16 hours a day of steady, moderate demand use from a single charge.

[HawkMan]

The Trophy is an awesome phone. and I have no problems recommending it. I would rather have had the Mozart since it's essentially the same phone with a better camera and xenon flash, but this was the only WP7 phone they had in stock anywhere.

Personally I prefer the S-LCD phones over the OLED ones, OLED has good dynamic contrast, but actual contrast isn't so good, and then there's the PenTile Matrix :/ and it's significantly more expensive for lesser hardware except the screen which isn't really "better" unless you focus on one specific spec.

Though I hear the Optimus is good too, and has some neat software, but it has regular LCD. though it should still be more than good enough, it's a phone afterall, not a media center.

[Prince Charming]

The Trophy is an awesome phone. and I have no problems recommending it. I would rather have had the Mozart since it's essentially the same phone with a better camera and xenon flash, but this was the only WP7 phone they had in stock anywhere.

Personally I prefer the S-LCD phones over the OLED ones, OLED has good dynamic contrast, but actual contrast isn't so good, and then there's the PenTile Matrix :/ and it's significantly more expensive for lesser hardware except the screen which isn't really "better" unless you focus on one specific spec.

Though I hear the Optimus is good too, and has some neat software, but it has regular LCD. though it should still be more than good enough, it's a phone afterall, not a media center.

S-LCD also has an advantage in power-use over the AMOLED tech (keep ready before you think I'm crazy) when you're displaying mostly whites. AMOLEDS have vaunted power savings over LCDs (about half the drain), but only when displaying black pixels. LCDs however, use about a third of the power to display whites, compared to a AMOLED. Long story short - AMOLEDs are more efficient (at blacks), but they suck for power draw at whites. If you choose a light theme, the AMOLED will be disadvantaged battery wise.

For what it's worth though, in the real world, none of this really means anything - AMOLEDS and SLCD equipped devices have similar battery draw.

[HawkMan]

I know, which is why I didn't mention power. since it's pretty much the same.

[~Johnny]

S-LCD also has an advantage in power-use over the AMOLED tech (keep ready before you think I'm crazy) when you're displaying mostly whites. AMOLEDS have vaunted power savings over LCDs (about half the drain), but only when displaying black pixels. LCDs however, use about a third of the power to display whites, compared to a AMOLED. Long story short - AMOLEDs are more efficient (at blacks), but they suck for power draw at whites. If you choose a light theme, the AMOLED will be disadvantaged battery wise.

For what it's worth though, in the real world, none of this really means anything - AMOLEDS and SLCD equipped devices have similar battery draw.

Well, if you actually wanted to save battery life, you'd be smart and choose the black theme, so there would be a somewhat notable draw difference at the very least from an AMOLED WP7 phone using the black theme, and an SLCD using any theme (though the phone itself actually tells you it's best not to use the light theme when you switch to it on the Omnia 7). Considering very few shades actually use more power on an AMOLED screen, it should be fine. I remember reading that in a typical photo, AMOLED's use about 20-30% less, and for example, the comparisons between an AMOLED HTC Desire phone and a SLCD HTC Desire (when they replaced AMOLED with SLCD due to shortages), showed that the SLCD typically had about 2 hours less battery life or something (I'm trying to find the article now just to confirm that though :p)

The only downfall would be webbrowsing (if only office wasn't so useless...), where a lot of sites stick to white backgrounds. So it depends on what sites you tend to visit the most, or how long you linger around staring at web pages :laugh:

Anywho, I'd say the device I've tried so far is the HTC 7 Mozart. Nice SLCD screen, compact, very good looking, and a nice camera to boot. Omnia 7 is meh... the design is functional, but nothing to write home about. Pentile matrix annoys me too (more so because I have a Mozart next to it most of the time :p), and colur banding is far more noticeable on the Omnia 7 because of it's greater contrast- - it's there on the Mozart, just not as in-your-face.

I really want to see an Optimus 7 though, but they're still very hard to find in the UK it seems o.O But I am most definitely a fan of it's design ^^

EDIT: And well, this engadget article shows the SLCD screen has only about 2/3rd's the battery life whilst movie playing - so they're generally more power efficient

<img>

[~Johnny]

EDIT: And well, this engadget article shows the SLCD screen has only about 2/3rd's the battery life whilst movie playing - so they're generally more power efficient

Blergh - I can't edit this post anymore, but I meant AMOLED's are generally more efficient, not SLCD's of course >.<

<img>

[Invizibleyez]

Ordered the LG Quantum earlier today. It took alot of thought, but I realized I am more of a buttons guy. Having a keyboard may seem silly with a touchscreen phone that works so well, but I have always been a buttons guy, and I think I will probably find some apps that will work better with a keyboard, as well as internet address entering, and messaging. The speakers on the HTC Surround mean almost nothing to me, and the screen on the Samsung Focus really tugs at me pretty hard, but in the end, they both have screens, the LG screen just isn't as nice. But only one has a keyboard too.

I think I made the right decision.

I will let you know on here what my evaluation of the phone is. I won't have it until after christmas, because, well, it's a christmas gift for me from my wife.

I think the opinions of users will matter the most when it comes to windows phone 7.

I'd like this to be a place to rave or complain about the devices themselves.

[Dashel]

I like my Focus a lot but would love to try the Mozart.

[Woelfel]

I love my Focus. That's it.

[downhillrider]

I just got my HTC Surround today. I like it alot. I really liked the HD7 but I am on ATT. I generally dont like moving parts on phones so the slide out speakers are gonna take time to get used to. I will be keeping my iPhone's just incase :whistle:

[~Johnny]

Grr... another problem with the Omnia 7/Focus' screen. Well, it's not a problem I've *only* just noticed, but it's the inly time I've actually remembered to post about it :p

The damn things have colour burn in! :laugh: Not the "leave to for two hours and you'll have a ghost image" type, but a more temporary one >.< Lighter, brighter colours tend to burn in for about 10 seconds even after the screen changes - it's very noticeable going from white too say solid grey - or when dialog boxes pop up. You'll see the ghost image slowly fading out - it leads to a very odd inconsistent looking colours on screens that are meant to look like solid colours (you'll not notice it on white or black though, for obvious reasons). And even after the fade out - the colours still don't perfectly match on every pixel >.<

Quite annoying, considering there's already the annoying pentile matrix to deal with, the colour banding, and the fact that the screens just do not like being used on top of soft pillows or cushions and such :L Engadget also are seeing something similar with the Nexus S, so it's definitely down to the AMOLED screen. I guess it's what we get with organic screens :p

Go Team Mozart! ^.^ <img>

[BajiRav]

Next to Surround, Focus' screen shines. It lacks in storage (expansion is currently a joke) and has problems with gradients but still...

I love my Focus. That's it.

+1

[neo158]

I got the HD7, it's the only WP7 device that O2 has. The 4.3" SLCD display is huge, the largest screen on any WP7 device so far, gives the AMOLED screen on my Desire a run for it's money and the extra screen space makes games much easier to play, not to mention it's the 16GB version.

[George P Global Moderator]

I'm waiting for my Dell Venue Pro to come in the mail, it'll be a long Dec for me. :(

[neo158]

I'm waiting for my Dell Venue Pro to come in the mail, it'll be a long Dec for me. :(

Looks like a nice device from the unboxing and review videos on Youtube, heavy at 180g, but being a portrait slider makes it unique and that curved Gorilla Glass S-AMOLED screen is just awesome. I wanted one of these, but got annoyed waiting for Dell to release it so I bought the HD7 that's in my sig.

[deactivated170812]

Take a look at Engadget's Windows Phone 7 review: http://www.engadget.com/2010/11/08/windows-phone-7-in-review-the-good-the-bad-and-the-surround/

[George P Global Moderator]

Looks like a nice device from the unboxing and review videos on Youtube, heavy at 180g, but being a portrait slider makes it unique and that curved Gorilla Glass S-AMOLED screen is just awesome. I wanted one of these, but got annoyed waiting for Dell to release it so I bought the HD7 that's in my sig.

Ya, I know it's a bit on the heavy side but I don't mind, I could get a HD7 but I'm not really that impressed with what is basically a rebadged HD2, HTC could've done better really.

[neo158]

Ya, I know it's a bit on the heavy side but I don't mind, I could get a HD7 but I'm not really that impressed with what is basically a rebadged HD2, HTC could've done better really.

Good on you for waiting, and not giving in to temptation and getting an HD7, which IMHO is a nice phone but has a few flaws, the camera being the biggest one. I always loved the design of the HD2 but never owned one so that's the other reason why I got the HD7.

[Prince Charming]

Yeah, I'm in the same boat. I've been tempted with the Omnia 7, and the HD7, but I'm staying true and keeping my Clove order open on the Dell Venue Pro. I'd be happy with any Windows Phone 7, but the Venue Pro is the handset for me :(

[neo158]

I'm really happy with Windows Phone 7, sure it has some minor issues but nothing major that prevents it's use.

[downhillrider]

I have a question about my new HTC Surround. The back, Start and search buttons on the bottom of the phone vibrate a little when I hit them. Is it supposed to do that? If thats a "feature" I havent been able to find out if it can be turned off..

[George P Global Moderator]

I have a question about my new HTC Surround. The back, Start and search buttons on the bottom of the phone vibrate a little when I hit them. Is it supposed to do that? If thats a "feature" I havent been able to find out if it can be turned off..

I could be wrong but if the buttons are capacitive then they do that by default so you know you pressed them. If that's the case then I don't think you can change that, unless there's some hidden HTC settings for it somewhere. People have been finding hiden OEM hardware settings by using the dialer and doing different codes like ##29## or something.