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We, at Entrepreneur, have long been of the opinion that the HTC founders’—Cher Wang and Peter Chou—biggest achievement was not heralding a new era in mobile phones with its lineup of Android handsets. It was in fact making Windows Mobile bearable for all these years. Anyone who ever used a non-HTC handset in the days of Windows Mobile 6 and 6.5 knows what I am talking about. But with HTC HD7, the bearable has become very desirable.

Inside-outside
The HD7 takes off from the previous HD handsets that the company has launched in the market in its form factor. On the outside, the HD7 has a 4.3 inch display, with two speakers framing it at the top and bottom. There is a metallic band running around the phone that finds space for the camera button, the power button and a volume rocker.

There is also a kickstand for viewing, we suspect, videos on the landscape mode, but it is just too, well, intrusive to the form factor. Like a stick on, rather than an integral part of the phone. In your palm, the device does seem tough enough, but that is because of the metallic band. The rest is all plastic and screen. Dropping it might not be the wisest idea. Internally, the HD7 does not move away too much from the earlier HD handsets in HTC’s lineup. It has the same 1GHz Qualcomm Snapdragon processor with 576MB of RAM that on the outset seems a little slow for a HD handset. As I understand, Microsoft calls the shots on the internals with handset manufacturers on WP7. Having said that, the HD7 is by no means a slow mover. It is pretty spiffy, and people using an Android device might even find this one to be faster in operation.

However, I do wish HTC figures out a way to do something about the battery life on the HD7. It packs in a 1,230mAh battery that is less than standard on lesser smartphones today. For a phone powering a hungry 4.3 inch display, that is a death blow. For the time the HD7 was in review with us, we had to keep the charger handy, and made at least two recharges a day. That just does not pass muster.

But that power-hungry display? Oh, what a display! Such displays are made in heaven. Combined with a smooth-as-butter experience that the WP7 offers, the wide display makes everyday tasks so much easier. E-mails are read easily, websites do not really need that pinch-and-zoom, and the fattest thumbs are not going to be touching the wrong keys. To be fair, there is a wider screen available in the market in the Dell Streak, but the HD7 is probably the best size for a phone. The only hitch is that the sun is not its best friend.

Another problem we had with the HD7 is the camera. No, the camera itself is okay and so is the resolution of pictures. But it is that two-stage button that made us grind our teeth. You would have to push that button with the strength of Hercules and then find out that you just shot out of focus.

Windows brings it

At the outset, what we like best about the WP7 is that the experience will be standard on whatever device you would use. Microsoft has laid the rules—you cannot mess around with it with your own interface. That means that you can go from one device to another without breaking your head on it.

The home screen is basically a bunch of tiles that represent one function each. Right from the basic calling and texting functions, to apps, you can plug in each as a tile on the home screen. Think having one-button access on the home screen to your Facebook, Twitter and Mail. We like that. You can scroll up and down through these tiles, and also switch to a secondary screen that has a long list of all that is on the phone. We know there is a case for tiles against a grid-based screen, but we found it pretty easy to work with considering there are only five to ten tiles you really need .

The swipe and scroll works pretty well, and we hope for the same awesomeness on other devices too. What we digged most were the font sizes in the native apps on the WP7. Even senior citizens would very easily be able to read messages and especially e-mails. Typing is even easier. We are ready to declare here that the HD7 has the best on-board keyboard we have seen yet on a phone that is not an iPhone. Accuracy wise it matches the iPhone and completely out slams the Android devices we have used. You will never type wrong, no matter how fat your fingers are.

Some niggles
Instead of having a contacts list, the HD7 has what is called the ‘People Hub.’ This hub can integrate contacts from your Google account, your Windows Live account, and your Facebook account, and then show an integrated contacts list. Here, we don’t think the Facebook sync bit helps at all.

In fact, we completely did not like integrating all our Facebook contacts with our friends and family. The awful part is that you cannot do anything about it besides working the option to remove Facebook contacts who aren’t represented in one of your other contact lists (like Gmail), but this is a bit of a ruse. Though the names are removed from your list, when you do a search, the Facebook friends also show up.
Some users have also been unhappy with the fact that there is no multitasking. While we are staunch believers in the fact that multitasking is way too overrated, the fact that it is available in less exciting phones does go up as a big negative.

However, the cardinal sin committed on the WP7 development front has to be the fact that there is no cut-copy-paste function. Why that is absent in a phone with such great document capabilities will remain a mystery for ages.

Also, there is the small issue of the lack of apps. Windows Marketplace is a sad cousin of the iPhone and Android operationally. There are hardly any apps to really pine for but the basic ones are there.

For the entrepreneur

The HD7 offers a lot to the businessman on the go. The e-mail app on the HD7 is easy to set up and works like a dream. A really good feature is the ‘unread’ view within the e-mail function, letting you get straight to what you need to. Contacts for e-mail can be searched off the address book and the app also remembers any other e-mail addresses that you may have previously mailed off from the phone. You can attach word, excel, and other such files as well.

Speaking of word and excel, one of the reasons a businessman should buy the HD7 is that there is native Microsoft Office on it and when you couple it with that awesome keyboard, it seems a much better buy straight away. The Office app lets you create and edit word and excel files, as well as editing power point files. You cannot create one of the latter though. There is also the OneNote function that lets you make notes—text, audio and video. These notes and documents can all then also be loaded on to the SharePoint server for future use.

Our call
The HD7 is a fine piece of telecom machinery. We rate it much higher than all the android phones we have recently reviewed. Yes, there are some niggles, but they should be ironed put by a couple of updates. It is speedy, smooth and large. At almost Rs.30,000, we think it’s worth every penny.

HTC HD7

PRICE: Rs.28,000
Dimensions: 122 x 68.9 x 11.2 mm
Weight: 162 gms
Screen Size: 480×800 pixels, 4.3 inches
Camera: 5 MP with LED flash
Messaging Windows Live, SMS, Facebook, Gmail and MMS.
Battery 250 hrs standby, 5 hrs talktime

Tags:
battery, cher wang, entrepreneur, Facebook, HD7, HTC, iPhone, microsoft office, OS, peter chou, Twitter, Windows, windows phone, wp7