Windows Phone 7 Review, Part 1 – Unboxing

At Windows 7 News we’ll always bring you the best and latest news so I’ve secured a review unit from Microsoft of a new Windows Phone and will be bringing you a complete in depth review of Microsoft’s new smartphone operating system over the next couple of weeks.

The handset I’ve been sent is the HTC Mozart which is the phone I have been looking to upgrade to myself when my own contract allows at Christmas.  I’m not going to concentrate too much on the hardware for these reviews as it’s primarily about the OS, but you’ll want some comments on the handset obviously.
I was thinking of getting this handset for myself primarily for the 8MP camera and xenon flash which none of the other first generation of Windows Phone 7 handsets have.  It will be interesting to put this to the test.
The handset itself is incredibly light.  It’s almost as if there’s nothing in there and you have a dummy unit, but it’s a real working phone.  The build quality is up to HTC’s usual high standards too, though they will have to all maintain this as they’ll have plenty of competition from other handset manufacturers.

In the box there’s not really a lot going on.  There’s a tiny little charger that comes in three parts, the plug, the charger and the USB cable.  This is an extremely good idea as it means you instantly have an international charger you only have to buy a new plug module for.  The USB cable itself is micro USB which plugs into the phone and regular USB at the other end.   The USB port is on the left so don’t buy this phone if you later want to use it with a speaker or desktop dock.

There’s also a pair of headphones and some manuals to help you get started but they’re quite small and, as you’d expect, not at all in depth.  I was hoping here that they wouldn’t be necessary and that setup on the phone would be a complete breeze.  Setting up the phone is something I’ll come to tomorrow.

My initial view of the handset quality and the unboxing experience is that it’s pretty much like any other phone, and the same as any other handset from HTC.  There’s nothing special such as you get with Apple products.  Sliding the innards out of the sleeve reveals just the phone with everything else hidden underneath, which is nice for an initial experience, but it’s not the event I was hoping for with the new Windows Phone.

The screen is of an excellent quality, very bright and clear though I have to say, also very prone to smudges and finger marks.  If this were my own phone though I’d be buying plastic screen protectors.  It remains to be seen how the touch interface will work with these.
There are volume controls on the left in a sensible location, a camera shutter button on the right, but in a place that’s not easy to hit with your hand when using the phone and a power button and 3.5mm headphone socket sit on the top.  The insides of the phone are also sensibly arranged.  Slide the bottom rear of the phone off and flip up a clip and the battery and SIM can just slide out.  I’ll be reporting later in the review, when the phone is being used as I’d more normally use a phone, about the battery life as this is very important: though it’s worth noting that OLED screens don’t use any power when displaying black and so keeping the default black theme for the phone will extend the general battery life.

         

Now I have to say here that I’ve been evangelising about this new operating system since February and looking forward to the phone’s delivery eagerly.  Sadly I only have it for a week or so as review handsets are much sought after (it was a struggle even getting this one so quick and I had to call in some favours at Microsoft to do so).  I know that whatever the result of my experience with Windows Phone it will be difficult for me to go back to my regular phone, but as that’s only an HTC Touch HD you should hardly be surprised.

I’m determined to deliver an unbiased review however and there are already a couple of areas I’m concerned out.  You can click on any of the photos to view them full-size.

Part two : Set-up will come tomorrow.