Naga said:
Personally wouldn't recommend the HD7 (my wife's got 1). No marketplace support, so most games/ apps are out even if you use the marketplace enabler for Zune. The capacitive buttons on the bottom (search and back) are very sensitive. I always end up activating them when using any app (camera/ games etc.). With no multitasking, I have to restart the games from scratch. No copy paste yet, so forwarding numbers/ details from, say, browser to sms etc. is a pain (search for the pen and paper, lol). Yes, I know the update is coming(when?) but it still sucks majorly until then. The camera does not remember settings (turn off the flash/ switch to HD video every time I start the camera...). The still camera has to be held very steady to get a decent shot compared to the Desire HD etc.. Cannot use as a USB storage device, no custom ringtones. Has everything I hated about the iPhone when it was launched and nothing that I liked about Windows 6.xx. Did I mention you cannot sync MS Office documents to your MS Windows Phone directly? Upload it to skydrive and download it on your phone. Or email them to yourself. Genius!
You're opinions matches mine, I did activate the capactive 'search' button awfully lot and it was too annoying and Yeah in the beginning I thought, I could do without Copy-Paste but no I was wrong, in practical usage I am very much dependent on that feature. USB storage isn't a problem to me and I think why they didn't enable syncing MS-Documents, was because they want to push stuffs like Documents and Photos to the cloud and even personalized settings in their upcoming Windows 8 and Skydrive is going to play a major role in that, and so as it seems they have similar plans for WP7 as well. But again, W8 is scheduled for somewhere in later 2012 and as we are in early 2011 and people are still not used to the concept of cloud storage, this gonna be a downside to many out there, at the moment.
On a sidenote to access marketplace, I registered with a US Hotmail Account (which was created a long long time ago) selected 'US' wherever a 'country' selection popped up (Zune and Startup Wizard is where it asks, I guess) hence I could access Marketplace and download Apps and Games without any issues.
However I gave up on HD7 within two days for many a reason (Some related to the phone and some to the OS):
Updates aren't going to happen anytime soon, again there are many different devices and most of them being bloated by the Careers and OEM's, so fixing everything on each one of them and adding features on top is a difficult task. Rumors are that, the Mango update is not gonna happen until the next year, also Nokia and Microsoft are working very close together in building a global ecosystem and when they release Nokia WP7s that's when the both the micro and macro update cycle (Including bug fixes and user suggested feedbacks) is going to be head-to-head with that of Android and iPhone.
Limitations- No Multitasking, No Copy-Paste, No Equalizer
Annoyances: Bulky (My palms are big yet I find it difficult at times), Power button too flat, Camera button being too hard (Also the hugely evident pink tint in photos which is however easily fixable, but still not nice),GPS didn't lock half of the time (but when it did was almost iPhone 4 like navigation) Low response time of the LCD which is evident all over and especially bothersome when you scroll the application list, Built in speaker's volume is too low, No Multi messengers in the market again without Multi-tasking they're useless anyway,
Okay the above mentioned annoyances and limitations are only to 'me' it may not mean much to somebody else and also there are many annoyances and limitations besides the ones mentioned above, however I wasn't too bothered much by them (like No URL bar in landscape mode of IE, No battery signal is displayed you need to tap on top to make it show up, no unified search function like an Android or an iPhone, would love to have seen a iPhone like folder as a live tile cause scrolling through a myriad of applications is painful, if you search for an app on marketplace the result yeilded lists both Apps and Music in the same view without differentiating between them, Zune is nowhere close to iTunes in managing the content however its better than nothing of Android, MS Office as it turns out is even limited in features than Thinkfree office on Android and QuickOffice on an iPhone)
I realize its too early to get a Windows Phone 7 right now and a hardcore smartphone user should atleast wait until Mango update is released (sheduled later this year or next year)
But on the brightside its a very smooth, clean, dead simple and minimalistic OS. Metro UI is actually very practical and is so much stripped down that it takes a backseat and doesnt come in between You and your content and for the hardware, the HD7 has a very good build quality, a powerful flash, surprisingly it doesnt burn the subject, a decent battery life (contrary to what others say), and lastly it does plays well with WP7.
Bugfixing and tuning the OS based on customer feedbacks and a proper update cycle is what it needs to go down the smartphone path well head-to-head with others.
