For all Microsoft Windows 7 afficionados, the HTC HD 7 is the phone you’ve been waiting for. It was the first Windows 7 mobile device rumored to appear on the market. When we’re talking Windows 7, there is no phone too big or too powerful, actually is the bigger the better kind of thing. The whole idea behind HTC HD 7 was to get things done on the biggest mobile screen possible, and so they did, with the 4.3 inches of screen that is something else.
Let’s see what’s in store for us.
Key features:
• 4.3" 16M-color capacitive LCD touchscreen of WVGA resolution (480 x 800 pixels)
• Quad-band GSM/GPRS/EDGE support
• Dual-band 3G with HSDPA (7.2 Mbps) and HSUPA (2Mbps)
• Windows Phone 7 operating system
• 1GHz Snapdragon CPU, 576MB RAM, 512MB ROM
• 5 megapixel autofocus camera with dual-LED flash, geotagging
• 720p video recording @ 25fps
• 8GB of built-in storage
• Standard 3.5mm audio jack
• Standard microUSB port (charging)
• Dolby Mobile and SRS sound enhancement
• Wi-Fi b/g/n
• Bluetooth 2.1 with A2DP
• Accelerometer for screen auto rotation
• Office document editor
• Facebook integration and cloud services
• Built-in A-GPS receiver
• Stereo FM Radio with RDS
• Comes with HTC Hub and exclusive HTC apps
• Voice-to-text functionality
• Kickstand with trademark yellow accents
• Great audio quality
Full specs here.
Starting with the hardware, the retail box is pretty standard, it contains a USB charger and a standard micro USB cable, also, a one piece headset with music controls and, of course, some manuals including a presentation CD.
The phone has a slim waistline and its dimensions are acceptable for such a huge screen. The HD7 measures at 122 x 68 x 11.2 mm and weighs 162 grams and this is no little league game, but it’s well built and solid, in the good tradition of HTC Company.
Although is big and heavy, it feels like it will last 1000 years and if the screen was any bigger, we’re talking tablet size.
The kickstand – after all, it’s what makes the difference from the HD2 and the Desire HD. It folds nicely around the camera deck at the rear. The whole thing has ornamental value too. The chrome kickstand is a nice accent matched by a thin strip further down the rear.
The back of the phone is matt plastic and relatively fingerprint proof. The huge LCD screen is no head turner, but to be honest, the capacitive unit has great response and silky smooth, precise performance. Watching videos and browsing, and reading text, are all nice and comfortable on a screen that size and resolution. The viewing angles and sunlight legibility are fine.
Above the display you we find the earpiece and a status LED, as well as ambient light and proximity sensors, all embedded beneath the grill.
The bottom part of the phone features the microUSB port, the mouthpiece and the 3.5mm audio jack.
At the rear of the HTC HD7 is the 5 megapixel camera lens, placed between the loudspeaker grill and the dual LED flash.
Removing the battery cover reveals the SIM bed and the 1230 mAh battery. It is quoted at 320 hours of stand-by and five hours and twenty minutes of talks in a 3G network. The HD 7 is a solid built phone; most of its body is made of high quality matt plastic and with some metal parts on the kickstand.
The phone runs, obviously, Windows Phone 7 with some custom made HTC trademarks; the HTC added apps include Stocks, Photo Enhancer, Converter, Connection Setup and Sound Enhancer. They are all full of eye candy and fancy animations. A few more apps are available in the HTC Hub too.
In terms of telephony, HD 7 performed a decent job, the in-call sound was loud and clear and signal reception in normal limits. Unfortunately, you get no smart dialing, that’s a bummer.
You get a Zune music player and an FM radio with RDS. The music and video players are simple and have straightforward interfaces. You won’t have any difficulties using them. However there are some things missing, like equalizers but you have a nice feature called Sound Enhancer.
The large 4.3” screen with nearly widescreen aspect (it’s 15:9) makes the HD7 a good platform for movie and TV show fans.
The HTC HD7 has no AVI or DivX/XviD support, just MP4 and WMV. However, the Zune software on your computer will automatically convert unsupported video files to .WMV (up to WVGA res) so you can watch them trouble free on your phone. In terms of audio quality, HD7 performs great.
HTC’s camera is a 5 MP autofocus with dual LED flash that takes pictures at a maximum resolution of 2592 x 1944 pixels, it features a simple interface and offers control over resolution, metering mode and flicker adjustment and also effects (fewer than the Photo Enhancer effects) and also Scenes presets. Video recording is 720p, default setting is VGA, and you must pay attention when recording a video if you want HD quality.
In terms of connectivity, The HTC HD7 has quad-band GSM/GPRS/EDGE support and dual-band 3G with HSPA (7.2Mbps downlink and 2Mbps uplink).
The local connectivity is covered by Wi-Fi b/g/n and Bluetooth 2.1 with A2DP. Bluetooth is currently limited as to what it can do – there’s no file transfer support.
The web browser, of course, is Internet Explorer, the best mobile IE yet. But that doesn’t do it justice – it’s actually a huge leap forward compared to version 6. Coupled with the big screen of the HTC HD7, it will make you think twice before buying a tablet.
In terms of business, Mobile Office comes preinstalled and is better than ever, we highlight the two most important apps – Word and Excel; editing is pretty straightforward and easy to use even on a mobile device.
The HTC HD7 comes with a GPS receiver built-in, the native mapping app is Bing Maps, browsing the map is easy and relatively fast.
HTC apps include The Games section which is divided into Xbox Live, Top, New, Free and finally, Categories which has the games sorted into genres.
Final words, HTC HD7 comes with the newest OS on the market and it’s one of the flagships, having the biggest screen around. So, if you want Windows Phone 7 and a big screen the HD7 has a good lead on the competition.
You can visit here for a monthly contract deal; you can get HTC HD 7 for free.
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