

Anandtech's Detailed WP7 Review - HardyLeung
http://www.anandtech.com/show/3982/windows-phone-7-review/

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kenjackson
Wow, I've never read such a thorough review of a phone OS. So far the reviews
have been surprisingly positive. I think it's not at iPhone 4 with this
release, but I think they came out very much in the hunt.

Here's what MS needs to do quickly:

1\. They really need to hurry and get on Verizon and Sprint.

2\. Add multitasking. They are going to get a lot more grief for not having it
than the grief they'd get from some users who experience poorer battery life
due to rogue background apps.

This one is really not that hard for them to do technically. If anything its
probably just removing code paths where they fire events and shutdown
processes.

3\. Improve the Silverlight perf. 3rd party apps need to hum like 1st party
apps.

4\. Get IE9 out the door and the IE9 engine in the phone.

If they can deliver this early in 2011, then I think we'll see some sparks
begin to fly.

~~~
mjfern
In addition to your points above, Microsoft needs to:

1\. Make it easier for developers to port apps from iOS and Android to WP7.

2\. Allow OEMs to customize WP7 and the hardware to some extent so they can
effectively compete with differentiated and innovative products; else WP7
smartphones will become commoditized, just like Wintel PCs.

3\. Consider a different revenue model. Charging $15 a copy to OEMs is a tall
order, particularly when the competition is free (Android). Some have argued
that the total costs of deploying and maintaining Android are higher than
deploying WP7, but how can this be, given that almost all the costs with
deploying Android are fixed in nature, while WP7 costs are primarily variable
(on a per copy basis).

4\. Improve its brand image in the smartphone market and across the board.
Microsoft has a weak brand in the hacker community, given the preference for
open source. Hackers are driving much of the innovation in the application
markets.

~~~
borisk
>> 3\. Consider a different revenue model. Charging $15 a copy to OEMs is a
tall order, particularly when the competition is free (Android).

Android licence is around $10 per phone:
<http://www.digitimes.com/news/a20101014PD213.html>

~~~
rbanffy
I think that would be for the "full Google experience" with Google-branded
apps. If you choose to go plain Android with your own apps instead of the
Google ones, you should be free.

~~~
borisk
Without license one also loses the name 'Android', the good deal on Google Ads
and access to the store. All telecoms and big phone companies do pay the fee.

~~~
rbanffy
True. Android is Google's trademark, much like you can't fork Red Hat and call
it Red Hat or have little red fedoras in its icons.

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zhyder
Beautiful review, though I think Anand should consider using videos to
describe some things.

This is telling of how strict Microsoft is being with the hardware:

"At the top left of any Windows Phone there must be a volume rocker. The top
right has to have a power/lock button. The lower right has to have a physical
camera button capable of waking the phone up from sleep and putting it
directly into the camera app. Microsoft views the smartphone as the
replacement for the point and shoot camera and thus Windows Phone needs to be
able to function just as quickly as a P&S. Finally, all Windows Phones must
have a 3.5” stereo audio out jack and support for headsets with three button
integration."

~~~
Qz
I'm all in favor of the physical camera button. I was actually brainstorming
today about ways to be able to select which app you want to run without
actually turning on the screen (be it iphone/droid/wp7/whatever). I want to be
able to take out my phone and just start doing what I want to use it for
immediately, without fiddling with lock screens and menus. I want it to be a
voice recorder on demand, camera on demand, camcorder on demand, mp3 player on
demand, etc.

~~~
loewenskind
The reason you have lock screens is exactly because you have the phone in your
pocket. If it worked the way you suggest you would have photos of the inside
of your pocket, recordings, _phone calls_ , etc.

~~~
Qz
I think you misunderstood. I'm not saying there shouldn't be a lock screen,
I'm trying to figure out a way to keep the lock screen (so that it doesn't do
stuff in your pocket) but be able to go from phone-in-pocket to doing-what-i-
want-it-to-do, without going through the usual process of: take out phone,
power on, bypass lock screen, search for app icon, etc. I don't know how to
accomplish that, but it would be a huge feature for me if it was possible.

~~~
MichaelGG
Well, if you don't have PIN to lock, you could have different gestures to
unlock that would jump to an app. Like swipe up for camera, right for phone,
diagonal for messaging, etc. Perhaps even show those icons so unlocking is
swiping the app icon you want to use across the screen. As long as it's
limited to a few apps, it might work.

~~~
Qz
Actually that's exactly what I came up with later last night after posting the
comment. Lock screens on android are replaceable right? Maybe I've found my
first dev project...

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jan_g
The phone looks pretty good. The UI isn't to my taste, but that's actually
irrelevant.

However, I am in the middle of development of android client for our streaming
server. There are three major obstacles for me to start developing similar
client on WP7:

1\. lack of multi-threading support

2\. no access to network sockets (yes, microsoft omitted sockets support, at
least for first version of their api, I couldn't believe it also)

3\. development tools for linux

Hopefully, they will clear these obstacles pretty soon. At least first two, I
can be flexible for the third.

EDIT: I have to correct myself, just found out, that there actually is support
for multi-threaded apps. Cool, only one major hurdle left to fix.

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stellar678
Was it just me or did the photographs frustratingly not correspond to the text
of the article?

They're describing amazing visual features like swipe-previews and "tappable
text", then showing photos of some phone in a random state in WP7.

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sssparkkk
I also read on TC: "WP7′s networking APIs currently lacks direct sockets
support. If developers want to network their apps, they’ve gotta go through
the HTTP protocol."

So, with the voice of the dude from WP7's commercial:

"Really?"

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robryan
The network effects can't be underestimated. When I consider a new phone just
having the best operating system isn't going to cut it. If I can't interact
with others because of a different set of apps or be a second class citizen,
getting apps for popular services well after there release on the iphone (as
nokia basically is, if they ever get the app at all) no amount of new
innovation is going to get me to use it.

I think there needs to be an easy way to port apps, then later sure try and
differentiate yourself. The same way the Xbox works where the majority of
games I can get on the PS3 also.

~~~
frou_dh
Games are usually good candidates for portability because the GUI capabilities
& conventions of the host OS need not affect what you do in your custom full
screen rectangle.

~~~
msbarnett
This is usually true; your backend can be straight C and you can have a thin
layer at the front end to glue your game to the target OS. This makes for easy
porting between iOS and Android and Web OS.

But it won't currently work for WP7, as they don't allow anything but Managed
C#. You have to do a top-to-bottom, from-scratch rewrite to target WP7.

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MrScruff
The impression I have of WP7 is that it's targeting the average user, where
the average user is, for example:-

\- Someone who listens to mostly major label music

\- Someone who's friends store their mobile number in their facebook profile

\- Is an avid consumer of social networks in general

Perhaps this is sensible on Microsoft's part but I definitely prefer a device
that is less targeted in it's approach. Same applies to the Pre.

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ZeroGravitas
I'd suggest getting in early with apps called Aardvark if they're really only
giving people an alphabetical list of apps to scroll through rather than any
way to spatially group them.

Works out well for AT&T though:

[http://images.anandtech.com/doci/3982/HTCSurround-9483_575px...](http://images.anandtech.com/doci/3982/HTCSurround-9483_575px.jpg)

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Qz
Kind of a fascinating read. The UI approach seems interesting, but hearing
about all the random things that don't quite work right (or at all) is
disconcerting.

 _The Zune Pass streaming works like an expensive Pandora, except you get to
pick and choose the songs you want to listen to._

That's funny, the whole reason I use Pandora is so that I _don't_ have to pick
out which songs to play.

~~~
danparsonson
_...but hearing about all the random things that don't quite work right (or at
all) is disconcerting._

Is that actually surprising though? I think I'd have been more surprised if
they got everything right on first release, and in any case it certainly looks
like they've made a good start.

~~~
Qz
I agree it's a good start, makes me want to go check out a store and play with
one. I can't really get one though since they're not on Verizon.

But things like not having copy/paste are pretty questionable - it's like
they're several years back when iPhone came out without copy/paste.

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misterbwong
FTA, it looks like WP7 is trying to walk the fine line between Apple (little-
no customization) and Google (full on open source) in its user experience.

If they're able to continue staying on this line for an extended period of
time (say, for two or three generations of the OS) they can be successful.
However if they start falling on to one side (which they have in the past),
they will be seen as a me too in the space and their brand will suffer.

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maukdaddy
_It isn’t quite as bad as how iOS will completely dump a page and completely
load then render it again (effectively double loading pages occasionally -
which is admittely nice way to increase apparent browser market share), but it
is there._

WTF? I hate when otherwise great reviews are ruined by biased, ignorant, or
conspiratory crap.

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ilitirit
Why is it so hard for developers to add copy/paste? What am I missing?

~~~
icegreentea
I believe there's some sand boxing issues on one hand. But usually the problem
is how to make the UI for c-p non clunky and non interfering. Well, that's the
same spiel that companies always give us.

Anyhow, c-p support is coming with the first OS revision of WP7. As anand
stated, it already works on test versions of the revision.

