Design and display
HTC HD7 measures 122 x 68 x 11.2 mm size and is sure to feel significantly larger in contrast to HTC Mozart. But, it's also more comfy to hold in comparison to chunky Dell Venue Pro. With 162g, it’s also pretty weighty.
Its nice keyboard lets you accurately and quickly type both in portrait and landscape modes. The handset outshines its WP7 brethren when it comes to screen. Similar to Desire HD and HD 2, it flaunts 4.3 inches screen, which can be termed as its most attention-grabbing feature. But disappointingly, it supports the low resolution of 480 x 800 pixels as in HTC Mozart.
Moreover, we found plenty of blurs and tears on pics and text during horizontal and vertical scrolling, which also miffed us earlier in Windows Phone 7 menus. Apart from this, the colors are also a bit washed out in comparison to displays of other HTC devices.
User Interface
We found the Microsoft's Windows Phone 7 interface on this handset pretty excellent. Large screen and responsiveness make it even more accessible and handy to use. The Home screen of the handset can be activated by just tapping main Windows button, which leads you to a range of tiles, that display continuously updated info related to pics, music, unread email etc.
HD7 is powered by Snapdragon 1GHz processor and packs 576 MB RAM and 512 MB ROM similar to other Windows Phones designed by HTC. Even though, same hardware specs were also incorporated in its old sib HD2, but we found them more speedy because of menu and apps of revamped OS. But, when we used this OS in dark mode, we found it a tad washed out in contrast to Samsung Omnia 7.
Internet Browsing
The handset uses the Internet Explorer, Windows Phone 7 browser, which brings the twofold blessings of IE 7 and IE 8 as touted by Microsoft. It lets you enjoy multi-tabbed browsing, bookmarking, screen zooming on pinch and tap. But, here are also some flip sides of this browser. It lacks Flash, Silverlight and text wrapping for closer zoom.
All in all, the browser will enable you in experiencing fast processing without any lag and jitter, which are occurred in WebKit run iPhone 4, HTC Desire HD and Samsung Galaxy S.
Network and Connectivity
HD7 supports host of connectivity options, but unfortunately all don't perform well as we expected. It provides Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, GPS, 3G, HSDPA, EDGE connectivity, but speed was sadly enough slow. Even the handset also struggles with Wi-Fi particularly while coming out to re-connect from sleep mode.
The device misses out internet tethering thus ensures safe data, but the compulsion to convert some videos annoyed us. In addition, the Syncing of more than four films takes 6 X time in comparison to Samsung Galaxy S. In our opinion, it would be much nice to incorporate better connectivity in the HD 7.
Applications
HD7 is replete with an extensive treasure-trove of applications developed by Microsoft as well as HTC.
The company has incorporated the device with a Sense-like hub, which renders notes, weather, flashlight and other apps. Albeit, out of the box Bing Maps are better mobile mapping apps, but these can't match with Google Maps and Nokia's Ovi Maps because of lacking free sat nav and extra info. Photo Enhancer, Stocks, Calendar, One Note are other popular apps in this device.
Camera
HTC HD7 flaunts a 5MP camera with dual-LED flash, which is indeed impressive but not on so much level as 8MP camera with Xenon flash of HTC Mozart. But, blissfully, this camera packs autofocus and several other specs, which were unavailable in its other brethren.
The pics taken by this camera look crisp and detailed, but we were not much impressed with its color reproduction. Further, we also noticed burnt highlights while took pics in bright sun light.
The camera can record HD video at 720p, but it's also pretty average, as we found a lot of blocking when frames includes host of movement.
Multimedia
HD7 is incorporated with Zune interface with the view to bring multimedia capabilities. Its Zune Pass, which falls between the Nokia's Ovi Music and Spotify for Mobile, renders free streaming of plenty of music tracks from an album in sequence. But, what let us down was that we can't create playlists through it.
Sound of headphones is pretty good, but it intolerably increases while using the sound enhancer. SRS Surround Sound for music, podcast list and FM radio are also nice. You can also buy the songs from Zune Marketplace. Video is also easy to use courtesy to large display screen. But, it a bit washed out sometime and Zune PC software needs video conversion while syncing with phone.
HD7 is integrated with Xbox Live, which is targeted at outsmarting the gaming platform of iPhone and Apple's Game Center. Powered by HD7's internal GPU, Xbox Live provides sleek play with just a little slow-down.
Calling and messaging
The contacts navigation on the HTC HD7 is a breeze and you can find contact via two options. Notwithstanding, we liked the volume of speaker, but the quality of calling didn't impress us too much. We faced hassle in guiding the ear to the loudest spot of this device. Moreover, sharp edges made it troublesome for us to press it near the head.
HD7 renders plenty of email options, as Windows Phone 7 incorporates Microsoft's Windows Mobile eco-system. You can easily set up large numbers of email accounts including Yahoo, Google, Hotmail etc. The messaging interface in email section is also pretty great and lets you easily read the messages with the options of viewing just urgent or unread emails.
Battery life
Due to 1GHz processor, dedicated GPU and lack of third party multi-tasking, the battery life seems well, but it doesn't match with the capability of model. Hence, you can find its 1230mAh battery depleting each day even on the light usage.
Specifications
- Dimension 68 x 11.2 x 122 mm
- Weight 162 grams
- 4.3 inches LCD capacitive touchscreen with 480 x 800 pixels resolution
- Accelerometer sensor for UI auto-rotate
- Proximity sensor for auto turn-off
- Camera 5 MP, 2592Ñ, 1944 pixels with autofocus, dual-LED flash, geo-tagging
- Video 720p
- Internal memory 8GB (Europe) / 16GB (Asia), with 512 MB ROM and 576 MB RAM
- Network Bands GSM 850/900/1800/1900 HSDPA 900/2100
- Wi-Fi Wi-Fi 802.11 b/g/n
- 3G HSDPA up to 7.2 Mbps; HSUPA up to 2 Mbps
- GPRS Class 32
- EDGE Class 32
- Bluetooth 2.1 with A2DP
- USB microUSB version 2.0
- Battery Li-Ion 1230 mAh
- Standby Up to 310 hours (2G) Up to 320 hours (3G)
- Talktime Up to 6 hours 20 minutes (2G) Up to 5 hours 20 minutes (3G)
- Speakerphone Yes
- Audio Playback MP3/WAV/WMA/eAAC+ player
- Video Playback MP4/WMV/H.264/H.263 player
- Radio FM radio with RDS
- CPU 1 GHz Scorpion processor, Adreno 200 GPU, Qualcomm QSD8250 Snapdragon chipset
- GPS Yes, with A-GPS support, Bing Maps
- OS Microsoft Windows Phone 7
- Social Facebook and Twitter integration
- Attractive design
- Large and responsive 4.3-inch touchscreen
- Simple to use user interface
- Integrated kickstand
- Easy sync with Zune software
- Excellent music store
- Nice keyboard
- Poor battery life
- No option to expand memory
- Poor Yahoo search in browser
- Lacks good social-networking
Albeit, the touchscreen of HD7 is large, it doesn't show good video like other Windows Phone devices. Battery life is disappointing. But, HTC HD7 contract deals left us fascinated with the specs of new Windows Phone 7. Zune also renders excellent music. All in all, the device a perfect buy for those looking to switch from a more basic phone.
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