back to article HTC 7 Trophy smartphone

HTC took the lion’s share of the recent Windows Phone 7 launch with three out of seven handsets. Without the big screen of the HD7 or the 8Mp camera of the Mozart, the Trophy looks on paper like the runt of the litter. But its lower price and still impressive spec mean it could end up in more pockets than either of its brothers …

COMMENTS

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  1. Greg 16
    WTF?

    "impressive spec"

    No card slot on a £400 phone?!?!

    1. Sartori

      Bit like an iPhone then, but cheaper?

      Those things will never take off without a card slot you know!! :)

    2. Jim Coleman
      Thumb Down

      Card Slot

      It doesn't need a card slot - your average user doesn't actually want to keep swapping cards anyway, it's just a complication for tech nerds.

      The iPhone and the Nexus S don't have card slots either, and they're both more expensive.

      1. Giles Jones Gold badge

        Not swappable

        Cards on WP7 phones arent swappable anyway?

        Doesn't it think the card is part of the main storage and refuse to work when the card is removed? They cant be hot swapped anyway.

  2. Alex Walsh

    says to me

    that at £400 for a base spec model, there will never be a budget WinPho mobile. Shame, as that will halt the take off of the OS.

    1. Jim Coleman
      Flame

      Rubbish!

      As the specs age, the price of the phones will drop and soon enough they'll become mid-tier and eventually budget phones, at which time they'll have full market penetration. The reason they started out with a high spec was so they didn't end up with the kind of performance disaster that is low-end Android phones. Oh, Angry Birds Lite, anyone?

      1. moonface

        low-end Android phones

        I think the release of the £99 Orange San Francisco has redefined the expectations of budget Smart Phones. Plays Angry Birds just fine with the correct ROM. Got a nice 16GB sdhc card in it, so it has pretty much replaced my iPod.

        Unless Apple or Microsoft really compete at a true budget level, then I predict Android will eventually dominate the mass market. .

        1. Dapprman
          FAIL

          @ Moonface

          'With the correct ROM'

          And just how many off the street punters are going to be jail breaking their phones to download potentially dodgy ROMs that could brick their phones

          1. moonface

            @Dapprman

            "how many off the street punters are going to be jail breaking their phones."

            I don't expect any will but the OSF does demonstrate the power that is now available for £99. To be honest the Orange stock ROM is not too bad but it might not get the smoothest performance out of Angry Birds.

            At present there are no contenders running iOS or Win7 in this price bracket and I am not convinced that they will even bother until maybe it's too late. We will have to wait and see but my point is "low end Android is not under performing any more".

            1. Jim Coleman
              Happy

              Cheap?

              Amazon are doing WP7 phones for 1 cent. Same as they do with Android.

              1. moonface

                1 cent

                Wow! that's quite a bargain, shame about the two-year AT&T contract that comes with it!

        2. Jim Coleman
          Thumb Down

          ROM!

          "...with the correct ROM"

          And there, my friends, is exactly what the problem is with Android.

          1. M man
            WTF?

            ....its an option.

            plays birds better than the £99 WP7 phone....oh right.....

            WP7 is stuck in a middle ground where this phone is "budget", surronded on all sides.

            In fact I cant see why ANYONE would want a wp7 phone.

            Its cheap? androids cheaper, or better value.

            its flexible? no its not get an android if that important.

            I like Windows? (see above)

            its a business phone? nope, defo consumer, get a blackberry, its business and its business NOW!

            Its intergrated and works?get an iphone its more intergrated and works better.

            Its the most intergrated phone at this price?get a second hand iphone, see above.

            microsoft is the daddy?not in the phone market!

            I liked WP6.5?your an idiot. or get an android.

            it from a known brand?hello! MS! renowned for needing patches, get an iphone while you wait for them to fix WP7.

            sombody tell me clarify to me why they got a WP7 phone?

          2. Anonymous Coward
            Stop

            @Jim Coleman

            I don't think he was touting Android specifically - it was a comment on "spec-per-buck" - OSF proves that you can get a decently-specified phone for <£100. If ZTE can do it, so can someone who can also produce firmware worth a damn too (think HTC, Samsung)

    2. Adam Nealis
      WTF?

      Bit like an iPhone then, but cheaper?

      Posted Thursday 20th January 2011 14:42 GMT

      Those things will never take off without a card slot you know!! :)

      In homage to the poerson who posted the exact same comment above.

  3. Ken 16 Silver badge
    Troll

    nice hardware

    How easy would it be to re-flash the firmware to Android?

    1. eJ2095

      Get a HD2

      SAme spec as this thing and yes it runs both Andorid and Win 7 and Meego and unbunto

    2. Jim Coleman

      Eh?

      Glutton for punishment, are you?

  4. Charles Calthrop
    Thumb Up

    I am growing to love that postbox

    I wonder what your neighbours think

    "Ooh look Doris, there's that man again coming out to take a photo of that postbox with his phone"

    "That's nice dear"

  5. DrXym

    Entry level is £400?

    Seems a tad expensive for an entry level device. I suppose MS only have themselves to blame for making their mandatory specs so prohibitive that genuine budget models are impossible.

    1. Jim Coleman
      Megaphone

      Sheesh

      It may be an entry-level device, but it's entry level in what is currently a premium spec. Hence why it's still expensive.

      Having said that, I got an HD7 on PAYG for £360. The trophy will be cheaper than that.

    2. Giles Jones Gold badge

      Indeed

      Min specs are high, but then who wants their product to run on sub-standard hardware and provide a poor user experience?

      £400 is too much, if I could get one for £150 then I'd be tempted to give it a whirl.

  6. pikey

    not bad a phone

    I had one of these for a while, and am impressed. I know as a rule you’re not supposed to like MS phones, and it had tough competition as I was trying it after using the HTC Desire. So what’s so good about it, the battery life is pretty good, the default interface is good. You can connect and pick up your mail easily, on multi accounts (even exchange). Market place is ok, with not as many apps as Apple, but to be honest 95% or greater on there you would probably never use or want. So what is there is ok. Good links if you use Xbox live.

    Which then moves to the bad points, for a business tool it’s a backward step (I was reviewing it for work). The phone is aimed at the consumer market, but is also trying to appeal to the business market, with a strange mix of tools provided. It has office, has good links in to SharePoint 2010, which is what every business needs running MS platform. But then fail on the mails side, with the removal or no support for most of the Active Sync abilities that were available in 6.5, with exchange mobile polices. Or to put it another way if you enforce the ‘do no permit provisional devices’ on your policy (you may for example enforce device encryption) then the phone will not connect to exchange, because it cannot apply the policy, or most policy options.

    With one move MS are moving to the consumer market, and cutting off their current market at the same time, strange.

    1. Jim Coleman
      Gates Halo

      MS

      MS chose to concentrate on the consumer in the initial release, but included the Business Bits that were completed already. Policy support and full Skydrive support will come soon enough as they start to home in on the Business side more. Eventually we'll end up with an OS that's awesome for consumers (Zune / XBox integration) AND awesome for Business (full office, sharepoint, policies etc etc).

      WP7 is a work in progress, but then so are iOS and Android.

  7. Magnus Ramage

    What a dull name! (pp Phouchg)

    Seems nice if you want a Windows Phone 7 device. But 'Trophy'? Daft name. Will this be a trophy phone to give to a trophy wife? Will it be handed out with the next football trophy? etc ad infinitum. I suppose it's better than "the HTC XAI3526", but only just.

  8. Danny 14
    Thumb Down

    plus

    if you have multiple email accounts the main screen is mighty cluttered. Still not an upgraded UI from 6.5 IMHO.

  9. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Got one...

    I've had one for about two or three months, I really like it although I have a few gripes:

    The camera seems a tad unpredictable - sometimes it's really good, others it just doesn't seem to take good pics.

    No user configurable ringtones

    No RDP client (allegedly coming soon)

    No cut and paste (allegedly coming soon)

    No Opera mini - yes (hopefully)

    No ssh app, again hopefully someone will address this.

    Lack of memory card slot doesn't seem to be an issue, I carry a load of the radio4 podcasts and ten or so CDs worth of media on it and it's got loads of memory free.

    Office is quite nice. Overall it's a really good phone.

  10. Paul 117

    Battery Life

    I've had one of these phones for a couple months now, and the battery life is more like 2-3 days as opposed to the 1 day the reviewer mentioned.

    Reviewer, was the handset you used brand new? Did you only use it for the one day? Like most HTC handsets, the full battery capacity is only arrived at after a number of full drains followed by recharges, just like my previous HTC Hero.

  11. Anonymous Coward
    FAIL

    Microsoft Tax take its toll.

    see title.

  12. James 5
    Happy

    Budget ???

    Perhaps we should define a budget level for a budget phone in these inflation and recession hit times:

    I suggest anything under £40.00 is budget, £40-£100 is mid range, £100-£200 is upper range. Anything over £200 should be the "You've got to be joking" range. Maybe force the manufacturers to cut back on their "research costs" and develop long lasting smart phones in the spirit of the new age of austerity (Bankers excepted, of course).

  13. This post has been deleted by its author

    1. Jim Coleman

      Ah...

      Most phones aren't Android.

      And in any case, why on Earth would anyone want an OS made by an Advertising company?

      1. Paul Crawford Silver badge
        Gates Horns

        @Jim Coleman

        No escape, as MS are just as bad as Google:

        http://www.theregister.co.uk/2010/06/27/windows_phone_7_ads/

        And Apple have their own iAd system.

        Who will rid us of these troublesome advertisers?

  14. Anonymous Coward
    IT Angle

    In real use.....

    The three touch screen buttoms (Back / Windows / Search) are a PITA - get too close and suddenly you've BINGed or quit the app....

    Battery life is variable, at the moment I'm recharging every night and frequently get the 'critical low battery' message but that could be from too much game use.

    Every now and then it looses sound output when playing MP3s.

    Other gripes are more general Win7Pho ones....

    * no cut'n'paste,

    * only being able to sync video and music from my local PC - I have a local contact list and calendar in Outlook and I want it sync'd easily without pasting into Hotmail.

    * The conversation style text messaging is a nice feature but it should be optional - I want to file some text messages. Give me an inbox, sent items and delivery reports.

    * Zune - enough said.

    * crap address book - really some people I know have three mobiles, can I have an entry for each please? My four year old work Nokia 3109c can do it....

    * Lack of user defined ring tones or alerts

    * one volume level for everything - I want the ringer loud but not the keyclick.

    * IE - Can I have a 'set' home page.

    Office OneNote - love it.

    I love this phone but I hate it too.

    Simon

  15. dom0410
    Thumb Up

    Seems like a pretty good phone

    A friend of mine got one of these shortly before Christmas as his first ever smartphone. His previous phone was a Motorola Razr so he definitely is a newbie when it comes to smartphones and he is loving the Trophy. It seems that Windows Phone 7 has a pretty good interface that is easy to learn and from my experience I would say it is better for people who want simplicity than Android. The Trophy itself from what I have seen of his is a solidly built phone with a nice sharp screen and he has mentioned that the screen is particularly impressive.

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