HTC Radar WinPho 7.5 smartphone It’s been a year since Microsoft revamped its mobile offering with Windows Mobile 7, which was greeted with cautious enthusiasm by critics and punters alike. It’s taken a while, but we’re now seeing the first major update with version 7.5 (aka Mango) appearing on the solidly built HTC Radar, which also includes a 5Mp camera. …
The asinine decision to provide so little storage while denying memory card expansion rightly cost this device a slew of customers. Seeing as most smartphones today need to be tethered to the power grid just about every day, it appears deranged to force customers into the cloud for their media files, too - wasting expensive bandwidth and precious mAhs on 3G. Not to mention potential customers living in areas with patchy wireless coverage.
For a phone that is supposed to increase WP7's market penetration, MS's business decisions remain rather unfathomable.
"Having an SD slot matters more if there's not much Flash storage."
Last time I looked, both the 3GS and iPhone 4 are still being offered for sale by Apple with just 8GB of non-expandable flash storage. And they're selling like hot cakes.
The apps themselves don't take up that much space. It's the user data that soaks that up. Many users aren't going to have that much, so 8GB is plenty of caching space. If you need more, buy a different phone. (Granted, there's not much choice in WinPho7.5 phones at the moment, but once Nokia's phones start hitting the market, that should change.)
On my iPhone 4 (a 16GB model), the apps add up to just 3.8 GB. The rest is all data, including music (8 GB) and the odd video. Even my 64GB iPad has only 9.3 GB of apps. The rest is, again, data. (And my apps tend to be big: dictionaries, reference works—including the Oxford Dictionary and Thesaurus of English, "Il Ragazzini" English-Italian dictionary, and the Italian Language's own ODE equivalent, "Treccani". And then there's Gray's Anatomy, with all the gory illustrations... these are some seriously large apps. And I even have some games on there too.
The problem I've always had with Android devices is their reliance on SD Cards to make up for a lack of internal storage. Split storage systems are a pain in the arse. I've had WinMo6 phones in the past that took this approach, and the Faff Factor® was annoying enough then; it's not going to be any more fun now. Especially to non-techies, for whom "cache" is something you get out of an ATM.
My 32GB iPhone never had more than about 12GB stored on it.
My 16GB Mozart (don't forget, the amount of memory in many of the WinPh7 devices is down to the carrier, the UK version had 8GB, T-Mobile in Germany ordered it with 16GB) also rarely had more than 10GB used.
On both, the largest user of space was my photo collection, which I rarely used anyway.
My Sensation came with an 8GB uSD, that still isn't half full.
I'm yet to become one of the masses and own a mobile phone, but I am kind of intrigued by this. With the Xbox 360 update out next month and Windows 8 next year everything seems to be coming into sync for Microsoft and I like the idea of the same/similar desktop for all three devices. I guess perhaps I have become some kind of Microsoft fan boy without realising it.
Thank you kindly, it has been a struggle and initially people took the piss, now though people tell me how they wish they could get away from theirs, but now they have one everyone expects them to answer it 24/7. I also dont have a Facebook account, but I don't think that is as rare as not owning a mobile phone.
Cheers
Roger
I'm still struggling to understand why anyone thinks the same UI is a good idea on all sizes of device.
I control my mobile with a thumb and occasional pair of fingers for zooming, that works because the phones in my hand in thumbing distance. Reaching out to the monitor just over an arms length in front of me really doesn't work for me, too much fatigue even if I could reach the screen comfortably. The standard joypad on a console is just a non starter and a mouse on PC or console cant replicate multitouch... do you really want a UI so dumbed down it can cope with all those problems on different platforms?
Kinect might seem the answer, but I'm holding my phone with at least 1 hand so that's half the control missing!
The "Metro" UI in Windows 8 is *intended* for tablet form-factors, not all-in-ones. If the likes of HP or Dell want to slap it on an all-in-one anyway, that's *their* design cock-up, not Microsoft's. (Microsoft are being a bit more careful over the platforms they support with Windows 8, but they have nowhere near the iron control over the platforms their OS appears on that Apple have.)
Windows 8 will have both the traditional GUI _and_ the new "Metro" UI. Devices using x86 processors will be able to use both. Devices running on ARM processors will apparently only run the "Metro" UI.
One of the reasons why Windows 8 has this dual personality is to support tablets that can be docked into a station that lets them run as traditional desktop PCs too. As Microsoft themselves have pointed out, this allows corporates to buy Win8 tablets for their employees, without also having to buy desktops for them as well. This is a neat solution for corporates as it allows for very flexible use of office space. (I.e. you can sit and work anywhere you have a docking station available.) The old WIMP-focused Windows GUI simply doesn't work well in a tablet form-factor, so the GUI switch is a good compromise.
The "Metro" GUI is not backwards compatible with existing Windows applications, so corporate buyers need the old GUI for their legacy applications to work. The Windows 7-derived GUI must be there to allow these applications to run.
Microsoft do make some excellent development tools—as they ought, given their history—and building to the Metro GUI doesn't add much overhead to building for WinPho7's very similar UI. This is despite their using different technologies under the hood. I'm an Apple user, but even I think Microsoft are onto a winner with this, but there'll naturally be a transitional phase as developers learn the new ropes.
Microsoft's Metro UI work also proves beyond any doubt that the argument that slavishly ripping-off Apple's iOS user interface is the ONLY way to build a multi-touch user interface is complete and utter bullshit. Microsoft are offering another way. What's Android's excuse?
Being able to show a list of apps currently in a suspended state in the background isn't multitasking. It's app switching. It might ease flitting between various apps but it's not the same at all as multitasking which would imply multiple applications running at the same time with preemptive, or cooperative multitasking.
Instead WinPho 7.5 has things called background agents which are for running stuff in the background which might be regarded as lightweight non-interactive asynchronous job, usually scheduled, but nothing comparable to true multi tasking. It would poll or do something in the background and notify the foreground to update a tile or the app its associated with. It's analog in Android might be a service class which is there for a similar purpose.
Multitasking is pretty well understood even amongst non technical types - stuff happens while you're doing other stuff. The only thing WinPho 7.5 supports that way is streaming audio, e.g. you can run Spotify in 7.5 and it streams audio while you do something else.
But what about other types of multitasking? e.g. Voip, GPS trackers / navigation, instant messengers, download clients etc.? Do background agents cater for that? Not really.
There are two kinds of agent. Periodic agents are lightweight agents which are allowed to run for 25 seconds tops before they're terminated and may run only once every 30 minutes. Even that granularity is not guaranteed. So they might be useful for periodically checking your mail but tough if you want to poll any faster or use it for for instant messages.
Resource intensive agents (i.e. those that crunch numbers, background download a file) are allowed to run for 10 minutes tops and will not run unless the phone is charging (!). Oh and the screen has to be locked (i.e. not running while any other app is in the foreground).
You can have up to 6 periodic agents and only 1 resource intensive agent running at any one time. The restrictions are so severe IMO that they're worse than useless you may as well ignore the feature altogether and write some tiles and apps and hope users don't notice. BTW I'm not making any of this up, see for yourself:
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/hh202942(v=vs.92).aspx
Is this supposed to be an MS flagship or are they just testing the water? I hope the latter but it would seem strange to slide your OS upgrade out a side door. The spec is underwhelming, not even on a par with the Desire S once you factor in internal memory and the lack of storage expansion. Mind you, Google's Galaxy Nexus (while superior) doesn't exactly break any HW boundaries either.
I'm conflicted. I always enjoy watching MS fail but the smartphone market needs healthy competition. Most folks seem stuck on the idea of MS either getting burnt or conquering the market but it's quite possible mid-table mediocrity will be their niche, e.g. the punters who currently still have Nokia phones.
Why not have 'tiles' small enough to fit 16 or 20 on each screen, so all the apps you use every day are just a click or 2 away? Oh, just realised, Apple,Android,Symbian and even featurephones already do that and Microsoft cant be seen copying the old ways ;)
A UI where every app icon is really a supersized widget 'tile' shows Microsofts tradition of telling users how to do things instead of supporting what users want. No-one can possibly need more than 8 apps on their home screen after all. Think I'll stick to having the choice to mix&match tiny launcher icons with larger widgets scattered across multiple selectable screens.
BTW: I had single key shortcuts available for 2 years on my old Android phone. Didn't use it once. Didn't need it.
As the adage goes, if Henry Ford asked his customers what they wanted they'd have asked for faster horses. I think Microsoft is being bold to try a new tiled interface and I assume that they will do what they always do and provide some "classic" mode for people who prefer the old way. I see nothing wrong with that in the slightest.
My beef with WP7.5 is how crippled the application programming API and the cage they're building around what users may do with their device. It's not even a golden cage, more of a silver plated cage.
"eeeugh, does it bluescreen?"
"eeeugh what a bunch of loosers, they don't have a fully populated app store yet"
"eeeugh what an unpopular choice; less than 30% market share? I don't want to know"
"eeeugh blah, blah, source code, Micro$oft, blah blah"
I'm not in the market for a phone, so I've no particular axe to grind; but it seems that if it were any other player coming to the market they'd be welcomed for introducing some competition....
The most ironic thing is the mobile o/s which most like the old XP experience of registry settings, dodgy drivers, programs that could hang the o/s, the occasional need for a reboot isn't the windows one! Yes, I'm sure *your* particular droid behaves impeccably...
Oh, and if we're going to take marks off for lack of memory card slot... lets do it universally :)
Got the Mango on Friday, not much has changed really and the three big things I want updated have not been done:
1. Timer function for the clock - I don't care that you can download an app every other phone I have owned since the late '90s has had this function and I miss it.
2. Flash support - iPlayer in the car please
3. Tethering - 3 is happy for me to tether and yet there is no way to do it (I have tried the "hack" but the phone doesn't get seen as a modem by the computer so it doesn't work) - I would really have to say this is my number one bugbear with the winpho.
The winpho os is actually quite nice and the games, whilst overpriced, are actually quite good (really enjoying tentacles) but the above three points I believe make it not as good as either Android or IOS. Still, another year on my contract before I make a decision to change or not.
Tethering is in Mango but for some inexplicable reason it's only on the new phones, so my Mozart doesn't have it and neither does your Omnia but the two new HTC phones do and the Nokia phones will as well.
My Mozart is the first phone I've had for 10 years that doesn't support tethering. I haven't used it often but it's nice to know it's there if you need it.
As a 5 year Symbian vet, I had to change my work handset lately and went with the HTC HD7 (effectively the same devive without front camera). I couldn't face BlackBerry and the extra cost (paid by me!) to go with an iPhone seemed unreasonable. No more Symbian, so lets see the new WinPho 7...
What a disgrace. I cannot belive how much crack they must be smoking at Nokia to go with this pile of crap. The HTC hardware is nice (Nokia fanbois, remember that they will be fully outsourced devices too) and mostly pretty good. But the OS is like something from 5 years ago. If you were in a competition to create a new UI in 2006 for a touch mobile device and you'd come up with this then people would've said great effort and still gone with iOS. But nowadays this just feels plain retarded.
I really had high-hopes for Mango to fix BASIC phone functions like making the USB work without Zune, tethering so I can use my 3G witha useful device, crappy onscreen keyboard, a UI that sometimes is portrait only then sometimes landscape only (at its choice, not yours), bizarre ringtone/vibrate selection (cuae you only need 'ring' or 'ring+vibrate' and one vibrate is more than enough!!!) and my list goes on (currently 117 issues on my blog). The browser is soooooooooo useless without any other option it is almost criminal in 2011 how many pages you can't use.
After 4 months, I have to say that I have given up thinking of my phone as a smartphone. I have a lovely screen that does emails and occaisionally I can get it to answer a call (about 50% of the time it doesn't unlock fast enough to answer, 49% it is on vibrate and I never know about the call). In day-to-day use an HTC Windows phone is an untold misery of uselessness. And I so wanted it to be great. Shame on the Reg for giving this 75%.
since you seem to hate it so much ill give you £50 for it, then i can put my HTC HD2 back to WM6.5 and have a propper "smartphone" for work and keep the WP7 for social.
Its unfortunate you cant / wont use it or understand what its all about but dont let it go to waste, ill give it a good home and keep it fed an watered.
Infact, same offer to all you lot that have actually own one (HD7, Radar, Titan) if its in perfect nick first person to reply can have £50 for it
Many of you seem to hate it so much and i can only assume that all the hate comments come from owners because it would be daft to knock something unless youve actually spent a reasonable amount of time on it. that there must be someone wanting to get shot of one
Have you used the phone?
USB wtihout Zune. I'm assuming you mean having access directly to the device without using Zune? Personally, I never had a need to connect my WP to my computer, and when I plug it into power it just syncs automatically all of my music, phones and video. I've never had a need to directly access the filesystem of the phone on my computer (which you can do with a hack). Only time I've needed to directly connect to to perform software updates.
Tethering is supported by Mango, but your phone and device firmware have to support it. Most older devices do not at this point. So I have to agree if you don't have it, then it isn't there.
UI in portrait and some in landscape in the default OS. I would like direct eveidence of this on the phone. While some of the UI doesn't work in landscape, I don't know of single instance where you are forced to use landscape if you didn't want to.
Bizarre ringtone/vibrate optioin? I don't know that this means. Mine has vibrate only and ringtone/vibrate. I can turn virbrate off in the settings if I want ringtone only. What are you looking for? Different levels of vibrate? Otherwise, what makes these bizarre, the fact that it has them?
What is useless about the browser? Does it not display webpages? Mine does, if your can't perhaps your phone is broken.
If you can't drag the screen up about 1 inch to press the answer button, that perhaps a smart phone isn't for you. You have to be kidding me!
For the virbrate only, do you know that if you turn the volume down it goes to virbrate automtacally. Am I not understanding? I've never had a problem with this.
Personally, either this phone is just too complex, you have an axe to grind, or don't even have one. I tried to find the 117 issues on your blog, but Bing and Google can't find it. Would be nice you say that you have a listing of these you include the link to people can look.
Not saying the phone is perfect. But lets get real here thing like "you can't get the screen to unlock fast enought to answer a call" are total BS.
I use my Samsung Windows Phone for business day to day and it has worked great. Again, not saying there aren't an issue here to there, but nothing that you have listed (expect perhaps the internet sharing).
Sadly I don't like it. It really is a lame design for a phone and so much of it lacks polish.
Tethering... er, it lacks hardware support but Mango is great. Well, being honest I'm a bit of a 'if it works it works' on this. It doesn't work on my device and that's incredible given that every device (mostly Nokia) I've owned for the past 12 years supports tethering in some form.
Ring/Vibrate... all good here. Maybe you are lucky but personally I like to set my phone to silent and have it beep once then vibrate persistently until answered. Not complicated but I can't do it. The vibrate has it's own setting (ie vibrate once for a reminder) that isn't mine to control.
Keyboard... really good actually. Again, how many other onscreen keyboards have you used. I type at an fairly quick rate and the flashing of the last letter is an annoying distraction (likely to induce fitting in some I'd guess) and the autocorrect poor. I'd say it has improved nicely in Mango, even the portrait mode, but still it's not on a par with Swype or the iPhone and much worse for single hand input.
USB... Zune is great. Don't mind Zune myself but I really would like the option of loading an MP3 onto my phone when at a friend's house without doing a 15 minute install and reboot of their machine to support my device. Why no mass storage mode? Also it does limit the ability to use other nicer music management software than Zune.
Portrait./landscape... all great. Again, seriously. You really think it is fine that your phone choses the orientation for you. This is just lame software implementation. Why is the homescreen only portrait? My phone even has a kickstand to keep it nicely in landscape but yet when I swap between videos I'm dumped into a portrait world with words half split across the top of the screen. It is just a lazy software implementation. I'm sure it boosts performance and speed, but from a user perspective, it is lame.
Web browser... everything works fine. Well except anything with flash or even more than slightly complicated javascript. I'm not some sort of testing scumbag, I just do some things on the move that I've been able to do with my other devices for years. Check my online banking... fail. Look for a movie in the area... fail. Watch a trailer for the movie... fail (well pass with the HTC pluggin, but still!). Listen to the BBC radio... fail. Watch some football highlights... fail. Read the Reg on the toilet... pass.
So what other issues...
- battery life is terrible and some apps really chew it (listen to music for 4 hours and you're out).
- screen lock activates on every screen timeout meaning you have to type a code every few minutes... sadly my corporate email requires the lock on, but lock and screen timeout should be different
- mute doesn't mute the microphone with headphones plugged in... prob more of a bug than design but massively annoying for making conf calls on trains etc.
-email client pulls email 24/7 with no control of 'sleep' times... gotta love those Americans emailing you viagra offers at 3am... luckily your phone wakes you up to tell you, don't miss out :)
- signal indicator is pretty much absent for no reason... there's space there for icons, they just don't show them... weird design choice.
- no receipts for texts or other messages to confirm delivery... an SMS funtion available since er, 1991
- messy (or lovely) social integration doesn't always give you the right number when you try to call... prob a design choice that I could get used to but really some of my friends have 4 or 5 numbers, I know which to call them on at different times, why does my phone assume it can choose the default and always dial just that?
- the pointless search button... just why when you have 7 buttons on a device would you devote one of them to search? It's an 8 gig device and I know what's on there (it is my phone) why would I search it? And if you're just doing a web search, why not just give me my browser?
- multitasking... the most disappointing fail in Mango, this is a pretty lame effort
- app store... laughable selection of crud, no iplayer bunch of other useless crap and not very navigable
I really can go on. I don't doubt than in a couple of years it'll be amazing when the edges are polished but why would anyone give it a couple of years. Sadly my contract has me for 20 more months of this so I guess I'll see...
Are you sure you've upgraded to Mango? Some of this stuff you've listed is solved.
Web browser... slightly complicated javascript. - The web browser in Mango is IE9 it supports the same websites as IE9 on a desktop PC. The old browser had problems with javascript the new one; I've not noticed any.
- screen lock activates on every screen timeout meaning you have to type a code every few minutes... In Mango you can choose separate times for screen timeout and phone lock
- signal indicator is pretty much absent for no reason... tap the top of the screen and the indicator appears
- no receipts for texts or other messages to confirm delivery... delivery reports are in Mango, I haven't tried them because the stupid O2 network doesn't support them but the options are there
- the pointless search button... Again, in Mango the search button has changed, it now links you in with the new bing functionality. Including the text translation stuff, QR code reader and the local scout which I actually used at the weekend to find a nice restaurant near my hotel in Brighton.
- multitasking... the most disappointing fail in Mango. If you want true battery draining multitasking, get an Android phone. If you want to be able to listen to music whilst you browse the web and pick up where you left off in an application, the Mango implementation is fine.
Other than USB not showing as removable media (see iPhone) everything else you posted is shit.
Teathering is in Mango
The onscreen keyboard has been reported as one of the better ones on smartphones. Just as good as the one on my Desire
What are you banging on about with the ringtone/vibrate nonsense? You can choose what combo you want (vibrate only, ringtone only, both, none). Maybe your jeans are pressing against the volume down rocker after accidentally unlocking the screen?
To answer a call you slide up (half an inch is fine) and press accept. That's too tricky?!?!
Browser works fine for me. Tech websites, GMail, general research, YouTube... Never had a problem. Flash would be nice though...
Any other bullshit you wish to spout? Think the polite term is FUD.
but it is has the same interface that NOBODY was buying last week
but the hardware platform is looking even lamer compared the weekly release of a new Android handsets
but it totally lacks the wow factor of the IPhone
I know ..
but just wait for Nokia to release a phone - that looks the same as every win phone
but just wait till Windows 8 is released - because everyone wants a phone that looks like their desktop
Maybe Microsoft needs to hire some of those "Computer Scientists" running Android, steal some of the UI folks from Apple to design a decent phone and find someone in the company with a clue that the 90's are over and Microsoft's game plan of sticking "Windows" on a product does not mean anyone really gives a dam about it.
Thats the thing, it doesnt need high end dual core SoCs, it works perfect on my old HD2 which is now outdated by current high end standards but it wouldnt run any faster, its lightning quick as it is, i am the limiting factor is this.
Saying that Android runs on multi core SoCs and must be better is like saying home users must have 16 core Zeons systems to get the full benifit of browsing the web or watching a DVD.
Android and WP7 have taken different approches to this, and trying to compare the two of them is a little bit daft, WP7 works, and works very well, it is not pretending to be like other smart(dumb)phones, if it were then MS would have just improved WM6 which is still to this day significantly more "smart" than its newer cousins people write WM off, which is a shame, yeah its UI sucked and it was not the quickest of OSs but there is nothing it couldnt do or be made to do, if MS trully wanted to take on that market then it would just have easily revamped WM, but they didnt, because people people do not actually need a "smart" phone, people just want a funky phone that works, us nerds are the minority!
Whats intresting is the hugely different specs of android out there, im very intrested how they handel cross device app compatibilty, i hope it doesnt end up fragmented mess like some of its desktop ancestors.
End of the day, choice is good for everyone, i wont be ditiching my WP any time, and im quite likely to get another one, are there things i would want it to do, of course, but these features blur the line between pocketPCs and a phone, id rather my phone just worked thanks, anything else my WM6.5 can deal with or failing that my computer.
I think what people here are forgetting is that consumers like ourselves now have more products to chose from, and I like choice. What I've also seen here is that there are people slaggin off windows phone because it has a low market share, I use an operating system thats got a very low market share, as well as one thats got a very high market share, and I use the one with the low market share 90% of the time, because I choose to, because I like to. Windows phone will have people buy and use them because they enjoy to, and if they don't they could always try something else.
The alien icon, because I'm on my second run through of Dead Space 2!
It is a fluid and easy to use interface. Does the web (sans flash, a la i* devices), does the mail, and the calendar, does the twitterbook thing. Has GPS, takes and syncs photos and documents to the cloud and the home pc, does the music player bit too. The screen keyboard works nicely too.
So. It covers the basics, and possibly better than an android device (which is too customizable thus frightening for some) and as well as an iphone (which is usually more expensive).
If you are not a fashionista or technically minded (or a gamer), this is one good smartphone.
I've used iphone and currently using Android. I've also known a lot of people who have not installed much anything on their phones (be it Android or iOS) and going with the factory installed stuff. WP7 (or 7.5) may not have gained significant foothold, but it is a sleek, fast (well optimised) and easy to use.
Hey the naysayers! Have you even used one, before slinging mud? ( - just because it's from the same company which brought Windows ME - )
Anyway.
Personally I prefer (thus use) Android. But I also think the Metro interface is much better than the grid of icons iphone has for the ordinary person who thinks in terms of tasks, not applications; does not want to hunt and peck but just get on with looking at photos or messaging people.
Android with its live backgrounds and widgets and desktop metaphor can get complex (and be intimidating for mom and dad). iOS UI, despite the pretty icons, doesn't have much on my old Palm IIIx.
Of all unexpected places, Microsoft has managed to come up with something different, and with style and zen too.
@David Black
I think that the best thing for you to do is to take the £50 offered by Dazzza and get yourself down town and give it to one of the nice ladies there. It seems that emptying yourself into a tissue every night is not really getting rid of your tension so well...
If you have 117 issues that you've posted to your blog then that probably says a huge amount more about you than the phone. I seriously doubt that I could find 117 issues that annoy me about gang rape or paedophilia.
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