HTC's Mango handsets hit shelves in Blighty

HTC's pair of impending Windows Phone handsets have gone on sale in the UK ahead of time. The HTC Radar and Titan - the company's first push into WinPho 7.5 Mango - both went on sale this weekend at Phones 4U after the retailer received their stock a little early. HTC Titan and Radar Windows Phone 7.5 smartphones The HTC …

[Anonymous Coward]

Meh?

Does anyone care about Windows Mobile? It's got limited apps, limited developer support (most have taken their free phone bribes and done a runner), and features reminiscent of Android 1.5

The one thing it does have however, is a huge marketing budget from Microsoft, so expect a tonne of paid shills here to defend it...

[dogged]

Apparently you care enough to both read the article and comment on it.

Strange.

[Tezfair]

shock horror

There's people such as I who really don't care about apps and wasting money on something that they don't actually need.

Im not buying into brands that your forced to install itunes just to make a phone work, or ones that (possibly) track everything you do in the same way as its search engine.

I have WM phone, always have and it does what I need. It makes calls, goes on the web and has a satnav. Anything else is a time waster.

I have set up 'store iphones' at various mobile high street stores in the past and the response was they were rubbish, and my lads -2nd replacement- android constantly hangs and is slow. People will argue how great *their* mobile is over the others. Great, I happy it works for you. Windows Mobile works for me.

[technohead95]

Jog on...

Aesthetically, they look great but I lot interest as soon as it said Windows Phone. The entire time it's been available, I've only seen 1 person with a Windows Phone 7 mobile. He was playing with the tile interface as a way of showing off. Personally, I think he was bored as there weren't any apps to download ;-)

[Herer]

made of fail, made of balls

No custom tones for alarms, emails, texts, and custom ringtones of under 39 seconds (and must be under 1mb file size)? No mass storage mode? No tethering? On something version 7.5!

What a crock !

[The Infamous Grouse]

Windows Phone and sponsorship

I don't know if this makes me really shallow, but I was actually quite taken by the Metro interface of the new Windows Phones and might well have considered test driving one until I saw the ridiculous amount of in-your-face product placement in recent US TV shows from the Fox network.

The most blatant is 'Bones', where not only do the handsets warrant their own lingering close-ups, but characters actually talk about sending evidence to other characters by "uploading it to your SkyDrive."

I know product placement is here to stay, but I've seen it done with much more subtlety than this. Sometimes less is more. Microsoft's efforts are just ugly, and shatter the fourth wall. They make me hate the products, and spoil my enjoyment of the shows.

Nobody wins.

[mcoulter785]

Do Your research

for the record windows phone 7.5 does tethering and custom ringtones. It also has full facebook and twitter integration, a music store where you can purchase or pay a subscription to download as many tracks as you want and the fastest growing app store of all time. I would really check your facts before you troll

[I ain't Spartacus]

Interesting... Any suggestions?

That smaller, Radar one seems worth a look. I've not been impressed with Android, and iPhones are horribly overpriced - although the 4S is £100 cheaper than the 4 was yesterday...

I want to replace Android. I don't really like it as a phone, and the basic functions are poor to mediocre. To be fair, at least I'm able to replace them with something better. But should I really have to download an app to make the basics work properly?

It's a bugger to find anything in the Android Market - Apple's App Store's not much better. I've got loads of apps on my iPad, but I don't really want/use them on a phone anyway - the only non-phone app that I regularly use is WiFi Analyser.

I want a smallish mobile, not a 4"+ screen. iPhone 3GS is logical, as I've got an iPad, but I resent being charged £320, for a 2 1/2 year old model! That should be priced around the £150 mark now, to match the budget Android phones - anything else is a piss take.

So are there any haters of Windows mobile who've actually used it? Mostly I've seen good comments, and decent reviews, and spewings of bile from people who still hate Microsoft - even though their time might be better spent loathing Facebook, (probably) Google, and (maybe) Apple.

So any sensible negatives - or things to watch out for on WinMo7? I need Exchange via a proxy (something else Android seems to need a special app to achieve), a nice address book for 3,000 work contacts, and it would be nice if it would also separate my personal contacts and let me have a personal email account as well. Did I read somewhere that you could set up a personal and a work home screen - and set them to be default at different times? Or was that WebOS?

Oh yes, and it has to work as a phone.

[dogged]

personal and a work home screen

That must have been WebOS. WP7.5 does everything else you list, though.

As for working as a phone - even the most bizarre and strange Nokias always worked really well as phones, so hang on a month or so and see what they've got.

[I ain't Spartacus]

You've got a good point there

I didn't even consider WinMob 7, because I thought they had a requirement of 4" screen or larger. There were no small handsets in the original release. I'm trying to avoid a brick. But I've heard a lot of good things about it, so I shall have to find a mobile shop who actually have working models to play with. Nokia might come up with something interesting soon as well.