Posts by whiteafrican

...the limeys can give knighthoods to anyone they want...

...like, for example, Sir Bill Gates (pictured here with Halo because the "Bill Gates Getting Knighted" Icon is not available on El Reg forums... yet).

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/3428673.stm

@Dirk Vandenheuvel

Exactly! "Bricked" is not what happened to these phones at all. Which begs the question, what kind of reality-denying idiot down-voted your post?!

@AC

A lot of fandroids trot out the numbers on Google activations as though it is comparable to other OSs, but it isn't, for the simple reason that Microsoft, Apple, RIM, HP, etc. all make money on each copy of their OS that gets activated, whereas Google loses money on each copy (because the OS is free to the manufacturer, and the cost of the servers etc. - as well as the R&D on the OS - is definitely not free to Google).

"clearly Android would have been the perfect fit" - this statement betrays the fact that you really don't understand market economics at all. Android on Nokia would probably have been a good thing from the consumer's perspective. But it would be a disaster from Nokia's perspective, because it would force them to fight Samsung and HTC on territory in which both of those manufacturers already have an entrenched user-base. If you think it through, carriers would have a hard time pricing an Android Nokia and differently from an Android Samsung. Sure, the build quality, camera, etc. on the Nokia might be better, but phones that do essentially the same thing tend to cost the same amount, and it would be difficult for Nokia to persuade consumers to think otherwise. Hence, entering into the Android market inevitably becomes a race to the bottom, and margins get squeezed.

WP7 offers Nokia a way out. Certainly it's not a perfect way out from the perspective of either the customer or Nokia, but it offers them a very good OS (compare the numbers on customer satisfaction between WP7 and Android & you'll see WP7 is way higher). The fact that no other manufacturer dominates the WP7 landscape means Nokia can (if it acts fast) differentiate itself on the basis of the things it is good at (hardware design, top-notch cameras).

This explains why (as the article states), when the dust settles and the sense of betrayal subsides, analysts accept that WP7 was really the only viable option that Nokia really had.

DaveyP

WP7 uses a standard MicroSDHC card for its memory. Most manufacturers put the MicroSDHC card inside the case, in a slot that is pretty much hidden from the average user (I'm speaking as an owner of an HTC WP7, so I can't speak for Dell). They did this because carriers in different countries wanted to set the amount of memory and the price, according to what they thought would sell. So the last step before dealing up the case and sending the phone to the carrier was to add whatever memory the carrier wanted (essentially, either 16gb or 8gb).

However, the slot is accessible if you're prepared to attack your phone with a Torx screwdriver, and the memory itself is just a bog standard MicroSDHC card (i.e. no soldering irons needed). If you do open it up, you'll void the warranty, but you can upgrade the phone's memory to 32gb (though I don't recommend using anything less than a class 6 card or it'll get really slow). There's a pretty good walkthough example here:

http://lifeinthefastlaneok.wordpress.com/2010/11/07/new-htc-7-mozart-sd-card-memory-upgrade/

@AC

...where to begin?... You see, one of the things that Android phones sorely lack is a proper integrated music/video service. iOS has iTunes, WP7 has Zune, Android has a mess. Sure, you can torrent stuff, use Double Twist, use Amazon MP3, etc. but it's a disjointed hassle. Now try using Zune. For £7.50 a month, you get all the music you can shake a stick at, and you get 10 songs to keep. To put that in perspective, those same 10 songs on iTunes would cost £7.90, and you'd get nothing extra. With Zune, I just download whole albums, listen to them as many times as I like, and if I decide after a while that I actually only like a few of the songs, I can bin the rest 'cos they didn't cost me anything to start with. And if I want more, I just go to the marketplace, and drag and drop a couple more albums onto the phone icon... It's that easy.

Secondly, as you should be aware by now, there is no fragmentation with WP7, and no waiting around while your manufacturer decides whether it is going to bother releasing the new OS upgrades to you. If you buy a WP7 phone, you know that it is going to have access to Microsoft's updates when they're released - because the manufacturer of a WP7 device doesn't need to customize the OS, whereas the Android manufacturer needs to add custom drivers etc. and do its own testing to make sure the update doesn't brick their phones.

Thirdly, when you buy Android, there is no minimum spec for manufacturers, which means that there are some very cheap Android phones out there, but also some very crappy ones (resistive touchscreens and 2mp cameras, etc). When you buy WP7, you know that the minimum spec is very decent (capacitive screen, 5mp camera, etc.). (incidentally, it is also possible to replace the built-in memory on a WP7 phone, it just requires a Torx screwdriver set... but hey, it's easier than trying to upgrade the memory on an iPhone...)

I could also go on about the advantages of xbox live integration, and the fact that the WP7 app ecosystem is waaaaay more advanced than Android was after 3 months, but I'll stop there, because you can see the point. There are just some things that WP7 does better than Android, and for some of us, those things are what matters.

Are there advantages that Android has over WP7? Of course (tethering, USB storage, etc. could be very handy). BUT, do those advantages outweigh the deficiencies of Android? Nope. A simple look at the stats will tell you that customer satisfaction ratings for each OS will tell you that WP7 users are a lot happier with their devices.

Totally agree.

The number of people who are over-eager to jump the gun on El Reg forums is astonishing.

No hard figures = no reliable conclusions.

@Giles Jones

"It's easy to sell out when you don't buy in many units"

Your comment is partially true, and it would be relevant to this discussion, except that we don't actually know how many units were available in the first place (unless we are all supposed to place our faith in this "anonymous source"). So until someone in the know releases some actual hard numbers, I am going to suggest that people reserve their judgement (though obviously the usual crowd of El Reg trolls won't do that...).

But it's also partially untrue - it's only "easy" to sell out if there is real demand for the product. If nobody wants it, then whether you have a limited supply or not is irrelevant. The point here is that clearly more people want WP7 phones than there are WP7 phones available.

Just my 2p.

Seriously?

Dude, check your facts:

- Xbox360 outsold the Wii and the PS3 in the last quarter. Hence, not turd, rather: Market leader.

- Kinect - by the time it went on sale in the UK, it had already sold out in most high street retailers' pre-order system. No figure yet for the few days since release. Either way, serious non-turd.

- Internet explorer is still the most widely used browser in the world.

- Zune - well, ZunePass is pretty popular (it's certainly a better deal than iTunes, since it offers all-you-can-eat music at a really low price). The Zune hardware was never released in the UK, so I can't comment.

- Vista/ME - What is the point of commenting on old versions of windows? Does no tech company have past errors? Does Apple not have the Pippin and the Newton (which both crashed and burned)? Does Google not have Wave and Buzz (ditto, and much more recent too)?

Bottom line - Microsoft is sitting on a massive pile of cash, and has released a phone OS that is sold out in lots of countries, in the first few weeks after its launch. You are a commentor on an internet chatroom, offering them product strategy advice. Do you have ANY idea how absurd that looks?

@flameresistant

Thanks. Nice of you to say.

@Wibble

Ok, seriously Wibble, your myopic hatred of WP7 for no apparent reason is really starting to grate, and you need to check your facts.

You said: "No. Not until it's in general availability and 'real' people have 'real' experience using it."

Err.. it IS in general avalability, and 'real' people have 'real' experience of using it (unless you think we're all stuck in the Matrix imagining all of this... :p ). Before you post your ill-informed comments, do some research: you can go down to your local Orange/Vodafone/O2 store and ask to use a WP7 phone (unless - as El Reg recently reported - they've already sold out... but don't worry - they'll be getting more).

You said: "We don't know how reliable it is (fanboi shill opinions don't count)"

So basically, anyone who uses WP7 and has something positive to say about it is a fanboi and their opinions don't count? Way to express an open mind!!

For what it's worth, I have owned an HTC Mozart for a little over 2 weeks, and these are my answers to your questions:

- "what it's like to live with;" Pretty good - build quality is excellent, no 'creaks', no light leakage, no loose bits if shake it. Unibody aluminium is obviously a good thing. The screen is beautiful and bright. Call quality is solid. The UI is super-fluid and very easy to use. Zune Pass has now completely replaced my reliance on iTunes (to the extent that I have given away one of my two iPods, as I really no longer have any use for it).

- "how long the battery lasts;" obviously it depends on what you use it for. Average use for me is some browsing the web while listening to podcasts on the way to/from the office, some calls, some games and some texts and emails each day, and I have yet to see it get down below half-way (I tend to charge it overnight). I love the fact that you can play 3d games *while* listening to music or podcasts (with no apparent lag) but it does reduce the battery life quite a bit if you do that.

- "if the missing features are really painful to live without;" I honestly haven't had a scenario yet where I needed cut & paste (mostly because the integration of contacts is superb, and pulls in your existing SIM contacts, facebook and email contacts and matches them up, so you don't end up with four entries for the same person - and you can merge contacts if you do happen to find any duplicates). Flash isn't a big deal for me, since I rarely feel the need to watch skateboarding dogs on my phone, so I can't really comment... but Adobe have announced that flash is coming, so by the time I do get that skateboarding dog itch, I'm sure they'll have it covered.

- "if the 'new' features are of any real use;" OH YEAH! I really cannot stress enough how awesome ZunePass is. As I said above, I literally have no use for my iPods any more. It is dirt cheap - for £7.50 per month, you get all-you-can-eat music, and 10 DRM-free songs to keep forever. Those same 10 songs on iTunes would cost £7.90 and you would get literally nothing extra. Secondly, as set out above, the contacts integration is brilliant. Exchange & Office connectivity is top notch (as you would expect, from MS, really). Xbox live is also brilliant (although I don't actually own an Xbox... yet).

- "being Microsoft, how much it crashes..." Surprisingly (and I say this as a guy who has owned several previous Windows Mobile phones, and who has also had to fix my wife's iPhone on more than one occasion) it has not crashed once in all the time I have owned it.

Personally (as I explained in an earlier post) I think it's the best phone I've ever used. If you have any more questions, do let me know.

Mine's the one with the troll-seeking missiles in the pockets.

@David Hicks

You get fans (typically people who want a platform to succeed) promoting phones before their release all the time. Just look at the comments on any one of the dozens of iPhone or Android related articles on El Reg in the lead-up to a product launch and you will see this. So complaining about this issue in relation to WP7 alone is a bit hypocritical.

"The breathless adulation that comes through in many of the articles and a lot of the comments just doesn't right true."

I assume you mean "ring true"? In any case, I seriously recommend that you try actually using one and then see whether the comments are true or not before you claim that they are untrue. Personally, I have an HTC Mozart and I really cannot recommend it highly enough - it is without a doubt the best phone I've ever used. Don't get me wrong, there are some phones with better individual features - I'd love an AMOLED screen from a Samsung, the camera from the N8 and about 32Gb of memory - but even without those things, the Mozart is a brilliant phone. You can read my previous comments regarding ZunePass and Xbox Live for examples of why this is the case in respect of the software, and the hardware is both beautiful and functional. For me, the major selling points were:

Biggest advantage over the iPhone: Choice - you can pick the hardware that suits you best.

Biggest advantage over Android: Updates come direct from MS (no waiting about for a manufacturer to fiddle with the updates for a few months before you get them). Also, no Android phone can compete with ZunePass.

hmmm...

Nice use of the troll icon. Anyone notice how any post that's not rabidly anti-MS gets down-voted?

At 12:43 GMT, Jim Coleman simply posted that he hadn't experienced a crash on his WP7 phone and 4 people down-voted his comment. Seriously, El Reg readers, what gives? Do you just really hate Jim? Do you WANT phone operating systems to crash?

Even if you're a fanboi/fandroid, you surely see it as a good thing that MS is bringing some competition to the market, to spur your supplier of choice into offering a better device? (Well, maybe not... Some of you are probably just haters).

Obvious solution...

Change your order to the HTC Mozart. You'll get your £20 and a better phone as well.

"Only two phones available?"

Err.. in the UK alone, HTC provides 3 phones - the Mozart (Orange) the HD7 (O2) and the Trophy (Vodafone). In the US, there's also the Surround (not sure about the carrier). So that's at least 3, potentially 4 HTC WP7 phones if they bring the Surround over here. And then there's Samsung, Dell, Acer etc. who are bringing their phones to the party too...

As for calling the software a dog, have you even tried using it? ZunePass alone makes Android look old and tired. Your post really just makes you look like an ill-informed hater.

"constantly locking up"

...you do realise that when you turn it off and turn it on again, the screen-lock activates, right?

Seriously though, I've had an HTC Mozart fro almost 2 weeks now and it has yet to suffer a single issue with the WP7 OS. It is a truly awesome phone, and while I would love it even more if it had more memory, I haven't found the 8Gb to be too restrictive (yet).

For everyone else, my thoughts on the WP7 experience so far are:

Zune Pass is truly awesome (seriously, it's as simple as: (1) plug in phone (2) find song or artist in Marketplace (3) drag & drop song, album, podcast, or entire artist's collection straight onto your phone. You get 10 songs per month to keep, and the subscription costs £7.50 per month. The same 10 songs on iTunes cost £7.90, and all you would get would be those 10 songs.) I cannot say this enough: ZUNE PASS IS THE FUTURE OF MUSIC CONSUMPTION.

Xbox live is also excellent. If you're unsure, go in-store and play a demo of "The Harvest".

I have let a bunch of my friends have a go at using it, and the worst thing anyone has said is that it is "on a par with the iPhone."

@Dibbles

I can answer some (but probably not all) of your questions.

The OS itself is a breath of fresh air. It's a lot more fluid and "alive" (for want of a better word) than either iOS or Android. When considering whether you like how it looks, you really need to use it, rather than looking at internet pics/videos. It's very responsive and really rather intuitive. After a day I felt like I knew how to do everything.

The email client is (as you would expect from MS) excellent for functionality. The internal search function is a good example (updates results in real time as you type, which saves you typing a long string of words if there are going to be no results). What is surprising (for MS) is that it is very easy to set up and very slick (smoother and quicker than my wife's iPhone 3GS by some margin). Same goes for texting - and the soft keyboard is on a par with the iPhone. Minor bugbear is that you need to treat each email account separately - no idea if they will fix that.

Office is also pretty good (SharePoint is one obvious benefit) but it's not going to be a phone that you use for creating complex documents (at least, not in the short term). SkyDrive integration is obviously good for users like me with lots of documents.

The browser, (despite being IE-based) is actually pretty good. Smooth pinch & zoom, short load times and nice scrolling. The "rotate to landscape" function is also very similar to the iPhone. On the whole, I would say the browser experience is easily on a par with the iPhone. Downsides: no flash yet (Adobe say it's coming) and AFAIK, it remains to be seen whether MS will allow rival browsers.

Just my 2p.

@Mafoo

Yeah, lots of people misunderstood this one - MS only required the manufacturers to meet a *minimum* set of standards. If the manufacturers want to exceed those standards, they are free to do so (so, for example, the minimum camera spec is 5MP with an LED flash, but HTC put an 8MP Xenon flash camera on the Mozart; the minimum storage spec is 8Gb, but some WP7 phones have 16Gb; You don't have to have a physical keyboard, but some do).

@AC

So many ill-informed haters.

Flash is coming - http://www.engadget.com/2010/10/25/adobe-confirms-flash-player-10-1-is-coming-to-blackberry-window/ (And since the iPhone will never have it at all, and it doesn't appear to have harmed Apple's sales, it seems like a pretty petty point.)

Copy and paste is coming - http://www.engadget.com/2010/10/11/copy-and-paste-coming-to-windows-phone-7-in-early-2011/ (And what on earth are you doing on your phone that requires frequent use of copy-and-paste anyway?)

The "no multitasking" line is nonsense - I am able to listen to music while playing 3d games like "The Harvest" with no trouble at all (it milks the battery, but it's easily doable). What else do you want multitasking for? The only possible use I would have for multitasking on a phone would be having Spotify/LastFM run in the background - but on WP7 it makes next to no difference because ZunePass gives you free* access to all the music you can shake a stick at anyway...

(*obviously you pay a subscription, but the annual pass works out at only around £7.50 per month, and you get to keep 10 songs a month, which works out at about the same price as buying those 10 songs on iTunes in the first place...)