At first glance, the Focus was a close cousin to the Captivate. Form factor dimensions were almost the same aside from rounded corners and increased plastic. The inclusion of chrome on the sides and top was a nice touch, but did not match the refinement (if any at all) of the Captivate's metal battery door. It of course had a lighter weight with its composition, thus feeling a bit cheaper especially when it would vibrate. The glossy surface of the battery door attracted plenty of smudges and fingerprints, but was not bothersome to me. It was great to see a LED flash with a HD-capable camera as well as a physical shutter button. Even though it appeared similar to the Captivate, a part of me sometimes thought it a tiny bit taller and thinner.
From the first time I turned on the Focus at home, I was pleased to see that the speedy feedback of the OS was not a marketing ploy applied to demo units to draw in customers. On top of that, I appreciated the simplified design of the coloful tiling on the Start Menu. From the large font to the slight touches of animation to certain tiles, I could understand why Microsoft would market WP7 as a highly efficient platform. However, I did not think it was that much different than any other competing model in regards to fostering a phone that would "save us from our phones". While the Start Menu did offer a one-glance convenience, alerts from incoming messages and app occurrences still seemed to operate on the same level as the Active Standby mode of Symbian. The presence of AT&T app tiles was a sore spot, but it was good to know these could be removed quite easily (same proved true for removing these apps from the app listing altogether). Once a tile was selected, I could appreciate the swift animation of all other tiles moving away in a page turning motion before the chosen tile followed suit. Other slight touches added more character to the OS: an emoticon on the Messaging tile changing with incoming SMS, fading profile pictures of contacts on the People tile, artist image on Music+Video tile changing according to the current track. This all showed an unexpected sense of style and artistry on the part of Microsoft, and my introduction to WP7 was officially a good one. I was fully aware of the cons that were in store for me in adopting the Focus: lack of copy/paste, voice guided turn-by-turn navigation, multitasking, standard SD card support, and USB mass storage. Despite those downsides, I was still intrigued by Microsoft's resurrection from Windows Mobile and figured they would not be too intolerable during the review period.
It turned out that I spoke too soon on those potential deal breakers, for they did end up putting a damper on my time spent with Windows Phone 7. Having no copy/paste function or multitasking only served as a minor nuisance that could be easily overlooked for the sake of tolerance. Even using Bing Maps for GPS navigation was not too bad without audible turn-by-turn, but lack of USB mass storage resulted in a most horrible experience for me: Windows Phone 7 Connector for Mac. Being forced to use software for multimedia transfer to my Focus was expected to be just like using iTunes for my iPods, so I initially had no problem with it. However, effects on video and music content possibly caused by the program left me unimpressed. Imported videos of all resolutions were affected by excess graininess on playback, and ONLY MP3s were supported by the music app. Every time the app encountered a non-MP3, it would simply skip over it and display a pop-up error. I found this puzzling since the Focus was documented to support multiple audio formats out of the box, but nothing could be done to fix the problem. I wondered if PC owners encountered the same phenomena in using the default syncing app. As for watching synced videos, I was extremely disappointed in the grainy appearance that detracted from the SuperAMOLED display. Quite frankly, being limited in the video viewing experience had wasted Samsung's iconic screen technology to a certain extent. It may have been a side-effect only noticeable in person and not on footage recorded for my video review, but it was there nonetheless. Next was the SD card situation where WP7 did not officially support it, yet the Focus left the factory with a slot anyway. Warnings to never use this card slot were boldly advertised on the phone with a sticker on the slot itself and printed text on plastic packaging. It turned out that any installed card would simply become infused with the Focus's internal memory, causing severe damage if ever removed. When all these factors added up, I realized I was truly eager to go with another OS as soon as possible. As much as I could try and be patient and positive for the benefits of WP7 and its upcoming updates, it simply was not an OS that was ready for my own personal usage.
Audio quality provided a mixed bag of results for me. I was very impressed by the earpiece for voice calls in granting ample volume and clarity, and a family member noticed a definite difference from using my Captivate in the past. While the loudspeaker was passable for speakerphone calls and speech recognition results, media suffered from tinny feedback and slight distortion in upper volume levels. Although passable for the most part, the listening experience for movies and music still missed the vivid and bolder sound from Captivate. Even though stock in-ear headphones were sufficient, there was a difference noticed from the set bundled with its Android cousin: an additional volume rocker key on the corded remote.
Signal reception was on the same level as most phones I had used within the AT&T 3G network.
Battery life granted me at least a full day of usage with my typical activity.
GPS was fairly reliable for the most part when used with either Bing Maps or a tracker app called RunSatFree that I found from Marketplace. Signal lock occurred quickly, but there were rare moments in a road trip when it did get lost. This could have been attributed to going from 3G to EDGE in rural areas on the highway.
Due to its muted color graphics and lack of audible turn-by-turn navigation, Bing Maps seemed only okay in comparison to alternatives from Symbian and Android. While I did like the fading of street names in pinching and zooming, the listing method for directions in navigation mode felt clunky and primitive. Hopefully, it would not take long for an update to improve this application.
An interesting feature was speech recognition activated from holding down the Start Menu key. This could be used to initiate a web search, open an application, or locate a destination. Results could be hit or miss at times, so I hardly used it.
Office Mobile was definitely what I had been looking forward to on the Focus, especially with the amazing touch feedback of the virtual qwerty. Editing features were acceptable for the new OS and were easy enough to figure out. What I found strange was the virtual qwerty not getting any wider in landscape mode, but this was not a deal breaker. There was also welcomed convenience in doing a long press to access certain secondary characters. One Note was very useful in keeping memos on the go, and there was even support for audio notations as well. Unfortunately, I did not take the time to look into SharePoint. As much as I liked the typing experience, I still could not fight the yearning for a hardware keyboard.
Despite its despicable lack of support for anything other than MP3 audio tracks, the WP7 Music app had a unique appearance with large fonts. Turning on a feature called the Zune experience linked the app to online data to display an artist bio and background photo. Whenever this picture was available for a currently playing artist, it would also be shown on the Music+Video tile on the Start Menu. A useful shortcut feature was a drop down taskbar to show a current track being played along with playback controls. Video playback was extremely basic and did not offer any aspect ratio changing at all. Despite the nice font and Zune data, the app did not feel intuitive in the way it operated. One particular headache was the search function also including Marketplace results along with my own music content.
A pleasant surprise from Windows Phone 7 was its support for my Google cloud account as well as Windows Live. The Focus flawlessly performed as a hub for my PIM data from both accounts, and managing entries on the People app for linking similar contacts was no problem. Taking time to manually enter contacts onto the Windows Live site proved to be worthwhile in getting an Android-like experience. Facebook integration was pretty impressive in how status updates were listed. A Start Menu tile dedicated to my own personal Windows Live account added another method for social networking via the cloud, Facebook, and Twitter.
The camera seemed like a benefit after tolerating the flash-less Captivate, but something else reared its ugly head. Default settings resulted in grainy pictures, so I took it upon myself to change settings. Unfortunately, once I found a specific set of changes to my liking, the camera could not save them. This was further exhibited in the camcorder app by the default being set to VGA, forcing me to change it to HD EACH time I activated it! This certainly took away from being able to take quick shots of decent quality. When I did implement settings changes, images were visually satisfying. HD video was passable, but not on the same level as the Captivate. The LED flash was sufficient overall, but had moments where it did seem a bit weak. I almost forgot to mention that the physical shutter button was a welcomed good point that allowed a long press quick start from Standby mode. As with the rest of the OS, the intuitive interface was quite nice to look at with readable fonts and smooth transitions.
My experience in the WP7 Marketplace occasionally suffered from sluggish navigation. An interface that sometimes seemed bogged down by excess eye candy was still nice to look at, yet not intuitive. Time and practice seemed like the only solution in this matter. Purchasing apps with my Windows Live account was trouble-free like alternatiives from Android, iOS, and Symbian.
Honestly, Windows Phone 7 was a huge achievement for Microsoft to go a step beyond Windows Mobile. Not only did it surpass that predecessor, but it also challenged current touch OS models as well. From its striking graphic design to its responsive qwerty, it was well on its way to making a name for itself as long as there was a demand for it. Even if current limitations were to hinder certain functions on a device, there was no doubt that upcoming updates would soon rectify that situation. Although those happened to be deal breakers for me in staying with the platform, most users were not said to have my taste in mobile devices anyway. Most likely, it appeared that WP7 could be a suitable for someone out there if not me.
Trent Smith
Sent from my Nokia E5
http://about.me/trentsense/bio
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