Big screen treatment
The 4.3in, 480 x 800 capacitive LCD touchscreen offers multi-touch capability, so it can pinch to zoom. It's not the very last word in sharpness perhaps, but neither is it significantly behind the AMOLED screens from Samsung and others.
The camera surround folds out to form a stand for video viewing
Pre-recorded videos look great on the big screen, which didn't show any sign of sticking or judder, helped no doubt by the 1GHz Qualcomm Snapdragon processor, which also did a good job of maintaining smooth transition between apps and keeping the UI nicely fluid. The video player seemed to be very forgiving of formats and played videos I've been able to play on few other phones.
The Windows Phone 7 interface may not be leaps and bounds ahead of the competition but it's eye-catching, practical and many strides ahead of its predecessor. The main functions are laid out in neat little tiles, many of which change their appearance depending on what content they lead to and which can be arranged to your taste.
There are lots of nice little design touches too, such as the selection of your photos that appear behind the gallery of thumbnails in your photo library. Not that there's anything wrong with the icon-based likes of the iPhone and Android, but it's nice to see something that looks genuinely different for a change.
Record video at 720p HD
WinPho 7 will pull your Facebook contacts into your address book, and social network functions are generally built around Facebook and Windows Live, though you can add apps from Twitter and others by downloading them from the Windows Marketplace.
Next page: HTC adds apps
COMMENTS
Complain to Microsoft
It's MS who have ruled out external memory.
Looks like they've decided to remove every feature not found on an iPhone so they've ended up with something that's like an iPhone but not as good.
Is this a review or a sales pitch?
"I could list a number of WinPho failings, but don't forget that this is version 1.0 and it's a platform that will evolve and grow"
It doesn't matter if it's version 1.0 or not, I wanted to read a review of the phone as it stands now and whether it's worthy of my money right here and now. So, as a reviewer, you should be listing all of it's failings, whether MS have claimed they will patch them or not. MS are late to the game and will expect the OS to be compared to IOS and Android. If it's not up to scratch, tell us. That's why I read multiple reviews before I buy most things.
80% ??
For a 2007 featureset?
No memory cards
No multi-tasking
No Copy and paste
No user ringtones
Something overlooked in many comments
Tony Smith reviews the iPhone4 for reghardware - 75% SIM-free: £499 (16GB), £599 (32GB).
And this phone, which can apparently make calls without wearing a condom, gets 80% and costs £370 sim free.
For version 1.0, that ain't bad.
