The Empire Strikes Back

The new HTC HD7 sees HTC repeat the large display formula of the HD2, only this time with Windows Phone 7 running under the hood. The huge touchscreen with 480 x 800 resolution dominates the front with three touch buttons (home, back and search) below it, while the back nurses a 5 MP camera with dual LED with a kickstand placed over it. You can flick open the kickstand and rest the phone on it in landscape mode to watch videos if you wish. Made mainly of plastic, the HTC HD7 looks sleek enough and while it does not have the drop-dead good looks of the iPhone 4, those who look at it will definitely give it more than one look (although we did find the yellow shade around the camera a tad odd). The HD7 scores heavily in the specs department too, with a 1GHz processor, 16 GB onboard storage (not expandable, alas), 576 MB RAM, a host of sensors (compass, proximity sensor, etc.) and all the connectivity options (Bluetooth, GPS , Wi-Fi ) you could ask for.

But the biggest star of the show is perhaps Windows Phone 7. The tiles and hub interface throws menus totally out of the window (pun intended), looks very good indeed, and is extremely easy to use. You can switch from the homescreen to a complete list of applications on the phone by just swiping your finger to the right. And while Android and iPhone fans might point out that the OS has just one homescreen, the fact that it scrolls down seemingly endlessly, allowing you to place as many tiles as you wish on it, compensates !

The large display is terrific for browsing the Web and the overhauled Internet Explorer now serves up tabs too. As in most mobile versions of Windows, Windows Phone 7 too comes with a stack of software goodies, including a mobile version of MS Office, seamless connectivity to Skydrive (its online storage service), excellent push mail support, Bing search and maps, and a Zune app to play and transfer videos and music. Top that off with a superb People app that gets all your Facebook and other contacts in one place and also keeps you tuned in to Facebook updates by them, a marvellous onscreen keyboard (the best we have since the iPhone), excellent sound performance and you have every reason to believe that the HD7 is one of the best phones in town.

That it fails to live up to that tag is once again the fault of its OS. There is no multitasking , beyond the option to play music in the background, no cut and paste, and while Bluetooth is present, you cannot use it to transfer files, although the option to mail them and upload them directly to Skydrive exists. You have to use Zune to transfer music and video (reminiscent of being tied down to iTunes) and a far cry from the relative openness of both Android and Symbian. Round that off with a camera that is more often than not mediocre and battery life that struggles to see through a day and the HD7 starts looking very human indeed.

There is no doubt that using Windows Phone 7 is an absolute joy, but the absence of apps, especially in a phone that costs almost Rs 30,000 is inexcusable.

FEATURES 
4.3-inch , 480 x 800 pixel capacitive display 1Ghz processor, 586MB RAM, Windows Phone 7 16GB storage, 5MP cam, Wi-Fi , GPS, 162 grams

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