Windows Phone 7.5 'Mango'
For the past few years I had been using Apple's iPhone 3G, a great phone, but badly outdated by now. I could've stayed in the iOS 'ecosystem' but decided to try something new - WP7. When I got my hands on the HTC Radar, it was my very first experience with the Microsoft developed mobile OS. Previously I had never seen or tried a WP7 phone anywhere, except for YouTube videos.
Considering the background, the switch from iOS was surprisinly easy and pleasant. Maybe it was because I'm tech-oriented guy. Nonetheless, the WP7 operating system is very nice. It's different from iOS or Android, and fits somwhere in between them, in my opinion. The logic is different from the two most popular mobile systems, but after a short while you'll get used to it. Most notable are the features of Live Tiles on the home screen and the Metro style UI.
Live tiles are more than the typical icons on iOS and Android because they show much more information. E.g. "Me" tile shows notifications from social media apps, calendar shows upcoming events, etc. etc. Metro style is in use in most of the apps, the logic is that different views inside the app are horizontally arrangend. You move between these views with familiar swipe gesture. Live tiles are colored according to the current theme color and it can be changed from the settings at any moment.
WP7 application count is growing at fast pace with some 40 000 apps currently available at the Marketplace. Many of the most popular apps are already available, such as Facebook, Foursquare, Twitter and WhatsApp. There are some nice "WP7 specific" things, such as pre-installed Office suite and of course Xbox Live that is really nice addition to a mobile device! It makes it's easier to keep up with Xbox Live friends and it's more fun to collect achievements from games on your phone rather than just playing them without such goals.
The Windows Phone slogan "Put people first" is apt. One of the cool features of the OS is "people hub" that integrates your contact info from all social medias and accounts into one place. Then, by tapping a person you can choose which way to contact him/her, whether it's a post on Facebook wall or SMS. You can also arrange people into groups and tap contacts to the start screen.
Some of the settings where rather hard to find or I wasn't unable to find them at all. Sometimes (mostly in the early stage) it was also difficult to understand that the physical "back" button on the phone itself also applies to moving within the applications.
Other than that, WP7 is easy to use, swift and - imho - looks gorgeous.
HTC Radar
General
My first impression of the phone was: surprisingly elegant. HTC Radar is packed in a neat, clean package with not too much of extra materials. Once I took the phone out of the box, it looked and felt great: the grey metallic body was quite sleek and it had a feeling of better quality than what I expected.
Sure, it sorf of looks like the most of the usual smartphones out there, but itlooks great anyway. It's almost identical in the size with my iPhone 3G (Radar: 120.5 x 61.5 x 10.9 mm, iPhone: 115.5 x 62.1 x 12.3 mm) with a little taller and slimmer design.
Setting up the phone was easy by following the on-screen instructions. Sadly though, my SIM-card didn't have any contact so I had to manually insert people who were not on my Facebook or Window Live services. I hope the transition to my next phone will be easier, though I doubt it.
Screen
The screen in HTC Radar is 3.8" in size and with the WP7 standard of 800x480 pixels it gives a very nice resolution of around 246 ppi. To me, it was a positive surprise to realize how sharp the screens in the smartphones are these days. The text is so sharp that you basically don't see the pixels anymore. Also the viewing angle is great (comparing to my old phone).
The glossy surface of the damage resistant Gorilla Glass display looks and feels great, although it reflects lamp lights etc. in "right" angles. The automatic brightness level setting seems to work well and I like to keep it on.
Camera
The camera on HTC Radar is a 5 Mpx with a F2.2 lens that gives a bit more wider angle and better low-light photography than perhaps the average cameras on other phones (it's getting more common I think, though). The photo quality is OK: looked up close the pictures are quite blurry on flat surfaces, but for any online use they scale down to be great. Photos taken on daylight can also qualify for regular print photos, but not any larger print than that I think. But what I really love is the simplicity of taking a photo: even when the phone is in lock screen, you can start the camera quickly by pressing down the camera button.
Once in the camera mode, you can either choose to take pictures with the physical camera button, or tap on the screen to focus and shoot on a specified target. You can also access the many options and settings of the camera while in the camera mode. I especially love the Panorama mode that helps you take panorama pictures by stitching 3 photos into one as you turn your camera horizontally. Very easy and great way to capture landscapes etc. Click the link to see some of my HTC Radar sample pictures
HTC Radar can also capture 720p HD video that seems to be quite good in quality. Unfortunately, I haven't had a chance to really test it in life, but you can see some of my not-so-great test videos on YouTube: HTC Radar HD video sample 1 | HTC Radar HD video sample 2
HTC Radar also has a front facing camera, but that I haven't had a chance to test in any way. Guess it'll be useful if you like to make video calls.
Software
The phone came pre-installed with some HTC specific apps, but I haven't found them that much useful since there are many other apps that can take their place (weather apps, photo editing tools). But when getting started, they were a good addition.
Talking about the photo editing apps, it's great how easily you can edit the photos on your phone. Once you've taken a picture on your phone you can directly open it in your favorite image editing app from the camera roll. Then, after editing the photo is saved in Saved pictures folder.
One absolutely great thing is the easy of sharing pictures and videos into social media: just tap on the share action and you can choose to which services you wish to share that picture, whether it's Facebook, Twitter, email or SkyDrive. One thing to notice: the built-in share feature compresses the images into smaller size, so if you want to upload the full resolution image, you need to use specific app of that service, e.g. Facebook. Many of these share and other features are part of the WP7 system and it has been just a thrill for me to find and use them on this my first WP7 device.
One of the not so great experiences is the syncing the of the phone with my computer that happens to be a Mac. There is an Mac application for this use and the interface is nice and easy to understand, but when syncing it uses iPhoto which I don't use, and getting iTunes music to the phone seems to be blocked because of some DRM things. But you can get files off the phone with direct file download, which I tend to use now. It's a shame the phone doesn't shop up on desktop as a USB memory or a connected camera like the iPhone does.
Some final thoughts
The price tag for HTC Radar is very compelling, since it's a mid-range smartphone and not the flagship phone or even flagship WP7 phone of HTC (Titan is). There are some lack of hardware: the processor isn't the best of all with 1Ghz but it's enough to run almost everything very smoothly. The only case so far I've had a slight lag is on some games with alot of stuff going on. Radar doesn't have a compass either, so some apps will miss it.
On the other hand, HTC Radar has most of the stuff a modern smartphone should have: great screen, good camera with HD video, GPS, front facing camera, tons of sensors for games and apps to use etc. etc.
For regular use HTC Radar has all you need, it looks and feels good and it's nicely priced. WP7 is worth trying and if you don't require the most top-notch phone, HTC Radar might be a great choice for you.
You can find detailed technical specifications of HTC Radar here: http://www.gsmarena.com/htc_radar-4131.php
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