HTC 7 Mozart review

The HTC 7 Mozart is one of three Windows Phone 7 handsets available from HTC in the UK at launch, and has a focus on high-fidelity audio with Dolby Mobile and SRS surround sound built in.

Available exclusively on Orange from 21 October, the HTC 7 Mozart is very similar in size and styling to many other HTC handsets, save that it boasts the three standard buttons below the screen specified by Microsoft across all Windows Phone 7 devices.

In fact, with its 3.7in touch screen and slimline design, the Mozart could easily be mistaken for one of HTC's Android-based handsets, until you turn it on, of course.

Overall, we were very impressed with the slick and responsive nature of Windows Phone 7 on this device, especially when browsing the web. However, we also felt that Microsoft has gone a tad too far in simplifying things to make the platform accessible.

Buyers should also be aware that Windows Phone 7 is strongly tied to Microsoft's online services in much the same way that Android integrates Google Mail, but even more so. For example, you need an Xbox Live account to play games, and a Zune account for music and video downloads.

The HTC 7 Mozart has similar specifications to many high-end smartphones, with a 1GHz Qualcomm Snapdragon processor, HSPA support up to 7.2Mbit/s, quad-band voice, GPS, 802.11 b/g/n Wi-Fi, Bluetooth and an 8-megapixel camera.

In fact, most Windows Phone 7 handsets have virtually identical specifications which closely correspond to Microsoft's minimum requirements. These also dictate at least 256MB RAM and 8GB Flash storage. The Mozart beats the first with 576MB RAM, but stays with the 8GB minimum for storage.

One glaring omission is the lack of a micro SD slot for expansion, but this is because the memory on Windows Phone 7 is not user expandable, according to Microsoft. Some handsets do have an internal slot, but this is purely for the vendor to include storage at build time.

Windows Phone 7 itself is much more impressive when you get to actually use it than might be gathered from descriptions or even demonstrations. The main home screen comprises live 'tiles', which could be applications or playlists or even a shortcut to a web site or contact.

The concept of the tiles is to show information you need at a glance, so the messaging tile shows how many unread texts you have, for example, and tapping it takes you to the messaging application itself.

This feels very intuitive, and we suspect that Windows Phone 7 could prove a hit with non-techies and buyers who have not used a smartphone before. It is certainly very different from the way the iPhone works, although not quite as visually appealing as the colourful grid of icons that greets you on Apple's device.

In addition to the live tiles, there is a more complete list of functions available by swiping to the right on the home screen. This includes the six 'hubs' of Windows Phone 7: People, Pictures, Music & Video, Office, Games and Marketplace.

Many of the Windows Phone 7 functions and applications make use of a wider space than fits on the phone screen, and swiping to the left or right brings another screenful of information into view, as just described.

The hubs are designed to bring together information from multiple sources, so that People lists all your contacts from Windows Live as well as social sites such as Facebook. It also shows the contacts with whom you have most recently communicated.

The Pictures hub likewise shows not only photos taken with the camera, but those from any Facebook photo albums you have. This link is bidirectional, so the phone can be configured to automatically upload photos to Facebook or to a folder on Windows Live SkyDrive, which perhaps explains why Microsoft does not think support for Flash storage is important.

Although Windows Phone 7 is chiefly aimed at consumers, the Office hub is likely to prove interesting to businesses, not least because of its ability to integrate with SharePoint servers for collaboration.

Included in the Office hub are mobile versions of Word, Excel, PowerPoint and OneNote, which offer limited functionality but can create documents in Microsoft's new XML file formats, as well as open and edit those in the older Office 2003 format.

The Office applications are generally a great improvement over those in earlier versions of Microsoft's mobile platform, and preserve much of the look and feel of the document as it appears on a Windows PC, including embedded images and suchlike.

OneNote can be set to automatically upload new notes to a user's SkyDrive account for access from a PC later, and SharePoint Workspace Mobile allows users to synchronise documents with those on a SharePoint server.

Consumers will be possibly more drawn to the Music & Video and Games hubs, both of which continue the close integration with Microsoft's online services. As its name suggests, Games hub lets users download gaming apps, and even play online against friends using the Xbox Live service.

Music & Video hub stores any audio and movie content, as well as linking to Marketplace to let users browse online for content to download.

However, Microsoft expects that most people will acquire content such as music through their PC and load it to their phone for playing. This now requires users to download and install Microsoft's Zune software on their PC, even if you have Windows 7, which has built-in support to connect and sync to older Windows Mobile handsets.

For audio buffs, HTC includes a Sound Enhancer app that lets the user turn on Dolby Mobile or SRS surround sound enhancement for audio or video playback.

The usability of everyday functions is also greatly improved in Windows Phone 7, and makes the new generation of phones comparable to the best Android devices and even Apple's iPhone.

For example, browsing the web is an absolute breeze with the version of Internet Explorer in Windows Phone 7. We found that pages loaded fairly swiftly even when using a 3G cellular connection, and scrolling around the page and zooming in and out with a fingertip gesture is slick and smooth.

In fact, we would say that browsing on this handset compares favourably with any of Apple's iPhone devices, which seem to have become the benchmark for mobile web experiences. At present, there is no Adobe Flash 10.1 support for Windows Phone 7, although this is coming.

Keyboard input has also been improved with better predictive algorithms for correcting typing errors on the on-screen keyboard. We found that we often needed to correct what the HTC 7 Mozart thought we were trying to type, but overall it was less frustrating than on many other handsets we have tried, which is just as well if users are hoping to edit Word documents with it.

Also worthy of a mention is Microsoft's Bing search engine, which tries to give you results relevant to where you are if you let it access your location data. For example, a search for 'Post Office' brings up the usual web links by default, but if you flick to 'local' with a swipe of your finger, it finds the nearest post office to you and pinpoints it on a map, allowing you to find your way there.

However, Windows Phone 7 sometimes feels like Microsoft has dumbed down a little too far to deliver of ease of use, removing facilities that are likely to frustrate tech-savvy users by their absence.

There is no cut-and-paste functionality in applications, for example, and you can only connect to a Wi-Fi network by selecting it from an on-screen list of visible networks, meaning that 'hidden' networks (i.e. those not broadcasting their SSID) are not supported.

Other drawbacks from a business viewpoint concern management. Windows Phone 7 does not support Microsoft's System Center Mobile Device Manager, which brings older Windows Mobile smartphones under Active Directory control, and it also supports only a subset of policies controlled through Exchange Server.

Back on the HTC 7 Mozart itself, we found the display with its 800 x 480 resolution as good as any other we have seen, and the handset itself is reasonably light at 130g.

One disappointment is the camera. This is an eight megapixel device with xenon flash, but we found the images grainy and less impressive than some handsets with 3-megapixel cameras. However, it also supports 720p video recording to the Music & Video hub.

Our review device had a small number of customisations from Orange and HTC. Orange had set the home screen to reflect its corporate colour scheme, which fortunately can easily be changed by the user, and added a few extra applications, including the Orange Daily news app, Orange Wednesdays and Your Orange, which links to service information. A placeholder also exists for Orange's Maps application.

HTC also provides its own hub, which mimics the look of the Sense user interface on HTC's Android phones. But, apart from the weather clock, this just provides links to download extra HTC applications such as Photo Enhancer.

The smartphone itself is solidly built, like recent HTC handsets we have seen, and is "crafted from a single piece of anodised aluminium", according to the company.

We were initially puzzled by the lack of any obvious battery compartment, but this is cunningly concealed by the styling of the Mozart's rear panel.

The bottom segment of this pulls off to reveal the battery, which is secured inside by a plastic locking bar. Sliding the battery out reveals the SIM card slot, but there is no memory card slot, as explained earlier.

The battery itself is a 1,300mAh lithium-polymer pack, which held enough charge to power the HTC 7 Mozart for several days between charges in our tests, even with Wi-Fi enabled. Quoted battery life is up to six hours talk time and 15 days on standby.

One further niggle with Windows Phone 7 is that the battery level indicator is very small, and is not even visible on the screen most of the time. It pops into view if you touch the top of the screen, but we found it easy to miss that the battery level was getting low.

We liked the HTC 7 Mozart, but in hardware terms the device is virtually indistinguishable from any number of other HTC handsets.

What will make or break the device is the Windows Phone 7 platform, and whether Microsoft can draw enough consumer interest away from the iPhone and Android.

On the strength of what we have seen so far, the company stands a good chance. The new software is slick, easy to use, and integrates well with other Microsoft products such as Office, Zune and Xbox Live.

Our concern is the need to sign up for all these different services to get the most out of a device like the HTC 7 Mozart, and whether the handset itself can compete with Apple's industrial design.

Windows Phone 7 OS, 1GHz Snapdragon QSD8250 processor, 512MB ROM, 576MB RAM, 8GB internal storage, 3.7in touch screen with 480 x 800 pixels, HSPA up to 7.2Mbit/s, quad-band GSM, 802.11 b/g/n Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, GPS, 8-megapixel camera with xenon flash (supports 720p video capture).