HTC Surround review
Of all the Windows Phone 7 launch devices, AT&T’s HTC Surround is likely the most curious. It’s a landscape slider built on the same basic internals as the rest of its platform siblings, but there’s no keyboard under that screen — the quarter-inch slide reveals an aluminum speaker bar and integrated kickstand, which combine to create a tiny little stereo system of sorts. Mix in Windows Phone 7’s heavy Zune integration, add in a dash of Dolby Mobile and SRS Wow “virtual surround” audio processing, and top it all off with 16GB of internal memory, and you have what might be the ultimate phone for on-the-go media consumption. But does the Surround live up to all that promise? Read on to find out! Read more 
HTC 7 Mozart review
Out of all the Windows Phone 7 launch partners, HTC’s obviously been the most hard-working kid in Mr. Ballmer’s sculpture class. So here’s the question: which of the five launch devices is the Taiwanese company’s best work? Well, there’s no such thing as a perfect phone, but we dare say the 7 Mozart’s the most stylish out of the lot. Not convinced? Flip the phone around and you’ll see its two main selling points: its aluminum unibody construction (as applied on the Nexus One and Legend), and its 8 megapixel camera with Xenon flash (as opposed to 5 megapixels with LED flash on the other WP7 devices). Will these goodies suffice to win WP7 fanatics over? Join us after the break to find out. Read more
WebOS 2.0 review
When it comes to webOS 2.0 (now actually called HP webOS), it almost felt like we’d never see the version number, let alone get to review it. It’s been an intense few months for Palm: after floundering in the early part of the smartphone wars, it was scooped up by HP for a tidy sum of $1.2b. Though it seemed like the dream of webOS could fade away, the company made it clear that it had plans to not only continue the work Palm had done in the mobile world, but extend what the tiny company had created to other platforms as well (tablets, and yes, printers). We’ve heard a lot of talk from both parties since the acquisition, but have seen little in the way of proof that progress was indeed being made — but that’s all changed today. Palm has officially released its second generation OS into the wild, along with a new, beefed up version of the Pre (at least in France — North American handsets are coming soon). The company offered us an early developer phone to test out the new OS and see if the combination of tightened code and a significantly faster device (the Pre 2 clocks in with a 1GHz CPU) could make a difference between last place and a fighting chance. We’ve taken an extensive look at the new OS, so read on for our full take! Read more
CTL 2goPad SL10 Review
Last time we left off in the tale of Windows 7 tablets, we’d taken a look at Netbook Navigator’s Nav 9 slate, which by review’s end had us not only wanting to send it back as soon as humanly possible, but concluding that something better just had to be on the horizon. Well, as luck would have it, just a few days later CTL’s 10-inch 2goPad SL10 showed up on our doorstep with some very promising ingredients — a capacitive touchscreen, accelerometer, front facing camera, and a Win 7 software layer. As we said in our early hands-on, we’ve been more impressed with the $499 (it will go up to $599 in late October) 2goPad than we ever thought we would be, but ultimately its Atom N450 processor and its software stand in its way of being the Win 7 tablet to kill ’em all. You’ll want to hit the break to read all about it in our full review. Read more
Samsung Transform review
With Epic 4G styling, a front-facing camera and a $150 post-rebate price, it’s easy to mistake the Samsung Transform for a high-end phone. Don’t. The reality is that it’s a evolution of Samsung’s mid-range Moment and Intercept more than anything else — you’re paying an additional $50 here to get a front-facing camera, an LED flash and a few welcome tweaks, but the same ho-hum performance plus a few new annoyances to boot. Where does it improve and where does it fail? Find out in our full review. Read more
Nokia C5-03 with Symbian^1 Review
Nokia today launches the latest C5 device, an inexpensive touchscreen smartphone with a couple of neat features that may well pique your interest if you want a new device that’s simple to use but covers all of the essentials for modern-day phones. What’s new with the C5-03? Find out more and feast your eyes on the pictures after the break.
The device has a 3.2-inch touch display and now features Wi-Fi, for fast internet access without the need or expense of a data plan. It also features a compass and assisted GPS for use with the latest version of the free Ovi Maps hands-free navigation service, now featuring public transport support and location sharing through social networks. Like many recent Nokias, you can put your most important contacts directly onto the homescreen so you can call, message or chat them up in just two taps. The C5 has a 5-megapixel camera with 4X digital zoom, but no flash. Read more
LG Optimus 7 Review
LG officially announced the LG Optimus 7 at the Microsoft Windows Phone 7 launch on Monday and Pocket-lint was there to grab a hands-on play with the new handset – just to see how it matched up against the competition from Samsung, HTC and Dell. In the UK the Optimus 7 is the only smartphone LG is currently offering and the new smartphone will be exclusively available on Vodafone. It is an all touchscreen affair with the QWERTY variant – the LG Quantum – destined for the US and elsewhere.
Dominating the overall design of the handset is the 3.8-inch, 800 x 480, capacitive touchscreen display that is both bright and crisp when viewed inside. Outside and, as our pictures show, you will start to suffer from that reflective screen – as you do for most phones. Most Windows Phone 7 handsets come with devices in this ball park (3.7 to 4.3 inches), but the AMOLED screen found on the new Samsung Omnia 7 wins out if this is important to you. Read more
HTC 7 Trophy Review
With HTC slicing the pie three ways, Vodafone has its hands on the HTC 7 Trophy as one of its Windows Phone 7 offerings. The other handset that Voda will offer is the LG Optimus 7. With Microsoft keeping a tight handle on things by defining the hardware specs and restricting the level of customisation that manufacturers can do, there is little to pick and choose between the phones on offer. We spent Monday at the launch event playing with the various handsets on offer and this is what we thought of the HTC 7 Trophy.
We’ve seen the HTC 7 Trophy before at a behind-closed-doors preview, but we didn’t get much time with the phone. This time however, we spent a little more time mulling over what this phone has to offer. Naturally, for the full low down on the performance and the quirks the new operating system throws up, we’ll wait until we have a review handset before passing any sort of definitive judgement.
Of the other HTC handsets, the HTC 7 Mozart goes to Orange, the HTC HD7 – the 4.3-inch bad boy – goes to O2. We’re already seeing disquiet about what looks like the flagship model, the HD7, being exclusively tied to O2, but that’s the reality of the Windows Phone 7 landscape at the moment. Read more
Five reasons to switch to Windows Phone 7
It’s easy to ignore the launch of Windows Phone 7. If you never took the time to see what was going on when it was first announced back in March, you’ll be wondering what all the fuss is about. So, for those just joining the party, it no longer looks fiddly, it’s been completely redesigned from the ground up and, best of all, there’s not a stylus in site.
On its own, the lack of plastic pointer should be reason enough to check out Microsoft’s revamped mobile platform but that’s something that other phone systems gave up long ago. Instead here are five things that Windows Phone 7 does better than anything else out there at the moment and why it might be the next kind of handset you choose. Read more
Sony Reader Pocket Edition (PRS-350SC) review
There’s no question about it: Sony had its work cut out when it came time to improve the next generation of its e-readers. Amazon’s Kindle isn’t only the best selling electronic reading device out there, but its new $139 WiFi version is the fastest-selling yet. And then there’s the Barnes & Noble’s Nook, which is an equally capable competitor, especially with recent firmware updates. Oh, and don’t forget about the $140 Kobo. Yep, Sony had some serious work to do and its cheapest option – the $179.99 Pocket Edition — does differentiate in some striking ways. The aluminum reader has been upgraded with a new 5-inch E Ink Pearl display and now has an extremely responsive touchscreen for navigating through books / menus. The updates certainly have put Sony back into the final four, but there’s a few lacking features that just keep it from going all the way. You’ll want to hit the break to find out just what we’re talking about in our full review of this little guy. Read more
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