The Windows Phone 7 Review
by Anand Lal Shimpi & Brian Klug on October 20, 2010 7:00 PM EST- Posted in
- Smartphones
- Windows Phone 7
- Microsoft
- Mobile
The Best Smartphone for Music Lovers
To call it a Zune Phone would be a disservice. The Zune was a capable PMP that didn’t gain mainstream acceptance. Windows Phone 7 isn’t destined for the same obscurity. But the Zune icon is present on what Microsoft calls the Music + Videos Hub and it is more functional than the iPod app in iOS and Android’s media player.
The first screen in the Music + Videos hub is the zune panel. Here you have access to your music, videos, podcasts, FM tuner and the Zune Marketplace.
Tapping on music will take you to your music. There are tabs for artists, albums, songs, playlists and genres. There’s a “now playing” playlist that you can add to in real time. Tap and hold over any album or song to add to the playlist. To view the now playing playlist just swipe over to the history tab and tap the current song.
The player interface is pretty slick. Swipe to flip through songs and you get back, pause and forward buttons for playback controls. It took me a while to find the shuffle playback option, which is revealed if you tap the album art in playback view.
Below the song you’re currently playing you get a list of the next three songs in the playlist.
So far I’ve described pretty basic features of any smartphone media player. Here’s where the Zune integration rocks. Viewing any artist or album you get a list of what you own on the device, scroll down and you’ll see a label for In Marketplace and a downarrow widget. Tap the widget and you’ll get a list of artists or albums in the Zune Marketplace.
From here, directly in the media player application, you can preview and buy songs over WiFi or the cellular network. If you have a Zune Pass, you can also play anything you find here right away without incurring any charge.
Zune Pass is the major sellingpoint of Microsoft’s Zune PMP. For $14.99 per month you get unlimited streaming of all songs in the Zune Marketplace. You also get 10 download credits per month to use on songs you want to actually own (DRM-free).
The Zune Pass integration in Windows Phone 7 is just awesome. You can play any song you’d like that’s in the marketplace, even if you’re on the road. You can also spend your 10 credits per month while connected to the cellular network.
The Zune Pass streaming works like an expensive Pandora, except you get to pick and choose the songs you want to listen to. Remember an album that you really like but don’t have synced to your phone? Just search for it in the marketplace and start streaming it immediately.
You can mix streaming songs from the marketplace along with songs you have synced to your phone in your “now playing” playlist.
The whole interface is extremely fast and like the rest of Windows Phone 7, it’s very dynamic. Backgrounds in the Music app are dynamically populated by art pulled from the Zune Marketplace. You’ll get a picture of the artist you’re currently listening to as a background. Dithering can be an issue unfortunately.
Note the dithered background
Playback can continue while you’re in other apps. To access playback controls just hit the volume up/down buttons regardless of what app you’re in.
Navigating around the music app takes some getting used to, particularly if you’re expecting it to be like an iPod or fairly stripped down media player. Once you get the hang of it, there’s nothing like it. The back button always takes you to where you want to go, the UI is super fast and the mixture of your own content with the Zune Pass streaming content is just awesome for lovers of (legal) music. Dare I say the only thing that’s missing is some sort of social network integration for you to share your music interests with others on the device itself?
The Zune experience on Windows Phone is significantly better than what you get from both Android and the iPhone. If you buy a lot of music on iTunes, Zune Pass is probably a better deal. You get 10 song downloads per month plus unlimited streaming for $14.99 per month. You can also stream on your PC and Xbox 360 in addition to your Windows Phone.
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serkol - Wednesday, October 20, 2010 - link
"Flipping through pages upon pages of square app icons just isn’t the most efficient way to do it. Folders help reduce the clutter, but they don’t fundamentally address the problem."Try placing folders onto the iPhone dock. I've placed 4 folders there. Tap on the folder (in the dock), and it opens up the folder, then tap on the app. This look like 4 mini "start buttons" - very convenient, and looks very good.
bobjones32 - Wednesday, October 20, 2010 - link
FYI Anand - there's a dedicated Facebook app in the marketplace that was posted today. Actually created by Microsoft, not Facebook. Any chance you can update this article or write another quick one once you have a chance to take a look? The screenshots in the Zune software look interesting, at least.Regenweald - Wednesday, October 20, 2010 - link
The xbox live integration on this alone makes it a much more attractive platform that anything else out there.( i thought I was going to have to buy an xbox for the new plants vs zombies exclusive content, lol) I'm looking forward to WP8. Many persons have sold WP7 short without anything to actually go on, but now, it already seems like the most complete platform out there. Full windows integration, ZUNE, XBOX and Facebook.Dobs - Wednesday, October 20, 2010 - link
All sounded great for me until IE mobile - What a let down.Basically a deal breaker. Other faults I reckon I'd be happy to live with until they fixed them.
My high hopes sunk :(
RetroEvolute - Thursday, October 21, 2010 - link
How did this let you down? The article didn't really have much of anything to say negative about the IE browser included in Windows Phone 7. Unless you're just one of those people who hate anything with the name IE or Internet Explorer...If you haven't already, try the IE9 Beta for Vista/Win7. It's a huge improvement from their previous versions, and you may just like it.
Dobs - Thursday, October 21, 2010 - link
Did you read page 9 (Rebuilding a Brand: IE mobile)?The benchmarks, blocky text and..
"Slower page loading times aren’t as big of a deal anyways, since you can leave the browser and go do something else entirely while the page keeps loading."
This statement instantly reminded me of dial up internet - not a smart phone.
I don't open a browser to then go and test my multi-tasking or my patience.
Like I said - I'll wait for now. If IE mobile is fixed I'll seriously reconsider.
I don't currently have a smart phone and had been patiently waiting for win7 phone as I thought it might be The One - but it looks like I'll continue waiting.
And I don't think browsers for PC have anything to do with a phone review - Thanks anyhow.
B3an - Thursday, October 21, 2010 - link
I dont think the benchmarks matter that much if actual real world browsing is still good, which it is, and that sites are rendered correctly, which they are.Compared to the current state of many other phone browsers at the moment IE on WP7 seems atleast decent. Other browsers might have greater speed and specs on paper but they wont run as smooth and they often have trouble displaying certain pages.
B3an - Thursday, October 21, 2010 - link
Just read the Engadget review and they also like the browser:"we've got to say that web browsing on Windows Phone 7 is actually a really pleasant experience. "
"Loading the desktop version of Engadget was just a hair slower than an iPhone 4, and just as importantly, rendering new parts of the page as you scroll is plenty fast -- not instantaneous, but fast enough so that you never find yourself consciously waiting for it to catch up. Zooming -- which is accomplished with a pinch gesture, of course -- is buttery smooth. The phone accomplishes this in the same way you're probably used to from other devices: when you first zoom in, it uses the same render resolution so that it can at least show you something without going blank, then it renders the appropriate level of detail as it catches up (Google Maps works the same way on almost every platform). It works well. Zooming in and out of a page -- even when still loading up content -- was super fast in our testing, and rendering happened in a split second, meaning hardly any time spent looking at jagged pixels. We're tremendously impressed with how well the browser works "
However they go on to mention that because of no Flash (yet, Adobe are working on it) that watching streaming video is out of the question for now as the browser also dont support HTML5 video.
MacGyver85 - Friday, October 22, 2010 - link
I was at the launch event in Belgium at the Microsoft HQ and had the chance to ask a few questions. One of which was if they'll be moving to the IE9 rendering & javascript engine once it is finalized. The answer was a resounding yes. The guy also said that they are already using some parts of IE9 as well in addition to IE7 and 8.ishbuggy - Wednesday, October 20, 2010 - link
Does anyone know how WP7 will handle updates? I really hope they enforce updates across all the devices so you don't get stuck with old software versions months after new ones have come out like with android.