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HTC HD7 has hidden microSD slot, user-replaceable card? (update: risky business)
We thought the Samsung Focus was the only Windows Phone 7 launch device that could replace its external storage, but the HTC HD7 can apparently do the same -- there's an SD card slot under that Windows Phone logo, and The Unwired managed to replace it while dodging the dreaded "There's a storage error" screen. What sort of black magic did the publication cast to make it recognize the new card? They're not quite sure themselves, but several factory resets and physical reinsertion of the chip seemed to do the trick, if only for an 8GB card. If you're in a daring mood, let us know if it works for you in comments below! Update: HTC tells us that this particular surgery's a risky one, not only for your warranty but the connectivity of your phone. Here's what you're getting yourself into, according to a senior company rep: While this is not technically impossible, one thing that is important to know is that the process of removing the cover to access these components is actually very tricky – and in many cases, will result in the antenna section being irreparably detached from the circuit board (rendering the phone unusable). Additionally, to actually replace the card, a few reasonably important parts have to be forcibly removed. So, just a good warning to anyone thinking of attempting this maneuver is that the possibility of bricking is extremely high, and will, of course, void the product warranty.Update 2: But if you do throw caution to the wind, you may be able to get it to work with a 32GB card.
HTC HD7 is hitting T-Mobile November 8th for $200... but it's hitting Amazon for $30 less
Yes, true: T-Mobile announced last week by way of Twitter that it would be retailing the HD7 on November 8th -- the same day as AT&T's Samsung Focus and HTC Surround -- for $199.99 on contract. Thing is, it turns out that AmazonWireless is going to be selling it for $169.99 on contract... which, by our calculations, is $30 less for the same product! Obviously, it's the norm for retailers like Amazon and Wirefly to charge less for phones on new two-year deals than their first-party counterparts -- but what's notable here is that Amazon will be undercutting T-Mobile by a nice little margin on day one. Well, at least we think it'll be day one; the site quotes "usually 1 to 3 weeks" for shipping, which should match up with the drop date, give or take. [Thanks, Collin W.] Update: Newegg (via seller Simplexity) has 'em for $150... so yeah, needless to say, looks like there'll be no shortage of ways to get this thing for less than the $200 T-Mobile wants. Thanks, Matt!
HTC HD7 review
The screen that just keeps on going meets the OS that refuses to fit on a single display. Yes, Microsoft's Windows Phone 7, like Windows Mobile 6.5 and Android before it, is getting treated with a 4.3-inch display from HTC for its launch party. The aptly titled HD7 is, by virtue of Microsoft's stringent hardware requirements, mostly just a stretched-out version of its WP7 contemporaries: it offers the standard 800 x 480 res, 1GHz Qualcomm Snapdragon, 576MB of RAM, and a 5 megapixel autofocus camera with a 720p movie mode. So what sets it apart? HTC will have you believe its Hub enhances the buttery smooth WP7 software, while outside the shell there's a handy kickstand for landscape lounging and you do of course benefit from an enlarged canvas for your finger inputs. Join us after the break to discover how much that matters in day-to-day use, along with the rest of our thoughts on the HTC HD7. This review is primarily of the HTC HD7 hardware. Check out our full review of Windows Phone 7 for our thoughts on the OS. %Gallery-105595% %Gallery-105422%
Samsung Omnia 7 takes on HTC's HD7 and 7 Mozart in battle for WP7 supremacy (video)
The alternative headline for this post was "a visual tour of the phones Americans aren't getting," but alas, the HD7 spoiled our macabre fun with its T-Mobile plans. All the same, there's no disguising our disappointment at having to settle for Samsung's Focus and LG's Quantum in the US, while the rest of the world gets to enjoy the delights of the far prettier Omnia 7 and Optimus 7 from each manufacturer. Even HTC, which is also bringing the 7 Surround Stateside, is sending its aluminum-clad 7 Mozart to other, presumably sunnier, climes. Sadly, we can't force these phones' makers to bring them to you, but we can certainly live up to that promised visual tour. Check out the gallery below plus video after the break. If there's one thing that really stood out to us, it was the quality of the Omnia 7's Super AMOLED display. It should be no surprise anymore that it delivers stellar black levels and eye-twisting viewing angles, but it still managed to take our breath away set against its WP7 contemporaries. The 7 Mozart doesn't do too badly for itself, but the HD7 ended up a distant third in our eyes. Closeup video of all three displays follows after the break. P.S. -- LG's Optimus 7 was too late in arriving to join the fray for this post, but rest assured that it, along with the other WP7 handsets featured herein, will be getting a full review in the coming days. If you're curious about the (admittedly small) differences in specs between these phones, don't forget we've broken them all down in our comparison from launch day right here.%Gallery-105422%
HTC HD7 vs. Desire HD: battle of the 4.3-inchers
Come October 21, European smartphone buyers will be faced with the enviable choice of having to pick between two 4.3-inch handsets from HTC bearing the latest and greatest OS from their respective camps. The HD7 will be one of the flag-bearing Windows Phone 7 devices, whereas the Desire HD -- which is already sneaking out into retail in some small quantities -- offers the finest Froyo dessert Google has yet cooked up, replete with some extra sprinkles of Sense-ible enhancements. We'll have full reviews of both in the coming days, but for now, we thought we'd whet your appetite with a tour round their oversized bodies, both in pictorial form below and on video, right after the break.%Gallery-105307%
HTC HD7 costs €599 unlocked at Amazon.de, 7 Trophy priced at £430 in UK
Looks like Amazon isn't sleeping on this whole Windows Phone 7 launch shebang. The online retailer has unveiled its pricing for a pair of HTC handsets so far, with the 4.3-inch HTC HD7 costing €599 ($835) in Germany and the 3.8-inch 7 Trophy setting UK buyers back £430 ($685). The Trophy in particular is coming in at slightly below the typical Android handset pricing, whereas the HD7 seems to carry a reasonable premium for its jumbo dimensions and flagship billing. Alas, neither the UK nor the DE portal will let you purchase or pre-order a handset just yet, but considering that the Trophy is expected on November 8, maybe that's not such a big deal. Europe-wide availability for Windows Phone 7 handsets is coming on October 21, so the best strategy might well be to use these numbers as price guides and wait till the store doors open next Thursday.
Windows Phone 7 handsets: spec comparison
Having trouble keeping track of all the new Windows Phone 7 handsets today? We don't blame you -- even we had trouble remembering all the minor differences between the similarly specced devices. To end our frustration, we've compiled a big chart that lists out the carriers and specs for all 10 devices (with a couple extra MIA) to make our lives a tad easier -- head on pass the break if you need the peace of mind.
HTC HD7 preview (update: video!)
Alright, so by now we all know that HTC's HD7 is mostly a HD2 in imperial new clothes, but let's give the new phone a chance, shall we? We've just gotten to grips with the latest member of HTC's 4.3-inch brigade and predictably enough it feels just as snappy as the rest of the Windows Phone 7 devices introduced today. Navigation is blazingly quick, interrupted only by Microsoft's excessive fascination with animated screen transitions. Clearly, designing the new WP7 OS around hard-set minimum specs has paid off for Microsoft, whose end product exhibits a great deal of polish. T-Mobile, the HD7's exclusive carrier in the US, is keen to point out that it's the largest Windows Phone 7 launch device, so if size is atop your list of priorities, this will be the phone you'll want to start your journey with. We've got some in-depth impressions of the hardware after the break and a video is coming right up as well. Enjoy! Update: As promised, a lengthy video exhibition of the HD7 awaits your eyeballs just past the break.%Gallery-104772%
Live from Microsoft's Windows Phone 7 launch event
The party starts soon! We're at the venue and about to get going, so tune back in at the times below! 03:30AM - Hawaii 06:30AM - Pacific 07:30AM - Mountain 08:30AM - Central 09:30AM - Eastern 02:30PM - London 03:30PM - Paris 05:30PM - Moscow 10:30PM - Tokyo
Microsoft announces ten Windows Phone 7 handsets for 30 countries: October 21 in Europe and Asia, 8 November in US (Update: Video!)
It may have "Windows" in the branding, but Windows Phone 7 is not the desktop PC experience shoehorned into a cellphone. Microsoft tried that with Windows Mobile... and we all know how that turned out. Today, eight months after the Windows Phone 7 OS unveiling in Barcelona, we're finally seeing the official launch of the retail hardware: nine new WP7 handsets, some available October 21 in select European and Asian markets and others from early November in the US. The phones will find their way to over 60 cellphone operators in more than 30 countries this year. Microsoft tapped Dell, HTC, LG, and Samsung to deliver the Snapdragon-based handsets with a carrier list that includes AT&T, T-Mobile USA, Vodafone, TELUS, América Móvil, Deutsche Telekom AG, Movistar, O2, Orange, SFR, SingTel, and Telstra. And that's just for the first wave -- Microsoft has even more handsets coming in 2011 including the first for Sprint and Verizon in the US. Here's the lineup of 480 x 800 pixel (WVGA) phones announced today: HTC 7 Surround -- The 3.8-inch T8788 with slideout speaker for AT&T and Telus HTC HD7 -- Schubert comes of age as a 4.3-inch HD2 cousin for T-Mobile and beyond HTC 7 Trophy -- the 3.8-inch Spark headed to international carriers HTC 7 Mozart -- another heavily leaked int'l player with 3.7-inch display Dell Venue Pro -- 4.1-inch portrait QWERTY slider for T-Mobile we broke as Lightning Samsung Focus -- AT&T's 4-inch Super AMOLED slate we broke as Cetus Samsung Omnia 7 -- the i8700 is a 4-inch Super AMOLED jobbie for Europe LG Optimus 7/7Q -- the E900 is the official 3.8-inch global workhorse LG Quantum -- AT&T's 3.5-inch landscape slider first seen as the C900 HTC 7 Pro -- a 3.6-inch QWERTY slider for Sprint (2011) "Glance and Go," is the slogan Microsoft is using to differentiate itself from an already crowded smartphone market. Something we've already seen alluded to in that leaked AT&T ad. As Ballmer notes, "Microsoft and its partners are delivering a different kind of mobile phone and experience - one that makes everyday tasks faster by getting more done in fewer steps and providing timely information in a 'glance and go' format." He's referring to WP7's customizable Live Tiles, of course. Xbox Live integration is another biggie with EA Games just announcing its first Xbox Live-enabled wares coming to Windows Phone 7 in the fall including "Need for Speed Undercover," "Tetris," "Monopoly," and "The Sims 3." The other big differentiators are the slick Metro UI, integrated support for Zune media and Zune Pass subscriptions, Bing search and maps, Windows Live including the free Find My Phone service, and Microsoft Office Mobile. Now quit stalling and jump past the break for the full list of handsets per carrier and country. Update: Added the official WP7 overview videos after the break.
HTC HD7 is a HD2 lookalike with Windows Phone 7 and 720p video, exclusive to T-Mobile in US
Stop us if you've heard these specs before: 4.3-inch WVGA (800 x 480) TFT screen, 1GHz Qualcomm MSM8250 system-on-chip, 576MB of RAM, 5 megapixel camera with dual-LED flash, and Microsoft's latest mobile OS on board. Yes, the HTC HD7 is almost a carbon copy of the much-loved HD2, albeit with a major upgrade to Windows Phone 7 software and an appreciated bump to 720/24p video recording. Beyond those enhancements, American buyers will be greeted with preinstalled Netflix, Slacker, and T-Mobile TV entertainment apps, along with 16GB of built-in storage. T-Mobile gets the honor of being the exclusive US carrier, with exclusives also going out to O2 in the UK and Ireland and Telstra in Australia. O2 Germany will also distribute the phone, along with Movistar in Spain, Bouygues Telecom in France, and a choice of carriers in Italy. Bear in mind that the non-US HD7s are likely to come with a less capacious 8GB of storage. The phone is scheduled for an October 21 retail debut in Europe, to be followed by a mid-November arrival on US shelves. You'll find the full press release after the break, although you shouldn't bother if you expect it to explain why the nearly identical HD2 isn't getting a WP7 upgrade.%Gallery-104727%
HTC HD7 (aka Schubert) pictured in glorious monochrome, headed to T-Mobile for $200?
We've seen O2 Germany's HTC Schubert and a Chinese HD3, but here's a giant Windows Phone 7 device with "T-Mobile" clearly painted on the upper right-hand corner of the screen. TmoNews got these alleged images of the HTC HD7 from their usual anonymous source along with a partial spec sheet, which actually claims slightly different dimensions for the phone and double the amount of flash memory (16GB in all) than we heard before. Different strokes for different folks, or is one of these two rumors totally off? You'll probably want to keep both possibilities in mind before considering this last tidbit from the very same source: the phone will reportedly cost $199 on a two-year contract. Or you could just wait for us to blow out all the Windows Phone 7 details tomorrow, of course. Update: Enjoying the look of this phone from your vantage point in Great Britain, are you? You might be able to pick one up as well -- 911sniper apparently found a O2 UK version of the HTC Schubert's ROM, as reported by Pocketnow below.
HTC HD7 leaks out once more with Dolby Sound, stars in a brief video
HTC may have stemmed the flood of HD7 activity, but details about the 4.3-inch Windows Phone 7 device keep leaking out. Today, an O2 Germany tipster blew off most of the remaining doors. We've got what appears to be a full spec sheet confirming a 1GHz processor, 8GB of storage and 5 megapixel camera but also detailing internal memory, a full complement of sensors, quad-band radio frequencies, 802.11 b/g/n WiFi and more. There's also a few pictures sizing up the HD7 alongside a Galaxy S, a training slide for the hopefully-more-than-a-marketing-buzzword "Dolby Mobile Sound," and for what we believe is the very first time, a cameo appearance on video. Our tipster says it'll launch in Germany in just two weeks at €559 (about $770) or €79 ($109) on a two-year contract. Tempting, no? Video after the break. %Gallery-104129%
HTC HD7 pictured and specced by rumormongers trying to outdo one another (update: even more pics!)
This morning we had schematics, by lunchtime the HD7 received its first purported image (visible after the break), and now there's already an even bigger and better picture showing the supposed HTC Hub-enriched Windows Phone 7 interface (see above). Any bets against the phone actually dropping into our laps by dinner time? HTCInside.de has garnished its imagery of the phone with a list of specs, headlined by a 4.3-inch WVGA screen, 1GHz Snapdragon SOC (the same QSD8250 as rumored for the Mozart), a 5 megapixel camera with dual-LED flash, 720p video recording, and 8GB of built-in storage. No, we're not exactly blown away by this hardware inventory either, but WMPoweruser has agreed with everything on the list, excepting a MicroSD expansion slot -- its tipster doesn't think there'll be any such expandability. Update: And now we've come across even more live imagery, though the handset they're of is adorned with an HD3 label. Hilariously enough, the title of the Chinese forum thread they're from reads "HD3 picked up at the bar" (according to our machine translation, anyway). Still, this supposed HD3 looks like an exact match for the earlier drawing of HTC's jumbo WinPhone, and you'll want to see it if only for the ingeniously integrated kickstand on the back. All yours after the break. Thanks, Ahmad!
HTC HD7 schematic illustrates our Windows Phone 7 future
First thing's first: there's no way to verify that the above image is a legitimate HTC doc. The tipster seems reliable, having provided WMPoweruser with the HTC Mozart video yesterday, but until we witness Peter Chou holding the damn thing up in front of an audience struggling to get a WiFi signal, we'll remain cautious. Anyhow, what we're looking at above is the claimed first visual of that ephemeral HD7 from HTC, replete with a dedicated camera button and what looks like a dual-LED flash, along with a MicroUSB data/power port and headphone jack at the bottom (identical to the HD2 and Desire HD). It's reassuring to see much of the glorious HD2 heritage being carried over into this successor atop HTC's Windows phone line, though if you're not all that keen on jumping on what looks like yet another superpowered 4.3-inch slate, there's always the rumored Trophy handset as well.
Another HTC HD7 leak: mid-October looks like a go, price is €559 without contract
We're getting very used to spotting the as-yet-unannounced Windows Phone 7-powered HD7 embedded in tables of serial numbers and release dates, and while, you know, a picture would be nice, it's good to see that it still exists in the world of carrier databases. WMPoweruser.com has a leaked O2 Germany lineup courtesy of a tipster, and that chart names an HTC HD7 for the 42nd week of the year, which lines up nicely with that original October 18 rumor we heard for O2 in the UK. What's more, this chart names a price, with €79 on a two year €20 monthly contract, and a hefty €559 tag if you'd like to go contract free. We suppose that sort of decision making is best left for after we've seen the handset, but we won't judge if you'd rather just rush in headlong -- with the HD series pedigree, we doubt you'll be disappointed.
HTC HD7 resurfaces on a T-Mobile accessories list, could be with us by November 1
Aha! The phone you heard about here first has made its second document-based appearance, this time crossing the Atlantic and showing up on a T-Mobile inventory sheet. We can apparently look forward to accessorizing our HD7s with a leather sleeve, a "charge shell," a pair of different screen protectors, and two flexible protective covers made by Speck. Most of these parts are expected to arrive on November 1, and since accessories aren't much good without something to put them on, we can probably expect that to mean the HD7 will be dropping some time before November. It's expected on October 18 in the UK, which dovetails neatly with the idea of it being a headline Windows Phone 7 device from HTC -- that's about the time Microsoft promised WP7's European launch. As to that "Dell Claire" you see near the top, we're hearing it's the T-Mo version of the Dell Streak. [Thanks, John and Jakub]
HTC HD3 to be named HD7 in honor of Windows Phone 7, launch October 18?
Ooh boy, do we have a good one for you today. We've been tipped off that the HD3 -- HTC's mythical successor to the wildly popular HD2 -- is not only alive and kicking, but headed for a bright and sunny Windows Phone 7 future, starting as early as October 18. Before we get too far ahead of ourselves, all the evidence we have for now is the above spreadsheet, which we're told is an internal planning doc from UK carrier O2. It's not exactly the hardest thing in the world to forge so keep your skeptical wits about you, but as silly as this inflationary renaming to HD7 may sound, we find it strangely believable. After all, why wouldn't the company that brought us the Incredible Wildfire of Desire jump ahead a few numbers to keep up with the hot new OS' numbering? [Thanks, ZaK]
