The HTC 7 Mozart is one of three WP7 smartphones released by the Taiwanese company that provide surround sound for watching videos and listening to music.

The smartphone is equipped with a 3.7-inch WVGA screen, an 8-megapixel camera with xenon flash and the ability to record 720p HD video, as well as 3G, Wi-Fi modules for high-speed web browsing.

Most WP7 smartphones are not much different - Microsoft has rigidly set requirements for software and hardware specifications. But what makes the HTC 7 Mozart stand out from other HTC smartphones such as the HD7 and Trophy? The fact is that HTC 7 Mozart pays special attention to sound quality. It uses the virtual surround sound SRS WOW HD - the sound panorama is increased even in headphones, the bass sounds more realistic and more small details are heard.

The HTC 7 Mozart is slightly smaller than the HTC 7 Trophy and HTC HD7, and the camera is better (8 MP versus 5 MP).

The phone has 8 gigabytes of built-in memory, it cannot be increased - memory cards are not supported.

There is a lot on the back panel: a camera lens, a xenon flash, a small external speaker (often mistaken for a micro-USD port for a charger), the Orange, HTC and Windows Phone logos, as well as HTC stylistic elements - triangular rubberized segments at the top and bottom , the body itself is made of aluminum.

The front panel contains familiar hardware buttons: return, menu and search. They are very strict and serious.

In addition to these buttons, along the edges are located: the camera shutter, volume controls, and on top - the lock and off button. There is also a 3.5 mm headphone output.

The HTC 7 Mozart is a fairly thin and light device. But in his hand he lies firmly and confidently. The aluminum body makes itself felt.

The 3.7-inch WVGA screen (although not as large as the HTC HD7 and not Super AMOLED as the Samsung Omnia 7) is very bright and crisp.

The camera of the HTC 7 Mozart is very good - 8 megapixels - the best camera of any WP7 smartphone. The interface is exactly the same as the HTC HD7 and HTC 7 Trophy.

It is a little upsetting that the camera focuses only on the center of the picture; in the iPhone 3GS and iPhone 4, focusing occurs in the place where you poke your finger.

The colors are vivid, and the separation of shadows and reds is good.

In the upper left corner, the brightness is slightly underestimated, the leaves on the tree completely merge.

You cannot shoot without blur in this mode. This is the most optimal distance to shoot. It's all about the lack of a stabilizer, an on-screen shutter button and the design of the shutter button.

The camera has a 6x zoom. Full zoom, as you would expect, produces a very pixelated image. The slightest movement blurs the picture, it is very difficult to take a high-quality picture.

Other effects are standard. Monochrome is good, but overexposed.

Sepia effect - the picture is too orange.

The negative effect works well - autumn trees look like they were photographed in spring.

One of the most dubious effects. The HTC 7 Mozart's camera copes well with it.

The flash is very bright, and even too much for portrait photography. Due to the double flash, the camera shoots very slowly - first the camera shutter sounds, and only then the flash fires. Every now and then the picture was taken at the moment when the moment was already missed.

The Xenon flash slows down the shooting, but there is no denying the fact that it is very good. The problem is that you need to hold the camera for too long without moving, and with the slightest movement, the picture is blurred.

Without flash and in low light, the picture is very dark with no detail.

Several professional tricks have been added to the camera: a brightness check, which helps to determine how much light a picture needs; reduction of flickering from monitors and TVs. The benefits of these things are rather doubtful, the difference with or without them is imperceptible. But it's nice that there are even such little things in the cell.

It's useless to use sport flash with flash - you just won't have time to take a shot. You will have time without a flash, but the picture will be too blurry, as in this photo.

There was no real beach for testing this mode, so the picture was taken in the trees. I would like to believe that these are beach trees. Reduced brightness for balance. In general, it is hardly worth taking phones to the beach - sand and water can harm them.]

Candlelight mode adds blue to balance the warm candlelight. There is even too much blue.

Video

The HTC 7 Mozart shoots 720p HD video. The shooting quality is exactly the same as for HTC Desire HD, Sony Ericsson Vivaz and Nokia N8. (By the way, RIM promises that their BlackBerry PlayBook tablet will shoot Full HD 1080p.)

As you can see in this clip, the video recorder constantly monitors the lighting level and autofocus, but it lags slightly, so the brightness is sometimes too high, overexposed, and the focus floats.

Sound

The built-in speaker of the phone reproduces sound quite tolerably, even without SRS or Dolby activation, the sound is very different from cheaper phones. When you turn on the Dolby Mobile effect through the pre-installed HTC Sound Enhancer application, the sound becomes approximately the same as on a dual-speaker iPhone 4. The only drawback is that when listening to music through an external speaker, the phone should be placed sideways or with the back cover up.

More about oddly located elements. The volume controls on the HTC 7 Mozart are extremely inconvenient to use, since they are located on the inner side of the rounded end. It is unlikely that you can change the volume or start the playback widget with one hand.
Another nuisance is the pauses between tracks, even if you listen to songs from the album in order. And the only shuffle option is to shuffle all the songs on the phone.

Headphones are used not only for listening to music files, but also as an antenna for FM radio. Unfortunately, there is no normal application for listening to radio on the phone. Autoscan could not find a single station, so you have to search manually, which is very dreary. Adding stations to favorites is very simple - one click.

When it comes to video playback, this is where SRS virtual surround sound comes into its own. When watching movies, for the full experience of the sound effect, it is best to use headphones: the sounds of explosions, shots and others surround you from all sides - the sensations are unique. The SRS effect is even better than Dolby Mobile.

The picture quality on the WVGA screen is pretty good (although it is smaller than the HTC HD7 phone - only 3.7 inches instead of 4.3), especially when viewed vertically.

If you're used to the super-contrast Super AMOLED screen of the Samsung Galaxy S phone, the HTC 7 Mozart's screen will disappoint you. Even in spite of the rather nimble processor, the video manages to freeze, and the color rendering is not always correct.
The brightness of the screen is adjustable in only three positions - low, medium and high.

Supported audio formats:

• M4A, M4B, MP3, WMA (Windows Media Audio 9)

Supported video formats:

• Playback: 3GP, 3G2, MP4, M4V, MBR, WMV (Windows Media Video 9 and VC-1)
• Record: MP4

Battery

The HTC 7 Mozart has a 1300 mAh Lithium-ion battery, which, according to the manufacturer, will provide the phone with 330 minutes of talk time or 435 hours of standby time. Don't really believe these numbers. At first, the battery started to discharge very quickly, then it began to discharge more slowly. But you are unlikely to talk about 5.5 hours on a single charge.

Don't expect your phone to last 18 days on standby. With less intensive use, it has to be charged every day. With intensive - every 5 hours.

Capacity: 1300 mAh

Talk time:

• WCDMA: Up to 330 minutes
• GSM: Up to 405 minutes

In standby:

• WCDMA: Up to 435 hours
• GSM: Up to 360 hours

Output

The HTC 7 Mozart is one of the best Windows Phone 7 phones - a system with amazingly beautiful design, a new live tile approach to the home page and infusing the interface design with your own content.

pros

• Very good sound thanks to the use of SRS virtual sound, especially when watching movies.
• Very lightweight, with rubberized elements, the HTC 7 Mozart will serve you faithfully until it becomes completely obsolete.
• The camera takes great pictures, albeit slowly (especially with the flash).

Minuses

• The black body does not quite suit this phone, the volume controls are not very convenient.

Verdict

HTC 7 Mozart is an excellent phone based on Windows Phone 7. Everything in it is thought out to the smallest detail, HTC is a reliable manufacturer, you don't have to worry about the quality of the device.

The phone has a very good music part and an address book. But even with his 1-hertz processor and 576 megabytes of RAM, he sometimes manages to freeze on the simplest tasks.

The Windows Phone 7 operating system announced 1.5 years ago has nevertheless reached Russia. The first device based on it in our country was the HTC Mozart smartphone - an "old" model by modern standards, but supplied to Russia with the most recent Mango update. Moreover, Microsoft and HTC tried to make the price of this device extremely attractive, because it is necessary to somehow acquaint the public with the new operating system.

The Windows mobile platform has a long history, though not always successful. The last, sixth version of Windows Mobile appeared on the market at a time when no one needed it anymore. The explosive growth in popularity of iOS and Android, as well as the emergence of fundamentally new user interfaces, left no chance for that Windows Mobile.

Microsoft needed to create something fundamentally new in order to return to the smartphone and mobile platform market. This "new" was the operating system Windows Phone 7. The announcement of the operating system took place 1.5 years ago. But during this time the new OS did not gain any tangible popularity (the only exception is the North American market). This was followed by several updates, the last of which was named Mango (Windows Phone 7.5). At the same time, the active expansion of the platform to Europe and Asia began. The Microsoft platform has reached Russia only now in the face of the HTC Mozart smartphone.

It is noteworthy that Microsoft together with HTC tried to launch sales of devices based on Mango in Russia before Europe. So our country has not only caught up with the world, but has also become a leader (thanks ... for that!). HTC Radar, HTC Titan, Samsung Omnia W will also appear on Mango only in a few months.

In the meantime, we have a good opportunity to explore all the intricacies of Windows Phone 7.5 on the example of HTC Mozart. By the way, the future Nokia smartphones will have a similar platform, the announcement of which is expected in 10 days.

Dimensions. Contents of delivery.

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Externally, the HTC Mozart does not stand out from the HTC lineup. This can be seen in everything from design to the layout of controls. The device is made in a classic form factor and has standard dimensions: 119x69x12 mm, weight - 130 grams. The weight of the device is evenly distributed over the area, the device does not tend to slip out of hands.

The branded box with a smartphone contains:

• HTC 7 Mozart T8698 phone
• Battery
• USB charger adapter
• Interface cable miniUSB connector
• Stereo Chart [3.5mm Jack]
• Instructions

Design, construction.

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The exterior of the NTS Mozart is a mixture of HTC Desire S and HTC Sensation. The device can easily be confused with HTC Android models. Only the control buttons typical for Windows Phone indicate the presence of an operating system from Microsoft. To be fair, we note that both Desire S and Sensation came out much later than NTS Mozart. Therefore, who "stole" the appearance from whom, we still need to figure it out.

The body of the NTS Mozart is made of aluminum and soft-touch rubberized plastic. The coating is resistant to mechanical stress and cuts. No fingerprints remain on it. The combination of metal and plastic makes it pleasant to hold the device in your hand.

There is also metal around the display. It not only decorates the communicator, but also strengthens the structure and makes it resistant to damage. The build quality and the materials selected leave an extremely positive impression.

The color of the body of the device is not uniform. The plastic parts are dark gray and the metal parts are brown.

On the front of the communicator you can see a speaker for voice calls. Below there are light indicators that signal the onset of an action, be it a missed call, SMS or charging. For example, red means the device is charging, green means charging is complete. There is also a position sensor in space (G-sensor), digital compass, proximity sensor, light sensor. There is no front camera in the Mozart NTS, therefore, there is no video calling function.

Most of the front face of the smartphone is a 3.7-inch touchscreen. Surprisingly, it doesn't get very dirty no matter what you do with it.

Three touch-sensitive control buttons are located under the screen: "Back", "Windows" ("Home") and "Search".

The volume rocker is located on the left side edge. Below there is a connector for an interface cable and a microUSB charger. The button for turning on and off, changing profiles can be found at the top. Here you can also find a hole for connecting a Jack 3.5 mm headset. Well, the camera button is located on the right side of the HTC Mozart.

On the back there is an 8 megapixel camera eye with autofocus, a flash and a speaker for external calls. The plastic insert at the bottom of the cover is removable, revealing the battery and SIM card slot. There is no slot for memory cards, only built-in memory. This is Microsoft policy.

The built-in speaker has average volume headroom. In most cases, you can hear it well.

The build quality of the HTC Mozart is excellent. The model is assembled at the company's Taiwanese plant.

Graphic capabilities.

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The HTC Mozart uses a 3.7-inch capacitive touchscreen. This Super LCD is a kind of alternative to Super AMOLED used by Samsung. The display's sensitivity is high; a light touch is enough to fix it. There is support for multitouch technology. The display resolution is 480x800, it displays 262K colors. Thanks to the G-sensor (accelerometer), the screen can automatically change its orientation. The display is protected by durable Gorilla Glass. As practice shows, it successfully prevents scratches during smartphone operation.

The screen has good color rendition, brightness, contrast and viewing angles. The brightness of the backlight is adjusted automatically, but at the same time there is a manual adjustment. The display fades in the sun, but all information is readable.

The operation of the touch screen does not cause any complaints, the screen perfectly recognizes even light touches. As noted earlier, the picture changes its position depending on the location: vertical or horizontal. But this does not happen in all programs and applications.

Keyboard and information input

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The functions in HTC Mozart are controlled via the touch screen. However, the communicator has four buttons under the screen - "Back", "Windows", "Search". At the same time, you will not find keys for receiving and rejecting a call. Thus, you can only accept or reject a call using the touch screen. This is implemented quite simply.

Typing is done using the on-screen QWERTY keyboard. It is quite comfortable even in portrait orientation of the display - and all this is the merit of the large display. In landscape orientation, the size of the buttons increases by about 45%.

In general, you can enter text in several ways: using the QWERTY keyboard in a horizontal or vertical layout. To dial a special character, just press the "& 123" button. To switch the layout from English to Russian, there is a dedicated "ENU" or "RU" key to the right of the space bar.

Interface and navigation. Functionality.

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All HTC Mozart smartphones supplied to Russia have the latest version of the Windows Phone 7.5 Mango operating system. This update has significantly expanded the functionality compared to Windows Phone 7.

At the very beginning, we already noted that Microsoft created a new platform with a fundamentally new management logic. The user interface looks original and fresh. Well, something, and the developers are not threatened with lawsuits for copying the appearance. The design and organization of the menu are not similar either to half-forgotten operating systems, or to the current Android, iOS, MeeGo.

Thus, in WP7, the desktop is presented as a scrollable vertical column of squares and rectangles, the so-called "hubs", where each of them can carry one of many functions. It can be either a shortcut to a specific application, or a link to a person from a contact list, to a photo, to a web page or service. Squares can be aligned, and for some pre-installed applications (such as photo galleries) this is a great solution. By the way, because of this, the WP7 interface was nicknamed "tiled".

You can send a separate page to your desktop as a square. If you like, say, to read news from Yandex or Vedomosti, then you can go directly to the last read page by clicking on its shortcut on the desktop without launching the browser or digging up the log entry. Alas, the user does not have the ability to change and decorate the desktop with various pictures. The background here is purely black or white! You can only change the color of the design and that's it.

At first, I was surprised by the absence of indicators at the top of the screen showing the signal strength, battery status, and similar system notifications. But after digging around, I found them. To display, you just need to click on the top of the screen and that's it, they will appear automatically.

If you try to swipe the screen from right to left with your finger or click on the arrow at the top of the display, a list of installed programs will open. They are not divided into directories, but are displayed all together. To add them to the main screen, just hold your finger on the corresponding icon for a long time - a context menu with a choice of actions will appear.

The general style of switching between applications is like flipping through pages, all of which happens almost instantly. The speed of the interfaces is high, and the effects are quite appropriate, you need to catch the audience with something.

WP7 has received a lot of criticism for not multitasking. In updating Mango, the developers tried to take into account the comments and changed the views of programs running in the background. Thus, by holding down the "Back" button, you can access the list of recently launched applications. If they support the multitasking function, then when you click on the thumbnail, the program will start in the same form in which you left it. So far, not all applications can be worked in this way. Confidently, only the built-in applications work with the multitasking mode: notebook, player, gallery and some others. Most third-party programs just start over.

As it is not surprising, but for 20 days of active use HTC Mozart never glitches or hangs, which is a big plus.

Telephone functions.

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First of all, these include "Phone", "Contacts", "Messages".

Hub "Contacts" is data with detailed information about telephone numbers and subscribers. A record can have two dozen fields, be it last name, first name, patronymic, mobile, home phone number, email address, date of birth or anniversary, social media accounts, microblogging services, etc. The search in contacts occurs at once in all fields of the client, that is, you can dial the number, first name, last name, etc.

Another feature of WP7 is the tight integration of the Messaging hub with social services. All correspondence with a specific person is displayed as a dialogue. At the same time, it makes no difference how the next message is sent or received - via SMS or chat Twitter, Facebook, etc.

Dialing a number can be pulled into the screen of squares, or you can use the "Telephone" hub for this. Using call services is intuitive and straightforward. From experience, I really did not like it when to answer a call you need to make two movements, and not one: the first - to unlock the screen, and the second - to answer directly.

Internet and Microsoft services.

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The standard delivery includes Internet Explorer 9 with HTML5, Canvas support and hardware acceleration similar to the desktop version of the Internet browser. However, Flash is not supported and there are no such plans yet. The browser works quickly and without glitches. Of the features: the address bar is located at the bottom of the screen and it is much more convenient to reach it if you work with the device with one hand. But there is no Flash support here. IE browser loads pages very quickly, supports modern work algorithms, which should be done by a progressive browser.

Access to Microsoft online services (music, games, office, mail, etc.) is carried out using Live ID. At the same time, it turned out that you cannot use everything that is in the Marketplace store with a Russian account. Only applications for Russia and the CIS are available. In particular, there is no official Twitter client. Rather, it is, but not available in our region. And with the American Live ID everything works and is located. One can only guess about the reasons for such discrimination.

Windows Phone Mango offers a range of cloud-based features. Microsoft Office 365 allows you to create and edit presentations, text documents or spreadsheets, and the result of your work can be saved to the online storage SkyDrive.

Multimedia capabilities.

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HTC is positioning Mozart as a youth smartphone with advanced multimedia capabilities. Among other things, the manufacturer focuses on high quality sound. In headphones, the device really sounds very, very worthy. The device can be used as a player. True, it is better to replace the native headset with something more decent.

There is a separate hub for music and video playback. It is built on the well-known Microsoft Zune service. What can you say here? The media manager is quite cumbersome and requires you to install itself to sync to your computer (much like iTunes). True, you can download the WP7 USB Storage Enabled program and run it once, so that a gadget running Windows Phone 7 feels like a removable hard drive in your system and does not feel the need to communicate with the Zune. But initially, folders with pictures and music will have to be created using the Zune, since when displayed on a computer they have unique and unpronounceable names.

Installing new programs.

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New programs and other applications can be downloaded for free and installed from the Marketplace over the Internet directly from your phone. There are over 30,000 apps in the Marketplace now. The appearance of the program is intuitive, there is a search for applications by category. These, in turn, are broken down into HTC apps, Programs, and Games. Within each of the sections there is also a division into categories. Most of their Marketplace software is paid, and the cost of similar software is 2-3 times higher than for Android, Symbian or iOS.

Of course, the situation should improve in a year, especially since the tools for developing applications for this operating system are freely available on the Microsoft website. There are few free programs. You just have to wait.

HTC Mozart has HTC apps and even a branded start screen with a clock and weather widget, but it exists as a separate HTC Hub app and cannot be set as a start page.

Photographic possibilities.

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HTC Mozart has an 8 megapixel camera with autofocus and xenon flash. The interface for working with the camera is quite simple and intuitive; there is a standard list of settings.

It should be noted that the HTC Mozart camera allows you to get high-quality pictures in natural light conditions. But when it is necessary to take a photo in low light conditions, using the flash leads to overexposure of the frame, and not using it significantly reduces the sharpness.

The device can record video in H.263 / MPEG4 format with a resolution of 1280x720, 800x480, 640x480, 320x240 at 30 frames per second. Videos are of good quality, moving objects are not smeared. Mozart supports formats and codecs: 3gp, .3g2, .mp4, .wmv, .avi (MP4 ASP and MP3), .xvid (MP4 ASP and MP3).

Performance and memory.

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Inside HTC Mozart is a Qualcomm QSD8250 gigahertz processor with ARMv7 architecture. The amount of RAM is 576 MB plus 512 MB of ROM. The installed hardware allows the communicator to work without hesitation. The speed of the interfaces, as well as the loading of programs and utilities, are in line with the time requirements. Everything works quite quickly and without brakes, and the special effects of the design enhance the experience.

8 GB of internal memory is allocated for data storage. Moreover, as experts say, it turned out that the device has a built-in slot for memory cards in microSD format. Moreover, the 8 GB of built-in flash memory that the device possesses is nothing more than a card of this standard, but access to it for mere mortals is closed. It is located inside the case. This means that this amount of memory cannot be expanded.

Communication capabilities.

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You can connect to another computer or the Internet via Wi-Fi or a USB interface cable [version 2.0].

HTC Mozart supports Bluetooth 2.1 wireless accessories and headsets with EDR and A2DP, including wireless stereo headsets. Alas, you cannot transfer files from phone to phone via Bluetooth.

In addition to supporting packet data transmission using GPRS and EDGE technologies, the smartphone supports 3G. The device can be used as a modem. At the same time, the data transfer rate will be up to 7.2 Mbps for data reception.

You can access the Internet from a smartphone via Wi-Fi 802.11 b / g / n, and also turn the device into a Wi-Fi access point. In addition, there is a built-in GPS / A-GPS and a navigation service with online maps.

Duration of work.

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HTC Mozart has a 1300mAh Li-ion battery. According to the manufacturer itself, the talk time is up to 9 hours; standby time up to 17.5 days.

In testing conditions with the number of calls 20-30 minutes a day, listening to an mp3 player through a headset for about 4 hours a day and periodically accessing the Internet via Wi-Fi, the device worked for two days. These are good performance indicators, however, with less load, more runtime can be achieved. With very active use, the smartphone will have to be charged every day. The battery is charged in two hours.

Video HTC Mozart.

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Results.

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In three weeks of testing, HTC Mozart has established itself as a smartphone with a stable operating system. The device impresses with its quality of workmanship, aluminum in the case, a high-quality screen and the presence of all basic functions. Well, the user interface of Windows Phone Mango, despite its simplicity, is more impressive than iOS and Android, although there is a factor of novelty here.

HTC Mozart, and WP7 as a whole, have some drawbacks that you shouldn't forget. These are, first of all, applications. Microsoft bought Skype, but there was no client for WP7. Time is running! Likewise with the Russian version of Twitter, VKontakte. Even for MeeGo, there are more applications at the moment.

Another unpleasant moment - programs and content in the Marketplace store are more expensive than in the AppStore or Android Market. But all this is a matter of time: the more users Windows Phone 7 has, the lower the price of the final products will be for them.

Realizing the difficulties on the way of promoting the first WP7 smartphone on the Russian market, they tried to make the cost of HTC Mozart as attractive as possible. If we talk about competitors, these are Nokia N8, Sony Ericsson Xperia ray, HTC Desire S, LG Optimus Black.

Benefits:

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• Fresh and fast user interface
• Quality build and aluminum body
• Two days of work with above average load
• Integration with Xbox services
• Attractive price

Disadvantages:

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• A small number of programs in the app store, and those available are 2-3 times more expensive than their counterparts on iOS and Android
• In some places ill-conceived interfaces
• Multitasking is not for all programs

The phone for testing was provided by MTS.

What cannot be taken away from Windows Phone is its beautiful and original interface. Something, but developers are not threatened with lawsuits for copying the appearance. The design and organization of the menu is not similar either to the half-forgotten OS or to the current competitive platforms.

The main screen consists of the so-called hubs - squares and rectangles, because of which the OS interface was called "tiled". Functionally, they are somewhat similar to widgets for Android. Each block can be responsible both for launching a separate application (for example, Internet Explorer), and for accessing some collected data. Hubs are interactive and capable of showing certain information right inside the tile: the number of missed calls, new messages or letters, the current weather, and much more. Blocks can be easily removed. Hold your finger on a tile for a second, and the content of the main screen can be edited by deleting unnecessary hubs or adding new ones.

If you swipe the screen from right to left with your finger or click on the arrow at the top of the display, we will get to the list of all applications installed on the smartphone. At first, I am surprised by the absence of a status bar familiar to other mobile operating systems with displaying the signal level, battery status and similar system notifications. In fact, it is, but it appears briefly only if you "tap" at the top of the screen.

One of the most interesting was the Contacts hub. It would seem that we are talking about an ordinary phone book, but this is not entirely true. It displays not only telephone subscribers, but also friends from various social networks: Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn. Having entered the profile of such a contact, you can read information from his account, start a chat, write something on the wall or send a letter.

One of the most requested innovations in Mango is the ability to create contact groups. Groups can be formed according to any principle. Wanted - made a separate category for colleagues at work and named it accordingly. Besides the fact that it is easier to navigate among a large number of subscribers this way, it is also very convenient in terms of functionality. You could, for example, send one email to all members of a group.

Close integration with social services can also be seen in the Messages section. All correspondence with a specific person is displayed as a dialogue. At the same time, it makes no difference how the next message is sent or received - via SMS or chat of the same Facebook.

Multitasking is a must-have innovation. It was for its absence that the operating system was severely and deservedly scolded. Now, to see the last used programs, just press and hold the "Back" button for a while. Thumbnails of recent apps appear. If they support the multitasking function, then when you click on the thumbnail, the program will start in the same form in which you left it. Unfortunately, so far this trick cannot be done with all software. The natively built-in applications work confidently with the multitasking mode: notebook, player, gallery and some others. Third-party software for the most part does not function very correctly. In most cases, the program is simply restarted, and sometimes it does not even make it to the list of recently opened applications.

Another pleasant novelty is the function of combining mailboxes of several accounts into one mailbox. After that, all correspondence is available immediately from one screen.

I really liked the built-in browser. The mobile version of Internet Explorer isn't nearly as bad as its desktop counterpart. The web browser is fast and glitch-free. It's great that the address bar is at the bottom of the screen - it is much more convenient to reach it if you work with the device with one hand. For me, for example, it remains a mystery why such an obvious solution is not implemented in the browsers built into iOS and Android. In Internet Explorer, I was disappointed only by the lack of support for Flash - some kind of directly attacked with this technology, it has no luck with mobile platforms.

Windows Phone 7.5 Mango offers a range of cloud-based features. Microsoft Office 365 allows you to create and edit presentations, word documents or spreadsheets, and the result of your work can be uploaded to the online storage SkyDrive.

We tried to improve this mastodon, offering shells that increase its convenience (remember the legendary HTC Touch) - but it was clear to everyone that the days of Windows Mobile were numbered.

Htc mozart

However, even today some manufacturers are releasing something on WM 6.5 and somehow trying to compete with modern systems - a move that defies logical explanation. Especially today, when there is already a ready-made Windows Phone 7.

Is it worth the candle?

To understand this, let's first compare the general user ideology of Windows Phone 7.5 (which is installed in) with Android and iOS. In the two most popular mobile systems, the ideology is basically the same: several mobile desktops with a number of permanent shortcuts and widgets and shortcuts to applications added there.

HTC Mozart vertical scrolling interface

WP7 adopted a different system. The desktop is presented in it in the form of a scrolling vertical column of squares (so-called "hubs"), where each of them can carry one of the many functions. It can be either a shortcut to a specific application, or a link to a person from a contact list, to a photo, to a web page or service. In general, the customization of the desktop is done necessary, but within certain limits. Squares can be doubled, and for some pre-installed applications (for example, photo galleries) this is an excellent solution.

Of the most convenient advantages of such a system, it should be mentioned that a separate page can be sent to the desktop as a square. If you like, say, to read Basorg in the morning, then you can go directly to the last read page by clicking on its shortcut on the desktop without launching the browser or digging up the entry in the journal. This desktop is unambiguously convenient, but, on the other hand, it will not be appreciated by those who like to decorate the desktop with various pictures, tamagotchi, switches and other tricks. Microsoft's desktop has finally turned out to be a good business tool, but not the most beautiful one, but rather austere and ascetic.

WP7 shell looks unusual on HTC smartphone

The list of applications is located on the right, which can be accessed by swiping your finger across the screen from right to left on the desktop. Apps are listed alphabetically from top to bottom on the ribbon, whether they are pre-installed or user-added. To the left of the name of the application is its miniature icon, and programs with the name in Russian are the first in this list. Again, this differs from the ideology of Android and iOS, when application boxes are piled up on several screens, because they do not fit on one. Microsoft gets a well-deserved A for a comfortable desktop.

The general style of switching applications between each other is reminiscent of "flipping pages", and all this happens almost instantly. The speed of work did not drop or increase after switching between an application, but it is known that there is no real multitasking in WP7 - one of the main disadvantages of the operating system. In general, this can explain everything.

By the way, the lack of support for Flash, which was written about last year, turned out to be untrue - there is not only its support, but even a number of applications for watching YouTube. In addition, there is support for various accounts of the mass of social networks and services: from Windows Live (in which you will definitely have to register - as in Gmail when using Android), Outlook, Yahoo, and ending with Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter. Skype support is not present as such - which is strange, given its new registration in Redmond - but you can install the well-known IM + application and access Skype text messages through it (and not only Skype - but, for example, to the VKontakte network) ...

Internet Explorer was a bit disappointing. On the one hand, you can open more tabs in it than in the default browser in Android (six versus four), on the other hand, we see raw scaling that does not automatically adjust to the screen size - only if the phone is flipped.

Multimedia environment HTC Mozart

Functional

Outwardly, it looks great, and here hardly anyone can argue. The body is made from a single piece of aluminum, and if you look at it from the back, you will see two neat curved plastic panels at the top and bottom - this is necessary for the antennas so as not to interfere with the reception and transmission of signals. The solution makes the smartphone somewhat similar to, and to, and even to - this eclecticism actually looks very organic, especially since on all these devices the panel joints look different.

The front panel is a 3.7-inch capacitive touchscreen with a resolution of 480x800 dpi. The screen has multi-touch and auto-rotate, which works, by the way, very quickly.

Smartphone HTC Mozart does not set records for "subtlety", but it fully meets modern needs

Below the screen are three buttons - "Back", "Start" with the Windows logo and "Search", which in any situation will invariably lead to the Bing search engine. The side ends are slightly beveled, and this is a tangible minus - when you blindly switch the volume using a swing on the left end, your finger constantly strives to slide somewhere into infinity. Although the swing is made quite wide. On the bottom right end there is a button for turning on the camera / shooting, and this button is made more convenient than the volume control swing.

At the bottom there are two holes that can be mistaken for two microphones (for example, one is for talking, and the second is for subtracting noise), but in fact there is only one microphone, and the second hole is for a cord that is attached inside the case when you open the bottom plastic cover. Above, traditionally for HTC devices, there is a power button and a 3.5mm mini-Jack headphone jack. On the rear panel, in the upper part, we see a slightly protruding camera, next to it is a large elongated flash, not inferior in height to the diameter of the lens, and even further to the right, you can find a rather loud speaker.

Sound level adjustment is carried out by hardware buttons

Inside, they comfortably live a Qualcomm QSD8250 gigahertz processor with ARMv7 architecture. There is 576 MB of RAM (plus 512 MB of ROM), which is adjacent to 8 GB of internal memory (of which 7.20 GB is initially available to the user). Dimensions of the device - 119x60.2x11.9 mm, weight - 130 grams. It feels like a bar of soap in the hand because of its roundness.

At the presentation, one of the invited journalists noticed that he was functionally no different from. This is not entirely true (or rather, not at all). The devices are really very similar, and outwardly they can be mistaken one for another - but if you look closely, details begin to show through. For example, the corners are more rounded, the touch buttons are not the same, the camera is better (and the flash too), and the tactile sensations are completely different. And the novelty works much faster than its predecessor.

Competitors HTC Mozart

MS Windows Mobile	Android 2.2	Android 2.3
Qualcomm QSD8250; 1000 MHz	TI OMAP 3630; 1000 MHz	1400 MHz
576 MB of RAM; 8 GB flash memory	512 MB of RAM; 2 GB flash memory	4 GB flash memory
3.7 "; 800x480	4.0 "; 800x480	3.7 "; 800x480
WiFi; Bluetooth; E-mail; GPRS	WiFi; Bluetooth; E-mail; GPRS; MMS	WiFi; Bluetooth; E-mail; WAP; GPRS; MMS
Camera 5 million pixels	Camera 5 million pixels	Camera 5 million pixels
WxHxD 60.2x119x11.9 mm; Weight 130 gr	WxHxD 64x122x9.2 mm; Weight 109 g	WxHxD 60x115.5x11.5 mm
15 300 rub	13 600 rbl	12,000 rubles

But, to tell the truth, the technical characteristics of this phone were determined by the tough position of Microsoft itself: the processor must be at least 1 GHz, the memory must be at least 8 GB, the camera must be at least 5 MP, and I must say that these characteristics more than correspond.

The lack of a front-facing camera prevents video calls

In addition to the above, all currently relevant wireless interfaces are available - Bluetooth 2.1 with A2DP, Wi-Fi 802.11 b / g / n and GPS (with A-GPS). By the way, the latter uses English-language Bing Maps for navigation (far from complete), but if you don't like them, you can already download the free gMaps application from the Marketplace, which is an improved version of Google Maps, and navigate with it.

The battery left a positive impression. 1300 mAh battery make it possible to work in full load (surfing, calls, SMS, checking mail, Wi-Fi, music) for about two days. If you often use watching or shooting video, then this figure will be lower.

And two big drawbacks are the lack of a memory card slot and a front-facing video camera. If you can somehow come to terms with the second one (video calls would be possible for now only through full-fledged Skype, but it is not even in the Marketplace), then the first one causes sad tears of disappointment. Of course, everyone can immediately remember about the iPhone with the same trouble, but we’ll remember about Android because of harm: there is no such problem in most devices with this OS. Therefore, the user will have to be content with eight gigabytes of built-in flash memory for life, if they do not invent some kind of mobile card reader that connects via micro-USB or Wi-Fi in the "I don't bother anyone, I'm sitting there fixing a primus" mode.

Camera

A five-megapixel camera and camcorder is pretty straightforward. In the settings, you can set the type of shooting (among others there is a night mode and macro shooting), choose one of four effects and a resolution (from 0.3 MP to eight), set the exposure, and also adjust the flicker and flash. This is where the settings end.

Test shots HTC Mozart

The quality of the images itself is slightly above average - the color rendition is correct, the autofocus and the shooting process itself are quite fast, but artifacts and "oversharing" are still noticeable - but only at a scale of 1: 1 or greater. The disadvantage of the camera is that the process is possible only in 4: 3 format. Alas, there was no place for the now fashionable wide format 16: 10/16: 9. But on the other hand, shooting indoors does not scare you with the wrong white balance.

The camera is also capable of recording video in HD format with a resolution of 1280x720 and 24 frames per second, and even in low light conditions, the picture will not jerk and slow down. Still, the camera is a plus.

What everyone's been waiting for

If a journalist talks about a Microsoft product and does not scold him with a single word, he will immediately be suspected of being bribed. Therefore, we will not give reasons. Because the inconvenience and imperfections are still present.

The first is the Windows Marketplace. Apps cost several times more than Android (but they are comparable to Apple Market prices), and there are very few of them yet. We can say that practically no. Of course, the situation should improve in a year, especially since the tools for developing applications for this operating system are freely available on the Microsoft website. There are free programs, but, of course, don't expect an abundance of Android Market and Apple Market yet.

HTC Mozart camera allows you to take high-quality pictures

Another (subjective) minus is the lack of real multitasking. There is "a little" of it - that is, for example, you can simultaneously listen to music, chat and sometimes answer calls at the same time - but the paradox is that nothing else is needed. For example, in the same Android, you had to use task managers to rid memory of applications that do not want to leave the battlefield themselves; in WP7 this is not necessary, because there is no field either - and, we repeat, this does not really interfere with life.

Microsoft Zune is the third global minus of the system. A cumbersome media manager that requires you to install itself in order to synchronize the WP7-device with your computer - like iTunes cursed even by the Apple users. True, unlike Apple's product, this monstrous mammoth is easy to bypass here - just download the WP7 USB Storage Enabled program and run it once so that the gadget running Windows Phone 7 feels like a removable hard drive in your system and does not feel the urge to communicate with Zune. But initially, you will have to create folders with pictures and music using the Zune, since when displayed in Explorer they have unique and unpronounceable names consisting of local idiomatic expressions of the operating system.

The body design of HTC smartphones remains minimalistic and recognizable

Minor inconveniences are observed during use: for example, to answer a call, you need to make two movements, and not one - the first to unlock, and the second to answer. Or, say, the search engine: not everyone loves Bing, and the search button really gets in the way when surfing, because it accidentally falls under one of the fingers, taking you into the blue (however, Google on Android does not behave better, to be honest). I would like to see the settings also wider - for example, so that the desktop has some themes, and not just "dark" and "light" (black and white backgrounds, respectively). The status bar at the top could also be used somehow more actively - as in Android, for example.

Swype, of course, is not enough when typing, but the dictionary and the keyboard itself are made perfectly - there are almost no mistakes when typing, since there are even very rare words in the system memory. But these are all minor flaws that may well be fixed in the next updates, if Microsoft agrees with all this.

Because no add-ons like Samsung TouchWiz or HTC Sense are provided by this operating system in principle. There are applications from HTC itself and even a branded start screen with a clock and weather widget, but it exists as a separate HTC Hub application and cannot be set as a start page.

HTC Mozart aluminum body adds reliability

In general, I would like to end this paragraph positively: surprisingly, but for several days of active use of the novelty, the system has never glitched up, has not hung, has not gone crazy, has not flown off and has not even quarreled at anything. And stable and convenient work is the main thing when using technology, whatever one may say.

We can state that at last Microsoft has made a successful and high-quality operating system, which, with a slight modification with a file in Redmond, can really compete with both Android and iOS. True, except for the number of applications, but this is a fixable business. General asceticism, even simplicity, and some restrictions in this case were only beneficial.

Outcome

I would like to summarize here with the following words. was a success, Windows Phone 7 was a success - with the exception of a few inconveniences, which it would be nice to eliminate, but you can live like that, and very happy. WP7 has absolutely nothing to do with Windows Mobile 6.5, it is a standalone operating system, written from scratch (Microsoft claims), stable and with convenient features. As for the hardware, the smartphone itself can also be called well-made, despite such disadvantages as the lack of a memory card slot and an inconvenient volume control.

The novelty is definitely worth trying for enthusiasts who are already bored on the fields of Android and iOS, as well as for those who need a smartphone that works stably without dancing with a tambourine - which, nevertheless, can be customized, but within certain limits. it costs about 13,000 rubles, it is more than worth its money, and we send it sailing with the best wishes.

Start of official sales of Windows Phone in Russia

At the end of last week, HTC (HTC Corporation) finally officially presented in Russia its smartphones running on the new Windows Phone operating system, and even announced the start date for the first of them at a magnificent presentation in a fashionable Moscow club.

Recall that Windows Phone is a new mobile operating system from Microsoft, which was announced at the beginning of last year at Mobile World Congress 2010. It differs not only by its unusual, unlike anything else graphical interface, but also by the absolute incompatibility of applications with all previous Windows Mobile versions. Microsoft has taken the bold step of ditching Windows Mobile's decades-old legacy and has built virtually every element of the system from scratch. The result is a modern, surprisingly bright and fast enough operating system, which is also not difficult to use. In this it is closer to Apple iOS than Android, not to mention its progenitor - Windows Mobile.

It is not surprising that HTC was one of the first to release smartphones based on this OS, because its partnership with Microsoft has been going on for a dozen years, ever since NTS launched their first communicators. And the worldwide fame of the company was brought by devices of the Touch series, based precisely on Microsoft Windows Mobile. “The Windows Phone mobile platform is defining a new direction for Microsoft and its partners, and HTC is joining the process to provide significant support by bringing new Windows Phone smartphones to market,” comments Andy Lees, President, Mobile Communications Business, Microsoft.

In total, three new devices were presented at the presentation: HTC Mozart, HTC Titan and HTC Radar. The last two are known only from promo videos and descriptions from developers - real devices have not been shown. Here is the little that was told about them.

The HTC Titan features a large 4.7-inch LCD display, an 8-megapixel camera and a very thin aluminum-coated body at just 9.9 mm thick.

HTC Radar focuses on design: the one-piece aluminum body is intended to be the embodiment of elegance, and the original appearance is complemented by strong technical characteristics: a 3.8-inch Super LCD touchscreen display, a 5-megapixel camera, a Qualcomm Snapdragon MSM 8255 processor with a frequency of 1 GHz and 512 MB of RAM. In addition, the HTC Radar with a front-facing camera will be the first Windows Phone to support Skype video calls.

The third device, on the other hand, flashed throughout the evening in the hands of numerous speakers, entertained visitors at the stands and even played out in quizzes.

This device is called HTC Mozart and is a nice Windows Phone with an eight-megapixel camera and an all-metal body made of a monolithic block of anodized aluminum.

HTC Mozart specifications are as follows:

• qualcomm Snapdragon QSD8250 1 GHz processor;
• operating system Windows Phone 7.5 with HTC Sense interface;
• super LCD color display, diagonal 3.7 inches, WVGA 480 × 800 pixels, multitouch;
• rAM 576 MB, internal memory 8 GB;
• communication GSM 850/900/1800/1900 MHz, GPRS / EDGE;
• 3G UMTS / HSPA 900/2100 communication;
• Bluetooth v2.1 with A2DP;
• Wi-Fi 802.11b / g / n;
• GPS, AGPS;
• position sensor in space;
• digital compass;
• proximity sensor;
• light sensor;
• 8 megapixel camera, autofocus, xenon flash, video recording (720p);
• battery 1300 mAh;
• dimensions 119 × 60.2 × 11.9 mm;
• weight 130 grams.

Representatives of both companies vied with each other to enumerate the advantages of the new OS and even played scenes simulating life situations in which the new Windows Phone is indispensable.

During the show, of course, it was not done without overlays, but this did not in the least bother the speakers. The managers of NTS, Microsoft and MTS firmly believe in the bright future of Windows Phone and that it will soon catch up and, perhaps, even surpass competitors in the smartphone market.

By the way, representatives of the third party, the MTC company, which will now sell all this, assured that: “every HTC Mozart buyer will receive a year of free mobile Internet as a gift”. It is worth clarifying here that this is a short-term PR campaign that will last only a month. MTS subscribers who bought HTC Mozart during this period will receive free Internet by connecting the Smart BIT option without a monthly fee for a period of 12 months.

HTC Mozart will be the first Windows Phone 7.5-based smartphone in Europe and will mark the beginning of mobile sales on the new platform version. “By presenting the first mobile device in Europe on the latest version of Windows Phone, HTC has once again confirmed its title of one of the most innovative companies in the world,” says Andrey Kormiltsev, head of the NTS office in Russia and the CIS.

The sales of the new HTC Mozart smartphone have already started and you can find it in the MTS and Svyaznoy retail chains, as well as in NTS's own stores. The recommended retail price of a smartphone in Russia will not be that much, only 12,990 rubles, which will probably stir up interest and encourage those who want to try the new system in action to buy.