Anyone excited for windows phone 7?

haroon · 13 Sep 2010 at 21:56

Seem's no one is talking about next month's release of windows phone 7.

I just wanted to ask if anyone knew what the most likely cheapest priced windows phone 7 will be?

I am really interested in the xbox live integration most of all but i don't want to pay more than £200 for a phone.£150 would be good but with the high system requirement's microsoft have put on phone company's i don't think we will see one at that price this year...what you guys think?

paradigm · 13 Sep 2010 at 22:20

I'm intrigued as to the platform and how it is going to penetrate a market that left its predecessor dead in the water, but given that my phones are business tools, and Windows Phone 7 has been built from the ground up to be a social interraction tool (as well as built to hide the core OS functionality, the complete opposite of Windows Mobile 2003-6.x), it won't be of any use to me as a device.

I'm slightly concerned that the Beta of Windows Live Messenger is a good indicator of the target audience and experience of Windows Phone 7, and if this ends up being true, the platform ends up alienating a LOT of loyal WinMo users.

We shall see.

Tunney · 13 Sep 2010 at 22:23

paradigm said:
I'm intrigued as to the platform

Me too. I'm intrigued but not particularly excited. The user interface is very different from what's out there at the moment. It could either be revolutionary or leave a lot of confused customers.

haroon · 13 Sep 2010 at 22:54

I C,would you guy's have a shot at the price ranges for windows phone 7 devices?

It requires a 1ghz cpu which is the same as the iphone 4 so will this jack the price up?

Amp34 · 13 Sep 2010 at 23:25

Prices will be similar to the other smartphones around. Probably start at £400-500 and in a couple of years range from £200-500 (sim free).

You're not going to get something cheap from them as that's not really the smartphone market (bearing in mind WM6.x phones sell at around £400 at the moment).

I'm very intrigued by it tbh, as long as some interesting hardware comes out at launch and the Desire HD is not spectacular (doesn't look like it will be at the moment) then I may well get a phone.

What i'm almost more interested in though is a proper replacement for WM6, which is still going to be sold as a business tool for quite a while yet. Problem for MS is that the next version needs to be able to use the current programs for it.

Temi_D · 14 Sep 2010 at 00:24

I've seen it. The interface and gaming on it are really cool, looking forward to a hands on

AMG · 14 Sep 2010 at 00:26

means we are all tech heads here, we would be interested...but would we bite the bulliet and get one is another thing altogther

gnetx · 14 Sep 2010 at 12:05

It's going to be an interesting platform, but I would imagine it'll take a while to mature and get to a stage when it's competitive, especially in the games and apps space. As Amp34 said, the hardware requirements alone will mean prices will be on par with other similar devices, but there'll probably be quite a few Microsoft-subsidised deals going on with the networks.

As far as I'm aware, there is virtually no backwards-compatibility with old applications on the new platform, so this is going to be an interesting transition for the corporate space. I'm certain that, with Microsoft apparently spending half a billion dollars on marketing for it alone, it's highly likely that they'll be offering support and incentives to developers to re-code their software for the new platform too.

rypt · 14 Sep 2010 at 12:15

I think it's coming to the party very late, Android and iOS have both moved on .. and will continue to evolve faster than MS can manage
Both of the above also have large market share now, and I'm not sure MS can deliver something good enough to topple them and the Blackberry anytime soon.

Django x2 · 14 Sep 2010 at 12:31

It will be a complete flop

Badboy2k3 · 14 Sep 2010 at 12:35

Tunney said:
Me too. I'm intrigued but not particularly excited. The user interface is very different from what's out there at the moment. It could either be revolutionary or leave a lot of confused customers.

Yeah I agree, it will be interesting...I can't figure out if i like the interface or not i guess time will tell when once i've played with one.

Minstadave · 14 Sep 2010 at 13:04

What's it based on, is it new from the ground up or is there still some old win-mo in it?

paradigm · 14 Sep 2010 at 13:05

Minstadave said:
What's it based on, is it new from the ground up or is there still some old win-mo in it?

From the ground up.

bledd · 14 Sep 2010 at 13:06

They need to change the name of it, calling it Windows is just lame

wellibob · 14 Sep 2010 at 13:09

New tech is always good news, however bad new tech isnt.

paradigm · 14 Sep 2010 at 13:10

bledd. said:
They need to change the name of it, calling it Windows is just lame

What?

So you expect them to ditch their best known brand-name, and try and penetrate a market with a completely new product that no-one has any brand association to?

People love Windows 7, so calling it Windows Phone 7 makes perfect sense from a marketing perspective. All they needed to do was distance it from Windows Mobile, which they have done.

Amp34 · 14 Sep 2010 at 14:14

Minstadave said:
What's it based on, is it new from the ground up or is there still some old win-mo in it?

It is totally different from WM, which was CE5 (I think). This is CE6 (I think) which runs on Zune players. The new OS is essentially a massively expanded zune OS (with a lot of the interface taken directly from it).

The things that interest me about the OS (other than the general interface) are the media playing ability (copied from Zune, regarded as one of the best out there) and potentially the gaming ability, which is likely to be good, considering how much MS is trying to integrate XBox live into it.

Programs wise I think there are already several thousand available as MS have been running competitions for program suggestions as well as getting a large number of big program makers on board for launch.

PeterB · 14 Sep 2010 at 14:43

will see what would be

Amp34 · 14 Sep 2010 at 14:50

For those interested about possible phones Engadget has a small list...

Asus' phone:
http://www.engadget.com/2010/08/06/asus-windows-phone-7-debuts-in-the-wild/

HTC Schubert:
http://www.engadget.com/2010/08/09/htc-schubert-windows-phone-7-gets-an-aluminum-unibody-handset-t/
http://www.engadget.com/2010/08/12/htc-schubert-windows-phone-7-handset-spied-again-or-is-it-the/
Looks very similar to the Desire HD so same phone running different OS? Either way it looks butt ugly...

LG's Phone:
http://www.engadget.com/2010/05/20/lgs-windows-phone-7-phone-caught-in-the-wild-looking-good/

Samsung's phone:
http://www.engadget.com/2010/08/13/windows-phone-7-leak-mania-continues-with-new-samsung-prototype/
http://www.engadget.com/2010/09/14/samsungs-i8700-windows-phone-7-handset-goes-through-the-video-l/ (video)

At the moment the Samsung looks rather nice, could do with a little less bezel but other than that it's much nicer than the apparent HTC one. No idea on specs yet (other than base WinPho specs) so no real idea about screen size unfortunately.

gnetx · 14 Sep 2010 at 16:11

The Samsung looks great, and the best thing about Samsung mobiles at the moment is the SuperAMOLED screen (which I think is still a Samsung exclusive). I went for the Samsung Galaxy S in the end as I couldn't wait for the WP7 launch, and the screen is its best asset by a very long way.

Amp34 said:
Programs wise I think there are already several thousand available as MS have been running competitions for program suggestions as well as getting a large number of big program makers on board for launch.

This is indeed good news. I'm hoping that they're all useful and interesting programs and not the usual junk that you find in the iPhone and especially Android app stores!