Hands0n
18th January 2011, 05:27 PM
1143
So, here we are six days later. Courtesy of the good folk at Brando and network operator Three I have been buzzing about with a Samsung Omnia 7 that is based upon the brand new Windows Phone 7 operating system. And this really is a very new OS having been release during the tail end of 2010. This is a summary of my experience using the new device. This is not about Three's network, nor is it about the hardware, the latter of which you can read about in my previous article on this handset here https://talk3g.co.uk/showthread.php?8579-Samsung-Omnia-7-Windows-Mobile-7-smartphone-on-Three
Verdict
It may seem strange to start an article with the verdict, but that is probably what most people ask me first, "What do you think about the handset?" rather than "How's it going with the new handset?". So here is my thinking.
I quite like the new OS but find it lacking in a number of places. This I would anticipate in any first release of an OS even though, to be critical, Microsoft have had a lot of time to observe the competition and come up with an OS to match. They are not exactly inventing anything new here. As far as I am concerned, the only "newness" is the paradigm that they chose for the UI. It is different. But behind the skinning life returns to normal, and that is where I began to find fault.
Nevertheless, I am of the opinion that WP7 is a worthy choice for the modern smartphone user. It may leave the more experienced user wanting, those who have used direct [modern] rival smartphone OS. I would advise caution to anyone who currently uses iOS or Android. Go into WP7 with completely open eyes, try it in the shops or nab one from a friend. Get a little time with it, not a few finger pokes, before you commit. Do that, and I think you will not be disappointed.
Overall?
Yes. Overall the WP7 OS is quite capable. It has a nice stylised UI that is easy to adjust to, if not exactly intuitive from the outset. The handset arrives without any instruction book, but I am not convinced that the OS is so intuitive that it can be used competently out of the box.
A primer would not go amiss. Fortunately there is sufficient on the Interwebs to help you there. And also to be completely fair there is a Bookmark in Internet Explorer to "Tips for Windows Phone" which is an excellent primer. Personally, I would have had that bookmark as a tile on the Home page of the UI itself. A small but significant point I think, especially for the complete smartphone novice.
The UI
This is a vertical UI with two pages. That is, anything that does not fit on the viewable page merely finds a place further down the screen, invisible to the user until scrolled down to.
The main page is composed of active tiles - these will change in some manner dependent upon the app tha they are supporting. This may be a count of messages not yet read or revolving pictures as in the People app. The user is able to easily re-arrange the tiles on the Home page.
The second page (see below) is a full list of the installed applications, similarly arranged as a vertical scroll. The UI is swift and responsive enough to make even a long list of these no problem. I was quite content to scroll around the alphabetically arranged list.
1144
Inside the Applications
Opening an app generally reveals a common set of UI behaviour, a set of horizontally scrollable pages. For example Facebook displays a scrollable page of links to "news feed, photos, messages, places, events, friends, profile, requests, notes, settings, logout". But swiping right-to-left brings up "top news, photos, events, notifications, FB homepage". Twitter app presents "timeline, mentions, messages, lists," and so on, with each app working the UI to its own benefit.
This level of consistency in the UI is important - the user does not want to have to adapt their expectations for each application. They want a certainty about what happens when they perform an operation on the UI. WP7 generally tends to meet that expectation.
MultiTasking?
I touched upon this in my earlier article (linked to above). There is no evidence of multitasking in the apps that are available on this OS so far. Shutting down an app loses state, that is returning to the app takes you back to the beginning as if you had not run the app previously.
There is a correspondingly long period of time - as long as is necessary for the app to refresh its content from the network. This can be a quite a while depending upon the prevailing network speed. Even on a local WiFi connection we're talking about several seconds. When out and about it can take minutes before you are presented with any content at all - it is not cached between app invocation.
We should anticipate multitasking to appear in later versions of WP7, but for now this is what we have.
Don't Likes?
So far, in this review, I have expressed a liking and general tolerance of WP7's features in its early delivery. Now I want to turn to something that has proved to be a fairly major frustration to me.
1145
The above picture is of the EMail client where I have selected to create a new message. As you can see, it is a fairly clean interface with everything where you may expect it to be. Yes?
Well, actually, no. Look again.
1146
Take a close look at the "soft buttons" arranged below the Spacebar. That rightmost button, the "X" in a circle is the Cancel key. Press that at any point and the message is instantly cancelled and you are returned to the previous screen, in this case the list of messages in the mailbox that you were previously reading.
Let me just say that one more time. Press that "X" button at any point and the message is instantly cancelled. There is no "Are you sure" or "Press X again to continue". All of your work is instantly and unquestioningly discarded.
How annoying is that? "Extremely" would be my response. It was not so much a major irritation but essentially ruined my experience of WP7, where I eventually became paranoid about whether or not I would hit that button by accident.
So, that was the Cancel button's placement in the native EMail client. The other apps would be better, surely? I am sorry to say that is not the case.
Facebook made it terribly easy to hit the Cancel button by placing it more central to the Spacebar.
Twitter were much better behaved by not having a Cancel button at all - you can easily cancel by pressing the main "Back" button at the base of the screen, to the left of the physical Windows "Home" button.
Messaging was equally well designed, an Attach button is there instead - equally easy to hit but less catastrophic.
Internet Explorer had no soft buttons at all when opening the URL field for typing. This was perfect - all developers pay attention!
Search - at any point hit the eyeglass Search softkey to the right of the WinHome button and as with IE there are no soft-keys placed below the spacebar.
The crux of the matter here is that it is entirely down to the design, poor or otherwise, of the application itself that will define how tiresome and tedious it is to use. The WP7 paradigm has defined that such soft-keys can be located below the spacebar, and it's partner keys. This leads to making it almost natural for design flaws in the application to create such nuisance behaviour.
In use, having this happen occasionally may just be tolerable. But the Cancel button placement and its unquestioning behaviour will wear thin very quickly. It did so for me. I sought out other apps only to find that many of the alternatives were similarly badly designed. This is a fundamental flaw that the WP7's UI encourages and I really do not see a way out of it other than by the application developers taking much more care in their design.
Three Hub
I cannot let this review pass without mention of the Three Hub application that is embedded in the Home page. Of course, you will only see this if you take up a WP7 smartphone on the Three network. But here is a well designed Home page app that the other networks should sit up and pay attention to (that is assuming they do not have a similar "Hub" app).
Opening the app brings up a Favourites page with links to "Three, Facebook, Google, eBay, BBC Mobile, YouTube, Yell Mobile".
Swiping right to left takes you to a News page with links to "BBC News, SkySports.com, Google News - Top Stories".
Swiping right to left again takes you to the Account page displaying "Own Number, Service Number" and links to My3 Account and Help & Support. A nice touch indeed
So, Do I or Don't I?
I am not going to let you off the hook that easily, dear reader. Mostly because I don't think that I can answer that question for you, no more really than I could for any other OS. What I can say is that I would seriously consider a WP7 if I were in the market for a new smartphone. There is a lot going for it. With the exception of the one major annoyance above I think that I could grow to live with it.
So I would not say "No", but as ever I would advise "Caveat emptor" (buyer beware). You really need to try before you buy. And while you may not be able to snag one as us Bloggers are occasionally able to, you can take a good ten minutes in a store handling one to make sure you're okay with the new OS and its quirks and foibles.
So, here we are six days later. Courtesy of the good folk at Brando and network operator Three I have been buzzing about with a Samsung Omnia 7 that is based upon the brand new Windows Phone 7 operating system. And this really is a very new OS having been release during the tail end of 2010. This is a summary of my experience using the new device. This is not about Three's network, nor is it about the hardware, the latter of which you can read about in my previous article on this handset here https://talk3g.co.uk/showthread.php?8579-Samsung-Omnia-7-Windows-Mobile-7-smartphone-on-Three
Verdict
It may seem strange to start an article with the verdict, but that is probably what most people ask me first, "What do you think about the handset?" rather than "How's it going with the new handset?". So here is my thinking.
I quite like the new OS but find it lacking in a number of places. This I would anticipate in any first release of an OS even though, to be critical, Microsoft have had a lot of time to observe the competition and come up with an OS to match. They are not exactly inventing anything new here. As far as I am concerned, the only "newness" is the paradigm that they chose for the UI. It is different. But behind the skinning life returns to normal, and that is where I began to find fault.
Nevertheless, I am of the opinion that WP7 is a worthy choice for the modern smartphone user. It may leave the more experienced user wanting, those who have used direct [modern] rival smartphone OS. I would advise caution to anyone who currently uses iOS or Android. Go into WP7 with completely open eyes, try it in the shops or nab one from a friend. Get a little time with it, not a few finger pokes, before you commit. Do that, and I think you will not be disappointed.
Overall?
Yes. Overall the WP7 OS is quite capable. It has a nice stylised UI that is easy to adjust to, if not exactly intuitive from the outset. The handset arrives without any instruction book, but I am not convinced that the OS is so intuitive that it can be used competently out of the box.
A primer would not go amiss. Fortunately there is sufficient on the Interwebs to help you there. And also to be completely fair there is a Bookmark in Internet Explorer to "Tips for Windows Phone" which is an excellent primer. Personally, I would have had that bookmark as a tile on the Home page of the UI itself. A small but significant point I think, especially for the complete smartphone novice.
The UI
This is a vertical UI with two pages. That is, anything that does not fit on the viewable page merely finds a place further down the screen, invisible to the user until scrolled down to.
The main page is composed of active tiles - these will change in some manner dependent upon the app tha they are supporting. This may be a count of messages not yet read or revolving pictures as in the People app. The user is able to easily re-arrange the tiles on the Home page.
The second page (see below) is a full list of the installed applications, similarly arranged as a vertical scroll. The UI is swift and responsive enough to make even a long list of these no problem. I was quite content to scroll around the alphabetically arranged list.
1144
Inside the Applications
Opening an app generally reveals a common set of UI behaviour, a set of horizontally scrollable pages. For example Facebook displays a scrollable page of links to "news feed, photos, messages, places, events, friends, profile, requests, notes, settings, logout". But swiping right-to-left brings up "top news, photos, events, notifications, FB homepage". Twitter app presents "timeline, mentions, messages, lists," and so on, with each app working the UI to its own benefit.
This level of consistency in the UI is important - the user does not want to have to adapt their expectations for each application. They want a certainty about what happens when they perform an operation on the UI. WP7 generally tends to meet that expectation.
MultiTasking?
I touched upon this in my earlier article (linked to above). There is no evidence of multitasking in the apps that are available on this OS so far. Shutting down an app loses state, that is returning to the app takes you back to the beginning as if you had not run the app previously.
There is a correspondingly long period of time - as long as is necessary for the app to refresh its content from the network. This can be a quite a while depending upon the prevailing network speed. Even on a local WiFi connection we're talking about several seconds. When out and about it can take minutes before you are presented with any content at all - it is not cached between app invocation.
We should anticipate multitasking to appear in later versions of WP7, but for now this is what we have.
Don't Likes?
So far, in this review, I have expressed a liking and general tolerance of WP7's features in its early delivery. Now I want to turn to something that has proved to be a fairly major frustration to me.
1145
The above picture is of the EMail client where I have selected to create a new message. As you can see, it is a fairly clean interface with everything where you may expect it to be. Yes?
Well, actually, no. Look again.
1146
Take a close look at the "soft buttons" arranged below the Spacebar. That rightmost button, the "X" in a circle is the Cancel key. Press that at any point and the message is instantly cancelled and you are returned to the previous screen, in this case the list of messages in the mailbox that you were previously reading.
Let me just say that one more time. Press that "X" button at any point and the message is instantly cancelled. There is no "Are you sure" or "Press X again to continue". All of your work is instantly and unquestioningly discarded.
How annoying is that? "Extremely" would be my response. It was not so much a major irritation but essentially ruined my experience of WP7, where I eventually became paranoid about whether or not I would hit that button by accident.
So, that was the Cancel button's placement in the native EMail client. The other apps would be better, surely? I am sorry to say that is not the case.
Facebook made it terribly easy to hit the Cancel button by placing it more central to the Spacebar.
Twitter were much better behaved by not having a Cancel button at all - you can easily cancel by pressing the main "Back" button at the base of the screen, to the left of the physical Windows "Home" button.
Messaging was equally well designed, an Attach button is there instead - equally easy to hit but less catastrophic.
Internet Explorer had no soft buttons at all when opening the URL field for typing. This was perfect - all developers pay attention!
Search - at any point hit the eyeglass Search softkey to the right of the WinHome button and as with IE there are no soft-keys placed below the spacebar.
The crux of the matter here is that it is entirely down to the design, poor or otherwise, of the application itself that will define how tiresome and tedious it is to use. The WP7 paradigm has defined that such soft-keys can be located below the spacebar, and it's partner keys. This leads to making it almost natural for design flaws in the application to create such nuisance behaviour.
In use, having this happen occasionally may just be tolerable. But the Cancel button placement and its unquestioning behaviour will wear thin very quickly. It did so for me. I sought out other apps only to find that many of the alternatives were similarly badly designed. This is a fundamental flaw that the WP7's UI encourages and I really do not see a way out of it other than by the application developers taking much more care in their design.
Three Hub
I cannot let this review pass without mention of the Three Hub application that is embedded in the Home page. Of course, you will only see this if you take up a WP7 smartphone on the Three network. But here is a well designed Home page app that the other networks should sit up and pay attention to (that is assuming they do not have a similar "Hub" app).
Opening the app brings up a Favourites page with links to "Three, Facebook, Google, eBay, BBC Mobile, YouTube, Yell Mobile".
Swiping right to left takes you to a News page with links to "BBC News, SkySports.com, Google News - Top Stories".
Swiping right to left again takes you to the Account page displaying "Own Number, Service Number" and links to My3 Account and Help & Support. A nice touch indeed
So, Do I or Don't I?
I am not going to let you off the hook that easily, dear reader. Mostly because I don't think that I can answer that question for you, no more really than I could for any other OS. What I can say is that I would seriously consider a WP7 if I were in the market for a new smartphone. There is a lot going for it. With the exception of the one major annoyance above I think that I could grow to live with it.
So I would not say "No", but as ever I would advise "Caveat emptor" (buyer beware). You really need to try before you buy. And while you may not be able to snag one as us Bloggers are occasionally able to, you can take a good ten minutes in a store handling one to make sure you're okay with the new OS and its quirks and foibles.