HTC HD7 - Sleek and stylish, but far from perfect

The HD7 is quite a nice phone. The new platform seems promising, and is a huge step forward from WM 6.5, apart from a few shocking omissions. The HD7 loses out on account of these omissions, as well as a few of its own. A decent display in lieu of an S-LCD, a mediocre battery, mediocre speaker to mention a few. Its not a well rounded package and has a number of small, yet visible chinks in its repertoire. At Rs. 29,990 we cannot ignore that fact.

Pros

• Well built and sleek
• Snappy hardware, large display
• Very nice interface, great browser

Cons

• Mediocre battery
• Mediocre loudspeaker
• A flagship device deserves a higher grade display

HTC is a brand that needs no introduction. The Taiwanese giant, known for building handsets for the likes of O2, iMate and so on, has entered the retail market and met with reasonable success. Touchscreen phones are the latest fad, and HTC has been steadily churning out a stream of such phones. They've made their mark in our market too, with some excellent capacitive-touch phones, and some of their phones like the Touch HD2 and Desire. Those interested can read our HTC Desire review here.

The HD7 is a direct descendent from the HD2, the latter was powered by Windows Mobile 6.5while the former features Microsoft's Windows Phone 7 - the newest cellphone platform available today. However, as we've learnt when it comes to operating systems and cellphones, the latest isn't always the best. Android is far from the perfect cellphone platform, and while it has gotten better, there are still a lot of small nits to be ironed out. And so it goes with today's candidate. The HD7 is an impressive looking phone, with an impressive spec-sheet. However, in the end its usability as a phone and the minor teething issues of the platform prove to be its undoing. As we've said before, there is no perfect touchscreen cellphone, along with adding faster CPUs, applications, nifty gesture-based controls and multimedia, manufacturers have forgotten to master the basics.

Look and feel

The HD7 is a beautiful looking phone - black and dark grey, exceedingly slim side bezels, and a handset that's dominated by a massive 4.3-inch capacitive touchscreen. And this is probably the selling point or failing of this phone. The display will either attract you, or repel you on account of its size. Obviously, we'd have loved the ultra sharp Super LCD technology on the HTC Desire to make a second appearance here, but that wasn't to be. The gently curving rear and the flat front adds another dimension to the aesthetics. The HTC moniker on the top bezel is minimal - a relief from the space-consuming, garish and, at times cheap branding followed by the likes of the LG and Samsung. HTC is an OEM manufacturer, and it shows in the minimalist badging. The HTC is a conglomerate of metal, plastic and of course glass. There is a metal bezel running right around the phone, and the raised edges means placing the phone face down on a flat surface will not scratch the display.

There are three touch-sensitive keys beneath the glass slab that extends below the LCD. These keys are really well spaced out and while their backlighting isn't excellent, it's more than adequate to use. The screen on/lock key is located on the top of the phone to the right side, and quite frankly, while it is intuitive thanks to a slight indication for ones fingerpads, it is hard to press, and offers minimal feedback. The volume rocker located on the right is similar, offering only marginally better feedback. The camera key is even worse, offering no feedback to half click (for autofocus). The microUSB port and 3.5mm jack are conveniently located on the bottom of the phone.

Interface

We found the layout quite simplistic. While not as intuitive as the iOS layout on the iPhone, Windows has done a fine job keeping things simple. There are far less settings, and anyone who has scratched his head wondering what the difference between Bluetooth on and Beam on is, in WM 6.5, will find the settings on Windows Phone 7 basic. In fact, too basic for some, as a few advanced options are missing. However, most of the settings involve changing values from a list, or a switch-like, on-screen slider.

The touchscreen is very sensitive, and owing to this, navigating around is a snap. WP 7 has a nice flowing menu system, consisting of large tiles. This is the default homescreen. The second screen, that is just a side scroll away, contains all possible options like alarms, calendar, games, browser, messaging, MS Office among others, in a single vertical-scroll list. A simple press and hold on any of these options, gives an option to add it to the home screen - pretty simple. Since all WP7 phones will run the same interface, the HD7 will look no different from other WP7 handsets, other than a few extra options. The Start menu that Microsoft doggedly persisted on is dead, and we don't miss it a bit. Within an option, you can swipe sideways and you will get different sub options, like a tabbed list, like within mail, side scrolling will get you mails under different and intuitive heads, like all, unread, flagged, urgent and so on. There is a context sensitive list of options, represented by icons, on a bar at the bottom of the screen. Expanding this bar by pressing the "..." symbol shows lists the functions of each of the icons, while displaying a few extra context-

Byond Q99 - Blackberry-style QWERTY smartphone

The Q99 is an average performer although the mediocre keypad ergonomics ruins usability and ultimately everything. However, it is rare to find such a feature set on such a cheap phone, As there are very few dual SIM QWERTY smartphones in the sub-Rs. 3,500 category.

Pros

• Affordable
• Dual SIM and dual memory slots
• QWERTY keypad
• 2GB bundled memory card

Cons

• Poor keypad ergonomics
• Mediocre loudspeaker clarity
• Shoddy trackpad

The Byond Q99 is a dual SIM, dual-memory QWERTY smartphone, which borrows the classic design aesthetics of a Blackberry business phone. It is one of the first QWERTY business phones released from the stables of Byond and inherits the body design from its elder sibling the BY 880. The only major difference is that the BY 880 comes with a track ball, while the Q99 ships with an optical trackpad. The glossy black finish on the front and back panels of the Q99 also gives it a bit more appeal.

Byond Q99 - 360 degree view

RIA Trends: Web Apps and Stores

No one needs to be taught how to purchase items in a store, such a concept needs little introduction as it is something we have all done countless times. We have regular stores for purchasing regular goods, and for quite a while we have been seeing an increasing number of online stores where one can purchase a variety of items from household appliances to real estate. Yet purchasing digital "goods" online - applications, games, music etc. from an online store - on a mobile device or even a computer seems like a recent trend.

Surely software of all things is the most appropriate item for any kind of online store. It seems rather odd that one would still need to order a software DVD online when the internet is the best medium to distribute it. Purchasing an application online that gets delivered to your doorstep is akin to going online to send a snail mail.

Google may have started it off by announcing their Google Chrome Store, but the fact is, an online store for online applications just makes too much sense.

However, the internet's biggest charm is that it is a decentralized resource, where content isn't tied to any platform. One of the biggest things to look forward to with web applications is that they would make such applications platform-agnostic. It doesn't matter if you are running a low-power tablet, a mid-range laptop or a high-end workstation computer, everyone is welcome as long as you have a standards compliant browser.

The Google Chrome Web store however is intensely tied to the Google Chrome browser, even though it is as easy to use any of the web applications on any other browser. Google Chrome itself is standards compliant, however there is an artificial restriction in their web store that makes us prevent using their store on another browser.

Mozilla's concept of a decentralized web application store ecosystem on the other hand tries to afford us the same liberties we are used to with traditional stores. You can buy the same products from multiple different stores, and stores compete on the basis of user experience, customer service and satisfaction. In such an ecosystem, Google's Chrome Web Store would be just another web store of many, that would be browser agnostic.

The fact is that even this may not be enough freedom when it comes to web applications.

Most of the web applications that you use today are tied to services, and in some cases cannot be separated from them. For example, GMail is a great web application that is tied to Google's email solution. Now you may use the GMail service with any client you want, but using the GMail web app with other email providers is not directly possible. The same goes for Yahoo! mail, and the plethora of web mail solutions out there.

Similarly, Picasa and Flickr are two services that allow you to store images online, however they also offer services such as sharing, face recognition, tagging etc. However it is not possible to use a different storage provider (such as Amazon S3) with either service if you just want the add-on features.

In the desktop world this would be like each application storing files in its own storage, your one office application cannot access anothers' files, and the only way to open an image managed by Picasa in Photoshop would be to copy it to the clipboard from one and paste it in the other. Not a very pleasant image. If we are to move to the clouds then the internet will have to work better together.

This makes web applications fundamentally different from our desktop applications, and buying web applications is very different from buying desktop applications. Your photo collection, for example, isn't going to suddenly get deleted and disappear if you don't pay for Adobe Photoshop Lightroom every year, yet this could be the case if you don't pay for your online photo management application.

On the other hand, storing data online can give some semblance of security, your data is safe as long as you keep paying for your storage provider. Your desktop hard disk on the other hand could fail at anytime, and the manufacturer's warranty will only get you a hard drive back, not your data. So it is a compromise like any other.

We are also beginning to see web applications that offer merely an application, where the only service aspect is the continual maintenance of the system. The Pixlr image editor, for example, is an excellent RIA that offers image editing features that compare to those available in most desktop applications. Pixlr can simply be launched in your browser without registration or login. The application launches in your browser and lets you open files that from your computer, or from any URL you specify. Additionally, it can connect to some other storage providers if you are willing to create an account on their service. Such an application can be a drop-in replacement for your native desktop application.

We live in a time of absurd inconsistencies. On one hand we have capacities in terabytes in our computer, and are capable of working with high definition videos and images in tens of millions of pixels; on the other, we are relying on online services that aren't compatible with such gluttonous use of data. Transferring all your images and videos to an online storage service such as Flickr or Picasa seems ever more so a lockdown in the choices you have in the future.

The lockdowns are at many levels; at the browser level, where your app store is tied to your browser; or due to the service your opt for. Either way, while it may seem like you have a lot of choices to begin with, it seems like you have fewer choices and less wiggle-room once you settle in.

These are all problems that the current web app and web app store ecosystem needs to solve before we can truly start transitioning our computing to the cloud.

A logo for HTML5 unveiled by the W3C

HTML5 has already been conflated with possibly every web technology that is still in development, and is nowadays used as an umbrella term for HTML, JavaScript, CSS3 etc. It seems that this conflation confusion is now officially endorsed by the W3C themselves.

The W3C have unveiled a logo for HTML5, which they define as “a general-purpose visual identity for a broad set of open web technologies, including HTML5, CSS, SVG, WOFF, and others.” Makes sense to use a buzzword to popularize open technologies.

In addition to a logo for HTML5 itself, specific classes of features and technologies are also given logos of their own. The logos are clean, but not always clear, visual representations of the technology they represent. Here are the classes, the technologies they cover and their corresponding logos:

• Semantics
  HTML5 itself
  

• Offline and Storage
  App Cache, Local Storage, Indexed DB, and the File APIs
  

• Device Access
  The device element
  

• Connectivity
  WebSockets, Server-Sent Events
  

• Multimedia
  Audio and Video
  

• 3D, Graphics, & Effects
  SVG, Canvas, WebGL, and CSS3 3D features
  

• Performance & Integration
  Web Workers and XMLHttpRequest 2
  

• CSS3
  CSS3, WOFF etc
  

The idea is that one can build a badge based on the class of features used on their site to tout their usage of open standards. Here is an example of a badge for a website that uses HTML5 semantics, CSS3, multimedia, and connectivity:

Some people are obviously upset by the move since the W3C is one people look up to to clarify the current confusion of standards rather then giving said confusion a visual identity. While this identity crisis is certainly not a good thing, fortunately, this logo has not yet been declared as “official” by the W3C, leaving it up to the community to embrace it before declaring it official.

Huawei Ideos U8150 - Android 2.2 and 2.8-inch capacitive touchscreen for Rs. 8,499

Huawei had let on earlier in the month that it’d be releasing three low-cost Android handsets into the Indian market – the Ideos X5, X6, and the low cost U8150. Though expected to launch for less than Rs. 8,000, the still inexpensive Huawei Ideos U8150 will retail for Rs. 8,499.

While the phone does not steal the title of cheapest Android phone away from the Micromax Andro A60 or the upcoming Intex device (pegged for Rs. 5,500), it does offer a capacitive touchscreen, 3.2MP camera, and Android 2.2 Froyo right out of the box.