Sh*t my Windows Tablet PC Says

I have a couple of years old Motion LE1700 “slate” (no physical keyboard or mouse) Tablet PC running Windows 7 Ultimate Edition.  Although OEMs have had “slate PCs” and Windows has supported “tablet PCs” since 2002 unfortunately it isn’t even remotely in the same class as Apple’s iPad from a consumption (reading/browsing) or  usability perspective.  Fortunately, it runs all Windows apps and in my case interoperates with our home network including Windows Home Server, a network-connected Brother printer, etc.  Those are the only reasons I use it versus an iPad. 

Whereas finger(s) are used to interact with an iPad, interaction with Windows/apps requires a “digitizer” (a sort of electronic pen) to interact with Windows and the installed applications.  The digitizer works well for starting applications and to capture your handwriting. Capturing handwriting is especially useful with an application like Microsoft’s OneNote since you can write your notes digitally as fast as you can write.  Where the digitizer and Windows falls down is when you’re trying to type in a URL into a browser, a word(s) or sentence(s) into Facebook, Word, etc.   Hopefully, in the version of Windows Microsoft uses the excellent software keyboard their Windows Phone team developed for Windows Phone 7 (see my review).   So you can see how much Windows soft keyboard needs to evolve below is how Windows captured my handwriting (admittedly not great) when I rewrote this and the previous paragraph using only the digitizer (the bold indicate incorrect handwriting interpretations).  Enjoy.

I have a Couple of years old Motion LE 1700 "slate" (no physical keyboard or rouge) Tablet PC running Windows 7 Utility Edition. Although OEMs here had "data pcs" and Windows his support. "Tablet PCs" Since 2002  unfortunately it isn’t even remotely in there class as Apple’s i Pad from a consumption (reading/ Browsing) or usability perspective. fortunately, it runs all Windows apps and in my case interoperates with our home network including Windows the Server, a network-connected Brother printer, etc. Those are the reasons I use it versus getting a, i Pad.

Whereas finger (2) are used to interact with an iPad in (are fin with Windous/apps requires a "digitizer" (a hurt of electronic pen) to interact with Windows and  the installed application}. The digitizer works well for starting applications and to capture your handwriting. Capturing handwriting is especially useful with an application like Microsoft’s OneNote find you can write your notes digitally as fact as you can write. Where the digitizer and when fall down is when housetrain, to type a USC into a browser, a words) on sentence(s) into facebook, Word, etc. Hopefully, in the next version of Windows microsoft user the excellent software keyboard their Windows Phone team developed for Windous Phone 7 Gee way review). Sohyou an see how much Windous Scott keyboard reeds to evolve below is how Windous captioned my handwriting (admittedly rot great) when I rewrites this and the previous paragraph using only the digitizer (the bold indicate incorrect handwriting interpretations). Enjoy. it

Hands on with HTC’s HD7 Windows Phone 7

I purchased the HTC HD7 Windows Phone 7 (on T-Mobile’s network) on November 8 (the first day it was available in the US). For the benefit of my friends and family I wanted to share my experiences with the phone during the first week. I wanted to go above and beyond the focus of most reviewers up to this point. If you haven’t read an "official review, I highly recommend Anandtech.com’s review. If you want to see a polar opposite opinion read this review. WP7 may or may not be the smashing success the iPhone was but it won’t be for any of the reasons the latter "author" mentioned.

Bottom Line: the Samsung, HTC, LG and Dell phones based on the Windows Phone 7 operating system will delight 99% of the smartphone purchasing population and I would be very surprised if told me you were disappointed if you used it for a couple of days. Microsoft nailed the end-to-end scenarios and we are the better for it. If you’re thinking of an alternative OS, I believe WP7 provides a great alternative to the chaos Google is creating for themselves by seemingly having no control over the manufacturers/mobile operators (Windows Mobile had that issue) and Apple’s locked-down approach with the iPhone. There are some functional gaps that Apple has nailed (e.g. Facetime) that hopefully over time Microsoft and their partners will fill. Speaking of iPhone and Android, WP7 mostly has the apps available that you’ll want. Although I question the value of 95% of the iPhone apps, there are some that are very creative and useful that you might miss (I don’t because I’ve never had an iPhone).

Likes:

• Speed. The interface is amazingly fluid, snappy and is really a pleasure to use.
• Information at your fingertips. The start screen’s "live tiles" and locked screen at-a-glance info very useful.
• The connection to various "cloud services" is well thought out. It has seamless integration with Facebook, the various Windows Live services, Microsoft Exchange and others.
• OneNote/SkyDrive integration. I’ve used and loved OneNote on Windows when the 1st version was still in beta so being able to use it on my phone, have it sync to the cloud and then be available in OneNote on my PCs is a godsend. OneNote (and the keyboard) works so well that I wrote almost a third of this post on my phone.
• Camera/SkyDrive integration. I like knowing that whatever photos I take are automatically uploaded to the cloud and are shared to those people I designate. However, there are a couple of changes that would improve the experience for me–see Nits.
• The soft keyboard’s accuracy is phenomenal. It works so well that I honestly can’t imagine it working any better. IMHO, it completely eliminates the need for a physical keyboard. Mini-rant: it’s infinitely better than the soft keyboard on my pen-based, Windows 7 Motion Tablet PC. If I were Microsoft, for Windows 8 I’d port WP7’s keyboard code (assuming it can be internationalized well)–it’s that good.
• Installing a number of apps, even one right after the other, is simple and dare I say "smooth." Zero prompts, restarts, or need to finish one app’s installation before starting another makes for a great experience.
• Memory management is just the way it should be–invisible. Never having to open task manager to kill a thread/app/whatnot is super nice. There are a few instances (and very few IMHO) where multi-tasking would nice such as when I tried to listen to music on Last.fm and jump to another app but otherwise so far I can’t say that I’ve missed it. The only concern I have had with multi-tasking is when I switch from one app to another. That is because while the OS supports multi-tasking for some apps (e.g. Music player) I’m not quite sure which ones it doesn’t support. For example, when I’m in OneNote (an app that comes with the OS), click "sync" and then jump to the start screen does OneNote’s sync continue in the background or stop?

Dislikes:

• Lack of a "universal" email app. I have 3 different email accounts so in order to quickly access them I have 3 different start screen tiles. Some reviewers have called for a universal inbox where all emails are intermixed. I absolutely do NOT want a universal inbox–I like my work email to be separate from my personal email. I would just like one app that lets me jump between multiple email accounts.
• Battery life. Unless I don’t use the phone most of the day the battery would go dead somewhere between 3 pm and 7 pm. My usage disclosure: On a typical day, I’m mostly using data (apps) and talking on it for ~15 minutes. I don’t play games or watch/listen to video/music so your own mileage may vary. I have the GPS turned on for various apps and to track the phone and I have connected Facebook and Windows Live. Bluetooth is always on (for car connectivity) and WiFi is off 95% of the time.
• The soft keyboard takes up about 2/3 of the total screen real estate which only lets me see 5-6 lines of text in whatever text app I’m in (e.g. OneNote, Messaging).

Nits (but by no means showstoppers):

• Appointments on your calendar don’t automatically toggle the ringer to "vibrate." This was a nice Windows Mobile feature that had existed for many years (although it didn’t consistently work on the HD2) and eliminated the concern that your phone ring when you’re in a meeting.
• I miss being able to sync Tasks wirelessly with Exchange (which then get synced to Outlook). Fortunately, being able to use Mobile OneNote with SkyDrive is a pretty good work around but I still miss being able to set a reminder.
• One of the smartphone differentiators that WP7 has are "live tiles" on the start screen. Inexplicably all of the Microsoft-written apps available via download don’t have live tiles (e.g. Weather and Stocks). Fortunately, Weatherbug and The Weather Channel provide an alternative for the former although I haven’t found a good alternative app for the latter.
• The calendar appointments’ location field automatically is hyperlinked which launches Bing Maps when touched ASSUMING the address is in the correct format (e.g. 1 Microsoft Way, Redmond). When the address’ format is correct the feature obviates the need for WP7 to support copy & paste [in fact, if the phone OS requires me to copy and paste to map an appointment’s address, they have FAILED miserably]. However, if the address is in the wrong format a Bing-enabled hypertext link is NOT created so there’s no way to bring up a map of the address short of retyping it. Ironically, copying an address searched from Bing on a PC and then pasting it into the Location field creates an incorrectly formatted/unlinked address. For example, the address for "Meadowdale High School, Lynnwood" comes back as "6002 168th St SW · Lynnwood" The bullet between SW and Lynnwood is an unrecognized format. My workaround is a byproduct of being slightly OCD. I normally will fix the address’ format in Outlook which is then synced to the phone.
• The dedicated camera button is both a blessing and a curse. When pressed for a few seconds it is supposed to start the camera even when the phone is "locked" (a policy that most corporations push to the phone when it connects to Exchange for email). Unfortunately, periodically pressing the button will NOT start the camera . That is the only inconsistency I’ve seen on WP7. Update: A friend in the Windows Phone group told me that the camera won’t be opened when you cover the proximity sensor that’s in the upper right corner. This is so it does end up taking a picture when it’s in your pocket. Interestingly, that too doesn’t always work as it’s intended because after feeling my pocket warm up the other day I took out the phone to discover that the camera had engaged (but not taken a picture).
• When typing a review for an app the "cancel" and "submit" buttons are just below the soft keyboard. This makes it far too easy to accidentally hit cancel/submit when you’re actually trying to hit "space" or some other bottom-row keyboard button.
• While searching the Market for apps songs and artists from Zune are mixed in with the results. I want to be able to filter on only WP7 results. This is going to be more problematic when/if the Windows Phone market gets more generically named apps.
• This is more of an overall Zune issue, but the music content "featured" in marketplace isn’t filtered based on the music I like. For example today Susan Boyle and Cee-Lo are featured. While Susan is a tremendous vocalist I don’t have any other music that should lead Zune to think she’d be someone I’m interested in. I have never even heard of Cee-Lo and don’t have a single piece of music of his genre.
• There isn’t a single-step way to toggle WiFi on and off. I’d like to create a WiFi setting tile on the start screen but can’t. As a bonus feature, I’d love for WiFi to enable itself when the phone is externally powered (Android has this) because it’d simplify syncing up with the Zune desktop client and eliminate the need to use T-Mobile’s network.
• I cannot "word wheel" a contact by just typing the first few letters of their name or phone number. This was one of the killer features in previous versions of Windows Mobile.
• I’m fine with the decision to mostly hide the battery and wireless signal strength indicators since they’re just a touch away from being seen. However, in apps that don’t ship "in the box" with WP7 they aren’t always a touch away. I’ve had to go back to the start screen to expose them. I want to be able to check the battery level and wireless signal strength regardless of which app I’m using.
• As much as I like the Camera/SkyDrive integration there are a couple of issues.
• I wish that WP7 would upload the photos with their full fidelity (e.g. 5 megapixel) and not a lesser quality version (or what Microsoft calls "web quality"). What that means is a landscape photo is 717×538 pixels. That might have been web quality in 1996 but its not by today’s standards.
• Because the full fidelity photos aren’t uploaded I have to physically connect the phone to transfer them to my PC. Although I haven’t tried it yet I’m hopeful that the wireless Zune sync takes care of this for me. While on the subject of downloading photos, I’d also like to be able to download the SkyDrive-stored photos en masse without having to retrieve all of them via a zip file or having to launch Windows Live Photo Gallery (although the latter works well).
• The uploaded photos "Author" metadata for photos I took in Redmond, Washington where inexplicably tagged with "Hello from Seattle" I could not find a setting to change the Author tag to my name. I would think at the least the would use the GPS data to upload "Hello from Redmond" since the Geotag metadata had that information.
• Another issue I have with the keyboard has been when I’ve needed to go back and insert a word or add a letter somewhere up in the body of text I’d just typed. If you press and hold your finger on the screen an insert cursor (looks kind of like a capital I) appears which you can drag around. The insert cursor works OK as relatively smart about snappy to the right place. However, I’ve found it especially difficult to move the insert cursor to the left most part of the screen (in other words, to the left part of the leftmost word). The reason the insert cursor is needed is because in order to minimize the size of the keyboard it doesn’t have left arrow, right arrow, up arrow or down arrow like a hardware keyboard has.

Open Questions:

• I haven’t (and hopefully will never have to) "hard reset" the device (wiping everything from it) but I’ll be curious if it’ll be easy to do an en masse reinstallation of all of the apps. I haven’t found a "my apps" section in Market or in the desktop-side Zune client Marketplace that shows me only what I’ve installed.
• I haven’t found a centralized location to find which apps friends have "recommended." I believe this prevents apps from being more viral. The desktop Zune client’s Social area is focused on letting me see the music my friends like and the Marketplace doesn’t seem to have a social component. On occasion, I’ve stumbled across a "share" button which sends an email containing a Zune URL (e.g. zune://navigate/?appID=0c17d153-b5d5-df11-a844-00237de2db9e) to anyone I pick from my address book. The person receiving the email really needs to open it with Windows Phone 7 because the phone will make the URL a hyperlink which launches Marketplace. In the desktop Zune software, you must copy and paste the URL into Run because zune:// does is not a hypertext link.
• After I installed a couple of apps today (Nov 12) I switched over to a couple of other apps before eventually trying to go back to the Marketplace. However, for seem reason the app wouldn’t start. The screen would go black, the "loading" indicator ellipses crawled across the screen, and then the start screen reappeared.
• The 2 games I installed today aren’t appearing in my apps list. When I go to marketplace I only option is to "share." WP7 clearly thinks they’re installed (maybe they are). I’m not sure why this happened or how I recover from it. Perhaps it’s tied to the previous Marketplace failure.