Well, I usually don’t write any kind of reviews, but my good friend asked me and I can’t refuse (and that’s why it is in English). A week ago I got the HTC Mozart with Russian version of Windows Phone 7.5 Mango and it is time to share my feelings and opinion about this OS and the device in general and will compare it with HTC Desire S which I was using as a default phone since August.
What do I need from any kind of mobile phone?
- Email (Gmail, Hotmail, Exchange Online)
- Documents
- Twitter
- Phone calls
- Camera
- Calendar
- Facebook
Let’s start with email. It is good on Android and it is very good on WP7. Of course, it works fine everywhere, but still the UI implementation is more native on WP in conversation mode.
Office on Android is acceptable, it allows me to view MS Office files and it is good enough. But I need more: I want Office 365 integration and nice editing features. WP7 does it as good as no one do. Yes, you can tell me that MS Office files is not everything in the universe, but still it is just my own needs and I’m talking only about my requirements.
Let’s move to twitter now. I like the client on Android; it is extremely well designed and implemented. And the same would be nice on Windows Phone. No, I don’t mean that it works badly, but it needs more time for development of new (Andoid available) features and usability.
Phone calls. Come on! It is a computer with phone features and they work properly 
I saw some pictures made by different WP7 devices and most of them are nice, but I can’t say that about HTC Mozart. Autofocus is too slow. Driver problem? OS problem? Hardware problem? I have no idea… Hope it is only the driver problem and it would be fixed in the next update.
Calendar is a little bit strange in the begging, especially in comparing with the Android one. But after a few hours it feels very useful and I enjoy it much more. And because of a great Office 365 integration it is very easy to share calendars over the corporate network.
In the begging of its road Windows Phone was positioned as an OS with the deep social networks integration. I even can’t feel when I’m switching from text messages to the facebook chat, it is perfect.
Of course, there is something I don’t like.
First of all, the error message during the first start because of the necessary registration on the Xbox Live. I don’t have an Xbox, I don’t play games at all and I don’t want to spend my time on this registration.
Second, services. It is the most important thing and there are a lot of nice services available for WP7 customers in the USA, UK. System barcode and QR-code reader is the best one I’ve ever seen, but it is not available in Russia. So I have to follow these “region+language” settings to have the best functionality:
- Display language: English;
- Region format: Russian;
- System locale: English (United States);
- Browser & search language: English (United States).
Third, I have two laptops, on the first of them I have Windows 7 with Russian Language Pack and on the second there is Windows 7 with English Language Pack. Zune on the second one doesn’t work properly with my Hotmail account because of these language settings.
In general I like this OS more than Android, but Microsoft have to work a lot to cover this small (or not?) issues because they create a sense of completeness of the product. I’m enjoying the HTC Mozart. It is a great solution in the “functionality-price” section, it is fast and probably it would be a great business device where Exchange and Microsoft Office are required.
What do you think?
