RT @scottisafool: My #wp7 is a magical device. Wifi and data turned off but still getting emails coming through… (via @munishp)

The HTC Mozart 7 that I used for the Telstra Social Review is available to a good home. Please see this listing for details.

Posted from Sydney, New South Wales, Australia.

RT @allthingsd: Windows Phone 7 Prices Quietly Dropping http://bit.ly/flK4tZ <- discounting already ? Sales mustn’t be doing that well.

I’m selling my 2 week-old HTC Mozart Windows Phone 7 phone in perfect condition. Let me know if you’re interested ! #wp7

I’ve listed this phone for sale here.

I’ve had the HTC Mozart to play with for the past two weeks as a part of Telstra’s Social Review program for this phone. I have posted a lot of thoughts on this blog over this period and the review period has drawn to a close. So where do I stand with this phone ?

This phone is not for me but let me explain why.

I had stated right at the beginning that I was going to approach the review by focusing on the features of the phone that are important to me as a user of smartphones. And that I would be drawing comparisons between the HTC Mozart and the phone that I am using currently, the iPhone 4. It’s only natural and credible to draw comparisons against something that I’m familiar with. I haven’t compared the Mozart to any phones running Android as I’ve never used an Android phone.

Let me clarify also my profile as a smartphone user as people use smartphones in different ways. My primary uses of my iPhone 4 are : Twitter, Facebook, taking photos and videos and Google Maps. My secondary uses are gaming, music, watching videos, e-books. Lastly, I also use my iPhone 4 as a phone and messaging device. Essentially, a smartphone to me is a mobile internet device first and foremost and lastly as a phone simply because I really don’t make that many phone calls. And when I do, they are short and sweet. It was really against this usage profile in mind that I approached the HTC Mozart and anyone reading this, should also keep this profile in mind.

In making a decision as to whether the HTC Mozart is a keeper, it was easy. Do the things I really like about the phone outweigh the things I really dislike about the phone ? The stuff in the middle doesn’t really matter (photo quality, video quality, lack of apps, mediocre Mac support).

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Posted from Sydney, New South Wales, Australia.

Having side scrolling problem in the Telstraone app as well. Def not limited to Twitter apps. #TelstraWP7

#TelstraWP7 Marketplace. Loading. Twitter. Loading. Something else. Loading. (via @themolk) <- +1 ! My review on perf. http://bit.ly/i3n2GG

Was hoping to test out the TelstraOne app during my commute this morning but feeds wouldn’t load nor the live video streaming. @telstraWP7

I’ve listed this phone for sale here.

I thought it’d be interesting to do a comparative performance test between these two devices. They are both armed with 1Ghz processors and the HTC has 576Mb of RAM as compared with the iPhone’s 512Mb.  The first video below shows the boot speed of both devices and you can clearly see that the HTC Mozart is the speedier of the two when it comes to boot up speed.  The situation changes when you compare application load speeds. I picked Bejewelled for this test as I had this game installed on both phones.  The speed difference between the iPhone and the HTC is the difference between night and day.  The iPhone totally blitzed the HTC when it comes to loading Bejewelled. In fact, I do notice that applications in general take longer to load on the HTC than the iPhone.

I’m less concerned about boot speed though both devices are reasonably fast to boot (I still remember my Blackberry Bold taking at least 5 minutes to boot and it crashed frequently enough that this drove me nuts). I don’t remember the last time I had to reboot my iPhone and nor do I reboot the HTC either. Unlike the experience of some of the other social reviewers, I’ve only had the Mozart crash on me once that required a reboot of the phone.

What is critical is application load speed and the HTC is clearly inferior in this aspect. There is a double whammy here with the touch buttons on the HTC. I find myself regularly bounced out of the app or game that I’m in because I accidentally pressed the home button on the phone. And to get back into the app or the game requires a lengthy wait for the app or game to load again. This is quite frustrating and is the number one reason why I cannot use the Mozart as my phone.

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Posted from Sydney, New South Wales, Australia.

How well does a WP7 device work in a Mac environment ? The short answer is pretty well but the full experience is only available in a Windows environment. Microsoft’s Zune desktop application is not available in a Mac OS flavour. This is not surprising since iTunes was also initially only available for Macs. But Apple quickly saw the benefit of releasing a Windows version and they saw a huge uptake of iPods once iTunes for Windows was released. Similarly, I won’t be surprised that Microsoft is working on a Mac version of its Zune application if they are serious about challenging Apple in this space. But in the mean time, the Windows Phone 7 Connector utility is the next best alternative for connecting a WP7 phone to the Mac.

The WP7 Connector worked quite well in synching my media (music and video) in iTunes over to the HTC Mozart. It was able to recognise all the playlists that I have in iTunes, including smart playlists (dynamic playlists). Media synching wasn’t all that speedy. I did not do a direct test of the synch speed between the WP7 Connector and iTunes but anecdotally, I think it is slower than iTunes. I don’t synch my media that frequently, so this is not an issue for me.

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Posted from Sydney, New South Wales, Australia.

This is a follow up to my earlier photo comparison post between the HTC Mozart and the iPhone 4. I have been waiting for a nice fine day to get out to take some more comparison shots. After days of rain and cloudy skies, the day finally came today. I won’t repeat my earlier observations in this post, as they all generally still stand.

I do want to correct one earlier observation of mine. In my previous post, I observed that the iPhone manages to render a shallower depth of field (putting the background out of focus). As you can see from the second series below, the HTC Mozart does a fine job of blurring the background as you move in closer to the subject. Unfortunately I didn’t take both comparison photos from exactly the same distance, so it’s hard to do a side by side comparison.

Another observation to be made about the second series is that both phones are able to deliver acceptably sharp photos. Looking at these shots side by side, I can’t say that one phone has an advantage over the other when it comes to sharpness. In all three series, I thought the output from the HDR version of the iPhone photo was the least desirable of the three.  The HDR version is a lot less saturated than the regular version and has a very washed out appearance.

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Posted from Sydney, New South Wales, Australia.

The side scrolling problem is affecting the Facebook app as well. #TelstraWP7

Both the HTC Mozart and the iPhone 4 have the ability to record 720p video. In the video embedded below, I have compiled three clips that I shot using both phones to compare their video quality. The blog template that I’m using isn’t wide enough unfortunately. Please view the video below directly on Youtube in order to view it in its entirety.

I would say that the video quality from my both phones are comparable. I cannot see any significant differences in quality between the two. This is obviously not the same as the 720p video that you would get from a DSLR or HD video camera. But as far as mobile video goes, I think the quality is quite good. There are some salient differences however.

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Posted from Sydney, New South Wales, Australia.

Does anyone know if #telstraWP7 will synch wirelessly on a Mac ? Can’t seem to get it to work.