Windows Phone 7 Launch Thread

wheresmybeaver

evolutionqy7 wrote: »

Lol its no good as a reader for long times. Battery will die

In bed. Taking a ****. That kind of thing.

Anyway I'm in the routine of charging my phones every evening, so my battery life requirement is only that it gets through an average day.

gizmo

If you have a SAMOLED screen then just invert the colours so that the background is black and the text is white. That'll save on the battery life BIG time

evolutionqy7

can u invert colors of samoled on windows phone?

meh i miss being able to go for a few days without charge my 5800 used to last me days

thought i dont complain it couldn't even do a quarter of the stuff a real smartphone can now

Foxhole Norman

Right I found my second gripe with the OS. The maps are absolute bollox! I can't even get ot to direct me to a street in Cork City. They would want to update the maps majorly for European/irish users.

gizmo

evolutionqy7 wrote: »

can u invert colors of samoled on windows phone?

meh i miss being able to go for a few days without charge my 5800 used to last me days

thought i dont complain it couldn't even do a quarter of the stuff a real smartphone can now

You invert the colours from within the Kindle App

On that note, anyone know how to sync non-Kindle Store books between the Kindle App on the PC and on the phone?

rc28

evolutionqy7 wrote: »

can u invert colors of samoled on windows phone?

Yes you can choose to have the background white or black. I prefer the black on samoled screens, way more vivid

spark1976

Have the kindle app myself the past 2 days.. lovely piece of software, simple and easy to use. Been reading a book on the bus using it, battery life is ok... it does go down unfortuantely but i've yet to find a decent smart phone that doesnt ... thought i'd get a serious case of eye strain reading but the HTC screen is quite large and you can adjust various settings so no problems there..

By the way you can buy spare batteries on ebay for the phone for 8 euro.. i bought two for myself... i carry em around in my coat side pocket, light and small enough not to bother me...i leave one at work recharging so its waiting for me when i arrive, and i switch the other one.. bit of a pain to switch but can't have everything i guess...

Some apps i've been enjoying

* Flixster - movie reviews, cinema listings etc, really good.
* Graphic.ly - haven't really tried it yet but supposed to be great for graphic comics
*MyThings - nice little organizer
*Photobucket - name says it all
*Remote desktop - haven't actually got it working but if anyone does please let me know, would love to be able to remotely control my pc at home!
*Shazam - music app..
*WeatherBug - Great little weather application
*Wow Armory - world of warcraft (casual user here) handly little thing...
*Ebay
*Crackdown 2 - Tower defence game which uses your current location on bing maps - i like it when it works!!
*Monopoly - classic gaming.. time flies when playing it!

evolutionqy7

rc28 wrote: »

Yes you can choose to have the background white or black. I prefer the black on samoled screens, way more vivid

u mean change the theme?

rc28

evolutionqy7 wrote: »

u mean change the theme?

No, aside from the theme colour (which changes the colour of the tiles on home screen) in the settings menu you can choose whether you want the background "dark" or "light" which inverts the colour ie black background = white text and light background = black text.

evolutionqy7

meh never seen that

wheresmybeaver

Since somebody else mentioned it, what are people using for cinema listings?

The Flixster app doesn't seem to support cinema listings outside of the US (it can't find my location, or seems to think I'm in Dublin; Missouri). My previous solution for years was the m.entertainment.ie website, but 4 out of 5 times the website doesn't work with Windows Phone 7 (it was always a badly designed website anyway).

Anybody any other solutions or apps? Something tailored for the phone, as opposed to navigating through a full website. Thanks

evolutionqy7

wheresmybeaver wrote: »

Since somebody else mentioned it, what are people using for cinema listings?

The Flixster app doesn't seem to support cinema listings outside of the US (it can't find my location, or seems to think I'm in Dublin; Missouri). My previous solution for years was the m.entertainment.ie website, but 4 out of 5 times the website doesn't work with Windows Phone 7 (it was always a badly designed website anyway).

Anybody any other solutions or apps? Something tailored for the phone, as opposed to navigating through a full website. Thanks

There's an idea for an app someone :-)

danger_mouse_tm

Foxhole Norman wrote: »

Right I found my second gripe with the OS. The maps are absolute bollox! I can't even get ot to direct me to a street in Cork City. They would want to update the maps majorly for European/irish users.

Chalk it down. We badly need a fully fledged sat nav app for the phone. This was the one thing that was holding me back from jumping off the nokia ship which i was born and raised on. The other thing was the loss of the 12 key input method. No more sending texts with the hands in the pockets!

I ditched my nokia 5800xm yesterday for the LG optimus 7. I soppose my main reason for moving was that i was finding the screen a bit small for my fading vision and i liked the idea of the live tiles on WP7. I am also a fan of Paul Thurott's supersite for windows (winsupersite.com) He wrote the book windows phone secrets which i am ploughing through.

So the last time i took a break from nokia was when i had won a heavily branded samsung H1 from vodafone. Beautiful phone by all means, but these things are great until you bring them to work and the serious business starts. Scrolling through facebook faces is not the idea way to make a phone call when you're taking a 20 tonne truck up the road. My sim was rehoused in my 6110 navigator within a week.

The optimus doesn't seem too bad. The bluetooth audio streaming sounds fantastic through my nokia ck300 car kit. My old nokia 5800 sounded like someone was slowing down the record every so often.

The voice dial will take a bit of getting used to. On the nokia i used to say "BRIAN" now i have to say "BREEN" in my best welsh accent. My buddy Jimmy, who was stored under Jimmy V8 (he drives a scania 480v8) now needs to be called jimmy the fifth (V - get it?) So i went through my windows live contacts today and sorted everything out renaming people and deleting duplicates. I then had to reset the phone and then re-sync it. Job done.

Very poor camera though. I took a couple of pictures today and they turned out like my first VGA camera - disappointing.

evolutionqy7

danger_mouse_tm wrote: »

Very poor camera though. I took a couple of pictures today and they turned out like my first VGA camera - disappointing.

u sure the settings arent set incorrectly? maybe its set to medium quality (as most phones come from factory) also check the set resolution in camera settings.

I binged it there and the samples are decent on the camera samples here

http://www.mobileburn.com/review.jsp?Page=7&Id=11326

Foxhole Norman

danger_mouse_tm wrote: »

Chalk it down. We badly need a fully fledged sat nav app for the phone.

Im not really bothered about a sat-nav app at the moment as you know being 16 you dont really require one. But when i start driving around summer ish i would love one.

wheresmybeaver

Foxhole Norman wrote: »

Im not really bothered about a sat-nav app at the moment as you know being 16 you dont really require one. But when i start driving around summer ish i would love one.

I have my old Diamond 2 (with WM6.5) permanently installed in the car now specifically for the GPS software. Work requires visits all over Munster to random businesses. I'm keen to pass on that phone to a relative but it's not going anywhere until some sort of GPS navigation software arrives for WP7.

I'm particularly thinking about my next trip to Germany; I don't want to have to bring my old phone too just for getting around.

So far there have been one or two branded GPS Nav apps launched for Germany and Singapore (I think), but amazingly these have not yet been launched anywhere else. And no word from TomTom, Garmin or Nav n Go (Hungarians behind iGo) on WP7. Disappointing.

AlmightyCushion

How do people find syncing with google account e.g. gmail, contacts, calendar (not just the main calendar but all of them) and reader? Does it work?

Undead

AlmightyCushion wrote: »

How do people find syncing with google account e.g. gmail, contacts, calendar (not just the main calendar but all of them) and reader? Does it work?

Worked fine for me, I didn't have my contacts on my iPhone 4 so when I activated my new sim (Same number, just had to get a normal sized sim) I had no way of getting my numbers off the now useless micro sim.

So I synced my Omnia 7 with Google for my contacts and it worked perfectly, all my contacts are now on my phone, no problems.

wheresmybeaver

AlmightyCushion wrote: »

How do people find syncing with google account e.g. gmail, contacts, calendar (not just the main calendar but all of them) and reader? Does it work?

Mail and contacts sync great. If you're syncing contacts from 2 or more sources then the phone will automatically merge those with the same name. Those that it can't merge (missing a second name or something) you can manually link.

You can only sync the main calendar for Google or Windows Live at the moment unfortunately. It's due in a future update (not the January one either it seems - no mention yet).

There are a good number of really good Google Reader apps for WP7. I'm using a paid one called Wonder Reader, but there are a few free ones too.

Also worth mentioning, m.boards.ie renders great on WP7. Doesn't need a dedicated app.

chrislad

It should also be worth mentioning that the 'new look' version of boards doesn't work well at all. The menu bar has a mind of its own and goes all over the place. Fairly difficult to get into messages too.

evolutionqy7

chrislad wrote: »

It should also be worth mentioning that the 'new look' version of boards doesn't work well at all. The menu bar has a mind of its own and goes all over the place. Fairly difficult to get into messages too.

did u try the mobile version? will make navigation easier

AlmightyCushion

wheresmybeaver wrote: »

Mail and contacts sync great. If you're syncing contacts from 2 or more sources then the phone will automatically merge those with the same name. Those that it can't merge (missing a second name or something) you can manually link.

You can only sync the main calendar for Google or Windows Live at the moment unfortunately. It's due in a future update (not the January one either it seems - no mention yet).

There are a good number of really good Google Reader apps for WP7. I'm using a paid one called Wonder Reader, but there are a few free ones too.

Also worth mentioning, m.boards.ie renders great on WP7. Doesn't need a dedicated app.

Pity it only links the main calendar as that one is empty on my calendar.

markpb

This has been mentioned on other forums but it's probably worth mentioning here. The volume settings on the Samsung Omnia 7 are odd to say the least. The physical volume button goes from 0 to 30 with 1 being quite loud and 30 being not much louder. If you plug headphones in to listen to music or watch a video, anything less than 20 is useless and even 30 isn't great with any other background noise (such as on a Luas). If the headphones are plugged in and someone calls, the video/mp3 volume drops but it doesn't ring. If someone texts, the noise coming through my earphones (with the phone volume set to 25) is deafening.

There are hacks for this (which don't work well for me and don't survive reboots) but it's making my Samsung less useful as an iPod Touch replacement

liamog

I was on the bus and train to work this morning using the stock headphones with the Omnia 7, the sound level was perfectly adequate at 12. Maybe you should try swapping the plastic buds, if you find a pair that fit better then it might improve your experience. As to the txt message alert, I don't get all that many so can't really comment.

rc28

liamog wrote: »

I was on the bus and train to work this morning using the stock headphones with the Omnia 7, the sound level was perfectly adequate at 12. Maybe you should try swapping the plastic buds, if you find a pair that fit better then it might improve your experience. As to the txt message alert, I don't get all that many so can't really comment.

+1
I find the Omnia 7 to have good sound, around level 12 is perfect for me whereas on my old iPhone I would have to have the level at about 75%. Of course it does depend on what headphones you use and I'm finding the standard pair that came with the Samsung pretty good.

There is a problem in that the volume you choose for music is the same for the volume of the ringer and I found on another forum that MS have committed to fix this so that they are separate.

evolutionqy7

markpb wrote: »

This has been mentioned on other forums but it's probably worth mentioning here. The volume settings on the Samsung Omnia 7 are odd to say the least. The physical volume button goes from 0 to 30 with 1 being quite loud and 30 being not much louder. If you plug headphones in to listen to music or watch a video, anything less than 20 is useless and even 30 isn't great with any other background noise (such as on a Luas). If the headphones are plugged in and someone calls, the video/mp3 volume drops but it doesn't ring. If someone texts, the noise coming through my earphones (with the phone volume set to 25) is deafening.

There are hacks for this (which don't work well for me and don't survive reboots) but it's making my Samsung less useful as an iPod Touch replacement

Send Samsung an email regarding it. Im sure if they dont have a fix at least they would look into issuing an update for fixing it in the future

Venom

HTC 7 pro hits 02 Germany next week for €569

http://www.engadget.com/2011/01/11/htc-7-pro-arriving-on-o2-germany-next-week-priced-at-569/

Boxfresh

I'm waiting patiently for the Dell Venue Pro to be released. The date keeps getting put back though.

KrisW

If you've one of these on PAYG or a plan with a low limit, it might be worth keeping a close eye on your data usage:

Microsoft investigates 'phantom' Windows Phone 7 data

These are mostly US complaints, so it could be operator crapware constantly phoning home. Still, if it saves you a monster bill...

liamog

I was looking at my usage on 3, last month I used 623 Mb and I use the phone a lot. Would be interesting to see if other Irish users see the same kind of thing.