HTC Holds Windows Phone 7 Workshop at Mandarin Oriental Manila

March 08 22:33 2011 by Alexei Rivera Print This Article

HTC Philippines held the HTC Windows Phone 7 Workshop recently at Mandarin Oriental Manila and gave us a taste of the Windows Phone 7 OS running on an HTC 7 Mozart. The new Windows Phone OS was designed from the ground up to compete against the top smartphone ecosystems of today – namely Apple’s iOS and Google’s Android. And dare we say it – it does look sleek and polished enough to give the two giants some competition.

Microsoft Philippines’ Andre Ngo talking about the Windows Phone 7 OS

Mr. Andre Ngo of Microsoft Philippines started the workshop by talking about the new mobile platform they’ve created. Its Live Tile design and swipe-friendly user interface is a great way to keep all the information readily available to you. Taking photos is also quick and easy since pressing the camera button quickly launches the camera app even if the phone is on standby. He also introduced the concept of Hubs – these are fully customized user interfaces which you can swipe sideways and are specialized for your Music, Games, Pictures, Marketplace, People, and a great version of Microsoft Office for Windows Phone.

HTC Product Marketing Director for South East Asia Mr. Wayne Tang

Next, Mr. Wayne Tang of HTC South East Asia went onstage to talk about the HTC 7 Mozart Windows Phone. The HTC 7 Mozart is a uni-body chassis touchscreen bar phone with a 3.7” 800×480 capacitive display running on a 1ghz processor and 8Gb of storage. It has an 8MP camera on the back capable of 720p video recording and instead of the usual LED flash, has a more powerful Xenon flash. Rounding out the hardware features are Dolby Mobile and SRS WOW audio enhancements for the speaker and headset.

Then he talked about the HTC Hub, which is HTC’s collection of apps and pages that improve the Windows Phone 7 experience for its user. You’ll notice the familiar digital clock design and visual touches that HTC is famous for. Several apps and information can be found in the hub including the Weather, Stocks, Photo Enhancer, Notes and Lists apps, HTC’s Ringtone features (flip to silence, etc.), and even an amusing little Flower app you can pluck petals from.

Winners of HTC 7 Mozart phones from a Hardwarezone.com.ph contest

We had the privilege of trying out the phone itself and we came out impressed. The phone feels great on the hand and the aluminum unibody feels unusually light but sturdy. Windows Phone 7 OS is pretty fast, has a great on-screen keyboard and nice fluid, if flashy, menu animations. Scrolling around and zooming on pictures was quick and with no semblance of lag. It definitely has a certain slickness to the style while also easy to pick up and friendly to use. The camera is impressive as well; it took great images of the event and used the Xenon flash to illuminate subjects well. Its rare for a phone to get one of these flashes so we’re excited that it is in the Mozart. The sound enhancement features are also not just for show – they improved the audio output of the device and made the sound a lot more powerful.

Overall, the event left us interested with the device and the Windows Phone 7 OS. The latter’s fluid animations and Live Tiles give the phone its own unique, and friendly, user interface. While the Mozart is a looker in design and has some great hardware specs including the Xenon flash equipped camera and Dolby SRS sound enhancements. We’re definitely looking forward to giving it a more in-depth look soon – and we’re happy to say we might get that chance. So stay tuned!

Here are some pictures from the event: