HTC HD7 in India

Taiwan phone maker HTC, which brought the first Android phone to the country is now bringing first Windows 7 mobile phone. HTC which has a tag line of Quietly Brilliant is living up to it. The launch of HTC HD7 phone has been more than quiet with a pre-order icon appearing on India’s favorite eCommerce portal Flipkart. The phone costs Rs.31,000. Is it worth it? Let’s take a look.

Cost and competition

On the cost level, HTC HD7 is placed in the company of whole variety of smartphones. Dell Streak, Apple iPhone 4 and iPhone 3G S, Blackberry Torch and upcoming Nokia E7 and Acer Stream. That covers all possible mobile operating systems of iOS, Android and RIM. That also covers all possible screen sizes ranging from 3 inches to 5 inches on Dell Streak.

Screen and Camera

HTC HD7 is loaded with 4.3 inch capacitive touch screen with a WVGA resolution of 480 x 800. You can do all the things possible on a touch screen including pinch and zoom. The screen size, resolution are HD7 biggest assets and HTC hopes to sell the phone purely based on those features. The phone weights 162 grams with battery.

HTC HD7 has a 5 megapixel camera with dual LED Flash and it supports high definition video recording at 720p.

Processor, RAM, Storage and Battery

Microsoft has this knack of stipulating hardware requirements to run its software. Though they have it backwards, they almost always have their way. Thanks to Microsoft’s requirements, HD7 comes with a 1 GHz Qualcomm snapdragon processor, 576 MB RAM and 512 MB ROM. Those are possible the best specifications available on the current crop of smartphones. In India, HD7 can read memory up to 16 GB. There is no mention of pre-loading it on Flipkart.

Talk time is the most critical element and often neglected element on a smartphone. HD7 gives a 6.5 hours talk time on a GSM network and a stand by time of 13 days. One of the better batteries on a smartphone, I should say.

Connectivity

At 31K you don’t expect a non-3G phone do you? HD7 has all the good stuff – 3G, Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, USB and 3.5 mm audio jack.

OS

HD7 is loaded with Microsoft’s latest mobile operating system, Windows Phone 7. This is the first Windows phone to be available in India. Read a full review of the OS here. Microsoft is spending a lot in promotion its new OS and it will do anything to get the OS to a great start. The apps and the developer ecosystem is in place and we have to see how it all pans out. Windows Phone 7 has a plethora of windows cloud services it can access including Skydrive, Zune and Xbox Live.

Verdict : If you are feeling lucky and want to try a Windows phone then HD7 might be the phone for you. The jury is still out and we need to compare this with other phones in the same price range to arrive at a conclusion.

The pre-orders on Flipkart will start shipping in the third week of December.

Full specs.