HTC Mozart: First Impressions

HTC Mozart: First Impressions

Note: These are only some very initial comments based on about an hour of playing with the device

The overall design of the phone is quite sleek and the build quality seems good when the device is in hand. It’s slightly lighter than the iPhone 4 (only by 7 grams according to the specs) but for some reason that’s noticeable.

The phone was quick enough to setup. After entering your Windows Live ID and password to activate the device and accept terms & conditions it was just a matter of confirming the time zone and then the device was ready to go.

A couple of specific things I’ve noticed so far:

  • You can’t connect to a hidden WiFi network
  • Signal strength and carrier network is only shown at the top of the screen when you’re in the phone app or on the lock screen
  • Battery life is only shown at the top of the screen shortly after waking the phone up and unlocking the screen then it disappears
  • The device is a little awkward to unlock by having to press the sleep/wake button (at the top) then swipe up the screen upwards, it’s not terribly obvious that you need to swipe up but the whole process almost makes it a two handed operation until you get used to it (The home button doesn’t wake the phone up as it’s only a touch area rather than an actual button)
  • The time stays in the top right which is nice but the rest of the top screen is never used so seems to be wasted, it would be better showing battery life, carrier network and signal strength.
  • Purchasing an app from the marketplace was simple although the white writing on a light background of the marketplace home page is difficult to read.
  • The keyboard will take some getting used to. The virtual keys are much narrower than the iPhone and even narrower are important keys like the full stop and @, this can slow your typing down as you aim very carefully for these characters
  • The Internet Explorer browser is fast to open although rendering the pages seems to be slower than mobile Safari (more speed tests later)
  • The search button is great. Pressing the search button on the bottom right takes you straight a Bing search window from any app, great for when you just want do a quick search. Although once you press the search button you do have to tap in the field to start typing which is an unnecessary extra step
  • The call quality was good and similar to the iPhone it’s easy to call an extra person and merge the calls
  • Some of the icons in apps and system areas are very ambiguous and quite small. It’s a matter of having to press them to work out what some of them actually do

Disclosure: Telstra is supplying the HTC Mozart 7 free of charge for me to review, however all opinions expressed are my own and not made on behalf of Telstra.

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