Is the Newly Released HTC HD7 Windows Phone as Hot as They Say?

Recently I was chosen by BzzAgent to receive, free of charge, the new TMobile HTC HD7 Windows phone. At first I was hesitant on switching over to a new phone because I had grown so fond of my 3 year old mobile from Danger, and I knew that this new HTC HD7 would up my bill by $20.00, due to the fact that I was grandfathered in at my set rate.
At the same tine though, my old mobile needed to go. I could barely hear calls, the email feature only worked part time, and the thing was turning into an old brick, and yes, the phone would scoop up a few laughs by onlookers who were shocked I still used the thing.
When chosen for the free HTC HD7 I was thrilled, but scared. Would this phone live up to the expectations that are mentioned in HTC's website containing info about the phone? Or would it be a mistake to Axe my old plan?
I took the plunge, my bill is higher than it has ever been, and as of right now I am trying to weigh in the price to the value of this phone, and I have been using it long enough to come forward with a full assessment of the mobile phone everyone is talking about, the mobile phone everyone wants; the HTC HD7!
So you likely stopped in because you too are wondering if this phone is everything you have ever dreamed of, or if its another lard sucker of the wallet.
First, before getting into my gripes about the HTC HD7, I will go over some of the features, and things I simply adore.
The phones screen is simply spectacular, and I have already gotten a few comments on how awesome the screen is. It features a 4.3 inch touch screen. The colors are vibrant, customizable, and the touch screen itself works flawlessly. A swipe to the screen, an tap to the screen, and wallah, touch screen brilliance at its finest.
I have even had a few iPhone fans state that they wanted it, which is pretty neat considering most iPhone fans are fans of Apple products for life. The large touch screen on the HD7 however has them raising eyebrows.
The applications built into the phone are also pretty nifty, and syncing the phone with email, social networks and so on has never been easier. The market place also allows you to download an array of neat applications for your pleasure, from games to navigation, TV viewing, and so on. You have it all there, at your fingertips.
The kickstand is located in the back of the phone near the camera pin hole. It is made of thick sturdy metal, and comes in handy, especially if you are a Netflix subscriber. The kickstand will allow you to plop your phone down on a desk and watch movies on your mini screen. I love this feature, especially at the office.
The phones camera takes nice vibrant photos as well in 5mp. I will get into my gripes about this later on though. The quality is fair enough, but yes, it posses a few issues.
Call quality is decent, and I had no issues with connectivity or dropped calls, so all is well in that department.
The Internet works pretty graciously on the phone as well, with decent page load times, and easy zoom in and zoom out pinch features similar to how the iPhone works. I was impressed with the speed to be honest, so no gropes in that department at all.
All in all, the HTC HD7 is a great smart phone, but there are a few kinks that I really wished they would have ironed out before releasing this one, and they go as followed:
The first gripe is volume. My very first incoming call was nearly impossible to hear, especially in a room where a lot of people were talking. I figured removing myself from the outside noise would help, however it was still difficult to hear my caller in even a silent room.
Now to fix this issue, you can adjust the volume all the way up. However if you forget to lower the volume, any calls or sounds your phone makes will be ultra loud, so after each call you have to remember to lower the volume again, which is just an added step of annoyance.
The next problem I had with this phone is not necessarily the phone itself, but with TMobile. You see when I called them to activate this phone, they told me that all of my contacts and ring tones would take up to 2 hours to sync into this phone. I had at least $100 worth of games, tones, and music soundtrack ring tones that I had paid for in the past.
Well they never showed up,. In fact, when I called TMobile to find out why, they basically told me I had lost out. All of those games, all of those ring tones, and alert sounds gone with the wind. Money flushed down the toilet. I am not buying it, I will be writing a letter to the CEO of the company, because that's a pile of BS if you ask me. They could have at least offered me money off of my next bill, because buying something from someone, then having that said person take it away and telling you they will not give it back is nothing short of stealing. So yeah, TMobile if you are reading this, you really need to fix that issue, because its robbery.
My next issue with the HTC HD7 is the camera. The camera takes great pictures, sure, but it took me nearly an hour to figure out how to use the stupid thing because HTC's instructions are so vague. Take a picture it says, but does not tell you what to press.
I finally figured it out, you have to hold down the mini silver button for a while before it will snap a photograph. That works fine and dandy, but the time you have to hold this button down is just too long.
Not only that but the settings for the camera all reset every time you exit the camera mode. You have to go back in to the setting to once again turn on your flash if you want to take photos with your flash on. Having to do this over and over again is annoying. I wish there was a way to just lock my settings in. If there is a way to do this, someone please comment.
An easier method would have been to just plop your finger down on the phones screen to take a photo.
The video camera works well, and takes video in 720p quality, which is pretty decent for a phone. Getting it to work however is messy. You have to click the small video icon next to the camera icon on the bottom of the screen, it is so close to the camera icon though that it makes it annoying as you will time and time again switch back and forth by accident between camera and video mode.
Once you get the hang of it though, it all works rather well. The video quality is nice and sharp, and pictures will look pretty good too, even for a 5mp.

Next issue goes to the People application that is built right in to the phone. This area is basically a compilation of your social network friends. I have my phone synced with Facebook. However I have still not figured out how it works properly.

I can see stat updates fine and dandy, but I have no idea how to find my photo albums yet.
The strange thing about the People App is that it also is your contact list, or so it appears. However when I get text messages, the persons name does not show up. I have yet to figure out why, as I have updated all of my friends profiles with their mobile numbers.

This is something I will likely figure out over time, but for now, its a little complex, and for a new user it would be a little confusing.

The Marketplace is where I discovered my next issue.
 
I like how it is set up, and how you can easily search for applications, however load times will randomly take far too long. Not only that, sometimes while loading the marketplace will just boot you back to your main screen.

An annoyance, and a glitch I am sure they will work on, but for now it is still to shaky.

The on screen keyboard really sucks, and frankly there is no other way to put it. I was used to my keypad being built into my phone, but with the HTC HD7 your keypad of course is a touchscreen. You can flip the phone around to view it in wide screen to make it a little easier, but the letters are just too close to one another, so texting takes a lot longer to do now, and more errors occur due to punching the wrong key.

Battery life is not too wonderful either.

I charged the phone completely the moment it arrived, but about 2 hours into playing with it, and figuring out the layout and how to use it, I was already down to 72%. All in all, with hard use, I got around 10 hours of life till the thing up and died.

Overall:
 
The HTC HD7 is a decent phone in my opinion. There were a few things I wished were improved before its release, but overall my complaints stretch mostly to the complex issues regarding its features. I am sure over time this phone will get better and better with each update, and till then the phone is not too bad.

The issues I have discussed are ones I can overlook, and nothing has yet to bother me to the point where I wanted to throw it against a wall.

It is clearly not the greatest phone on the market, but it sure is trying.