Why You Can Trust CNET HTC Surround (AT&T) review: HTC Surround (AT&T)
HTC Surround (AT&T)
HTC Surround (AT&T)
The Good
The Bad
The Bottom Line
Editors' note: In our review of the HTC Surround and Samsung Focus, we point out some of the more major features of Windows Phone 7, but for a more detailed look at the full operating system, please check out our in-depth review of Windows Phone 7.
HTC came out strong at the Windows Phone 7 launch event with the introduction of five handsets. Most were for the European and Asian markets, but AT&T landed the HTC Surround, while Sprint will get the HTC 7 Pro in early 2011. The Surround is unique in that it offers built-in surround-sound speakers with Dolby Mobile and SRS WOW HD technology--a cool but niche feature. As far as devices go, the Samsung Focus will be the best choice for most consumers. Of course, the bigger story here is Windows Phone 7. Microsoft's gamble to completely overhaul its mobile operating system paid off, resulting in a fun and easy-to-use interface and an updated feature list that keeps it in step with the iPhone and Android. There are certainly issues and omissions that need to addressed --and hopefully quickly on Microsoft's part--but Windows Phone 7 shouldn't be overlooked.
The HTC Surround will be available starting November 8, for $199.99 with a two-year contract.
Design
The HTC Surround fits right into the company's portfolio of smartphones with its classic, corporate-appropriate look and high-quality construction. The handset measures 4.7 inches tall by 2.4 inches wide by 0.5 inch thick and weighs 5.82 ounces, so it's a tad on the hefty side but in turn, you get a very solid-feeling device. The soft-touch finish and metal frame around the screen also add to the phone's premium design.
Now, there's actually a reason for the extra bulk and that's the built-in Yamaha speakers. They hide behind the screen until you push the screen to the left. If you flip the phone around to the back, you'll also see there's a kickstand at the bottom that allows you to prop the phone on a flat surface for watching a video, listening to music, or taking a call hands-free. The speakers actually offer surround sound via Dolby Mobile and SRS WOW HD and to activate it, you just press the small button on the left-hand side of the speaker.
There's a noticeable difference when you do this, as the audio sounds richer and fuller. However, the overall sound quality didn't really knock our socks off. It's certainly better than most, but songs still sounded somewhat tinny. Also, during a speakerphone call, the volume, even at its highest level, was too low to have a conversation in a slightly noisier environment. For being the phone's highlighted feature, it's certainly not the selling point for the phone. We already felt like the speakers were bit of a superfluous item that would only appeal to a limited number of people, but now even more so.
Moving along, the Surround features a 3.8-inch, 480x800 pixel capacitive touch screen. It's crisp and bright, but colors don't quite pop off the screen as they do on the Samsung Focus' Super AMOLED screen. However, it's easy to read and viewable in daylight, and responsive.
The back, Start, and search keys are below the display, and like the Samsung Focus, HTC chose to go with touch-sensitive buttons. There's a volume rocker and a camera button on the right spine, and a power button and 3.5mm headphone jack on top of the device. On back, you'll find the camera and flash.
AT&T packages the HTC Surround with an AC adapter, a USB cable, a wired stereo headset, and reference material.
User interface
Windows Phone 7 is a complete and refreshing departure from previous versions of Windows Mobile. Microsoft essentially pressed the restart button and worked with a team of designers to create a mobile operating system based a number of principles, including elegance and simplicity, typography, motion, and relevance, which we mostly saw during this preview.
The change is immediately noticeable as soon as you pick up the phone. Microsoft stripped away all unnecessary information (almost too much actually--the status bar displaying battery life, signal strength, and so forth goes into hiding after a couple of seconds) and soft buttons, and created a Start screen that consists of "live tiles," which are essentially dynamic widgets to your favorite apps, contacts, and hubs and also display alerts, such as new e-mail and missed calls. You can rearrange the order of the tiles and remove them by doing a long press on the screen. You can also "pin" new tiles, but to do so, you must first navigate to the list of apps (press arrow to the right of the Start screen) or the People hub, find the item that you want to add, and then pin it to the Start screen.
Beyond the Start and apps menu, you will find the platform's Hub system. The idea behind hubs is to bring together related content into a single place for consumption and interaction, and it really showcases some of the work Microsoft has done on relevancy, organization, elegance, and typography. There are six hubs in total--People, Pictures, Games, Music + Video, Marketplace, and Office.
Within each hub, you will find a panoramic user interface with bold, attractive text splashed across the top to identify different subsections (aka Pivots) that you can swipe across and in some cases, a small contextual toolbar along the bottom of the screen to help you perform specific tasks to the app.
Now, some might complain that this type of navigation requires too much scrolling and can be overly complicated and admittedly, when compared to iOS and Android, this is true and certainly won't be for everybody. On the flip side, we found it absolutely wonderful to be able to do so many things from one place, without having to launch several apps, so we have to give Microsoft kudos for thinking of this kind of organization. We also very much appreciated the consistent user interface, since it made it easy to work each of the other hubs.
Overall, Windows Phone 7 provides a more pleasant navigation experience than previous iterations of Windows Mobile, mostly from an aesthetic standpoint but in other aspects too. As much as Microsoft focused on the typography and creating a chromeless user interface, it also concentrated on motion and as you launch apps and navigate through the different screens, you'll notice that some of the transitions are marked by turnstile motions. It's modern and fresh, but sometimes it can slow down navigation.
The back and Start buttons did their assigned jobs of returning to the previous page and Start screen, but we wish there was a way to bring up a list of your recently used apps as Android does, since it's easy to get lost once you start diving deeper into an app. In general, however, we found the touch interface and general navigation zippier than past versions of Windows Mobile.
There are things that could be improved, though. For example, there's only limited support for landscape mode. It works for messages, videos, and photos, the Web browser, and games. However, if you rotate the phone, the Start screen will remain in portrait mode. Microsoft said that user testing showed that customers were really only rotating the phone to type messages, but were otherwise using the phone in portrait mode. But what about maps? What about when you're listening to music on the Surround with the kickstand open and want to see what song is playing?
All things considered, will Windows Phone 7 resonate with consumers? We think so. It's interesting to note that several times throughout the review period, people commented on how they liked the user experience on Windows Phone 7 better than Android--both from a looks standpoint and user friendliness. The iPhone is still the one to beat in terms of ease of use, but in a competition for simplicity between Android and Windows Phone, we'd say the latter would win.
Along the same lines, there's something to Microsoft's decision to crack down on third-party customization. From the very beginning, the company said it wanted to provide a consist end-user experience regardless of the phone or provider and in the long run, this will help make the transition easier as users switch devices or move carriers. This should also prevent delays when pushing out software updates, since each custom user interface doesn't have to go through testing to ensure it works with the new software. OEMs and carriers also still have the opportunity to add their customizations. It's just a more subtle approach. For example, there's an HTC Hub that brings some of the familiar HTC UI elements, such as the animated weather widget, as well as highlights some the company's featured apps.
At the end of the day, we have to give Microsoft credit for being able to acknowledge that its old OS wasn't working and taking a chance on rebuilding something from the ground up. The end result is something fresh, fun, and functional.
Phone features
The HTC Surround's voice features include quad-band world roaming, a speakerphone, conference calling, voice dialing, text and multimedia messaging, and the full range of wireless options: Bluetooth, Wi-Fi, 3G, and GPS. The dialer app is simple and straightforward, though to access it as well as other phone options (mute or speaker) once on a call, you must tap a small icon to activate pull-down menu.
Contacts
Like many other smartphones, Windows Phone 7 is able to merge contact information from different e-mail accounts and social-networking sites, but it's a bit limited in scope and capabilities right now. The OS draws from Facebook, Windows Live, Exchange, and your other e-mail accounts for contact data, and after setting up your device with these accounts, the phone immediately pulls in contact information.
Previously, there was no way to filter the contacts--it was all or nothing--but Microsoft added a feature where you can now exclude Facebook contacts that don't exist in your other synced accounts (for example, Outlook, Windows Live, and Gmail), which makes your address book manageable if your Facebook account is full of casual contacts.
We chose this option and imported our Facebook, Gmail, Windows Live, and Exchange accounts. The syncing process was painless and happened in the background, but we ended up with numerous duplicates for the same contact. It's easy enough to link profiles, but with the number of duplicates we had, it was tedious and annoying.
As we briefly mentioned in the Navigation section, the People hub also provides real-time updates to your friends' Facebook statuses, and allows you to quickly like or add a comment if you wish. You can easily update your own by tapping on your individual card from the contacts list. For the most part, you can access most of the information you would see on Facebook from within the People hub, but if there is something that requires you to go outside the hub, you have to sign into your account via the browser as the dedicated Facebook app isn't available yet.
One other notable omission that might irk a lot of people is the lack of Twitter integration. This isn't to say it won't be offered in the future, but as of now, it's not supported at launch. It would also be nice to have a Favorite category in the People hub. The Recent list doesn't quite cut it.
E-mail and calendar
Windows Phone 7 offers a variety of e-mail support, including the standard POP3/IMAP accounts and, of course, Exchange/OWA. For most personal accounts, setup is a simple matter of entering your log-in ID and password, and we were able to sync up our Windows Live and Gmail accounts in a matter of seconds. Setting up Outlook requires some more information, such as server and domain info, but again, we didn't encounter any problems here. That said, for Outlook accounts not connected via Exchange ActiveSync, you must sync through the cloud (via Windows Live/Hotmail) in order to get your calendar and contacts synced to the phone.
We should note that you don't have to have a Windows Live ID to start using the phone, but if you want to access the Marketplace or Xbox Live, it is required, so you'll most likely want to create one or log in, for access to apps at the very least. This will also back up your phone's data to windowsphone.live.com where you can also manage your contacts, photos, and use several tools to locate or wipe your phone in case it gets lost or stolen.
Windows Phone 7 doesn't offer a combined in-box; a separate in-box is set up for each of your accounts. The e-mail experience is the same regardless of which client you're using, and it's strikingly simple in appearance, though that isn't a reflection of the app's capabilities. Messages are filtered by all, unread, flagged, or urgent, and also features a robust search function that can find keywords within the text of the message or within the e-mail fields. It's also a treat that you can simply tap to the left of a message(s) and press the small trash icon at the bottom to delete it.
You can configure the device to sync e-mail at different time intervals, ranging from manually to as items arrive. We received our messages as they arrived, sometimes before they even hit our real in-box. We didn't have any issues download attachments, but be aware that initially you have to manually sync your folders.
Though you don't get a unified in-box, you do get a combined calendar, with appointments color-coded by account. The calendar app provides views by agenda, day, and month, with a similarly clean and minimalist view as e-mail. There is no week view, however. Microsoft said it didn't find necessary, but we think it would've been a helpful, especially as you're preparing for the work week.
You can also easily create new appointments using the contextual toolbar at the bottom of the screen, and set such options as a reminder, occurrence, and status, but we weren't able to access our corporate directory to add attendees, only those listed in our contacts list. If you receive a meeting request, there are simple icons for accepting, declining or responding to invites, and there's even an option to send a note to all the meeting attendees if you're running late.
Office support
Similar to Exchange, we expect good integration between the Microsoft Office Suite and Windows Phone 7, and the elements are certainly there. You can view, edit, and create Word and Excel documents, while PowerPoint files are limited to just view and edit. We downloaded Word and Excel attachments from our e-mail and were quite happy with how documents were displayed with original formatting. However, editing options are pretty much limited to formatting, highlighting, and changing font color. What's even worse, Windows Phone 7 doesn't offer copy/paste--yet. Microsoft is working on bringing this basic functionality to Windows Phone in the near future, but at launch, you'll be without.
A new addition to the Mobile Suite is OneNote Mobile. The note-taking app is quite useful as you can add photos and recorded audio clips, as well as bulleted or numbered lists to notes. You can pin notes to the Start page, e-mail them, or sync them to your Windows Live account, so you can access it via Web later on.
Finally, if your company uses SharePoint Server 2010 for storing documents to share and edit, you can access them by entering the URL.
Web browser
Mobile Web is such a huge part of smartphones nowadays, and fortunately, Windows Phone 7 provides a relatively good browsing experience, certainly much improved from Windows Mobile. The Internet Explorer browser offers support for up to six windows and thumbnail views of all open pages, so you can easily toggle back and forth. You can also bookmark sites, and if you feel like it, you can pin pages to the Start screen for easier access.
Zooming can be handled either by using the pinch-to-zoom gesture or by double-tapping the screen. Both are smooth and zippy, but there's a slight delay when rerendering text and images. Other available tools and settings include keyword search, the ability to share links, and page suggestions by Bing.
Page load times were fairly quick. Using AT&T's 3G network, CNET's full page loaded in 27 seconds on the HTC Surround, while mobile sites for CNN and ESPN both came up in 8 seconds.
Now, for the bad news: as of right now, there's no support for Flash, Silverlight, or HTML5, so despite taking several steps forward, Windows Phone 7's also several steps behind the competitors. There's some consolation in the fact that Adobe did say at Mobile World Congress that it's working with Microsoft to bring Flash to the browser, but it just won't be in time for the holiday launch.
Music and video
If there's one area where Windows Phone 7 really excels and gives the competition a run for its money, it's the music experience. Windows Phone 7 now includes full Zune integration, so anyone who has used a Zune HD will be familiar with the interface of the Music + Videos hub. If you're new to Zune, there's a slight learning curve, but the interface is fresh and fun. The player offers simple controls and displays both the album art and an artist picture in the background. That said, it'd be nice to have better player control when multitasking.
When working in another app while listening to music, nowhere on the screen do you see your current track or any type of controls for advancing or rewinding tracks. It was only when we pressed the volume rocker by accident that a small toolbar dropped down from the top of the screen to expose the media buttons. This treatment is fine and we can learn to live with it, but we just wish it was more apparent from the get-go.
To get music, videos, and photos onto your phone, you will now be required to use Zune desktop software, and it's not just for multimedia. All synchronization and content management between your device and your computer will be handled through the Zune software; there's no more Exchange ActiveSync, and we can't that we're sad about that fact.
The Zune desktop client is much more attractive and easy to use. We dragged and dropped songs, videos, and podcasts with no problem (note that there is no drag-and-drop mass storage, however), and playback was fine. Windows Phone 7 also allows for Wi-Fi syncing, so you can drag and drop files to the phone icon on the desktop client, then the next time you plug the phone in for a charge and it detects your preferred Wi-Fi network, it will wirelessly sync the new files.
One other very important feature to call out here:
Microsoft will release a beta version of Windows Phone Connect to Mac later this year that will allow you to sync non-DRM content from iTunes and iPhoto via USB. However, it's quite limited in capabilities. For example, you can only choose to sync by playlist, artist, or genre; you can't pick individual songs. The same holds true for photos--you sync entire albums but not individual photos. At launch, it also won't support contact syncing.
Still, we'll take the limited capabilities over nothing. We received an early version of the software to try out, and we were able to sync albums and photos just fine. However, we weren't able to play our selected songs on the Samsung Focus. We could see the album art and full track list and received the following error message: "Can't play. Try signing in with your Windows Live ID or try syncing again." Meanwhile, we repeated the process on the HTC Surround and it had no problem playing back the tracks. Obviously, there are some kinks that need to be worked out.
We dragged and dropped songs, videos, and podcasts with no problem, and playback was fine. You can, of course, purchase and download new music and video from the Zune Marketplace, directly from the phone or from your PC. However, with a Zune Pass subscription, you'll also be able to stream unlimited music to your phone. The catch is that this feature costs an additional $14.99 per month, but we absolutely loved having it as a way to discover new music. Even if you opt not to get Zune Pass, the good news is that Windows Phone 7 handsets will all have FM radios and support third-party streaming services, such as Slacker, which is already available in the Marketplace.
Camera and photos
The HTC Surround features a 5-megapixel camera and flash and HD video capture. It offers standard editing options, like various scenes modes, effects, and flicker adjustment, but not as many as the Samsung Focus. Picture quality was OK. Objects were clearly defined but there was a bluish-gray hue that took away from the photo. Videos looked a bit hazy as well.
Any photos you take with the camera will show up in the Photo hub under the Camera roll. With any photo, you can do a long press on an image to share it either via e-mail, MMS, or Facebook or you can upload it to SkyDrive, Windows Live's online storage system.
Along with your camera photos, the Picture hub will also display any images synced from your computer, Facebook albums, and mobile uploads. You can filter images by date or favorites, as well as check out a timeline of photos your friends have uploaded to Facebook.
Curiously, there isn't a slide show option built into the Picture hub, so you have to manually swipe through your photos if you feel like taking a trip down memory lane--a shame particularly for those handsets with built-in kickstands. Also, unfortunately, right now you can't upload or share any videos directly from the phone. You'll have to transfer the file to your computer if you want to do so.
Apps and Windows Marketplace
One of the big questions surrounding Windows Phone 7 is its Windows Phone Marketplace. Apps have become an integral part of smartphones and are a key differentiator among platforms. So how will Windows Phone 7 fit into the landscape? Will developers take to the platform? Will the quality of apps be on par with iOS and Android? It will be some time before we know the answer to those questions, but from what we've seen so far, the outlook is promising.
Microsoft says it's confident that the Windows Phone Marketplace will launch with more than 1,000 apps and games when the first phones ship in the U.S. on November 8, and expect to release several hundred apps per week till the end of 2010. As an example, scheduled releases for the month of December include SlingPlayer, AP Mobile, ESPN, Amazon Kindle, Direct TV, Ustream, Weather Channel, Cheeseburger Network, Seesmic, Photobucket, Zagat, and MySpace Local Concerts.
During our review period, there were about 450 apps available, including some of the more major and mainstream apps such as Twitter, Slacker, Foursquare, OpenTable, and Fandango. Our concern wasn't so much with the quantity of apps (the apps will come) but with the quality. However, we were heartened by what we saw when we checked out some of the available titles.
Many of the apps, such as Twitter, Slacker, and IMDb have adopted the same type of panoramic interface found in the hubs, so you already get a familiar feel as you're using the apps. They're also quite eye-catching and full-featured. For example, in Fandango, you can watch movie trailers within the app and purchase tickets. Meanwhile, the eBay app allows you to search and buy/bid on items, as well as share links, read descriptions and watch product video.
If these first wave of titles are any indication as to type and quality of apps coming to Windows Phone 7, then we're not too worried. You can check out more "="" rel="follow" target="_self">Windows Phone 7 apps here.
Of course, as an AT&T phone, the HTC Surround also comes preloaded with a number of carrier services, including AT&T Navigator, AT&T Radio, and AT&T U-verse Mobile, which allows you to download TV shows via Wi-Fi onto the phone. For a limited time, AT&T will actually offer customers who purchase a Windows Phone 7 device a free Entertainment Pack, which includes a 30-day trial to U-Verse Mobile (normally $9.99 per month), a 30-day Zune Pass, the "Ilomilo" Xbox Live Arcade game. That's a pretty sweet freebie if you ask us.
However, here's another sweet thing about Windows Phone 7. Unlike the carrier's other smartphones, you can actually uninstall any of the unwanted carrier apps from the phone--not just remove them from the Start menu but actually uninstall them. This is great news if you don't like all that bloatware tying up precious resources. Just note that if you hard-reset the phone, the apps will reinstall after the reboot.
Call quality and performance
We tested the quad-band (GSM 850/900/1800/1900) HTC Surround in New York using AT&T service and call quality was decent. On our end, the audio was mostly clear, but we could hear some faint background noise. Plus, sound cut in and out several times, so we had to ask our callers to repeat themselves.
HTC Surround (AT&T) call quality sample Listen now:
As we already mentioned at the beginning of the review, the speakerphone volume was a bit soft, so it was difficult to hear our caller when we stepped into a slightly noisier room. However, friends said the audio was just fine on their side. We didn't experience any dropped calls during our review period, and we had no problems pairing the handset with the Logitech Mobile Traveller Bluetooth Headset or the Motorola S9 Bluetooth Active Headphones.
The HTC Surround has a 1GHz processor and 16GB of onboard memory with 512MB ROM/448MB RAM but lacks an expansion slot. The phone was generally speedy during our review period, though not quite as zippy as the Focus. There were some slight lags, and like the Samsung Focus, the most significant delays were felt when trying to play Xbox Live titles. It was only when we launched games that we experienced sluggishness and fortunately, it didn't carry into the gameplay. We also watched numerous videos and streamed music without problem.
The HTC Surround comes with a 1,230mAh lithium-ion battery with a rated talk time of four hours and up to 11 days of standby time. The smartphone beat the rated talk time by half an hour in our battery drain tests. With moderate to heavy use, we were able to go a full day before needing to plug in and recharge. According to FCC radiation tests, the Surround has a digital SAR rating of 0.439 watt per kilogram and a Hearing Aid Compatibility Rating of M3/T3.