Hands on with Samsung Focus & Windows Phone 7

Over the last few days of 2010 and into the new year I have enjoyed getting acquainted with my new Samsung Focus handset and the Windows Phone 7 smartphone operating system.  This has been a period of learning, and my mood has been shifting around as I’ve made new discoveries about the device and OS and as I come to understand how they will (or won’t) fit my usage and interests.  I’ve been really pleased at some points along the way, but then at other times I’ve been very disappointed.  What a roller-coaster!

For now, I’m pretty sure that I’ll land on the ‘satisfied’ side of the end-user experience scale, but with that said, I’m not convinced that this is going to be a long term phone for me.  I’m really glad that I didn’t sign a contract extension. (I’d probably have returned it by now if I had).  This is not a 3 year platform combination of hardware and software, and I expect I will use a different handset in a year or 18 months.

I’m not the only IT professional out there who is looking for one mobile device that performs both at the office for work, and around the house and on travels for personal use.  And like many, I have my mail and contact information in different areas – online services like Gmail and Windows Live, and I’ve got a couple of Exchange systems to connect to that keep work distinct and separate from personal.  It’s becoming far more common too for mobile users to want to connect to multiple systems seamlessly… and the trend will likely increase as hosted services take hold even more. 

Despite the separation of data sources, when it comes to mobility, I want the mobile device to respect the boundaries while consolidating the information in views. Keep data separated but give me a Library-esque consolidated view of the contacts and calendar items.  For contacts and for my calendar, I want a consolidated view, but when it comes to mail, I want individual views. Not too much to ask for, eh?

So how does the Samsung Focus and Windows Phone 7 stack up for me?  Keep in mind that I haven’t used the device at work yet (love being on vacation!) and I haven’t made phone calls on it yet – so there may be updates as I get to using the device.

The good:

• The screen/display is most excellent! Amazing, outstanding, remarkable!
• Awesome integration to my home and work Exchange mailboxes.  Hooks to hosted services like Windows Live and Gmail are good. 
• Calendar integration is really impressive.  It is intuitive and fully integrated into my device calendar from multiple sources (and can be selective in sync and display of one/more calendar on the device).  Handles creating events simply, and the agenda view makes sense.
• Windows Phone 7’s People Hub connects my contacts from all sources and makes sense out of the links between the different sources for them. Some contacts exist in both my Exchange environments, some on Facebook, others on Live, etc.  And Windows Phone 7 brings them all together nicely for me. 
• I can’t say enough good about the multi-account support in Windows Phone 7.
• Remote wipe via the Windows Live service website is very functional, and the wipe process is pretty quick.  I’d actually use this next time I have to reformat the device – it was simple point, click, click, done.  I will look at the Exchange ActiveSync remote wipe option (in Exchange 2010) as well next time – it is good to have options and for remote wipe features, Windows Phone 7 seems to have this area covered well.
• Internet Explorer and 6 tabs in the browser on the mobile device work great. 
• OneNote sync to Windows Live is a new powerful tool that I’m looking forward to abusing with notes for home and for work!

The bad:

• What, no message indicator lamp?
• I’d like to see this opened up for application developers (and I’m not sure if it is, or if it isn’t…)
• I’m picturing a glowing Windows key in the bottom center of the phone faceplate to act as an indicator of activity on the phone.  Colour code to events, perhaps. 
• Battery life is pathetic! It’s a huge battery but device has no stamina. Minus 5 million points to Samsung on this one, the hardware is power-hungry, and I’m hoping that there is some kind of fix on the software front available.  This is my biggest issue with the device/platform so far.
• Advertised as “up to 375 h” of standby time. They might as well say “up to a million hours!  I wish the industry could be held accountable for their advertising statements.
• Requires >4 hours on AC to charge. Longer if charging via USB. Disappointing.
• I’ll update when I have a typical depletion timeline. I think it’s going to be <7 hours of runtime though.  I may have a dud device, or my use of WiFi and Bluetooth are impacting the battery life negatively (I use WiFi service a lot at home and at the office).
• SD Card Memory expansion is still unstable on this device.  I’ve tried a Lexar 16 GB class 4 card, and it isn’t readable on reboot.  I’m running on the in-built memory only until the certified cards are out, or until I get my hands on a known 16 GB expansion card (and I’ll rebuild the phone at that time).
• There’s no smart-dial in the phone interface.  This is a personal favourite smartphone feature! So much so, that I think it’s wrong to call your phone ‘smart’ if it can’t perform the function!
• Start dialling by using the numeric keypad and have the phone figure out the names of who you are looking for.  Numeric search and name search are usually both enabled.  Alpha search applied to firstname as well as to lastname fields.
• C’mon Microsoft, my Smartphone 2003 device did this! (that was a cool clamshell Motorola MPX 200, a kick-ass smartphone at the time).
• I haven’t discovered a favourites or quick-dial option yet, other than pinning a contact to my start screen.  Third party apps for quick contacts are out there, but it seems odd to me that this isn’t baked into the core OS.
• I can’t wait til the cut/paste fix update is released. The keyboard needs fwd/back scroll buttons and Del/Backspace functions.  It’s a pain to spellcheck with this thing.

Just some observations:

• Sure there are 5,000+ applications in the Windows Phone Marketplace.  But keep in mind that there are about 20 fart apps, and probably about 1,200 tip and bill-split calculators in that big number of 5k.
• I’ve noticed differences in Mail integration depending on the target server environment.  Message replies sent from mobile device via my Exchange 2003 server based account does not flag the message in the mail store with a ‘replied icon’ when I browse the message store in Outlook or Outlook Web Access.  Also, it isn’t possible to search the GAL of an Exchange 2003 Server based mail account from the mobile device.
• With a battery life that should be measured in minutes, not hours, I guess I shouldn’t be surprised that there is no digital battery meter to tell you precisely what levels you’re at.  There is a diagnostic mode that is available via a special keyed combination using the phone dialler to enable a display readout of the meter if that’s desired (uh, yes).  It’s painful, but possible to determine the exact battery output.
• I can’t search against my mail store on the server from the mobile client.

And for anyone interested in my desires for a mobile device, here is the common criteria that I keep in mind when I’m making a consideration of change.

My must have feature list:

• Support for Multiple Exchange server connections.
• One Calendar (to rule them all); merge 2 Exchange, 1 Live Calendar.
• Separate mailboxes; keep work/personal distinctly separate.
• A reliable web browser.
• Remote data control (deletion) in event of loss.

Want to Haves:

• Tethering for rare laptop connectivity to internet.
• Quality speakerphone.
• 5 day battery life.  (okay, not really a reasonable expectation…)
• Sync capability to cloud or local storage, for files, music, pictures.
• Expandable storage.
• Good quality camera, useable phone features, voice activated dialling, GPS and map integration, and social media app capability.
• Access to free and pay-version applications, ala a marketplace, and a strong developer ecosystem.

So, there it is, the first thoughts that I’ve had about this new device over the first few days of hands on experience.  I hope to be able to do an update later to fill folks in on how I get along with the phone after getting to use it more instead of just look it over!