Quote :

"I think it would be pretty awesome (and totally possible) for the Zune service to basically create (or open to) a Pandora service. Maybe Microsoft should just buy Pandora and make it like the "Silver membership" for Zune... free music but limited control over what plays."

I'd like it if you could just QuickDJ within the phone's Zune player.

4/7/2011 6:05:20 PM

Quote :

"Yeah! Who wants to listen to free music when you can pay Microsoft for it?"

Here's a pretty good reason not to use Pandora

http://arstechnica.com/gadgets/news/2011/04/pandora-transmits-gps-gender-birthdate-other-data-to-ad-servers.ars

4/7/2011 6:53:11 PM

^not the first time Pandora's been called out for this kind of stuff either.

^^Yeah not having smart DJ (or any auto-playlist functionality) on the phone is really my only complaint with the Zune service. Other than that one nit, it's been damn amazing for me. Light years less hassle than iTunes and really a lot of fun to discover new music.

4/7/2011 10:36:14 PM

I am very-highly satisfied so far, nearly extremely happy with the phone. A few issues so far - I can't connect via bluetooth with my old phone to retrieve data from there (if there is a way or a work-around just let me know), you have to pull out the keyboard in landscape to get the address bar to show when using IE (again there may be something I don't know just yet, but if you ave any tips here please advise), and you have the lay the phone face down to really hear the alarm good. Save for these rather small (not really minor) issues, the phone is a solid 8.5/10 from my perspective.

4/8/2011 5:27:41 AM

Is a screen protector necessary? I have never used one, so I am just curious about this. And if you think so, what is the best brand to get?

4/8/2011 7:00:23 AM

Quote :

"I am very-highly satisfied so far, nearly extremely happy with the phone. A few issues so far - I can't connect via bluetooth with my old phone to retrieve data from there (if there is a way or a work-around just let me know),"

Honestly, I have no clue. I just used my computer to sync everything.

Quote :

" you have to pull out the keyboard in landscape to get the address bar to show when using IE (again there may be something I don't know just yet, but if you ave any tips here please advise),"

That's just how it is. On the Focus (with no physical keyboard) the address bar doesn't pop up in landscape mode. You can only type in URLs in portrait.

Quote :

" and you have the lay the phone face down to really hear the alarm good."

I will say one of the more annoying things about WP7 is that there aren't separate volumes for things.

4/8/2011 8:41:25 AM

since when does UPS not have an expected delivery time, just says by the end of the day. they used to give a time

4/8/2011 10:28:47 AM

Quote :

"I will say one of the more annoying things about WP7 is that there aren't separate volumes for things."

It does but only for a couple of things right now. Speakerphone volume is separate from everything else.

And I didn't think there was any way to type in URLs in landscape mode so I just learned something today

As for the Bluetooth sync, wp7 doesn't support Bluetooth communications with anything but headsets and a2dp or whatever headphones/speakers right now. So transferring whatever you need off your old phone has to go through an intermediary.

For contacts I suggest importing them to either Gmail or windows live, photos and music download to your PC and then sync them with Zune. Documents you can put on your live drive and sync to office.

4/8/2011 11:32:13 AM

Oh and you DEFINITELY want a screen protector with the Arrive. Its a normal plastic screen covering that will scratch up pretty quickly. I was kind of shocked at first, I guess the iPhone and all the new gorilla glass screens had me thinking it was the end of scratchy plastics

4/8/2011 11:34:17 AM

meh, gorilla glass is nice but it's still not all it's cracked up to be.

4/8/2011 11:37:23 AM

i've had my 3gs for a few years now and i've never had a case or screen protector and it has lived in my pockets the entire time w/out screen scratching. Having to get a screen protector would suck.

4/8/2011 11:41:39 AM

this is my first time using Zune and WOW, what an improvement over itunes. absolutely beautiful and doesn't make my brand new, decently spec'd laptop run slow as shit.

4/8/2011 11:45:15 AM

hahahaha yea. itunes is a horrible shitpile. zune software owns.

4/8/2011 11:46:12 AM

^^^ I did the same with my iPhone, but honestly the guy at the sprint store put mine on for me, and it cost 4 bucks and is basically invisible during everyday use. Still don't and won't have a case for the phone.

I will say that the iPhone scratches like a fucker on the sides and rear, while whatever combination of materials on the back of this HTC seems much more resistant, part of it is like rubberized and the other part feels like brushed aluminum

4/8/2011 11:59:43 AM

Quote :

"Honestly, I have no clue. I just used my computer to sync everything."

Can you give me a brief explanation on how you did this?

4/8/2011 4:52:46 PM

Let me iPhone synced to it's normal folders, then pointed that the Zune software (Settings > Collection) at those folders and told it to sync.

Contacts were actually a bit more annoying, since my iPhone's contacts pretty much refused to sync with Google, but luckily they just swapped my SIM card so I just imported off that.

4/8/2011 5:28:24 PM

OK cool, Windows Live seems to be working, but like only one contact has been ported over after waiting for 20 mins lol. It works... I guess.

4/8/2011 5:33:01 PM

If you are on AT&T, SIM import is apparently stupid easy http://www.trickyways.com/2010/10/how-to-import-sim-contacts-in-windows-phone-7/

It seems like exporting them from your old phone is the hard part for Contact migration. What is your old phone? If it's an iPhone, honestly Google Contact integration is the easiest. Same with Android. They both have pretty good sync to Google Contacts. Don't know how good the import is for Windows Phone from google contacts, but it probably works pretty well.

Alternatively you can easily export from google contacts to CSV and import those into Windows Live, which will sync over to the phone quick and painless. http://www.wpcentral.com/prepare-windows-phone-7-now-import-your-contacts-windows-live-contacts

4/8/2011 7:26:10 PM

Is there not turn by turn directions?

4/8/2011 7:35:08 PM

^There is, with the TeleNav GPS that seems to be bundled on every WP7 device now (see my post on the last page)

4/8/2011 7:49:16 PM

I'm not paying $15 a month for something Android gave me for free

[Edited on April 8, 2011 at 8:11 PM. Reason : whoops, $9.99]

4/8/2011 8:05:53 PM

so i have an old HTC touch pro 2

it runs slow on old windows mobile

can anyone tell me if its possible to upgrade it? do a wipe?

k thx bai

4/8/2011 8:34:12 PM

Quote :

"I'm not paying $15 a month for something Android gave me for free"

Isn't Sprint Nav included in the data plans with Sprint?

4/8/2011 9:08:11 PM

Yeah telenav is free, as I specifically pointed out in the post I specifically linked to.

4/8/2011 10:56:42 PM

Telenav is $10 a month with tmobile

4/8/2011 11:40:24 PM

Quote :

"If you are on AT&T, SIM import is apparently stupid easy http://www.trickyways.com/2010/10/how-to-import-sim-contacts-in-windows-phone-7/ It seems like exporting them from your old phone is the hard part for Contact migration. What is your old phone? If it's an iPhone, honestly Google Contact integration is the easiest. Same with Android. They both have pretty good sync to Google Contacts. Don't know how good the import is for Windows Phone from google contacts, but it probably works pretty well. Alternatively you can easily export from google contacts to CSV and import those into Windows Live, which will sync over to the phone quick and painless. http://www.wpcentral.com/prepare-windows-phone-7-now-import-your-contacts-windows-live-contacts "

Ah, I did something similar and it worked that charm we always speak of. I saved my phone contacts to Outlook then uploaded them to Windows Live and SHAZZAM! it was like magic! Thanks!

4/9/2011 12:00:23 AM

May 7th now (at the earliest) for VZW WP7... FUCK!

4/9/2011 12:28:26 AM

anyone?

nothing?

4/9/2011 12:57:33 AM

The only device that can be upgraded to WP7 (according to the xda developers) is the HD2, so you are out of luck.

4/9/2011 1:24:10 AM

so 6.5 has free turn-by-turn through bing, its bullshit that they don't have the same in wp7. i travel a lot for work (and can probably just have work pay the $10/month) and turn by turn directions are one of the features i use a lot. $10/month for directions is a rip.

4/9/2011 6:56:40 AM

Do you already have a t-mobile win7 phone?

That is actually pretty screwed up to me that WM6.5 has a much more useful maps application than the win7 phone does. Yeah it unfortunately looks like TeleNav is your only option for now. I'm sure all the other GPS players will launch apps at some point this year, but definitely not for free.

Hopefully Bing will update their maps for turn by turn soon, and stop focusing so much on their iPad and iPhone apps

4/9/2011 3:31:17 PM

yes, i have it in my hand now. i have 14 days to decide if i like it

other than that, i enjoy it. i do enjoy this form factor and don't plan on swapping to the dell venue pro. i really wish this phone had an amoled display instead of the lcd, but the screen size and free price tag are worth the tradeoff for me. the camera button on the HD7 can be firm, and looking online this seems to be a common problem among HD7's. I am hoping that the camera button loosens up over the next week, and will exchange the phone for another HD7 if it does not.

[Edited on April 9, 2011 at 5:25 PM. Reason : .]

4/9/2011 5:08:55 PM

Is there a way on the Arrive to use a song (mp3) as a ringtone?

Quote :

"Noticeably missing is the ability to use custom ringers/ringtones and the contact management needs some work. In my case I used Google Contacts for my contact management. WP7 uses Live Contacts, although you can use Google contacts as well, however there is no way to un-sync the live contacts. It can make things a little messy. These issues will supposedly be fixed in the “Mango” update, later this year…if it happens."

http://enterconnected.com/index.php/acessories-reviews/hardware-reviews/review-htc-arrive

If there is a work-around for this, I'd still prefer to wait for the official update.

[Edited on April 10, 2011 at 12:38 PM. Reason : /]

4/10/2011 12:19:48 PM

When viewing this page on my phone, quoted text is a lot bigger than regular text

4/10/2011 1:03:32 PM

Tww renders all kinds of fucked up on my HTC arrive. This is about the only site I use with this kind of weird behavior

4/10/2011 5:50:02 PM

i wish that all documents synced with your skydrive the way onenote does. its kind of a pain to have to download them through the browser.

4/10/2011 7:27:21 PM

Recommended Apps List
last.fm
Hexic Rush
Xbox live! Extras
Adobe Reader
Flashlight by HTC
Shazam
Youtube

Apps I would like to see
Justin.tv
Fritz, Shredder, Stockfish, Houdini and/or Hiarcs chess programs

Just for kicks http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=emcWMLrfEzU

[Edited on April 10, 2011 at 8:10 PM. Reason : Please add to this list so that we can keep up with this subject more efficiently ]

4/10/2011 8:06:45 PM

Recommended Apps List
last.fm
Hexic Rush
Xbox live! Extras
Adobe Reader
Flashlight by HTC
Shazam
Youtube

my additions:
Kindle
Facebook (for a few things its easier than whats integrated)
GasBuddy
GoVoice
GReadr
HTC YouTube (if you want something cleaner than using the browser)
The Harvest (game)

Apps I would like to see
Justin.tv
Fritz, Shredder, Stockfish, Houdini and/or Hiarcs chess programs

my additions:
Pandora
Pandora
Pandora
Something to sync skydrive office documents

anyone have a geocaching app?

[Edited on April 10, 2011 at 8:16 PM. Reason : .]

4/10/2011 8:15:35 PM

last.fm is just as good if not better than Pandora. They both use different ways of finding music for you however. I'd give last.fm a go if you have never tried it.

4/10/2011 8:28:21 PM

but i already pay for pandora one and my stations are all pretty well customized at this point. and i've been using both last.fm and slacker this weekend and i still prefer pandora. last.fm will do until pandora is released, but i do like that slacker is integrated more into zune.

4/10/2011 8:58:34 PM

Nice, I never had a Pandora account, but i have listened to stations of other people and its pretty darn good. I just got a last.fm account through Xbox Live! and its does good for me. Here is a good comparison chart for them: http://www.diffen.com/difference/Last.fm_vs_Pandora

4/10/2011 9:01:03 PM

Just got all of my onenote sync'd up, i love it

4/11/2011 12:42:26 PM

I have never used One Note, so what is it good for?

4/11/2011 12:43:17 PM

I use it for notes and project organization. On my phone I typically use it mostly as a to do list, and I like that it syncs automatically to what i have open on my computer. i tend to make a lot of checklists. on the computer you can use it for a lot more, you should take a look if you've never used it.

another cool thing i use onenote for is to organize my fieldnotes brand notebooks. I always cary a field notes book for notes and back-of-napkin calculations and have a template setup so I can easily scan them into onenote so that they are searchable and available from anywhere i can get to the internet.

[Edited on April 11, 2011 at 1:00 PM. Reason : .]

4/11/2011 12:59:01 PM

last.fm's algorithms arent as good as pandoras and they also dont distinguish between recording types of the same song.

4/11/2011 1:03:10 PM

I'll probably eventually try out Pandora. Also, Windows Phone is getting no love from the top developers, its all about Android, iPod, and even Nokia! I pretty much refuse to ever own either one of those phones. I maybe, JUST MAYBE would consider an Android.

4/11/2011 1:25:42 PM

as windows grows in marketshare it will gain more developers.

i wonder if there was some kind of falling out or bad blood between pandora and microsoft. in the beginning that was one of the major apps microsoft was mentioning, yet we still don't have a pandora app.

also, someone make an app so i can stream fratmusic.com onto my phone

4/11/2011 2:08:48 PM

pex4fun is a pretty cool game by microsoft. you write snippets of code and if it complies correctly you get points.

4/12/2011 10:08:43 AM

Tomorrow is the keynote at MiX11 for windows phone. I will definitely be watching, I think its going to be pretty cool

4/12/2011 1:04:33 PM

there was some really cool shit at mix10

4/12/2011 1:18:59 PM