HTC 7 Pro Review

Our review unit came in an unmarked box (and was delivered at an undisclosed time and location). The package contained the phone along with a microUSB data/charger cable and charging unit, and a set of earphones.

Design and build quality

The screen is cropped a little on the top and bottom extremities of the device to make way for two grilles. The top one is obviously the speaker for phone calls, but the bottom one remains somewhat of a mystery. Embedded in the top speaker grille is an LED which, irritatingly, is always on. Around the screen is a reflective trim that rounds off the front of the device quite nicely, but tended to accumulate fingerprints.

Just below the screen are the capacitive buttons – back, home and search. They’re sensitive and backlit, but unfortunately, the back-lighting did not remain functional for very long. The haptic feedback on the keys was a bit buggy and at one point it stopped working completely until we rebooted.

On the back is the camera with the flash above it and a speaker next to it. Below the camera is a brushed steel, HTC-branded cover that offers access to the battery and SIM slot. The cover can only be removed when the keyboard is open and pops off with relative ease without you feeling as though you’re going to snap it in half.

Screen

The screen is a 3.6” capacitive touch screen. It’s a decent display, and very sensitive to touches, but the colours appeared a little washed out to us.

Camera

The 5 megapixel camera is nothing spectacular, but it’ll do in a pinch.

Speaking of “in a pinch,” the camera can be activated from any screen, and even when the phone is “asleep,” by pressing and holding the hardware camera button located on the bottom right side of the phone. It’s a nifty feature and helps when you want to take a shot of something that won’t be there in the next 10 seconds.

Photos can be uploaded directly from the phone to Facebook or Skydrive if the respective accounts have been set up, or it can be sent via MMS or email. Unfortunately, it seems that you can’t upload entire albums and have to resort to doing it one at a time.

Keyboard

The keyboard slides out horizontally and tilts up when fully extended – similar to the Touch Pro 2. The mechanism feels strong and there’s no looseness even if you wave it around a bit.

The keyboard itself is a full 5-row QWERTY affair with spaced rubberised keys. There is a slight click to the keys when typing, but it’s not very noticeable and we think that it could be a little better.

At first we thought the keyboard wasn’t backlit, which seemed like a remarkable oversight. After a few reboots however, the keyboard decided to show us its full capabilities and lit up completely. Unfortunately, the backlighting did not remain and after another reboot and further investigation (involving carefully looking into the crevice between screen and keyboard) it appeared that when the backlights did work, they were permanently on.

Sound and call quality

The sound quality from the rear speaker was quite good. We’re not saying that you would rock the party with it, but at least when you switch on the speaker during a call it doesn’t sound like the person on the other end is talking from the inside of a tin can.

The quality on the earpiece wasn’t bad either, but it was extremely soft. People to whom calls were made reported that we came through loud and clear.

Battery life

The battery life was actually quite shocking. “Charge nightly” has become a common saying when talking about smartphones, but in the case of the HTC 7 Pro that was simply not enough.

With a constant data connection – either over WiFi or 3G/HSPA – a couple of phone calls, a message or two, a handful of photos, and some light browsing, the phone was screaming for its charger within 8 hours.

Maybe it’s due to the permanently on keyboard lights (when they actually work) and constantly blinking LED, or maybe the battery only charges halfway; whatever the reason, we strongly suggest that HTC look into this. A professional business user – the target market for this phone – will not be able to do their work with a battery that won’t get them through a standard work day.

Software

Seeing as this is a review of the HTC 7 Pro and not of Windows Phone 7 in general, we aren’t going to do a full walkthrough of the operating system, but we felt it necessary to mention the things that stuck out.

Firstly, the phone refused to connect to Vodacom’s data network at first and we eventually resorted to downloading and using the HTC Connection Setup application over WiFi, which fixed the problem.

Once we got all of our connections working, we connected to our Windows Live, Google and Facebook accounts. Connecting and syncing to all of these accounts was easy and seamless and our contacts, calendars and email was synced to the phone within moments.

There’s no way to accurately gauge how much power is left in the device, even when charging. Neither the indicator LED nor the battery icon change colour, and there doesn’t seem to be any information relating to it anywhere else. Similarly, when charging there’s no notification or charge percentage to be found.

It’s worth noting that scrolling in menus as well as transitions and animations were all buttery-smooth. Whether this is because of the high-end specifications laid down by Microsoft, or Microsoft’s own optimisations of the operating system, or because of the minimalistic design, is of some interest to us.

Some settings reverted back to default even after changing them. One of the main culprits was the screen time-out, which is quite a serious flaw as the screen is probably one of the most battery-intensive parts of a large, touch screen phone. Another one was the camera, which reverted the camera effect to default after each exit. We can’t decide if it’s a flaw or not, as it would be useful in some situations, but aggravating in others.

Another interesting find was a graphical glitch related to the rubber-band animation (the bouncy effect that you see when you reach the end of lists). If you scroll slowly, you can see the items jump around a little. It’s a minor thing, but it’s those little things that make the difference between good and outstanding.

Conclusion

When all is said and done, this is an HTC device that’s running a Microsoft operating system, and it lives up to neither of those names.

The hardware bugs and software glitches make a mostly good device seem very rough around the edges and tarnishes two good names in the technology industry.

At the very least, we hope that some of the bugs get squashed and the glitches get fixed before the device is released to consumers.

Specifications (Source GSM Arena)

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