After the hoopla and craziness surrounding the new Windows Phone 7 calmed down I was able to finagle myself the Samsung Focus and decided to put it to the test. 2 months have gone by since I set my iPhone on the gadget dreaded backup desk and tried Microsofts latest attempt at the smart phone universe. It’s hard to switch from one piece of tech to another without comparing it to what you are used to, but I hope to make the comparisons fair and show what the future for the phone should hold. I will try as I have tried for the last two months to be open minded and leave my biases behind, for those who are just digging around about differences in phones and operating systems I’d also read this

For those that haven’t read too much on WP7 the goal was to integrate everything you do into one device with just a few clicks of the button. Microsoft went about this mission by organizing your phone into hubs. The phone ships with The Market Place Hub, Xbox Live Gaming Hub, Music and Video Hub, People Hub, Pictures, and finally the Office Hub. Each of the hubs makes most of what you would like one click away.

Let’s start with my forte’ and personal favorite the gaming hub. The Xbox Live integration of the phone was a huge selling point of the device to me. Being an avid gamer, and someone who is attached to my Xbox at the hip, having something like this integrated made my shiver with delight. The thought of adding to my gamer score from a location far away from my couch brought on fits of giggling. From a gaming standpoint the WP7 OS has done what it set out to do. I love gaming on the device, and I think providing a free download of IloMilo with purchase was a great step to help show off capabilities of the phones themselves. Not to mention it’s an incredibly addicting puzzle game.

The next smart move was encouraging top iPhone and Android developers to make apps for their devices has helped push a solid amount content to the device, which is important for this phone seeing as they are in fact a few years behind their competitors. Games like Twin Blades, Assassins Creed (which seemed to be a port from the Palm version, don’t quote me on that 100% but thus far it has matched the Palm version screen by screen.), and finally Fruit Ninja (which is one of my current iPhone vices) have helped keep me plugged into the focus, whilst temptations of going back to my old roots poked at my inner geek.

Although the Xbox Live integration is solid for now, I feel more could be done to help push it along. Allowing friend requests to be sent, and processed on the phone would be a huge gain for gamers, adding more content to the market place for under 2.99 would also be a huge help to the device, and marketplace. If they were to allow lower priced content, I feel some killer titles which help drive phone gaming would begin appearing in the Market Place, I could also just be whining due to lack of Angry Birds to farm achievements with.

The Office Hub for the most part does a solid job of allowing you to create, edit, and upload Excel and Word docs. I actually wrote a few reports for work from the phone while on the go and was really impressed at the perfect connection between Office 2011 on my Mac and the file I created on my phone. Aside from correcting a few formatting errors on my part ( which were probably connected to not being able to view the entire document all at once). I had a report ready to turn in done within minutes and a copy backed up to my SkyDrive, who can complain about a free 5 gigs of online storage with automatic syncing of pictures, contacts, and documents.

I can see the automatic sync of pictures causing problems with some folk for sure. Could you imagine a corporate exec at a party with his auto sync to Facebook running snapping pictures? Just saying….. luckily my photos are usually of plumbing companies that stole the Mario logo, or a kid who looks like a video game character so I stayed nice and safe using the auto feature. The quick draw setting on the camera, (I can’t remember the technical term for it) is pretty amazing. Just holding the camera button down will bring the phone up to take a picture without any unlocking needed.

Now that i’ve ranted about gaming, photos and office I’d like to talk about the phones email integration. There are a few wins, and some things I can consider a loss, things that are definitely patchable, but still for the moment a loss. Let’s start with the positive. The Exchange Server functionality on the phone is absolutely flawless. Enter email address……done… enter password……done…. Seconds later you are connected to the server. No domain settings needed, no server settings needed, the phone automatically picks up the information it needs and configures the sync for you. From a service side, that’s incredible, I’ve helped several friends set up their work email within seconds, without knowing anything about their company, IT info, or how they run their email, the integration is that simple.

The assumption that you want to sync contacts,calendars, and information through google as well as Live is an absolute dream as well. Moving my contacts from mobile me was as simple as exporting them into a VCard, importing them into Gmail and syncing that with MSN bing,bang,boom. However, it also became a challenge with editing contacts. Once I edited a contact on google or msn the change was saved to the server, in an attempt to migrate everything together into one source I exported my google contacts as a csv and then uploaded them into MSN… I lost about 20% of my contacts through this method… which shouldn’t have happened.. but it did somehow.

On the loss side however, is the inability to name your inboxes, and the lack of a combined email center. For those of us running multiple emails… (MSN, 2 Gmails, a BSR email, and more). I don’t have a central combined inbox like most devices offer. Instead I have Google Mail, Google Mail 2, MSN Mail, BSR mail… etc. and that’s the actual names of the mailboxes and icons. I can’t change the name to fit my needs, so I have to remember that Google Mail 1 is one address and mail 2 is another. The lack of a centralized inbox makes times tough on an internet junkie such as myself. This is something that is patchable, but may in fact change functionality of the phone entirely. It’d be for the better but I think it’s a little deeper seated than just adding a combined inbox option.

Facebook integration is another part of the phone that is helpful, and hindering all in one shot. Seeing everyones status on the go is great when I hit the people hub. It’s a pain however if I don’t check it regularly. There are no push notifications to tell me someone has left me a message, put something on my wall commented on a post.. or anything for that matter. Even with the integration I still find myself using the Facebook app for the phone more than checking in people, and that is also lacking push notifications. The device has taken me from a Facebook aficionado to someone who gets texts from his friends asking if I saw their post.

This is a bit of an obscure thought but I have to put it in there. There is a syncing tool for Mac OSX available for the devices. This is a huge step for those of us carrying Zunes instead of iPod’s and working the rest of our live’s on mac.. I’m tired of booting into windows to sync music to my Zune and the WP7 connector released by Microsoft, actually uses your iTunes library as the backend to sync the phone. Thank God, it’s nice to see Microsoft allowing those of us torn between two worlds to utilize one package even if it isn’t their own. Next step is please release the Zune Software for OSX!! With this integration incredible apps like Remote for WP7 are now useable. Remote allows you to control your iTunes library over your wireless network from the phone. Best 1.99 I have spent on my WP7 phone to date! For those with the devices, or those that are picking one up! The app is a must have in my eyes. I think that is enough ranting from me. Time for a summary and an ending.

As a whole I feel the phone is a great entry into the smart phone marketplace. It would be considered unfair to compare it to other devices software wise seeing as they have a few years head start. But we don’t exactly live in a fair market. WP7 is a huge advance for Microsoft and for your average business man I think it’s an incredible device. That being said for the more tech savvy consumer with a tinkering fixation, I feel there are still some better options out there.

Summary of my rambling:

• Solid operating system, still missing a few key features, combined inbox for email, copy paste, custom ring/text tones. We know its coming just need it faster!
• So many Apps!! I’m stoked to say there are plenty of apps and more coming daily!
• It probably won’t beat your iPhone if you’re an enthusiast, actually I know you won’t like it more if you’re a fanboy
• Not as customizable as Android
• Great gaming
• THE BEST WINDOWS DEVICE I HAVE EVER USED — seriously this is way better than previous windows mobile.
• Zune marketplace needs more content, but the integrated functionality is great.
• I dig this phone, i’m still carrying it after 2 months, my Torch only lasted a weekend