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Moving from Android to Windows Phone 7 Part 3 : Day 1 with the HTC Titan

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I received the HTC Titan Tuesday evening and quickly got it set up to take on the daily workload. Part 3 of this series starts out with day 1 of this move, the day I start carrying the HTC Titan as my daily driver. To make the 1st day more fun, I decided to leave my other phones at home and jump in with no training wheels at all.

Immediately, I ran into the 1st thing I can’t do with Windows Phone 7. I wanted to listen to SiriusXM Fantasy Radio, but I couldn’t. There is no official app available for Windows Phone 7. There are apps, one of which I purchased, but all the channels are not represented, including the channel I listen to 90% of the time. I tried to use the browser based player, but it requires flash. I listen to the shows on this channel, then fire up my ESPN Fantasy Football app and NFL.com apps and make roster changes, adds/drops, etc almost daily. These apps are absent from Windows Phone. I tried looking at my rosters in the browser, but it’s not very convenient. I am in 8 different Fantasy Football leagues, so this will be an issue on the go. There are only a few weeks left, so this won’t be much of a deal breaker. Hopefully Windows Phone 7 support will come before next season for NFL.com, ESPN Fantasy Football, and SiriusXM.

Next up, Twitter time! I had to find a Twitter app that works best for me. I purchased and tried out several apps that friends suggested. Only one app had all that I needed and actually worked, Rowi. I wrote a story about this Twitter App search here on GottaBeMobile. The issue I found with the other apps was that some were supposed to have live tile or notification support, but only Rowi worked properly. The search is not over though.

SCREENSHOTS! ARGH!!!! Back in 2010, prior to Windows Phone 7’s launch, Microsoft flew some of the Windows Phone MVPs up to Redmond to give us an early look at the new OS. One of the things I noticed right away and was vocal about was the fact that you couldn’t take a screenshot easily. In fact, without developer tools and an emulator, there was no way to grab screenshots. I am sure this issue was very low on their priority list, if it was on there at all. If you haven’t noticed, the iPhone offers a very simple way to grab screens. I believe this has had a great deal of influence on how many iPhone app review sites are out there. I’m pretty sure that there would be 50% or more less of those sites if it were more difficult to produce screenshots in iOS. As a reviewer that wants to review apps for all 3 major mobile operating systems, I want to be able to take screenshots easily. The only method out there to my knowledge, aside from the emulator method, is to unlock your phone and install a homebrew app that tackled this need. I did this today and detailed how to unlock your Windows Phone 7 device.

During the day, I had been chatting with other former Microsoft MVPs in a mailing list I participate in and found that some of them were seeing updates available for their phones running Windows Phone 7. When I got home this evening, I found that the HTC Titan had an update available as well. I quickly accepted this update which added the ability to tether your phone through “Internet Sharing”. Unfortunately, I was unable to use this feature since I don’t pay for a tethering package. It’s also been reported that some WiFi issues might have been cleared up as well. Check out my walk through of this update.

All in all, the day went great with the HTC Titan as my workhorse. Most of the day to day tasks I go through each day were handled with ease. Here are some observations after Day 1.

  • I really enjoy the email experience with Windows Phone. The interface is awesome, emails hit my inbox just as quick as on my desktop, and doing inbox triage is a snap.
  • Call quality is really good on the HTC Titan.
  • Battery life was poor, but I was hammering it pretty hard. If I use my Atrix as much as I did this Titan today, It would have been worse. I will do better, real life scenario, battery tests later in this series.
  • In my opinion, the browser is better than Android’s browser.
  • The Marketplace works well and to my surprise, remembered all my previous purchases from last Fall.
  • I don’t like how the “Phone” app launches into your call history. I would prefer it launching into the dialer.
  • I love the messaging interface. I like how Facebook chats, other chat clients, and text messages are grouped together in the threads list.

Windows Phone 7 really seems to integrate well into today’s social world. Expanding on threads, if you have a contact on MSN Messenger, Facebook, and have phone number, you have a choice in the messenger on how to communicate with that contact. I can start out a chat with a friend using text messages, then move over mid-thread to another chat method. I had a conversation with a friend where I hit him up with messenger and he started replying via text. That’s keeping in touch at it’s best.

Day 1 was pretty long, but pretty fun. I honestly enjoyed using the HTC Titan and Windows Phone.

Follow my adventures!

I want to thank HTC  for providing the review unit that I will be using for this adventure. This HTC Titan is an overseas model and not the version that will be available in the US on November 20th, 2011.
4 Comments

4 Comments

  1. Dig The Noise

    11/17/2011 at 12:50 pm

    Nice review.  Thanks.

  2. Dig The Noise

    11/17/2011 at 7:46 pm

    Got tethering on my Tmo HD7 today.  Works great :)

  3. Jmegert

    11/18/2011 at 2:45 pm

    Thanks for the review. I planned on picking up a Titan on 11/20 when AT&T releases it but since they will be selling it for $.01 on 11/26, I guess I will be waiting until then.

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