Of all a Windows Phone 7 launch devices, AT&T’s HTC Surround is likely the most curious. It’s the landscape slider built on the same basic internals as a rest of its height siblings, though there’s no set of keys underneath that screen — the quarter-inch slip reveals an aluminum orator club and integrated kickstand, that combine to create a little small stereo system of sorts. Mix in Windows Phone 7’s heavy Zune formation, add in the dash of Dolby Mobile as well as SRS Wow “virtual approximate” audio estimate, as well as tip it all off with 16GB of inner memory, and you have what competence be the ultimate phone for on-the-go media consumption. But does a Surround live up to all which promise? Read on to find out! HTC Surround with Windows Phone 7 unboxing as well as hands-on

Hardware

At first peek, the Surround is flattering prosy — it shares some obvious design DNA with other HTC inclination similar to a Desire, the Nexus One, as well as a Trophy, with the gray front and the soft-touch matte black black. Look closer as well as you’ll see it’s a little bit thicker as well as heavier, overdue to the slider resource within — during .51 inches thick as well as weighing during 5.82 ounces, it’s about .05 inches thicker and an ounce heavier than the other HTC sets in this family. It’s not much upon paper, though really conspicuous in person — and compared to a Samsung Focus, also on AT&T, it’s a big .1 inch thicker and 1.6 ounces heavier. Considering the elemental Windows Phone 7 experience will be probably matching upon every launch device, a Surround’s speakers have quite the weight to carry — they have to tune amazing enough to be value a distance and weight chastisement. But we’ll get to that.

Up front, a Surround has a 3.8-inch LCD with a same 480 x 800 fortitude as each alternative WP7 launch device. While a display is commendably splendid as well as colorful — we actually thought it was the bit too bright during a lowest environment — it’s still not up to a standard set by the iPhone 4 and Samsung’s Super AMOLED inclination. On the phone built for video playback, that’s sort of an issue, as well as it’s a single that’s upon Microsoft to solve — WP7 doesn’t await aloft resolutions nonetheless. It’s also telling that even Microsoft refers to the Samsung Focus as having the best arrangement of the Windows Phone 7 launch lineup — side by side the Surround’s screen is some-more tone accurate, though somewhat some-more cleared out. Obviously HTC has had the share of issues with OLED accessibility not long ago, but we’d like to have seen an SLCD display here — a critical video playback device needs more than just a pretty good screen.

Volume controls and the camera shiver button are upon the right side, whilst a sleep/wake button as well as headphone jack sit up tip and the claim micro USB is located during the bottom. Round back you’ve got the five megapixel camera as well as peep, and tolerance between the dual halves of the slider are pretty tight, although there is a little variance here and there.

Sliding a phone open reveals the speaker bar, that hides the pair of drivers as well as houses the lone symbol, which engages a assorted surround modes. The kickstand is integrated into the arrangement side of a casing and flips out horizontally. It’s a unique and interesting design, if not the many fast — navigating the phone while it complacent upon the kickstand resulted in the few topples. You also can’t really squeeze the phone and go when the kickstand is out — you can sometimes get the mount to tighten by shifting the phone sealed, but it never feels quite safe, as well as we usually sealed everything manually first. Not the outrageous deal, but the definite effect of this design.

But sufficient about all this things. Let’s talk about the speakers, shall you?

Speakers, surrround, as well as software

Obviously the categorical captivate with the Surround is a speaker bar as well as a betrothed “practical approximate” audio. Like we’ve pronounced, there’s a lot of guarantee here, but unless a phone delivers the additional size as well as weight simply won’t be value it. Unfortunately, we’re here to report… which they’re simply not value it. We’re sure the good people at Dolby as well as SRS did their most appropriate, but we don’t think any amount of audio postprocessing can have little phone speakers sound good, and you can’t say you ever heard anything coming “surround tune” from this thing. What’s some-more, a only denote of what approximate mode you’re in comes from opening HTC’s Sound Enhancer app — dire the symbol whilst personification behind song or video in a Zune player doesn’t provide any visible feedback as to what environment you’re selecting. After the whilst we only proposed thinking of it as switching between “tinny” as well as “muffled.” We listened slightly some-more of a difference when we plugged in headphones, but no some-more than any alternative involuntary EQ setting we’ve attempted upon alternative inclination in a past, and hey — if you’re using headphones you’re kind of defeating the role here.

On the more positive note, a speakers do get nicely shrill without distortion — we had no problems listening to music in a back of a Manhattan taxi. But keep in mind which these are a only speakers upon a device, so in a closed position they’re heavily muffled by a shade. That equates to you have to open the slider anytime you wish to listen to anything, unequivocally — again, not the outrageous deal, though a effect of this pattern which bears mentioning.

Even if the speakers sounded amazing, we’re still not certain a added distance as well as weight would be value it, since a Surround’s kickstand effectively defaults it to landscape orientation when placed on the table, as well as there’s virtually no landscape await in Windows Phone 7. What little there is seems half-finished: the browser doesn’t have so much as the back symbol in landscape — let alone the URL club — and a mail client does something wonky with the soothing keyboard. Thankfully, a video player worked fine in landscape, but there’s no landscape navigation of a Music and Videos hub — it’s all mural. That means if you’re playing songs on a Surround with a kickstand open, you’ve got to lean your head 90 degrees to shift tracks, adjust a volume, or hit postponement. Same with video, outside of tangible playback — all the navigation is done in mural. That’s a flattering large slip for a media device that’s written for make use of in landscape mode, and whilst we can’t blame HTC for the limitations of Microsoft’s brand-new OS, you can say we don’t consider carrying a landscape slider that just barely supports landscape arrangement is such a splendid thought.

Camera

We had tall, high hopes for the 5 megapixel autofocus camera upon a Surround — when you initial started using it all of the shots looked gorgeous on the built-in display. Windows Phone 7’s camera app is amazingly quick and responsive, as well as a Surround wears it good — we snapped all manner of quick shots with no problems. It was when you pulled the images over to a computer that a little of the bloom came off the rose — literally, as you can see above. Most of the shots were far less vibrant at full res than they appeared upon the phone’s arrangement, and you also rescued a little softness, white balance and shiver speed issues here as well as there. Don’t get us wrong, for a phone camera it’s a solid effort — it pops right up as well as focuses utterly fast — but we’d say a iPhone 4 as well as (obviously) a Nokia N8 yield improved altogether picture peculiarity.
HTC Surround representation still shots

Wrap up
Well, what can we contend? The HTC Surround does a fine job using Windows Phone 7, as well as if that’s a usually criteria by that you’re starting to magnitude it chances are you’ll be utterly happy. But Microsoft is launching 10 inclination this month, as well as there are two alternative choices upon AT&T alone that do an equally fine job of running the OS. The Surround indispensable to bring the lot to the table in sequence to clear being bigger as well as heavier than the Samsung Focus whilst not in a QWERTY set of keys of the LG Quantum, and you only don’t think the span of average speakers as well as the kickstand provides which justification — especially since Windows Phone 7 doesn’t take full value of either. We’d love to be some-more certain about what is essentially a fine piece of hardware, though if you’re looking for the Windows Phone 7 device upon AT&T during launch, you consider you should (cough) concentration your courtesy elsewhere.

Via Engadget