Windows Phone 7 – first impressions

Just had a play with a couple of Windows Phone 7 phones. Overall, it's pretty impressive, and certainly much better than a lot of people predicted. However, there are a number of minor glitches I noticed which affect usability.

One problem is that the on-screen keyboard, while usable, requires you to press a key to switch to an alternate keyboard to enter most symbols such as apostrophes. This is much less friendly than the on-screen keyboard on the HTC Desire, where a long press enables you to enter special characters without switching to a different keyboard mode. It will be interesting to see if Microsoft allow users to download replacement keyboard apps to address this.

Also, the on-screen animations last little bit too long. While they are impressively smooth, the additional delay they cause using the phone is annoying. If there isn't an option to turn these off or increase their speed, there needs to be.

There are also some glitches relating to screen orientation, in a few cases. For example, selecting a Facebook status update to see comments that have been posted, causes the update and associated comments to be displayed, but in landscape orientation. Turning the phone to reorient the screen had no effect. Another niggle here was that Facebook statuses had a little speech bubble symbol to indicate there were related comments. You had to press on this icon to see the details; merely pressing on Facebook status update itself had no effect. This sort of niggle really spoils the user experience, and I'm surprised it was let out of the door.

On a more positive note, the hardware side of things is excellent. The HTC HD7 is a lovely piece of kit, as is the Samsung Omnia 7. Both phones have large displays and a neat angular minimalist design. The Omnia has the glorious OLED screen which is bright and vivid, although the unit is quite thick for a phone without a slide out keyboard. The HTC Mozart is also a nice piece of hardware, being basically an HTC Desire running Windows Phone 7.

There is clearly more work to be done on Windows Phone 7, but it's only a few tweaks and updates away from being a viable alternative to Android. It will be interesting to see how Google responds.

Don't just do something, sit there

I was at work today and as usual at lunchtime, I went to sit in my favourite coffee shop. Normally, I bring my smartphone with me and spend my break reading news headlines, updating my Facebook status and checking out Twitter. Today, I left my smartphone behind and so was left with nothing to do but just sit there and drink my coffee. What really surprised me was just sitting there and having nothing else to concentrate on but myself and the coffee was really difficult.

Nonetheless, just drinking my coffee without dividing my attention did me an awful lot of good. I spend so much time looking at a screen be at my computer, my phone, my Sony Reader or my television, that some time away from electronics can't be a bad thing.

Dell Venue Pro (Windows 7 Phone)

Here's a video preview from CNET.co.uk of the new Dell Windows Phone 7 phone, the Venue Pro. I really like the look of the hardware. The phone reminds me of the chunky phones that we sometimes see from Nokia such as the N95 and the N900.I even like the metallic strips down both sides, but I'm sure they won't be to everyone's taste.

The Dell Venue Pro looks immensely solidly made, although I'm surprised that Dell have decided to have a keyboard that slides out from the bottom rather than the side. I didn't like it when Palm did the same on the Palm Pre (the keyboard on that phone was ridiculously small – I couldn't use it at all because my fingers were too big).

From what I've seen of the new Windows phones, I'm not sure the new OS will lure me away from my beloved Android, but I'd certainly consider it for my next phone.

• Dell Venue Pro hands-on
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• CNET UK

What's with the name of this blog?

"Better than it has any right to be" is a phrase first coined by my good friend Tim, when he just been to see Alien vs Predator. It's a film that could easily have been terrible, but actually, I found it very entertaining and, indeed, it's one of very few films I have watched more than once.

I thought this was such a brilliant phrase, I wanted to record it somewhere, so that's why it's the name of my blog.