HTC Radar VS Lumia 710 VS HD7

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gonintendo

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Oct 20, 2009
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I'm not sure I like the white on the radar and the quality of the hd7's screen and its older cpu/gpu put me off, but the lumia only has 8gb of storage. I'm leaning towards the lumia 710 right now because I prefer its design, but I feel like I'll need more than 8gb of storage.

P.S. are there any services similar to google music (or a google music app for that matter) on windows phone? That would pretty much solve the storage issue. (It's what I use on my android phone.)
 

GoodDayToDie

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One advantage of the HD7 is that, being a first-gen phone, it's highly hackable. If you want to do custom ROMs or heavy tweaking of stock ROMs, the HD7 is your best bet. It also has the largest screen, which help with things like using the on-screen keyboard.

The Radar strikes me as the Trophy v2, a device I was never terribly impressed with to start. However, it does have the advantages of a second-gen device: the faster processor and the front-facing camera. The CPU quality is not yet an issue, really - some games might load a little faster, but all of them are designed to play very smoothly on first-gen phones - but it might be a bit more feature-proof. It's also worth considering that pretty much any phone can be "skinned" with coatings that make it more resistant to damage and change the color, but are cheap and add little weight or size.

The Lumia 710 is a very nice device, but I agree tha 8GB is just too little storage. Is it possible to tear it down and put in a bigger microSD card? Many phones, including the HD7, don't actually have a soldered-in storage chip, they just use an internal uSD that can be replaced if you know how.

Google Music could be done on the phone, but it would have to be via an app. A quick check of the marketplace turns up nothing useful. Hmm, maybe this should be fixed... You can also use Pandora (and any other site that supports HTML5 streaming) on the phone; just open the page in a browser, and the music stream will start playing (you can control the station via the browser windows, of course) and the play/pause/volume controls that are built into the phone will be usable from any app, no need to keep the website in the foreground.

However, WP7 natively supports Zune Pass. For $10/month (less if you buy a multi-month subscription), you get all-you-can-eat music streaming. It can only be played on Windows Phones, Zune software on PC, Zune devices, and Xbox 360 (the files are DRMed, and will also stop working if you stop paying) but the selection is very nice, and my HD7 makes a good portable music player. It's a great way to get around the issue of not being able to keep your whole music collection on the phone. It's also a good way to discover new music; there's a feature called "Smart DJ" that automatically creates playlists based on songs, albums, or artists.
 
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gonintendo

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Oct 20, 2009
419
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One advantage of the HD7 is that, being a first-gen phone, it's highly hackable. If you want to do custom ROMs or heavy tweaking of stock ROMs, the HD7 is your best bet. It also has the largest screen, which help with things like using the on-screen keyboard.

The Radar strikes me as the Trophy v2, a device I was never terribly impressed with to start. However, it does have the advantages of a second-gen device: the faster processor and the front-facing camera. The CPU quality is not yet an issue, really - some games might load a little faster, but all of them are designed to play very smoothly on first-gen phones - but it might be a bit more feature-proof. It's also worth considering that pretty much any phone can be "skinned" with coatings that make it more resistant to damage and change the color, but are cheap and add little weight or size.

The Lumia 710 is a very nice device, but I agree tha 8GB is just too little storage. Is it possible to tear it down and put in a bigger microSD card? Many phones, including the HD7, don't actually have a soldered-in storage chip, they just use an internal uSD that can be replaced if you know how.

Google Music could be done on the phone, but it would have to be via an app. A quick check of the marketplace turns up nothing useful. Hmm, maybe this should be fixed... You can also use Pandora (and any other site that supports HTML5 streaming) on the phone; just open the page in a browser, and the music stream will start playing (you can control the station via the browser windows, of course) and the play/pause/volume controls that are built into the phone will be usable from any app, no need to keep the website in the foreground.

However, WP7 natively supports Zune Pass. For $10/month (less if you buy a multi-month subscription), you get all-you-can-eat music streaming. It can only be played on Windows Phones, Zune software on PC, Zune devices, and Xbox 360 (the files are DRMed, and will also stop working if you stop paying) but the selection is very nice, and my HD7 makes a good portable music player. It's a great way to get around the issue of not being able to keep your whole music collection on the phone. It's also a good way to discover new music; there's a feature called "Smart DJ" that automatically creates playlists based on songs, albums, or artists.

Zune pass is nice, but google music is appealing because it is free. There seem to be a couple of google music apps in development right now (mainly CloudMuzik. Its developer says he's submitting it to the market tonight. He's the guy who made metro browser, which I am a fan of.)

I should add that I owned a samsung focus back when I was on at&t. I switched to tmobile because I have a MUCH better plan now. If I could, I'd get a focus s, but being on tmobile obviously restricts that. My current phone is a nexus s which I plan on keeping as a toy. I'd like something more stable as a daily driver and I love windows phone. Google music is really the only service I'd miss. I don't have a single song on my nexus s's internal memory, it's all in the cloud and it hasn't failed me once.

One other question I have is about sideloading apps. If I'm not mistaken, you have to "jailbreak" your phone to do this. How difficult is this and how difficult is it to install updates/undo it?
 

mmian

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Mar 29, 2011
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A Google Music Player is coming to the marketplace very soon! It's in the software Dev section

---------- Post added at 11:15 PM ---------- Previous post was at 11:15 PM ----------

and i would reccommend the nokia since they will have the most vested interest in windows phone, so updates and like will be much better
 
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GoodDayToDie

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I don't really like appying the term "jailbreak" to Dev-Unlock (which is all that you need for sideloading apps). Developer unlock is a built-in feature of the OS, and is officially available to anybody... you just normally have to pay some money to use it (students can get it free through DreamSpark). One advantage of it being an official feature is there's no risk of it bricking the phone or preventing updates. There are some apps that can mess up the phone if used incorrectly (mostly things like registry editors) and they require an additional level of unlock, which we call interop-unlock. It's still technically a feature of the OS, but it's a hidden one not supposed to be available to end users. Currently the HD7 is the only phone on your original list that can be interop-unlocked, and you'll probably have to flash a lower firmware version to it first, then upgrade again afterward.

Currently, none of the free options for dev-unlock work on any of the phones you mentioned, although with enough effort you can downgrade the HD7 to pre-NoDo and use the original ChevronWP7 Unlocker, then manage to carry that forward through the upgrade to Mango. It's not easy, though. The official method is to get an AppHub (marketplace developer) account from Microsoft. $99/year, or free if you're a student. Well worth it to me, but your opinion may vary.

For what it's worth, you could of course get the Samsung and just SIM-unlock it. It might even support the right 3G / HSPDA+ (what TMO calls "4G", basically twice as fast as their usual 3G) bands, although I'd be a little surprised; most AT&T phones don't support TMO's higher-speed networks. Samsung phones can currently be both dev- and interop-unlocked easily using the WindowBreak project (provided they don't have the latest firmware update, which one bought now might not). Additionally, the first-gen Samsung phones (but not second-gen, like the Focus S) can now use custom ROMs. That was just published today. No word yet on support for second-gen custom ROMs on either HTC or Samsung, though.
 
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gonintendo

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I don't really like appying the term "jailbreak" to Dev-Unlock (which is all that you need for sideloading apps). Developer unlock is a built-in feature of the OS, and is officially available to anybody... you just normally have to pay some money to use it (students can get it free through DreamSpark). One advantage of it being an official feature is there's no risk of it bricking the phone or preventing updates. There are some apps that can mess up the phone if used incorrectly (mostly things like registry editors) and they require an additional level of unlock, which we call interop-unlock. It's still technically a feature of the OS, but it's a hidden one not supposed to be available to end users. Currently the HD7 is the only phone on your original list that can be interop-unlocked, and you'll probably have to flash a lower firmware version to it first, then upgrade again afterward.

Currently, none of the free options for dev-unlock work on any of the phones you mentioned, although with enough effort you can downgrade the HD7 to pre-NoDo and use the original ChevronWP7 Unlocker, then manage to carry that forward through the upgrade to Mango. It's not easy, though. The official method is to get an AppHub (marketplace developer) account from Microsoft. $99/year, or free if you're a student. Well worth it to me, but your opinion may vary.

For what it's worth, you could of course get the Samsung and just SIM-unlock it. It might even support the right 3G / HSPDA+ (what TMO calls "4G", basically twice as fast as their usual 3G) bands, although I'd be a little surprised; most AT&T phones don't support TMO's higher-speed networks. Samsung phones can currently be both dev- and interop-unlocked easily using the WindowBreak project (provided they don't have the latest firmware update, which one bought now might not). Additionally, the first-gen Samsung phones (but not second-gen, like the Focus S) can now use custom ROMs. That was just published today. No word yet on support for second-gen custom ROMs on either HTC or Samsung, though.

No, none of the wp7 phones are pentaband/aws compatible sadly, else I wouldn't even be considering any of these phones, I'd just go straight for a lumia 900.

So is there no consumer-oriented unlock tool for the lumia? I wouldn't say I "need" it, but I like toying around with beta software.

@mmian, that was the app I was referring to (cloudmuzik) and I think the nokia is what I'm going to go for. The free nav software is enticing and I prefer their design over htc's (never really been a fan of them, had a g1 which was pure **** and a sensation which wasn't a bad design, but they clearly put all of their time/money into making it look nice rather than having a good, responsive touchscreen that doesn't let dust into it. /rant). Now that I know google music is coming, the storage isn't an issue.
 

GoodDayToDie

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Well, beta software can actually be distributed through the marketplace now (the dev has to specifically add your account to the beta, though). Almost everything WP7-related on XDA-Devs is either custom ROMs or XAP files (sideload-able application packages, though), and you need dev-unlock to install the latter (and a custom bootloader to install the former).
 
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gonintendo

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Oct 20, 2009
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Well, beta software can actually be distributed through the marketplace now (the dev has to specifically add your account to the beta, though). Almost everything WP7-related on XDA-Devs is either custom ROMs or XAP files (sideload-able application packages, though), and you need dev-unlock to install the latter (and a custom bootloader to install the former).

Wow, I had no idea! That's actually a really cool system. Thank you guys for all the help btw.
 

drupad2drupad

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Apr 11, 2010
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For £7.50 a month you don't only get unlimited streaming and localises downloads on Zune pass. You also can get 10 DRM-free songs each month. That works out to be 75p per song! Zune pass works out to be much cheaper for legal song downloads and streaming. DRM-free songs that you get each month can be saved on your PC and are yours for a lifetime even if you stop paying for the subscription.

Sent from my TITAN X310e using Board Express Pro
 

GoodDayToDie

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@drupad2drupad: You're confusing the old and the new subscriptions, sadly.

The old Zune Pass subscription was $15/month ($12.50 if you bought a year at a time), all-you-can-eat downloads and streaming, and 10 song credits for DRM-free purchase each month.

The new subscription, as of some time late 2011, is $10/month (probably $7.50 if you buy 12 at a time, but I haven't checked) but you don't get any song purchase credits - just the (DRMed) streaming and downloads.

It's still a good service, but if you consider the cost of those 10 song purchases, the original plan was the better deal. However, they've discontinued that first plan; the only way you can have it now is if you're grandfathered in. I wish they'd kept both options available; I have the old plan but a new subscriber can't get it.
 

drupad2drupad

Senior Member
Apr 11, 2010
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@drupad2drupad: You're confusing the old and the new subscriptions, sadly.

The old Zune Pass subscription was $15/month ($12.50 if you bought a year at a time), all-you-can-eat downloads and streaming, and 10 song credits for DRM-free purchase each month.

The new subscription, as of some time late 2011, is $10/month (probably $7.50 if you buy 12 at a time, but I haven't checked) but you don't get any song purchase credits - just the (DRMed) streaming and downloads.

It's still a good service, but if you consider the cost of those 10 song purchases, the original plan was the better deal. However, they've discontinued that first plan; the only way you can have it now is if you're grandfathered in. I wish they'd kept both options available; I have the old plan but a new subscriber can't get it.

Really? :eek:
Din't know that all! Read all the review around, wonder why I never bothered to check the dates on them. Luckily after my 14 day free trial, I've moved on to 1-month basis. I din't realize I was going to lose the downloaded songs as I just kept thinking the 10 I download are now DRM-free! I knew it can't be that simple. And it's not. Thanks for pointing that out.

That really means all these few months of songs I've been liking and getting into a groove of listening will go as soon as I stop the service! Bugger! :(
 

GoodDayToDie

Inactive Recognized Developer
Jan 20, 2011
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Seattle
Yeah, I really liked that plan (and am grandfathered in) but new subscripers can't get it. Such a waste of opportunity on Microsoft's part, to not offer both options and let people choose which they wanted.

The download credits are handled slightly differently from how you describe; I receive 10 credits each month, and when I select a song to "buy" there is an option to pay with a download credit instead. They don't roll over month to month - use it or lose it - but Zune software shows how many credits you have left, and it's a clickable link that will show you the most-played songs in your collection that you didn't buy yet (i.e. that are DRMed downloads), so you can slowly convert your whole collection, in the order that you care most.

You can also use the credits to buy some songs that aren't available for streaming (why anybody would choose to block streaming is unclear to me, but some artists did...)

Anyhow, yeah, it sucks that they discontinued it, even though if you weren't diligent about using your song credits you ended up paying extra each month.
 

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    One advantage of the HD7 is that, being a first-gen phone, it's highly hackable. If you want to do custom ROMs or heavy tweaking of stock ROMs, the HD7 is your best bet. It also has the largest screen, which help with things like using the on-screen keyboard.

    The Radar strikes me as the Trophy v2, a device I was never terribly impressed with to start. However, it does have the advantages of a second-gen device: the faster processor and the front-facing camera. The CPU quality is not yet an issue, really - some games might load a little faster, but all of them are designed to play very smoothly on first-gen phones - but it might be a bit more feature-proof. It's also worth considering that pretty much any phone can be "skinned" with coatings that make it more resistant to damage and change the color, but are cheap and add little weight or size.

    The Lumia 710 is a very nice device, but I agree tha 8GB is just too little storage. Is it possible to tear it down and put in a bigger microSD card? Many phones, including the HD7, don't actually have a soldered-in storage chip, they just use an internal uSD that can be replaced if you know how.

    Google Music could be done on the phone, but it would have to be via an app. A quick check of the marketplace turns up nothing useful. Hmm, maybe this should be fixed... You can also use Pandora (and any other site that supports HTML5 streaming) on the phone; just open the page in a browser, and the music stream will start playing (you can control the station via the browser windows, of course) and the play/pause/volume controls that are built into the phone will be usable from any app, no need to keep the website in the foreground.

    However, WP7 natively supports Zune Pass. For $10/month (less if you buy a multi-month subscription), you get all-you-can-eat music streaming. It can only be played on Windows Phones, Zune software on PC, Zune devices, and Xbox 360 (the files are DRMed, and will also stop working if you stop paying) but the selection is very nice, and my HD7 makes a good portable music player. It's a great way to get around the issue of not being able to keep your whole music collection on the phone. It's also a good way to discover new music; there's a feature called "Smart DJ" that automatically creates playlists based on songs, albums, or artists.
    1
    A Google Music Player is coming to the marketplace very soon! It's in the software Dev section

    ---------- Post added at 11:15 PM ---------- Previous post was at 11:15 PM ----------

    and i would reccommend the nokia since they will have the most vested interest in windows phone, so updates and like will be much better
    1
    I don't really like appying the term "jailbreak" to Dev-Unlock (which is all that you need for sideloading apps). Developer unlock is a built-in feature of the OS, and is officially available to anybody... you just normally have to pay some money to use it (students can get it free through DreamSpark). One advantage of it being an official feature is there's no risk of it bricking the phone or preventing updates. There are some apps that can mess up the phone if used incorrectly (mostly things like registry editors) and they require an additional level of unlock, which we call interop-unlock. It's still technically a feature of the OS, but it's a hidden one not supposed to be available to end users. Currently the HD7 is the only phone on your original list that can be interop-unlocked, and you'll probably have to flash a lower firmware version to it first, then upgrade again afterward.

    Currently, none of the free options for dev-unlock work on any of the phones you mentioned, although with enough effort you can downgrade the HD7 to pre-NoDo and use the original ChevronWP7 Unlocker, then manage to carry that forward through the upgrade to Mango. It's not easy, though. The official method is to get an AppHub (marketplace developer) account from Microsoft. $99/year, or free if you're a student. Well worth it to me, but your opinion may vary.

    For what it's worth, you could of course get the Samsung and just SIM-unlock it. It might even support the right 3G / HSPDA+ (what TMO calls "4G", basically twice as fast as their usual 3G) bands, although I'd be a little surprised; most AT&T phones don't support TMO's higher-speed networks. Samsung phones can currently be both dev- and interop-unlocked easily using the WindowBreak project (provided they don't have the latest firmware update, which one bought now might not). Additionally, the first-gen Samsung phones (but not second-gen, like the Focus S) can now use custom ROMs. That was just published today. No word yet on support for second-gen custom ROMs on either HTC or Samsung, though.
    1
    Well, beta software can actually be distributed through the marketplace now (the dev has to specifically add your account to the beta, though). Almost everything WP7-related on XDA-Devs is either custom ROMs or XAP files (sideload-able application packages, though), and you need dev-unlock to install the latter (and a custom bootloader to install the former).