First known as the HTC 7 Pro at its New York unveiling,
the HTC Arrive is Sprint's inaugural foray into the brave new world of
Windows Phone 7. And the Arrive also represents two other minor
"firsts": it's the first CDMA Windows Phone 7 phone in the United
States, and it's the first Windows Phone 7 model to ship with
Microsoft's cut-and-paste update.
As a result there's a lot
riding on the Arrive's rounded shoulders, and for the most part it
succeeds in carrying that weight. Like the HTC Surround,
the Arrive is a thick chunk of handset, but that extra bulk makes
possible a responsive keyboard and a screen that tilts for optimal
typing and media consumption. While the data speeds are fine, we were a
little disappointed that 4G WiMax isn't an option.
While there's a
lot to like, the Arrive also has its drawbacks, some having to do with
the handset's construction and some stemming from the Windows Phone 7
OS. For the most part, though, it acquits itself well as a Sprint
newcomer.
Design
The HTC Arrive looks good, and looks strong. Rimmed with shiny,
dark-gray paint, the handset has a glossy appearance and feel. It has
barely rounded corners, like the iPhone 4,
and two cutouts that reveal the front-facing speakers. On the back, a
swath of brushed stainless steel and a decorative screw reveal that this
is not a phone to be trifled with. And if there were any doubt, the
phone's dimensions (4.6 inches tall, 2.3 inches wide, 0.6 inch thick)
and weight (a whopping 6.4 ounces, nearly half a pound)--attest that the
Arrive is one brick of a phone. Its bulk makes it a bit less
comfortable to slip into a pocket, but you won't have to worry much if
you drop it. We noticed, however, that the gray paint that rings the
face easily flaked off in our bags and under our nail.
The HTC Arrive is Sprint's first Windows Phone 7 phone, and the first to ship with copy and paste installed.
At 3.6 inches, the WVGA capacitive touch screen is
slightly smaller than that of the HTC Surround, but has the same
800x480-pixel resolution. While it's a fine screen that shows off bright
colors and sharp edges, it doesn't have the richness or pop of the
Super AMOLED display on the Samsung Focus.
Below
the screen are three touch-sensitive buttons for Back, Home, and Bing
search. A camera trigger button is on the right spine, and the Micro-USB
charger and a large volume rocker are on the left. Up top there's a
standard 3.5-millimeter headset jack and the power button. The Arrive's
back houses a 5-megapixel camera and a flash. As with all Windows 7
phones, there's no card slot for expanding the phone's memory, but the
16GB built-in storage should be enough for most casual users' needs.
More than anything else, what makes the HTC Arrive stand out is
its tilting screen. HTC is no stranger to this design; it brought us the
AT&T Tilt and HTC Tilt 2,
much ballyhooed back in 2007 and 2009, respectively. Those two handsets
ran Microsoft's earlier Windows mobile operating systems.
As
with its predecessors, the Arrive's screen slides out to expose a full
QWERTY keyboard before tilting up 30 degrees (previous models tilted up
40 degrees.) You simply push the front face flat and slide it back over
the keyboard when you're done. It takes a fair amount of pressure to
open, and our thumb kept slipping on the phone's square design on our
first few tries. The Arrive's tilting mechanism appears to be fairly
sturdy, and makes a metallic click when you lay the face flat.
The
tilted display is best when you're typing with the phone in your hand
or setting it down to watch a video play; be aware, however, that the
handset will rock back slightly if you put it down and then tap on the
screen in the open position.
Below the display, the Arrive's
keyboard manages to be spacious without being overly wide. Keys are
fully separated, but barely rise above the surface. The backlit buttons
are smooth and very responsive, although a skosh less comfortable than
buttons with a more rubbery feel. There are dedicated buttons for
emoticons and diacritical marks, and for adding currency symbols for
euros and pound sterling.
Interface
We've examined Windows Phone 7
in depth elsewhere, but there are several features worth noting here.
First, the Arrive comes with Microsoft's copy/paste feature installed,
the first Windows Phone 7 device to ship with it. Touching a word on a
Web page or in a document presents tags that you can easily drag to
select an area. Highlighting a word also causes a "copy" icon to pop up.
Tapping it then saves the selected text to the clipboard for later
pasting. Finally, a "paste" icon appears when you tap an input field,
like a Word document or a search field.
Unfortunately, some screens still don't convert to landscape mode.
Copy/paste works intuitively and smoothly, and we love
the visual panache. You can paste the same text multiple times. However,
the functionality isn't strictly systemwide, although it does appear in
the obvious locations, like the browser, e-mail, documents, maps,
contact cards, and search results. For instance, copy/paste doesn't
appear as an option in some of the settings menus, so you can't use it
when configuring your e-mail--something we could do with both Android
and iOS.
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