HTC Trophy Review

The smartphone market is currently on a boom with innumerable handsets heating the competition with the most sophisticated technology and prices to die for. The head on tussle between the leading brands of the mobile world is getting fiercer with each challenger striving to gobble up fare share of profits. This marathon is however led by Apple’s iPhone which with its intuitive interface, refined technology and sleek looks has taken the world by storm. Catching up closely is RIM’s Blackberry, predominantly in the business segment. Nokia which was once the triumphant king of the mobile sector has now succumbed to the feature rich handsets from its rivals, particularly in the smartphone division. However amongst these rising and falling stars of the mobile industry, one company that has always been acknowledged for its robust phones that are packed with chic features and lasting durability, and has constantly been a star performer is none other than HTC.

The Taiwan based smartphone manufacturer has had a winning history in the industry ever since the phone was chosen as a hardware platform for Windows Mobile Operating system. With no looking back, the company now stands at the pinnacles of gory with range of phones now flooding the market and winning the consumer hearts. Picking up one from the lot, we have for you today the HTC 7 Trophy, definitely a prize for the hardcore HTC phone lovers.

Launched during 2010, in the month of October along with HTC Surround, Mozart, Pro and HD7, HTC Corporation promotes this model (Trophy) in a most unique way. HTC 7 Trophy mainly targets the gamers and conveys the fact that this phone is ideal for games because of its powerful processor and generous display.

Design

With the build and finish being the two prime strengths of the HTC range of smartphones, Trophy comes with an exclusive application package and also stylish looks. The HTC 7 Trophy review will help you to find out what means the phrase “compact design.”  The outer body of the phone is entirely black in colour while the design is very elegant. HTC 7 Trophy measures 118.5×61.5x12mm – Could say, falls under the category of average size for a smartphone.

Compared to the other HTC phones in its family, HTC 7 Trophy is very handy and fits in pockets of all sizes. With the phone weighing not more than 140gms, it is obvious for it to give an impression of a solidly built phone having most of its parts built with metal. Surprisingly, most of the parts of HTC 7 Trophy are made of high quality matt plastic which provides an excellent grip and fingerprints are no more a worry. In simple words, with a tactile and grippy touch, HTC 7 is very comfortable to hold.

The only metal you find is the thin metallic frame around the screen area. That is what we mean by an elusive finish. Coming to the placement of keys, HTC 7 Trophy has made the optimal utilization of the physical space available at the sides. The physical controls include the power key, the volume key, the camera key and the blind/shutter.

The power/screen lock key is found on the top of the phone next to the 3.5mm audio jack. The volume key and a microUSB port are found on the left hand side and the metallic camera key is placed on the right hand side. At the bottom there is only a mouthpiece. At the rear rests a 5MP camera lens and a loudspeaker. The ear speaker is placed above the screen and Trophy also sports a tiny light as well that indicates the charge level. The light flashes red when the battery is low and goes green when the battery is full. And to notify the user on miss calls, the light wil flash green. Brilliant, isn’t it?? The camera is supported by a LED flash to capture and shoot during the low-light situations.

Hardware

HTC Trophy’s small packaged box makes complete efforts to accommodate everything to your penultimate satisfaction. The box comes with an USB charger and a HTC microUSB data cable. It also includes a one-piece headset which can be connected to a 3.5mm audio jack. The books related to the usage of the phone and other slips find their place too.

Memory

HTC Trophy comes with an internal memory of 8GB for storage, 576 MB RAM and 506 MB ROM. But it is pretty disappointing with the fact that the phone has not provided any card slots for external memory sticks. Now this is indeed fuming for those who are used to transferring data from one device to another using their memory sticks.

Display

The HTC 7 Trophy features a 3.8” capacitive WVGA LCD touchscreen. That would mean, the display looks perfectly fine indoors. But when it hits outdoor, there is possibility of the screen going dull and the legibility being very poor under direct sunlight. The display is supported by brilliant colours and with the most apt contrast. The screen is very sensitive and reacts very quickly to the gentlest of touches/taps. All credits to the developers behind the capacitive technology.

Camera

HTC 7 Trophy comes with a 5MP autofocus camera supported by a LED flash for capturing snaps at low-light situations. It provides a maximum resolution of 2592×1944 pixels. The camera software is pre-loaded with scene presets and other photo templates. In addition to this, features like metering mode, flicker adjustment have been included. The camera key is on the left side and the camera lags by 2 seconds to open, once the button is pressed. The clarity in the images is also not very impressive. There are no fine details in the images and the edges turn out to be very soft. Making the HTC 7 Trophy review we are convinced the camera of this phone is pretty nice and regardless the fact there are several smartphones in the market with more powerful hardware, this one copes with the problem completely.

HTC 7 Trophy test video

Battery

The HTC 7 Trophy uses a 1300 mAh battery quoted at up to 3 and a half hours of talk time and up to 435 hours of stand-by time in a 3G network. As you know the battery life could vary depending on the fact how you use your phone, so if you won’t use GPRS/3G, GPS and Bluetooth, the battery will be long-lived. One more thing, every phone’s battery needs to be replaced every eight months to a year.

Connectivity

Coming to network connectivity, HTC 7 Trophy has a quad-band GSM/GPRS/EDGE support and dual-band 3G with HSPA (7.2Mbps downlink and 2Mbps uplink). And the local connectivity is done with the help of Wi-Fi b/g/n and Bluetooth 2.1 with A2DP. To everyone’s astonishment, there’s no support for transferring files through Bluetooth. Since the OS sued in the phone is Windows Phone 7, it does not support mass storage mode. Hence synchronisation with the PC to transfer files, music and images would require the usage of Zune software in your computer.

Software

You all are well acquainted with the software HTC has used for its Trophy and it is none other than the Windows Phone 7 software. The Windows Phone 7 has the same user interface and runs the same software versions.

HTC Trophy UI

The HTC 7 Trophy user interface is not a modified version of the Windows phone 7, but gives a trademark HTC feel. It has an added feature called the HTC hub, a shortcut to all your phone needs. It also includes a clock which is very common among its range of products.

The user interface mainly consists of two key parts: a home screen (or the “Start” option) and the main menu. The home screen is a grid of widgets and with self explanatory labels as to what they do. There is also an option for customizable themes with innumerable colour options. On the other hand, the main menu is in the form of a traditional list, where everything is stored in an alphabetical order, be it applications or other live widgets. It also allows you to pin the most used applications onto the home screen by just keeping the widget or app pressed, say for about a second.

The phone allows you to download apps, use it and also rate the apps for the benefit of other HTC users. This invites for more trouble in the main menu mode as, more the number of applications would mean longer the list. So those apps which are not pinned to the home screen will involve lots and lots of scrolling.

One thing about the interface of HTC 7 Trophy is that, it does not support multi tasking. That is opening a new application will automatically shut down the last application being used without even a warning.

Default Apps

The HTC 7 trophy comes with loads of pre-loaded apps as in all Windows phone 7 phones. Some of the prominent ones are:

1. The mobile office package includes word editor, excel viewer, powerpoint, one note etc.
2. The notes application which gives a 3D work board to which your notes can be pinned.
3. Stock application which is a pre-loaded app that helps in tracking the stock exchange. It also allows user to customize the list of companies to be shown on the charts.
4. HTC comes with a capable GPS receiver in-built in its hardware. HTC 7 Trophy sports a mapping application by name Bing Maps. The Bing maps provide both the normal map mode and satellite snap mode.

Browser

It comes with a pre installed internet explorer which shows quite a positive approach when it comes to browsing section. The scrolling and zoom option is very smooth. The browser is also capable of landscape orientation on tilting the phone sideways. But as Windows Phone 7 browsers are never compatible with flash embedded sites, this acts more of a drawback for the phone.

Music Players

The music player is found in the Music hub in the home screen and has been named as the Zune Player, shown bearing a Zune logo. It has a seamless interface and is pretty simple to use for most of the first timers. It also includes options like shuffle, repeat and add to favourites. The player can even play songs in the background. The player lacks the option of equalizer but gives you a quick access to FM radio and audio podcasts.

The HTC 7 Trophy price and deals

As a rule, many smartphones of the company are launched in Europe than they come to the US. The HTC 7 Trophy didn’t violate the regularity, but the prices are quite different between the continents. While the phone is available for free in Europe, especially in the UK (with contracts and appropriate data plans, of course), US costumers will have to pay about $200 if they get it from Verizon. But this is just a rumored price, and we only know when the phone is launched on March 24th, Amazon will offer it for $499.99. However, if you are not living in America or you are not a subscriber of Vodafone, Orange, O2, T-Mobile, 3 or Virgin Mobile, the unlocked version of the phone will cost about €430. I guess the price is quite accessible and there won’t be any serious discontents.

End of the Story

Advantages

• 5 megapixel autofocus camera with LED flash, geotagging
• 8GB of built-in storage
• 1GHz Scorpion processor
• Office document editor
• Facebook integration and cloud services
• Built-in A-GPS receiver
• HTC Hub and exclusive HTC apps
• Voice-to-text functionality

Disadvantages

• Music player lacks equalizer presets
• No multitasking
• No DivX/XviD video support (automatic transcoding provided by Zune software)
• No sign of free Bing maps Navigation so far
• No internet tethering support
• No handwriting recognition support
• No microSD card support
• No secondary camra

The HTC 7 Trophy is truly a consolation prize in terms of its finishing and elegant design. But, it has let down in many key areas like Camera, the software, Flash embedded browsers and the Bluetooth File transfer options. In positive terms, this phone being installed with excellent apps is a one stop solution to all your problems and queries, some of them being the Facebook integration, cloud storage, mobile office and many more.

Priced a bit higher than it counter parts and other competitors like LG E900 Optimus 7 and Samsung 18700 Omnia 7, HTC 7 Trophy almost provides with the same features as seen in the other phones. Overall, it’s a no loss and no gain investment.

Pictures by HTC 7 Trophy

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