I purchased this phone through Amazon as an alternative option to purchasing it for retail price at a Tmobile store. If not for an aggressive price point, I wouldn't have purchased this phone. Also, I received the tmobile version of this phone. The phone even works with 4g and has the tmobile badging.
I replaced my Samsung Exhibit II with this phone. My android phone was continually lagging, overheating and crashing on me. I feel this is a hardware/driver issue and not Andriod OS issue. However, I do feel that there is a lot less bloat on the Windows OS on the HTC. Also, the app store was an easy transition for all my needs. The OS integrated into my Facebook, gmail, google calendar accounts. A neat feature is local scout. Local scout gives you categories such as restaurants that will inform you of all the local events pertaining to the selected category. This phone however is not as superior as google maps in android, but it works well. The only feature I can think that I use that google maps offered that MS maps app did not offer is to avoid toll roads and high ways. I used this feature frequently because I own two-scooters that I enjoy riding on occasion and avoiding toll roads when I'm in my car. The OS on this device is fairly intuitive with a slight learning curb. The OS also seems well polished and it runs very fluidly/smoothly.
The build quality of this HTC phone is top notch. It has gorilla glass from my understanding. The body is white plastic (high quality feeling) on aluminum.
The battery life for this phone is excellent in regards to talk time (I can probably get 7-8 hours of talk time). The standby time is only about three days with minimal use. This is better than the Samsung Exhibit II I had sold over ebay.
This phone uses a regular SIM card in contrast to the new micro SIM cards. I originally purchased a Lumia 710 offering a micro SIM card, but was not happy at all with the very poor plastic build quality. I returned it to Amazon immediately. I'm glad because I met two other people with this phone that were very displeased with it.
The front facing images on the phone are touch (capacitive) and not buttons. I do not like using push button on a touch phone. The lock/unlock, volume rocker and camera hard-buttons are acceptions and actually are preferred; but not for interacting and navigating within the phone with its touch interface.
The sound quality is very good and gets to be pretty loud. The speaker phone is mediocre. The speaker phone gets workably loud (does not work well in a car with road noise etc), the microphone is sensitive enough for regular conversation. No one has complained yet about me using it now for two to three weeks. While the speaker for speakerphone is ok, the microphone works great.
The phone takes sharp picture and balances the lighting well.
The screen is high resolution and adequately bright in most conditions. However, the screen is not bright enough to overcome an afternoon backdrop of the sun and sky. Colors appear very vibrant.
I also like the "attentive phone" features allowing for me to turn the phone on its face to automatically activate the speakerphone, pocket mode increases the ring volume, flip to mute allows me to see who's calling and I can place it back on its face to mute the ringing, and quiet ring on pick up lowers the ring volume when I pick up the phone or remove it from my pocket (this feature does not conflict with the pocket/purse mode sensors/feature).
I'm extremely satisfied with this phone overall and wouldn't hesitate to purchase it again.
