HTC Surround
Phone Scoop Review
Oct 20, 2010 by Eric M. Zeman
HTC's Surround smartphone packs stereo speakers and Microsoft's brand new Windows Phone 7 operating system. Read Phone Scoop's in-depth report on Microsoft's comeback platform. read review ›
User Reviews
Average Ratings
Possible iPhone Competitor
While I have an iPhone, I would still think this phone is still amazing. I like that windows has a phone now. It has pretty good speakers and a good touch screen. Pretty good multimedia phone as well. I'd say you should go get this anytime.
Nothing but trouble
Got this phone in Jan 2011 and have had nothing but trouble with it. First it would not charge. Got a new battery and it still did not charge. Then got a new charger and that seemed to help for a while. I would call someone or receive a call and I could hear them but the caller could not hear me. I called and received a replacement phone and it worked for a while and then had the same issue of callers not hearing me with the replacement phone. I called the warranty number again and they reset my phone. It worked for a while and again I had the same issue of callers not hearing me. This has been going on since I got the phone originally and also with the replacement phone. I would NEVER EVER recommend this phone to anyone.
...this is it?
so many problems. software crashes, feels cheap, only a 5mp camera, no 4G. Keep your money and do not buy this phone.
Surrounded with fun!!!!
I have had this phone for over two months and it's one of the best phones I have ever had. I owned a iphone,Droid and blackberry. Those are great phones also but they all lacked something that the HTC surround has. The home screen is much bigger the music is awesome on it. I like how you Zune works, you can send videos or more them to CD. You can watch Netflix on the phone,thats a plus :) . Overall all I would give this phone a 10 plus if I could.
Next for AT&T: the HTC Suck a.k.a. "I want my penny back"
First, the pros: 1) audio quality is superior to what Phonescoop's in-depth review gave. 2) nice, mid-to-big screen. 3) it turned on.
Cons: 1)it turned on. 2) Zune is junkware. 3)CAN'T SEND VIDEOS VIA MMS!!!!!!! (WTF?!?!) 4)ZUNE.
Two days later, and multiple attempts to fix Zune, it still refuses to read half of my music library correctly. It claims that my songs are 4 GB each!? Can't send videos? Junk junk junk junk junk. Returning to Amazon for my penny back.
Maybe the besst phone i've used in a long time
I've never found a phone to be perfect. I've owned every version of the iphone, Captivate, backflip, virtually every blackberry since the 8700 (including torch), 3 dated various windows mobile devices, and a nokia e71x running symbian and thus far, this is the best of all of them.
I was a bit leary of WM7 and with good reason so I decided to use this device to get an idea of what WM7 could do and then discard it. However, I was shocked to find that it does everything I need a device to do and well.
First off, the home page is pleasing to the eyes. The constant updating tiles are cool but not a necessity. The responsiveness is great and I believe this may be due to the large amount of data dedicated to the OS and pre-installed programs. I have experienced absolutely no lag while navigating screens and apps.
Secondly, the people hub is perfect. Similar to android OS, you can sync Facebook to your contact list. However, being able to sync FB, gmail, yahoo, windows live, etc to your contact list and doing a god job of merging and elimination duplicates is incredible.
Thirdly, it is not advertised whatsoever, but Windows live offers expandable memory of up to 20GB through the cloud and allows expandable memory on the device up to 36 GB. Along with this feature comes a mobile me-like feature for FREE where you can locate, lock, send a message/alarm, and wipe the device REMOTELY. That feature is awesome and is FREE as opposed to $99.99 through apple for the iPhone.
Lastly, while I thought the extended speakers for virtual surround was a stupid gimmick at first, actually deliver excellent sound for a phone and offer make viewing experience more enjoyable. It also syncs with my car through bluetooth and aux to listen to music with no issues. May I also add that the Zune media player is superior to the iphones (and i'm an ipod guy).
All in all, if this phone starts catching on, there will be 2 operating systems ruling data devices (Android/WM7)
Windows finally good
First off, I should state that I have a Blackberry Torch, iPhone4, Samsung Captivate, and this HTC Surround so I will be comparing it to these.
The HTC Surround is a Windows 7 phone offered exclusively by AT&T. Microsoft started from scratch with this OS and used absolutely nothing from their previous versions of Windows Mobile (which is a good thing). The phone features a full touch screen display with a slide out Dolby Speaker for better music and movie sound quality.
Pros: Dolby speaker sounds excellent
Windows OS is very user friendly
Pinning items to the start menu is nice
Works very good with Ford Sync
16gb internal memory
Cons: Have to have a windows ID to use some features of phone
Battery life could be better
Marketplace has very few apps due to OS being new
No belt clip available yet
No memory card slot
All in all, this is a very solid phone and will work nicely for anyone who doesn't want or can't use an iphone. The facebook app is the best I've seen on any mobile device. Ford Sync will read you your text messages. For an everyday phone for e-mail and internet it works very well. It only falls short of an iPhone or Android device in my eyes due to lack of apps. Also, in regards to another review someone made about this phone, you can search the market place by using the search button on the phone. With only 3 buttons on the front, this phone is very user friendly.
Great Play Phone.. Not Good Work Phone..
Pros are: vivid screen w/ great sound for movies sound, etc. Lots of "toys"... The W7 phone seems somewhat familiar if you have an iphone. If you like your iphone you will like this phone also. I already have an iphone for my "off work" use.
Ok here's the cons and why I would not recommend this for a work phone. You can not sync Outlook. Only export your contacts to a file and import it to Windows Live and then it will sync to get them on your phone. If you want to update your phone and sync it to Outlook at the end of the day or week, you are out of luck here. I have a tether plan on my data with ATT. It does not work on this phone. There is no "my documents" folder to store anything other than photos on the phone. You have to store your documents on MS Sharepoint server 2010 on the web. (not what I want to do)...
other cons are there is not a file explorer anymore and the battery goes down by mid afternoon if you have it push email every 1/2 hour or more. There dial out is cumbersome as you 1) wake up the phone, 2) move up the screensaver out of the way, 3) press calls, 4)press keypad to start dialing.
The designers could take a lesson from others in color since your color scheme is chooseable but all the same one. a green for go(send)and red for stop(end) would be nice.
It seems to talk pretty well and does't seem to drop many calls.
Good luck but know what your buying, When it says WINDOWS, I would expect something else than what I got. I will probably return it for something else to "work with" as my contacts list is very important to sync for me.
Best phone. Best OS.
Pros:
The OS is easy to learn, use
Microsoft Office- once the updates in January come through it will be the best phone for business users.
UI- better than apple and android. Everything you didnt know you liked, minus everything you dont
HTC Sleek design including speakers- The speakers pump music from zune or online video. no more need for that clunky itune clock radio base
Accesories- you get headphones USB/Power Adapter
Zune w/media package trial(10 free songs, month of streaming albums, seamless integration w/ all your PCs music including itunes
Cons:
The app market is limited- doesnt include a search, you have to scroll.
Can't build a streaming music playlist on the phone- You have to connect to your PC
OVERALL, this phone rocks. Personally, I found the Samsung Focus boring. All you get is the OS and a bright-a$$ screen. It was a no brainer when I saw how slim the phone was. The speakers play like a mini boom box. Call quality is superb. People hub makes fb useful otherwise its not. This is phase one for MS, people. Before it was the hardware doing all the selling. Front facing camera(useless), 8mp camera(on a phone?), 0.1oz opposed to 0.12oz...zzz Get the windows phone that fits you. This was my pick.
Apple and Android are overhyped and overpaying for their influence on tv and ad space. In my opinion, theyre a fad. They both better hope Microsoft doesn't put a Kinect in as a front facing camera! Then they'd really be screwed.
