When some Microsoft folks recently asked me how users and techies felt about its upcoming Windows Phone 7 OS, I told them “you’re lucky to still be in the news”.

Until the past few weeks, when favourable first-looks of Microsoft’s totally rebuilt smartphone OS came online, the only OSes that anyone was talking about were Apple’s iOS and Google’s Android.

For an example of how fast a dominant OS can fall in interest level, look at Nokia’s Symbian OS that now powers most of its phones, as it transitions to the more advanced MeeGo. Who thinks anything great of Symbian now?

And compared to Nokia, Microsoft was worse off a few months ago – it only showed glimpses of what Windows Phone 7 was about at February’s Mobile World Congress and nothing more.

So, it was with a bit of surprise when I saw how well Windows Phone 7 was built, during a hands-on preview at the Microsoft offices here in Singapore last week.

Having lost crucial market share to Android and iOS, Microsoft has clearly done the right thing by building its new OS from ground up. Gone are the clunky “halfway house” touch offerings on Windows Mobile 6.5. Absent too is any lag that you get while moving around menus. In fact, pretty animations accompany most actions – without slowing things down.

Availability: 9th April 2010, via all three telcos SingTel, StarHub and M1, and all authorized resellers
Retail Price: S$748 (including GST), without plan
Quick highlights: Windows Mobile 6.5.3 phone, 3.2 inch HVGA 320×480 screen, 5 megapixel camera
Full Specifications: You can find it on HTC’s site here

In essence, it is a clone of HTC’s HD2, but shrunk down into a smaller form factor.

“It’s a ladies phone,” said Kathleen Goy, HTC’s Singapore marketing communications manager at the media launch of the phone today. HTC’s customer feedback showed that some — especially women — felt that the HD2, with its 4.3 inch screen, was too “clunky and large”.

So, in a bid to sexy up the phone for women, the screen size was shrunk so that it fits comfortably in petite tote bags and jeans pockets.

The internet is abuzz with Apple’s lawsuit today in the US, claiming that HTC has infringed about 20 of their patents. Gizmodo has an excellent breaking story of this, and they quote responses from both the Apple and HTC camps.

If successful, Apple’s action will get HTC’s phones banned — both Androids and Windows Mobiles — from being sold in the US, and be awarded “treble damages” and “interest at the maximum rate allowable by law”. Going by the list of patents Apple is whacking HTC for, it sure sounds like a hit job. It’s a big middle finger to the mobile phone industry not to mess with Apple, which had already tussled with Nokia in lawsuits late last year.

Not going to rehash the newspoints that you can find covered better elsewhere, but just some quick comments of my own.

Apple did shake up the mobile phone industry when it debuted with the iPhone in 2007, which birthed the touch phone genre. I can’t even remember when was the last recent phone I reviewed that was not a touch phone, so for this we have Apple to thank.

But of course the rest of the mobile manufacturers fought back, and this led to a flourishing touch phone market. End result: More choice for consumers, and Asian brands like HTC and Samsung are doing well in the touch phone space.

So of course Apple nips it in the bud by throwing roadblocks at the competition, namely number two (Nokia) and three (HTC). And with Android gaining fast ascendance, whack the phone manufacturer, i.e. HTC, which has rolled out the most Android phones thus far. Doh!

What these lawsuits will do: Not very much, I predict. Even if Apple gets its way, the US is not the only phone market in the world. In Asia alone, mobiles are huge, and we have two of the world’s most populous nations — India and China — in our patch.

The folks at HTC just sent out a press release today on lower revised prices for their HTC smart phones in Singapore, starting from 1st Feb 2010.

All of this in a bid to entice customers for the upcoming Chinese New Year season. The Nexus One might also be a cause. In any case, that’s good news for consumers.

For those who are interested in shopping for HTC phones, here’s a list below, with prices and links to TechGoondu reviews for phones we’ve played with. All prices are in Singapore dollars.

Android phones

Phone	Pix	Price
HTC Magic (hands-on)		$648
HTC Hero (review)		$698
HTC Tattoo		$468

What’s notably missing is the Nexus One, which is not available in Singapore yet unless you buy direct from Google. Which means no subsidized telco plan as yet, but some of the Techgoondu folks are such techheads they bought the phone already.

Both Alf and Gin wrote stories on getting the Nexus One to work, Alf on MMS, and Gin on the 3G issues.

After all the talk, we are finally getting the Google phone – the Nexus One – out in the open and there’s even better news for Singapore users: you can buy this nifty ‘Droid phone immediately over the Net.

Yes, we are one of four countries in the world to get the phone at launch, along with the United States, Britain and Hong Kong. Cost? US$577.31 (S$806.65), if you factor in the power charger and shipping through DHL.

Made by Google partner HTC, the Google-branded Nexus One is the first to run the Android 2.1 OS. It has a number of goodies packed into a light 130g frame that is as slim as 11.5mm, or a mere few credit cards stacked together.

First, merry Christmas to all!

For those that haven’t read it, check out Alfred’s and Gin’s Christmas wishlists. This is our 2nd Techgoondu Christmas thus far (hopefully many to follow), and following last year’s tradition we post our Christmas wishlists.

Well this year I already spent a bundle upgrading my old desktop PC to a new complete Dell rig, and buying a few new peripherals like a 750GB WD 2.5-inch portable hard disk. So, Christmas shopping wise, I’ve already gotten what I wanted.

HTC unveiled their new Qwerty Windows 6.1 smartphone, HTC Snap yesterday. Form factor looks good, price reasonable for a mid-tier smartphone. Got potential.

HTC Snap

Price (inclusive of 7% GST): SGD $688

Availability: From 10th June in Singapore

Specifications: Quick specs include a 2.4-inch TFT LCD display, 2 megapixel camera, typical network/connectivity options (HSPA/WCDMA, Quad-band GSM/GPRS/EDGE, Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, ExtUSB, GPS). Device control is via their full Qwerty keyboard and/or trackball cum enter button.

More specs can be found at HTC Snap’s product webpage here.

One touted feature of the HTC Snap is their Inner Circle function. A special key on the phone brings emails from a preselected group right to the top of the inbox, making it easy for users to get to the emails they access most often.

Obviously a business phone, the concepts sounds interesting, and I can think of any number of situations with my old Blackberry that this function might have been useful. Needs testing though.

One other feature mentioned was that the HTC Snap runs on Windows Mobile 6.1 and synchronizes well with Microsoft Exchange server backends.

HTC unveiled their Touch Diamond2 and Touch Pro2 phones at a media launch today, revealing for the first time prices and availability in Singapore.

HTC Touch Diamond2

Price (inclusive of 7% GST): SGD $1,088

Availability: Mid May 2009

Specifications: Quick specs include a 3.2-inch high-res VGA display, 5 megapixel camera, expandable memory (up to 16GB), almost every network/connectivity option (HSPA/WCDMA, Quad-band GSM/GPRS/EDGE, Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, ExtUSB, GPS), gravity and ambient light sensor, and a touted 20% larger battery capacity than HTC Diamond.

Full specs can be found at the HTC site here.

On the user interface end, HTC has made some cool improvements to the Touch Diamond2.

This piece of disclosure by StarHub CEO Terry Clontz, which I wrote about in an article in the Business Times on StarHub’s fourth quarter results earlier this month, seems to have gone unnoticed, so I am hoisting it up again: Google G2 phones – the qwerty keypad-less guise of Google’s open source operating system-based phone – could be in Singapore by June.

Besides StarHub, MobileOne is also thinking second-generation when it comes to Google’s shiny new toy. Earlier this month, the Straits Times reported that M1 was talking with HTC about bringing in the vendor’s G2 phones “soon”. That phone might well be the HTC Magic (pictured above), which the Taiwanese smartphone vendor unwrapped at the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona this month.

There is no news yet from SingTel, which launched the G1 HTC Dream phone in a glitzy affair here last week, on its G2 phone launch schedule.

HTC has come up with a “white” version of the Touch Diamond, its much-loved (but slightly laggy) touch-screen phone.

It comes with all the same features, including a sharp VGA, 2.8-inch screen and 3.2-meg lens that does pretty well in bright light for a Windows Mobile phone.

But the real difference for this similarly-priced (S$1,098) model is just the like-it-or-hate-it “diamond” back cover.

This was the weakest part of the phone for me personally, as the plastic not only looks a little cheap, but also reminds one of the ugly Nokia “fashion” phones of old (yucks, the Prism!).

I wish HTC had brought in the Diamond sold by Japan operator EMobile, which sports a nice rounded frame and a smooth backplate instead of the ugly “diamond” or “Prism” shapes.