The Reviews Are In

The Magical Windows Phone 7 reviews are in, and the word is good. First up: Infoworld:

"There's no kind way to say it: Windows Phone 7 will be a failure. Windows Phone 7 is a pale imitation of the 2007-era iPhone. Microsoft has not only just made an imperfect copy of an old iPhone, it has not kept up with the current mobile OS crop nor moved ahead of any of them. I can't tell you how much Windows Phone 7 feels like the early 1990s' Windows 3.1, a clunky attempt to copy that era's Apple System 7.

"Microsoft needs to kill Windows Phone 7 and avoid further embarrassing itself by shipping this throwback. It's not a question of whether Windows Phone 7 will fail -- it will -- but how long it will take Microsoft to admit the failure. For the company's sake, the earlier it fesses up, the better." - Galen Gruman, Infoworld

This beauty comes from "Tech Radar":

"The best way to describe Windows Phone 7 is as another dimension to the smartphone market - it doesn't offer anything new... playing catch-up."

Next, Engadget weighs in:

"Overall, the mail experience is solid, but not best in class. There's a lot here that is laudable (like the sheer snappiness of it), but there's also a fair amount that's missing. We'd really like to see Microsoft strive for threaded messaging, joined inboxes, and an improved server-side search by the time this hits the market, but we're guessing that's asking a lot.

"We know this is still unfinished software, but this feels like something that should be already squared away.

"Zooming out to see as much of the page as possible isn't ... pretty; in its current incarnation, the browser seems to be using a pretty awful scaling algorithm, and small text looks like a jumble of jaggy, meaningless blocks without a hint of anti-aliasing. We'll admit, it makes browsing just a little less fun.

"If you've got a lot of Facebook friends, this renders your People app all but useless as a traditional phone contact list. Currently, Windows Phone 7 has no dedicated Facebook app, so that's part of the problem -- your Facebook friends simply have no place to live other than your primary contact list. What's strangest about all of this, though, is that as socially-aware as Windows Phone 7 seeks to be, there's not a lick of Twitter integration to be found.

"...putting out a product that's half-baked risks alienating early adopters at the worst possible time..." - Joshua Topolsky, Engadget

And finally, my own thoughts:

"...functionally retarded". -Paul Thurrott

Yes, it's going to be a great fall for Windows. I can't wait to start shedding more tears of joy.