Dell Lightning Windows 7 phone

[Spoooon]

I hate the 3 hard buttons at the bottom, especially the icons for them. I don't like to be told "this button will do this, this button will do that" Even if you can change what they do in the settings (which I doubt) I'd still be stuck with buttons that are labeled to do shit I wouldn't be using. It looks tacky as hell IMHO, and if the iPhone had shipped like this I wouldn't have bought one. The buttons remind me of my OOOOLD mono-chrome Palm PDA, just really bad looking.

Seriously, you don't think you're reaching a little bit?

 

[Deeko]

Those are the standard WP7 buttons. I can understand not wanted a search button, but what's so terrible about a button that takes you to the home screen, and a button that takes you back one level? These seem like pretty useful buttons to me.

 

[QueBert]

Seriously, you don't think you're reaching a little bit?

No not at all, it doesn't look clean to me, I would only use a single one of those buttons for it's intended purpose. They could have put 3 unmarked buttons and that'd be okay. I don't want a magnification glass icon, especially when I'd be hacking my phone to make it do something different. It would be very ghetto IMHO to have it show a mag glass yet when I press it, it opens up my media player. It would be like me having an icon of a letter on my desktop and when I press it Team Fortress 2 was launched. Maybe I'm more anal about my icons than most others, but don't fucking give me ones I cannot change. At least the one button on my iPhone is nondescript and I can modify it to do whatever the hell I want. Normal people wouldn't care, hard core modders won't like it. Shit, I won't buy a mobile device if I can't change the boot screen to whatever I want.

 

[vshah]

a back button is pretty universal. it saves space on the screen itself...iphone apps often have 1/4 inch taken up at the top with space for a back button.

 

[CTrain]

Well, the Droid is also ridiculously thin for a slider - and that's supposedly why the keyboard kinda sucks.

T-Mobile Dream (G1) - 17.1mm
Palm Pre - 16.9mm
HTC Touch Pro2 - 17.8mm
Samsung Moment - 16mm

At 14.9mm its actually a bit thinner than most sliders on the market right now.

You're bringing up phones that aren't FAT, they're obese.
Like I said, if the Droid(thats 6 months old) can be 13.7mm, no reason why a phone a year later can't be as thin or thinner.
After having a HD2, I guess any phone will be fat to me.

 

[Deeko]

You're bringing up phones that aren't FAT, they're obese.
Like I said, if the Droid(thats 6 months old) can be 13.7mm, no reason why a phone a year later can't be as thin or thinner.
After having a HD2, I guess any phone will be fat to me.

Those are sliders. Sliders are always thicker than non-sliders. As far as sliders go, this is still pretty thin.

You need room for the actual keys to click on a physical keyboard. Droid was so thin because it has flat keys with very little click to them. The positive result is that its very thin for a slider. The negative is that the keyboard isn't very good compared to others.

(also, I bet this doesn't have the annoying pop-out camera like the HD2 has that prevents it from sitting flat on a table)

 

[Spoooon]

No not at all, it doesn't look clean to me, I would only use a single one of those buttons for it's intended purpose. They could have put 3 unmarked buttons and that'd be okay. I don't want a magnification glass icon, especially when I'd be hacking my phone to make it do something different. It would be very ghetto IMHO to have it show a mag glass yet when I press it, it opens up my media player. It would be like me having an icon of a letter on my desktop and when I press it Team Fortress 2 was launched. Maybe I'm more anal about my icons than most others, but don't fucking give me ones I cannot change. At least the one button on my iPhone is nondescript and I can modify it to do whatever the hell I want. Normal people wouldn't care, hard core modders won't like it. Shit, I won't buy a mobile device if I can't change the boot screen to whatever I want.

I don't know, you're cursing about icons on a phone, so I imagine you must take it seriously.

Like Deeko said, some of those buttons are just standard buttons. Why would you repurpose the menu button or a back button? The search button I'm meh about.

And I'd much prefer a row of touch keys to having standard keys occupy space on the screen.

 

[QueBert]

I don't know, you're cursing about icons on a phone, so I imagine you must take it seriously.

Like Deeko said, some of those buttons are just standard buttons. Why would you repurpose the menu button or a back button? The search button I'm meh about.

And I'd much prefer a row of touch keys to having standard keys occupy space on the screen.

But if the buttons were on the screen you could change the icons to whatever you wanted, or with some hacking possibly get rid of them altogether and have more screen space. I know I hacked my WM5 phone and got rid of the labels on the screen right above the hard buttons. I spend ungodly hours modding my devices so they don't look like anyone elses when in use. Hell 99% of the people who use my iPhone ask me what kind of phone is it because I've done a 180 on the UI to where nobody believes it's an iPhone.

 

[aceO07]

(also, I bet this doesn't have the annoying pop-out camera like the HD2 has that prevents it from sitting flat on a table)

Actually that pop-out camera is useful, since the speaker is also on the back. It raises the phone up so the speaker is not blocked. It doesn't make the phone unstable. On the G1, the camera doesn't pop-out, but the sound is muffled when it's laying flat.

anyways.. back on topic.

I think the phone looks nice, but the WP7 screens they're showing on it does not. It makes me think of really bad webpages with lots of flash ads.

 

[Deeko]

Actually that pop-out camera is useful, since the speaker is also on the back. It raises the phone up so the speaker is not blocked. It doesn't make the phone unstable. On the G1, the camera doesn't pop-out, but the sound is muffled when it's laying flat.

anyways.. back on topic.

I think the phone looks nice, but the WP7 screens they're showing on it does not. It makes me think of really bad webpages with lots of flash ads.

Droid doesn't have a pop out camera and actually gets louder when you set it flat on the table. Maybe they should go to the approach Nokia used on the N95 and have stereo speakers, one on each side. Or that HTC used with the Touch Pro2 - Speakerphone is automatically activated when you set the phone face down.

Either way, I find the pop out camera to be very annoying. The HD2 is the first phone I've ever used some kind of case with, because the included gel skin actually flattens it out.

Speaking of flash, I'm intruiged by the fact that this says it has full flash support, since as I recall WP7 won't have it by default.

 

[AstroManLuca]

If you replaced the Dell logo on the back with half eaten fruit, he'd probably consider it a work of art 😉

LOL, so true.

 

[Phynaz]

Just saw those.

Butt fugly.

 

[preslove]

Tech crunch isn't buying that these are actual products, they might just be internal concepts:

http://www.mobilecrunch.com/2010/04...r-flash-and-lightning-smartphones/#more-30038

 

[erwos]

Given that my contract ends in Q4 of 2011, I think my next phone might be a Dell Lightning with LTE. 😀

 

[dwell]

Should be as popular as the Zune.

 

[dguy6789]

Should be as popular as the Zune.

Or Windows 7

 

[Anubis]

Or Windows 7

Win 7 is the fastest selling OS ever and is pretty much praised across the board

I agree that that it would be great if these phones are that popular

 

[Deeko]

Should be as popular as the Zune.

Well now Chris lets think about that statement. There will be quite a few Win Phone 7 devices this fall, with Dell being a relatively small player (even if this phone does look nice). If the flagship WP7 phones from, say, HTC, Samsung, and LG all do considerably better than the Dell (and it almost has to considering this won't be on Verizon and isn't a big name in phones), then I would say Microsoft is in for a good quarter if the Dell sells as well as Zune.

Also, do note that the Zune HD's biggest limitation was its lack of an open app store, which WP7 certainly does not lack.

 

[rudeguy]

The phone's ugly as sin to me, but if the OS is good I'd consider picking one up.

just for you:

 

[dwell]

Also, do note that the Zune HD's biggest limitation was its lack of an open app store, which WP7 certainly does not lack.

Neither does almost all of the other smartphones, which makes the Microsoft effort a johnny-come-lately.

We can easily map out how the smartphone marketshare is going to ultimately shake out by comparing it to the MP3 player market:

iPhone = iPod
Android = Sandisk
WinPhone = Zune

Mark this post. I'm right.

 

[Deeko]

Neither does almost all of the other smartphones, which makes the Microsoft effort a johnny-come-lately.

We can easily map out how the smartphone marketshare is going to ultimately shake out by comparing it to the MP3 player market:

iPhone = iPod
Android = Sandisk
WinPhone = Zune

Mark this post. I'm right.

Microsoft already has a marketplace with Windows Mobile 6.x, obviously it needs to be redone for an entirely new OS. Its ironic that you chastise them for not having an app store on the Zune, but now that they're adding one, you brush it off like its not big deal.

Anyway, you're kidding yourself if you think the iPhone is going to reach iPod like marketshare. They are nowhere even close to that right now, and while their growth has stagnated (admittedly that will change this summer), RIM and Android are continuing to grow. How are you leaving RIM completely out of that picture? They are currently on top of US marketshare by a healthy margin and are continuing to grow.

edit: and in other threads you've called the Zune a complete failure because its not #1 - so by your own logic, you must consider the iPhone is a monumental failure as well.

 

[QueBert]

just for you:

Hay, it looks better than that ugly ass POS Dell is releasing. Doesn't surprise me though as Dell has never been a company known for their visually pleasing products. With this they can have the boring trifecta. Ugly phone, plain ass looking laptops & sorry looking desktops. I have almost as little faith that Samsung will release a nice looking WM7 handset. Hopefully LG can do something here because they'd be the 1 to make a WM7 phone that looked nice and be on Verizon too. I'm still up to trying the OS, hell I got an iPhone, a WM6.1 phone a BlackBerry & an S60 - 1 more different phone would be nice.

 

[Anubis]

Hay, it looks better than that ugly ass POS Dell is releasing. Doesn't surprise me though as Dell has never been a company known for their visually pleasing products. With this they can have the boring trifecta. Ugly phone, plain ass looking laptops & sorry looking desktops. I have almost as little faith that Samsung will release a nice looking WM7 handset. Hopefully LG can do something here because they'd be the 1 to make a WM7 phone that looked nice and be on Verizon too. I'm still up to trying the OS, hell I got an iPhone, a WM6.1 phone a BlackBerry & an S60 - 1 more different phone would be nice.

functionality > form

 

[QueBert]

functionality > form

I agree 100%, but it's not hard to hire a design team who knows how to make an ascetically pleasing device. I would never take form over function. But getting both shouldn't be that hard. This is what Apple excels at, and honestly I'm not sure why so many other companies have a problem here. My 1st gen iPhone still looks better than any current phone. Pretty sad that in 4 years nobody else could come up with something better. Thankfully Dell won't be the only company making a WM7 handset. So the odds of having one that doesn't look like total ass is decent.

 

[Deeko]

Lets step back a second.

Your gripe with this phone is the buttons. You are aghast that someone would actually put buttons on a phone. You claim you're going to try other WP7 devices that will hopefully not "look like total ass".

You realize that it is a requirement of WP7 to have those 3 buttons?