Then there's also the kickstand, which exhibits some lateral wiggling action we're not too fond of and does not sit flush with the phone when retracted. Beyond that, just to get all our bugbears off our chest, the pair of speaker recesses turned out to be absolute dust magnets and cleaning them out wasn't the easiest thing in the world either.

What we're more concerned about, however, is the Qualcomm QSD8250 chip that resides within the HD7's confines. This was a celebrated 1GHz part back when it graced HTC's own HD2 this time last year, but today... not so much. And speaking of the HD2, it's pretty outrageous that HTC has gone and matched its spec almost entirely. Sure, the externals have been tweaked, the physical buttons have been dismissed in favor of capacitive keys and you've now got a slightly different frame around your jumbo display, but as far as the internal hardware is concerned, it's nearly the same phone. We imagine this was probably out of HTC's hands since Microsoft insists on the particular trio of WP7 buttons and has also been the one to mandate the processor within, but it still leaves geeks like us feeling less than overjoyed. After all, if not for a bit of red tape, we could just as well be reviewing the HD2 right now.

Looking at the HD7 and its Windows Phone 7 OS in isolation, however, we have to commend the final product. Whether we like the route by which Microsoft has gotten here, what we're looking at with all these launch devices is one hell of a smooth user experience. So, in spite of its aged hardware, the HD7 is by no means a performance slouch. Basically, we'd have preferred something beefier inside, but that's just because we like numbers, and we like them to grow higher, but in actual use the HD7 is more than nippy enough.

The HD7's meat and potatoes, its reason for being, the meaning to its life, the beating heart of its entire operation. If we haven't made it abundantly clear yet, the display is this phone's defining feature and also the thing that will most likely determine its commercial success. That's aside from the key determinant, of course -- the Windows Phone 7 experience -- but given that the OS has been so tightly regimented by Microsoft, you'll be able to easily jump aboard abother WP7 ship should the HD7 not rock your boat quite how you'd like it to. The trouble with its 4.3-inch panel, however, is that it does indeed both make and break the appeal of the HD7. Allow us to explain.

On the one hand, the enlarged panel really makes your daily smartphone tasks so much easier. Yes, in terms of pixel density it's no better off than the more diminutive phones it's vying against, but the magnification of those pixels was a definitely improvement for us, allowing us to read webpages without necessarily having to zoom in on them every time, and also making navigation and text input appreciably easier. It's worth reiterating, perhaps, that this was simply our experience and others may find the large screen overwhelming and its contents unnecessarily inflated. What we're saying is that this just felt like the ideal size to us, not too large (hello, Streak!) and not too small (Motorola Flipout, anyone?).

In fact, on a couple of occasions we honestly got carried away reading on our commute and simply forgot we were using a phone. It felt more like browsing on our desktop with the added bonus of being able to scroll by flicking our fingers. It was a terrific sensation, even if it only lasted for brief moments, and of course it's not something we can confidently say you'll be able to experience on the smaller devices in the Windows Phone 7 stable. The Samsung Omnia 7 and Dell Venue Pro might come close to that, but the HD7 clearly sits at the top of the pile when it comes to taking your Windows experience on the move without resorting to a tablet or a laptop.

The camera on the HD7 was a weird one for us to get to grips with. On the one hand, focusing is pretty snappy and Windows Phone 7 does allow you to jump straight into the camera app from a locked screen (by holding down the shutter button). But our actual results were somewhat hit and miss. Sometimes, the HD7's camera would nail the white balance in situations where even a DSLR was struggling to guess correctly, but at other times it'd struggle to focus in relatively unchallenging circumstances. Aside from that, we have to take issue with WP7's inability to remember camera (or camcorder) settings. The HD7 defaults, weirdly enough, to shooting 480p video, which you have to switch up yourself... each and every time you use the video app. Maybe we're unenlightened on how to make our settings stick, but sure enough, each time we turned on the camera and wanted to shoot at 720p, we had to manually turn it on. Which was annoying. As to the video output itself, it's quite presentable stuff, although the sensor does tend to search for focus even when we're keeping it steady on an unmoving landscape. All in all, the HD7's camera and video recording seem par for the (somewhat mediocre) smartphone course.

The first thing to note is that HTC adorns the bootup sequence for its Hub with an outrageously extravagant and almost instantly annoying animation that pummels you with oncoming cloud and sun symbols to remind you that yes, there's a weather app coming up in there. Once you get inside, you're faced with a stock updater, that climate-monitoring utility we just mentioned, and some other tidbits like Notes and a Photo Enhancer. HTC promises it'll keep adding more functionality as things go along and we've got no reason to doubt that. For now, we couldn't care less about stocks or the weather, so we decided to play with the other two apps.

Notes is a quirky, stylized take on your usual note-recording app. It gives you a board that you can "pin" little post-its to, which in turn age relative to their, erm, age. We could frankly take it or leave it, there's a character limit on each note so if you're a wordy sort of missive writer, it'll immediately discourage use, while its stylized elements feel somewhat forced and unnecessary. It's cute, and maybe some weird demographic that appreciates animated transitions more than rapid and easy data input will appreciate it more, but it wasn't for us.

What can we say that we haven't expressed already? The HD7 is pretty much what you thought it would be. It's that same 4.3-inch blueprint that HTC has exploited to great success with the HD2 and EVO 4G, applied to the brand new Windows Phone 7 operating environment. The first question you'll truly have to answer for yourself is whether or not you want to be aboard the WP7 gravy train. We remain staunch believers that a smartphone is only as good (or as bad) as its software, so decide on your OS first and your particular handset second. If you're still with us, we'd recommend the HD7 as a solid WP7 device choice, but with a few caveats.

The build quality is a step below the finest we've seen, landing the HD7 in the "passable" category, while the display may achieve a high level of brightness, but it goes to waste thanks to its poor contrast and viewing angles. For a device aspiring to woo us with its multimedia features, this, along with middling sound output from its stereo speakers, renders the HD7 a failure if measured purely by the boasts of its promotional materials.

You Can Download HTC HD 7 User Guide Click Here