[HD7 General] C10250:
The overall WP7 posse hardly resembles the WM crowd.

I've been a die hard Windows fan ever since my AT&T 8525-even before that with a couple PPC PDA's. When I lost that phone I replaced it with a Samsung Epix. Despite my horrible experience software fiascoes and the Epix, I still returned to Window's Mobile when I got my Tilt2. It was while I was dealing with my Epix that I discovered a cooked rom on a site that I had not previously heard of, XDA Developers. I now use this site a my primary guide to purchase new phones...if I can't hack it and install custom roms I have no interest in it.

Through my time with my Tilt2 I made some observations about the Windows Mobile community. Many of them were like me and had over time found many CABs that work well for them and were content with a platform that the were familiar with. Many of them were veteran programmers well versed in C++ and could really do some magic. Others just signed a two year contract with the cheapest old smart phones their provider was clearing out. What ever the reason we had our devices in a world where IOS and Android were rapidly taking over. Every one worked together and amazing things were accomplished. In the Touch Pro 2 forums, Android and Ubuntu was running, and a lot of you are familiar with everything that was done with the HD2. These things happened because WM fans by nature enjoyed doing them.

As Windows Mobile phones started to die off through breakage and device upgrades, a lot of my companions switch gears to the Iphone after it made great strides since the first gen EDGE only model, in OS capability, hardware performace, and a now enormous hacking community. Others who wanted remain anti Apple and wanted more freedom out of the box went with Android.

It finally came to my time in the begining of this year to upgrade. I knew very little about Windows Phone 7 devices except that I did not know a single person who owned one and that it was not backwards compatible with any of my software. Being completely anti Apple I began shopping around fully intending to buy an Android device. I started playing with floor models and I noticed one thing about every Android device. No matter how fast the hardware was, when I would touch and slide to unlock, there was always a noticeable lag. I found that to be a bad sign. Then when navigating the phones, they all lack the responsiveness of my wifes Iphone 4. So I tried the Windows Phone devices and they were all incredibly responsive. In all the menus and and web browser I slide my finger rapidly trying to out run the display and I swear I could not find any where that lagged. I was intrigued and hooked. After checking XDA and of all the WP7 phones available to me with AT&T, the HD7s was the only one with custom roms.

I believe this to be the only reason any of us here. Window Phone 7's foundation is simply flawless. Now that's not to say over all the OS is any where near perfect. It is severely lacking in software, customization, and even basic preferences. It is in these ways I've described WP7 as ever more "iPhone" than the iPhone itself. Now all this mean's is the biggest reason any body has a WP7 device is because the actually like it. So it's not far from reason there is little interest in changing operating systems. We've reached a point were all smart phones have virtually equal internal hardware so phone are chosen primarily based on software. The people who find themselves stuck with an HD7 against their liking are a very small fraction of an already small community. Those coming from an HD2 or a Rodium know that to get Anrdroid onto these devices took countless man hours from many very determined and very talented people working together. They just aren't with us here in the HD7 community. We are lucky to have the very talented developers that are here producing custom Windows ROMs.