It’s out a little bit later than expected, but here it is: The Dell Venue Pro, a 4.1-inch smartie that brings the first hardware QWERTY keypad to the Windows Phone 7 line. It brings a spec that’s pretty typical for the existing WP7 lineup, with a 1GHz Snapdragon processor, Bluetooth and Wi-fi connectivity, 5MP cam with autofocus and HD recording. Still pretty good for $100. The Venue Pro also packs 8GBs of built-in storage, and Gorilla glass up front protecting the AMOLED screen. Don’t want to get tied down to a contract? They’re offering an unlocked phone for $500, which somehow makes the 2-year T-Mobile deal so much more appealing.
Remember the huge “antennagate” mess that followed the early iPhone 4 launch? You know, the issue that caused signal drops when people held their phones a certain way, which may or may not be the reason why the next iPhone won’t be coming with the 4’s wrap-around external antenna design. Anyway, we all thought that was over with when Apple showed (kind of) that a lot of other phones can be death-gripped too. While it might not be such a big deal now (despite the antenna issues, Apple still managed to sell millions of iPhone 4s anyway), here’s something new: the death grip affects the Windows Phone 7 platform too. Specifically, HTC’s HD7, as shown in the video. That’s a pity, since the HD7 still looks pretty good, and is still probably the best WP7 phone you can pick up today. But seriously, just don’t hold it that way and you should be fine.
If you own a WP7 phone, then you’re probably aware that you can’t just install any app on it without going through the Marketplace first. It’s the law of the smartphone land, but like jailbreaking on iOS devices and rooting on Androids, the Windows Phone community, Microsoft enthusiasts have developed a way for you to unlock (that’s “jailbreak” in WP7 parlance) your WP7 phone. A new unlocker app called ChevronWP7 has been released, allowing you to sideload unnaproved apps that you might want to test without going through the Marketplace.
The Windows Phone 7 lineup doesn’t have that much variety right now, but this widens the range a little: The LG Quantum is now out on AT&T, bringing the total number of available QWERTY-packing WP7-based phones to one. Besides the slide-out QWERTY keypad, it won’t offer anything more than any other available WP7 phone, but the $200 price (on a two-year AT&T contract) still nets you a very decent smartphone.
Someday, someone is (maybe) going to wonder who picked up the first ever Windows Phone 7 device, for how much, and where. In case you’re that someone and it’s a question that you might lose sleep wondering about someday, we’re going to make it easy for you: the first ever Windows Phone 7-based device has just been bought in Auckland, New Zealand for the equivalent of around US$600 by some (nameless) dude shown in the picture above.
