Camp HD

HTC arrived on the scene strong at the Windows Phone 7 launch event with the introduction of five cellphone. Most were for the European and Asian markets, but AT&T landed the HTC Surround, while Sprint will get the HTC 7 Pro during the early 2011. The Surround is exclusive as it provides built-in surround-sound speakers with Dolby Mobile and SRS WOW HD technology–a cool but niche feature. So far as devices go, the Samsung Focus might be the most suitable choice for some consumers.

Design
The Surround weighs a hefty 5.8 ounces and measures 4.7 x 2.4 x 0.5 inches. The phone feels well-crafted, with hard black plastic on the back and aluminum accents on the sides. The bottom 1 / 2 of the phone slides out a half-inch to reveal the silver speaker grille, which can be perforated with skin pores. The top of the Surround has a 3.5mm headphone jack as well as a sleep/power button, the right side has a volume rocker along with a dedicated camera button, and the bottom incorporates a microUSB charging port.

Display
The 3.8-inch capacitive LCD on the Surround screen looks good, with strong, accurate colors and nice contrast. It has a resolution of 800 x 480, so text pictures were easy on the eyes. However, the screen looks a bit dull next the Super AMOLED display on the Samsung Focus, another AT&T Windows Phone 7 device, let alone the category-best iPhone 4′s 960 x 640 Retina display.

Audio
The speakers actually provide multichannel via Dolby Mobile and SRS WOW HD and activate it, you merely press the small button on the left-hand side of the speaker. There’s a obvious difference if you do that, as the audio sounds richer and fuller. However, the overall sound quality did not really knock our socks off. It’s certainly much better than most, but songs still sounded somewhat tinny. Also, within a speakerphone call, the volume, even at its highest level, was too low to have a conversation in a slightly noisier environment.

Performance
Everything responded quickly and Windows Phone 7 OS gives the device a very fast and fluid feel. The only lag was when an app was using the web to tug information, which likely had more related AT&T’s 3G speeds than how quick the phone was putting data on the watch’s screen.

Camera and Camcorder
The Surround’s 5-megapixel camera isn’t great. The video mode were built with a focus bug?images went to send and receive of focus during the course of shooting a youtube video. Three video modes is going to take 720p HD movies at 24 frames per second outdoors or 16fps indoors, 640-by-480 movies at 20 frames per second, or 320-by-240 videos at 20 frames per second. Approximately 1,150 lines of resolution, the still camera didn’t measure to the Samsung Focus or the New iphone 4 4 ($199, 4.5 stars), although the shutter lag was sufficient at 0.4 seconds. Low-light photos showed some blur from low shutter speeds, that is the case with many cameraphones.

Music and Video
The Surround, as well as the other Windows Phone 7 phones, does have it’s media architecture based upon Zune software, which can be polished and is successful. The interface is organized with five categories–Music, Videos, Podcasts, Radio, and Marketplace. The video capabilities on the Surround are average. The included sample music video of Owl City’s “Fireflies” didn’t fill the entire screen and rendered its images with so-so degrees of detail. Videos that any of us recorded only okay at the same time. Audio in the videos was excellent, but video never lived approximately its end of the deal.

Call Quality and Battery life
The audio was mostly clear, but we’re able to hear some faint background noise. Plus, sound cut out and in once or twice, so we were required to ask our callers to repeat themselves. The speakerphone volume would have been a bit soft, so it was challenging hear our caller whenever we entered into a rather noisier room. The HTC Surround carries a 1,230mAh lithium-ion battery by using a rated talk time of four hours or more to 11 days of standby time. The smartphone beat the rated talk time by half an hour in your battery drain tests. With moderate to heavy use, there we were capable of go a complete previous day wanting to turn on and recharge.