HTC Arrive – The First Windows Phone 7 Offering on Sprint

The HTC Arrive, running on Windows Phone 7, is the latest addition to Sprint's rank of smartphone offerings. Combining a classy slider design with Microsoft's smooth and zippy interface, it is ready to satisfy both your business and pleasure needs.

The Arrive sports a 3.6-inch WVGA capacitive touchscreen with an 800x480-pixel resolution. When you push the screen to the right, it will tilt up 30 degrees for optimal viewing, and reveal a soft-touch QWERTY keyboard underneath for easy typing. At 4.6" high by 2.3" wide by 0.6" deep and 6.4 ounces, the Arrive may feel quite chubby in your hands, but it is also well-built and sturdy.

As a Windows 7 Phone device, the Arrive provides all the goodies you would expect from the platform. With Live Tiles, you get a clear view of your new messages and emails, missed calls, contacts, friend status updates, news, and more on the Start screen. You will find six hubs – People, Pictures, Games, Music + Video, Marketplace and Office – to help you keep things organized. For instance, the Office Hub brings you the mobile versions of Word, Excel, PowerPoint, OneNote and Sharepoint. Moreover, the smartphone comes preloaded with the latest software updates, including an improved Marketplace search and the long-awaited cut-and-paste function.

In addition to Microsoft's hubs, HTC and Sprint have included their own hubs onto the device as well. HTC Hub offers some enhanced apps for download, like Photo Enhancer, Sound Enhancer and Flashlight, while Sprint Hub recommends a few of its featured services and apps. As for pre-installed programs, the carrier has thrown in TeleNav GPS Navigator for turn-by-turn navigation.

The Arrive boasts a number of strong features in the multimedia department as well. The 5-megapixel camera comes with LED flash and autofocus, and supports 720p HD video recording. With the built-in Music + Video Hub, you can access all your music and movies, and sync between your smartphone and computer through the Zune software. Mobile gamers will love the Xbox integration, which lets them play games from Xbox Live on the go. As always, you can find a lot more games and apps from Windows Phone Marketplace.

Other than the aforementioned, text messaging, multimedia messaging, email, full HTML browsing, Bluetooth, Wi-Fi, GPS and a 3.5mm headset jack are onboard. The phone does not come with a memory card slot for additional storage capacity, but it offers 16GB of internal memory, along with 25GB of online storage from Windows Live SkyDrive.

Embracing the excellent features of the latest version of Microsoft's OS, the HTC Arrive is a solid smartphone that strikes a great balance between work and entertainment. There is no better choice for Sprint customers who are also fans of Windows Phone.

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Apple-Samsung Patent Dispute Deepens

It is not uncommon to see patent-infringement lawsuits in the mobile industry, and lately, two big players in the field, Apple and Samsung, have decided to get in on the chaos by filing lawsuits against each other.

 On 21 April, Apple filed a suit in the Northern District of California, claiming that several Samsung products, including the Galaxy S 4G, the Epic 4G, the Nexus S and the Galaxy Tab, are imitations of Apple's iPhone and iPad. The alleged infringements mostly touch on the hardware design and user interface.
 

"Rather than innovate and develop its own technology and a unique Samsung style for its smart phone products and computer tablets, Samsung chose to copy Apple's technology, user interface and innovative style in these infringing products," the company said in a statement.

In response to Apple's legal complaint, Samsung said that it will respond actively to protect its intellectual property and ensure its continued innovation and growth. Meanwhile, in a form of tit-for-tat, the South Korean handset maker has countersued Apple in Japan, Germany and its home country. Directed against the iPhone and the iPad, the suits involve a total of 10 mobile technology patents, which mainly concern power reduction during data transmission, 3G technology for reducing errors during data transmission, and wireless data technology. A week after these counterclaims, the manufacturer has escalated its action by filing to the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California.

Despite their legal quarrel, Apple still wants the strong relationship between the two companies to remain unchanged. As Apple's Chief Operating Officer Tim Cook stated, Samsung is Apple's chief supplier for components like LCD displays and chipsets, while Apple contributes a significant portion to Samsung's revenue every year. Given their heavy reliance on each other, it is very likely that their business tie will stay strong in the near future.

While the crossfire may not endanger their customer-supplier relationship, it has definitely increased the tension between the already litigious mobile giants. It should be interesting to see how they will resolve their differences in the end.

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