That’s right, we finally have an official date, we all hoped it would be before the Masters Tournament but Verizon needed a bit longer to get things ready and now they have set a date — July 21, 2011.

Get your 4G phones turned back to 3G/4G, you only have a month to wait. You can read the press release below.

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

June 21, 2011

VERIZON WIRELESS LAUNCHES 4G LTE IN AUGUSTA ON JULY 21

AUGUSTA, GA – Verizon Wireless announced today that it is bringing the world’s first

large-scale 4G Long Term Evolution (LTE) network to Augusta, Georgia on July 21. Residents

in Augusta, North Augusta and Aiken, SC with 4G LTE smartphones, laptop modems and

hotspots will be able to take advantage of speeds up to 10 times faster than the company’s 3G

network.

“Verizon Wireless is making the best network even better,” said Jeff Mango, president of

the Georgia/Alabama Region of Verizon Wireless. “The activation of our lightning fast 4G LTE

network in Augusta is further evidence of our commitment to and investment in the residents of

this area.”

In real-world, fully-loaded network environments, 4G LTE users should experience

average data rates of 5 to 12 megabits per second (Mbps) on the downlink and 2 to 5 Mbps on

the uplink. Verizon Wireless began introducing the globe’s first large-scale LTE network on

December 5, 2010, covering more than 110 million Americans, and is quickly expanding

national coverage, currently offering service in 74 metropolitan areas. The company is rapidly

building out its 4G LTE network, and is on course to deliver 4G LTE to its entire 3G wireless

footprint by the end of 2013.

As the first wireless company in the world to broadly deploy game-changing 4G LTE

technology, Verizon Wireless is committed to building its 4G network with the same

performance and reliability for which it has long been recognized. Verizon Wireless’ consistent

focus on reliability is based on rigid engineering standards and a disciplined deployment

approach year after year. The company’s 700 MHz spectrum gives Verizon Wireless specific

advantages with 4G, including a contiguous, nationwide network license.

Visit www.verizonwireless.com/lte for more information about Verizon Wireless’ 4G

LTE network.

###

About Verizon Wireless

Verizon Wireless operates the nation’s fastest, most advanced 4G network and largest, most

reliable 3G network. The company serves 104 million total wireless connections, including

more than 88 million retail customers. Headquartered in Basking Ridge, N.J., with 85,000

employees nationwide, Verizon Wireless is a joint venture of Verizon Communications

(NYSE, NASDAQ: VZ) and Vodafone (LSE, NASDAQ: VOD). For more information, visit

www.verizonwireless.com. To preview and request broadcast-quality video footage and high-

resolution stills of Verizon Wireless operations, log on to the Verizon Wireless Multimedia

Library at www.verizonwireless.com/multimedia.

 

So, Verizon released their first Windows Phone OS 7 phone recently and I got a chance to play with it for a bit. I have been using Android phones for the past couple of years (even running Android on an Windows Mobile phone before Android was taking over) so I am biased when it comes to phones, but I put my biases way for a week and picked up Microsoft’s new mobile OS on Verizon’s network for a test run and came to some conclusions that I knew I would come to and found some things that were very interesting.

HARDWARE

Before we get to the meaty part of Windows Phone OS 7, lets start with an overview of the HTC Trophy. It has a small form-factor, weighing in at just under 5 ounces with a screen size of 3.8 inches. It’s not a great mobile media device like some of the 4.0+ inch screen devices but it’s nice to see a smaller sized device on the market. The weight and size make it comfortable to hold and it’s not a nuisance to carry in your pocket.

The Trophy has all the same buttons that every Windows Phone OS 7 phone must have: back, Start, search, camera, power, and volume up and down buttons. These are a requirement from Microsoft and you’ll see why some are required a little later. There’s also a USB mini port for charging and mounting the device as a hard drive, and a 3.5mm headphone jack.

The camera is alright, I would place it around the same as the Motorola Droid. It does alright in day and well-lit areas but don’t expect too much in the dark or at night. Also, no front-facing camera means you will be taking pictures of yourself in the mirror and you can’t use any video conferencing apps.

OPERATING SYSTEM

Windows Phone OS 7 is a new OS, I only point that out because people are comparing it to Apple’s iOS and the Android OS, both of which are several years old and have substantially changed and updated themselves over the years. Of course, one could argue (and I do) that Microsoft has had that much time to make an OS that could be even better than the others because they have had plenty of time to compare and build the best OS. There are glaring omissions by Microsoft in the OS, like cut-and-paste (that will come in Mango, we are told) and lack of multi-tasking and the lack of feeling of ownership of the device because it is locked down so tightly.

This is a great improvement on the Windows Mobile OS, don’t get me wrong, but there should have been someone who worked with the OS saying, “Why don’t we take some of the great things about Windows Mobile OS and add it to Windows Phone OS 7?”.

A phone OS should be intuitive. I should be able to pick it up and use it without having to tap around and drag my finger in odd ways on the screen just to figure out how to get past the unlock screen (I did that at first because I wasn’t quite sure which way to drag… found out it was up after it bounced a few seconds later). Also, I noticed that the signal and battery life icons go away after you get to the Start screen and I thought they weren’t shown again unless you were at the lock screen, it took another friend to play around with it until he tapped near the top of the screen and it showed back up. That’s not the way I would have designed it but it does keep a clean look on the Start screen.

And then there’s the feeling of your phone being totally locked down. With Windows Mobile phones you could dive as deeply into the file structure as you wanted, there was even a file browser installed on the phone out of the box. Not so with Windows Phone OS 7, I couldn’t even find a file browser on the marketplace. Not to mention the fact that the SD card is being used as part of the phone’s memory.

Since we are on the marketplace, the Windows Phone 7 marketplace sucks. It really does. If you look at data charts comparing free and pay apps on other mobile markets you will see a huge difference between Android and iOS and the Windows Marketplace. There were even a few free apps that I found on other markets that were pay on the Windows Phone 7 Marketplace!

But for all it’s cons there are a few things that I liked about the OS:

-I can take a picture super-fast. Windows put in a great feature where if the phone’s screen is off or you are at the lock screen you can hold the camera button down for a few seconds and the phone comes to life at the camera screen. There is the chance that you will take a million pictures of the inside of your pocket but I never experienced that while I was carrying it around.

-Integrated with XBox Live and Facebook. The latter not so well but it is integrated.

-Simple Start screen. You get the simplicity of iOS with the ability to use live tiles like Android’s widgets. You can add and remove tiles, and rearrange them how you would like.

CONCLUSIONS

So, what do I think of the HTC Trophy? I know that what you all are reading this article for this anyway; I hope you didn’t just skip to the bottom.

I think, although the phone is a sturdy phone and battery life was good for a smartphone, Windows Phone OS 7 needs a lot of refinement. Like HP’s WebOS, I think this one will fall by the wayside and be picked up by a few people here and there because the iPhone is too expensive or the Android OS is too overwhelming. Unless Microsoft can really step up their game it’s going to be out of the real race and eventually will not even be a big contender.

If you are looking for a new phone that is easy to use like the iPhone and has some live elements like Android widgets, and don’t mind the lack of polish and some features that other phones have, then give the HTC Trophy a try. You do have a trial period with Verizon that you can return it if you don’t like it and get something else. But if you are coming from another smartphone with an OS that you like and just want to try the HTC Trophy because it has a different OS, don’t bother.