Through some miraculous event, or someone checking my name off a list rather than drawing a line through it, I ended up being shipped a WP7 device!

This event happened a little over two weeks ago, but I was in the throes of getting ready for a trip to meet with the people I''m working with on a contract, and just didn''t have the bandwidth to discuss it, not to mention I felt a little odd having one since I know folks that do not.

So in an effort to say ''thanks'', I''m running this post and showing pictures of the Samsung ''Taylor'' device. It came without SIM card, and my current phone is a razor, so I have yet to see it actually work as a phone. The camera is 5MP, and I used it to take some personal pictures at my daughter''s wedding on Wednesday because it''s better than the camera I used to take the pictures below.

There is a slot on the side for a mini SD card, but it''s got a plug in it so I can''t even put one in. That means I''m a little short on memory for using it as a Zune.



The wireless works just great. I''ve got most of my email accounts setup on it, and I really like how I can open the email, zoom it by spreading it with my fingers, take links out to web pages or maps... remember, my other phone is a razor... so while I can do some web on it... it''s not much, and it''s not touch.

Not having a SIM card hampers that just a bit, but at a user group meeting, in the airport in Phoenix, and at my client''s facility... I had wireless and everything worked just fine.

I did have a problem with the wireless in the company apartment because they don''t have their wireless exposed, and the device couldn''t find it. That''s a ''not first release'' thing according to the support crew, and is probably an uncommon issue as well.

As you''ll see in the photos below, it does not have a hardware keyboard, and I''d really like to try one before I''d buy a device, because I''m not in love with the onboard one. I can''t use it in vertical mode, I have to rotate it to get more room for my fingers.

I like how the camera works in that you take a picture and it slides to the left as if it were on a roll of film, ready for you to take another. If you want to see the one you just took, simply flick it back in place.

I''ve installed some software on it, and that process works as advertised. You run the Zune software which I am very familiar with, and the phone is yet another device.

One thing I did find out by playing around is you can rearrange icons on the start page by holding a finger on an icon until the others drop back a bit, then you can move the icon to where you want it. Other icons can be brought to the start page by holding the icon down similarly until you get a popup asking if you want to ''pin to start'', among other selections.



Now to prove to the entire world that I can''t take pictures worth crap, here are some photos of the device taken from 3 sessions of photos I''ve taken. The photos are a bit ''angly'' causing the phone to not look rectangular because I was trying to avoid glare. I also have some nice fingerprints and a shot of my camera in one, but I just got tired of retakes :)

First up is one of the lock screen showing. The gentleman that owns the car I took the picture in will recognize it, and maybe a couple others... I thought it made a great lock screen picture:



These next two show the start page you find after the unlock. Normally the phone icon is in the upper left, but since I don''t have a SIM card on-board, I moved the camera up there. The second screenshot is the lower-half of that screen and contains the Pictures, Zune, Marketplace, Radio, Windows Live, and a couple emails.

   

The next two pictures show the Zune hub scrolled once to the right to show some pictures of artists I have on the device, and next is the picture hub with a background I took out the backdoor of the apartment in Minneapolis and some pictures of my grandkids at my daughter''s wedding this week.

   

From the start page, you touch the right arrow at the upper right to get to the applications, and that is the first of the next three pictures. The second shows one of my favorite, the Office Hub with OneNote... gotta love having that on a mobile device, and the third is just a random sampling of an executing app showing weather in a few selected locations.

      

Finally I''ll finish with two screenshots of the keyboard. This first one shows what it looks like in vertical mode when sending an email:



And then rotating the phone to horizontal to get more finger room:




All in all, I like the device... I like the size, weight, and feel...I like all I can do with it, and I think once we get the marketplace opened up and have the availability of a large number of apps, this is going to kick serious phone ass.

Thanks to whoever made it possible for me to get a device... I''ve got lots of ideas for apps, and now having an actual device in my hands, I find I''m much more motivated to go forward with them.