We need to point out something straight away – the HTC 7 Pro is no more business focused than the HTC Mozart , which was music oriented. While you do get a QWERTY keyboard that lends itself to professional typists, the rest of its offerings are the same as the other Windows Phone 7 handsets on the market. But is that super keyboard good enough to persuade users to buy this rather than any other phone?

First impressions

With the slider closed, the 7 Pro is quite substantial, although it still managed to be quite a lightweight compared with other slider handsets. Below the 3.6in widescreen high-res touch-screen you’ll find three touch-sensitive areas dedicated to universal Search, Home and Back. At the top of the handset are the power button and 3.5mm audio jack – there are also inputs for the microUSB charging port and the dedicated camera shutter. Built-in memory comes in a substantial 8Gb or 16GB, although you have to bear in mind that like other WP7 phones there is no microSD slot to allow you to expand on this at all.

The HTC 7 Pro’s forerunner was the HTC Touch Pro2, which ran on Windows Mobile and was pretty popular with business users. Like that phone, the 7 Pro has a tilting touch-screen that slides out over a five-line QWERTY keyboard. It’s a shame that the mechanism is rather stiff and we found we had to push quite hard to get the screen going – it even makes a scratching sound as it moves. Once it is out, the screen sits at a 30-degree angle, which makes it very comfy for typing. The keyboard length was also conducive to typing without that rather stretched feel you sometimes get on landscape keyboards. Cursor keys, a dedicated number line and an emoticon button add to the user-friendly effect – great for heavy texters.

Finding your way

While the keyboard is excellent, we found even the virtual one was just as good, due to the very responsive display. It’s simple to use as WP7 proves itself an intuitive OS, with its one home screen and one all-programs screens, all based on a set of rectangular and square widgets. We rather like this uniform appearance, compared with the likes of the iPhone’s and Android’s icon-ised look. You’ll see new events in apps including Calendar, webmail and inbox appear in these ‘live tiles’, which can be moved around easily to help you customise the look.

What we did find annoying was the fact that all apps instant reorient themselves to landscape mode (except on the home screen) when the keyboard is slid out. It makes the phone feel rather annoyingly chunky in portrait mode.

When the phone fires up, it asks you to input your Windows Live password, to start an account if you don’t already have one. This will then load your Hotmail contacts, calendar and inbox – so if you’ve had your Hotmail account for yonks and it’s got loads of contacts that you never talk to, it might be worth starting up a new account for your phone. The password also gives you access to a cloud server service call SkyDrive, which lets you back up contacts and content for free – up to 25GB worth. We really like the remote access facility, which allows you to lock or wipe your handset if it gets lost – or you can even find it using GPS location.

One omission in WP7 that does stand out is the lack of multitasking. It should appear with the update to the OS in June, but until it does, being unable to keep open apps when you’re firing up another one can be irritating – especially as Android, iPhone and BlackBerry handsets are all capable of this.

Doing business

There’s an easy-to-use interface for syncing Microsoft Exchange, Yahoo!, Gmail and Facebook as well as other web mail accounts. This lets you load on calendars and contacts from these accounts (read photos and contacts for Facebook), resulting in a hyper contacts book that shows photos and social feeds.

You can view the calendar by day, agenda or month – it all appears in a fresh, contemporary design that looks rather like the digital version of a real calendar.

While push email is available, you won’t get a universal inbox like those found on Blackberry and iPhone handsets. And you’ll also miss out on the threaded view that retains all emails on the same subject together a la iPhone, or the conversation view that you’ll experience using Gmail on Android handsets.

Having said that, if you’re inputting a new message, the HTC 7 Pro will auto-suggest email addresses from all your accounts. We also like the business-focused facility that allows you to highlight important emails, and if you’re in inbox view, scroll between urgent, unread, flagged and all-mail.

What we did find irritating is that apart from the first alert, there is no repeat notification of new messages or mails. On Android and BlackBerry devices you’ll see an LED when there are unread alerts.

As you’ll see on other HTC WP7 devices, there is a ‘discreet ring’ facility, which means the ringer quietens down if you move the phone, and goes mute if you turn over the handset.

Internet, navigation and snapper

Because this is a Microsoft system, your browser is Internet Explorer Mobile, which is smoother than the first incarnations of its desktop version. You’ll find you can pinch to zoom and that it supports full HTML – and fonts and images look sharp. Double tap to zoom in (and autofit) – and you can keep up to six windows open at the same time.

Mapping comes courtesy of Bing Maps, which is not quite up to Google Maps standard – a feature that’s unlikely to ever be available on WP7 phones.

Last but not least is the five-megapixel snapper. It’s as good as most other phones on HTC devices – that is, it is pretty average. Daylight photos appear oversaturated, and there is blur apparent even before you zoom in. We found the camera hard to use one-handed, because of the handset’s size – however the shutter is pretty speedy. We did like the addition of HTC’s Photo Enhancer, which offers different filters to play with.

The verdict

Windows phone 7 is a joy to use as always, and while the HTC 7 Pro is no exception, we prefer other WP7 handsets. The sliding mechanism is too stiff and the handset’s body will be just too substantial for a lot of users. Having said that, phones with slider and touch-screen are always going to be on the chunky side. Business users may find that the one-off email notification is a problem, but for anyone looking for a ‘fun’ smartphone that does well when it comes to messaging, the 7 Pro could be one to consider.