Microsoft Singapore officially launches Windows Phone 7.5 yesterday. Windows Phone 7.5 has more than 500 new features and enhancements.

Both HTC Radar (RRP: SGD$569) and Samsung Omnia W (RRP: SGD$498) will be the first Windows Phone 7.5 to be released in Singapore. The HTC Radar will be available next month (October 2011) while the Samsung Omnia W will be available sometime in Q4 2011.

The Mango release is available for free to all Windows Phone 7 customers. Microsoft will begin delivery of the update to existing Windows Phone 7 users from today and gradually ramp up delivery so that the update will be broadly available to most existing customers by the end of October 2011.

Based on the official site, Where’s my phone update?, both SingTel and StarHub are in the status of “Delivering update” which means:

Microsoft has started to send out the update. Important: To help ensure quality, software updates are typically sent out gradually and/or in batches, so it might take several weeks before you receive notice that an update is available for your phone.

Official Site: Windows Phone 7.5
Official Status Page: Where’s my phone update?
Press Release (Windows Phone 7.5): Microsoft Puts People First With The Launch Of The Latest Version Of Windows Phone In Singapore
Press Release (HTC Radar): HTC Unveils HTC Radar, HTC’s First Windows Phone 7 With Mango Update
Press Release (Samsung Omnia W): Samsung delivers a unique experience with Omnia W, a smartphone that puts people first

Thanks to SingTel and HTC for organising the Most Checked-in Party at Zouk . It was awesome! I was slightly late for the party due to work commitments but better late than never arrive at all!

First thing upon reaching Zouk is for you to register for the party. There are a few computers outside for you to login to your Facebook account, upon logging in, you need to like SingTel’s Facebook Page and then allow SingTel & HTC Event Facebook Application to access your Facebook details. This is to allow the RFID tagging to work.

After you registered, you proceed on to pose for photos in front of the giant Facebook wall mock up and after that, you are in Zouk!

I found a total of 5 RFIDs Machines at the party:

• Giant Facebook Wall (Photo Taking)
• The Bar (Free Flow Drinks)
• Toy Machine (Catch Free Android Figurines Using UFO Catcher)
• Farm Story Zone (Free Ben & Jerry’s Ice Cream – Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough)
• Angry Birds Zone (Play Life Size Angry Birds Game)

Giant Facebook Wall

Free Ben & Jerry’s Ice Cream

Angry Birds Zone

GNASD???

There are also 2 contests that took place, 1 is abbreviation challenge and the other is imitating the Android bots dancing. The abbreviation challenge is tough! There are some abbreviations that I never used before like LTNS (Long Time No See) and GNASD (Good Night And Sweet Dreams).

Door Gift – Facebook Stickers

Li Xiang and I enjoyed ourselves at the party, hope to see more of these type of geeky/social party happening!

Got myself the HTC 7 Mozart as my own Christmas present from Mobile Square. They are selling it for SGD$670 without contact. I traded in my Nokia N82 for SGD$140 and my mom’s iPhone 3G (16GB) for SGD$270. Ended up paying only just SGD$260 for the phone.

Box Front

Box Back – Specifications

Box Contents

HTC 7 Mozart – Front View

HTC 7 Mozart – Back View

Windows Phone 7 OS

Now I have phones from all major mobile OSes (iOS, Android, Symbian^3 & Windows Phone 7) except Blackberry!

In a nutshell, HTC Hero will hit Singapore in this month and it will retail for SGD$898. It is using the capacitive touch screen technology and hence multitouch is supported. For review and full specification, check out HardwareZone Article: HTC Hero – In the Nick of Time (video included).

HTC Hero

Press Release

SINGAPORE – 4th September 2009 – HTC Corporation, a global leader in mobile phone innovation and design, today debuted HTC Sense™, an intuitive and seamless experience that will be introduced across a portfolio of phones beginning with the new HTC Hero™. With its distinct design and powerful capabilities fully integrated with HTC Sense, Hero introduces a unique blend of form and function that takes Android to new heights.

HTC Sense is focused on putting people at the centre by making your phone work in a more simple and natural way. This experience revolves around three fundamental principles that were designed by quietly listening and observing how people live and communicate.

“HTC Hero introduces a more natural way for reaching out to the people and accessing your important information, not by following the status quo of today’s phones, but by following how you communicate and live your life. HTC Sense is a distinct experience created to make HTC phones simpler for people to use, leaving them saying, it just makes sense,” said Peter Chou, Chief Executive Officer, HTC Corporation.

HTC Hero
HTC Hero continues HTC’s leadership in cutting-edge design that focuses on introducing a variety of distinct devices to represent your own individuality. Boasting bevelled edges and an angled bottom, the HTC Hero is contoured to fit comfortably in your hand and against your face while you’re on a call. The HTC Hero is built to last, beginning with an anti-fingerprint screen coating for improved smudge resistance and a longer lasting, clearer display. The white HTC Hero includes an industry-first, Teflon coating, resulting in an improved, durable white surface that looks great.

With its 3.2-inch HVGA display, the HTC Hero is optimized for Web, multimedia and other content while maintaining a small size and weight that fits comfortably in your hand. It also boasts a broad variety of hardware features including a GPS, digital compass, gravity-sensor, 3.5mm stereo headset jack, a 5 mega-pixel autofocus camera and expandable microSD memory. HTC Hero also includes a dedicated Search button that goes beyond basic search, providing you with a more natural, contextual search experience that enables you to search through Twitter, locate people in your contact list, find emails in your inbox or search in any other area in Hero.

HTC Sense
Built on a culture of innovation and a passion to enhance people’s lives, HTC shapes the mobile experience around the individual. Debuting on the HTC Hero and available on all new HTC devices moving forward, Sense delivers on three basic principles: Make it Mine, Stay Close and Discover the Unexpected.

Make It Mine
Make It Mine, is about feeling your HTC phone – created for you and by you. To do this, HTC encourages you to dictate and organize how you want to access the people and content in your life in a way that fits best for you. For some, this means adding glance view widgets that push content like twitter feeds, weather and other content to the surface while others may want quick access to business-focused information like email, calendar and world-times. HTC is also introducing a new profile feature called Scenes that enables you to create different customized content profiles around specific functions or times in your life.

Stay Close
Today, staying in touch with the people in your life means managing a variety of communication channels and applications ranging from phone calls, emails, texts, photos, status updates and more. HTC Sense takes a different approach by integrating these communication channels and applications into one single view enabling you to stay closer to your important people. With HTC Sense, friends’ Facebook status updates and photos along with their Flickr photos are included along side their text messages, emails and call history in a single view.

Discover the Unexpected
Many of the most memorable moments in your life are experienced, not explained. HTC Sense is focused on providing a variety of these simple yet innovative experiences on your HTC phone that will sometimes bring you moments of joy and delight. It can be something as basic as turning the phone over to silence a ring or as simple as improving the smart dialer for making calls quicker. HTC Sense also includes Perspectives, a new way for viewing your content such as emails, photos, Twitter, music and more in different ways.

Pricing & Availability:
The new HTC Hero will be available in Absolute white and Urban brown from mid September 2009 at all authorized resellers at a suggested retail price of SGD$898. Standard retail HTC Hero package will come with a 2GB microSD card.

Making Sense to Magic
HTC Magic users can soon experience HTC Sense on their Magic when a free upgrade is made available in November 2009. With the upgrade to HTC Sense, users will enjoy a more holistic mobile experience made available by HTC. Be sure to sign up as a HTC e-Club member to stay informed of the availability of the upgrade and be the one of the first to experience the new Sense.

Official Website: HTC Hero
Review: HardwareZone Article: HTC Hero – In the Nick of Time

Singtel will be bringing in the first Google Android powered mobiles phones to Asia (Singapore included), the HTC Dream.

Singapore, 5 February 2009 – Singapore Telecommunications Limited (SingTel) and HTC Corporation, a global leader in mobile phone innovation and design, today unveiled the first Android powered mobile phone released in Asia – the HTC Dream. Customers of SingTel and its wholly-owned subsidiary in Australia, Optus, will soon be the first in Asia to enjoy this highly anticipated device.

The HTC Dream combines full touch-screen functionality and a QWERTY keyboard with a mobile Web experience that includes popular Google applications and products that millions have enjoyed on the desktop. With a fun and intuitive user interface and one-touch access to Google Search, the HTC Dream provides access to Android Market, so customers can find and download unique applications to expand and personalise their phone to fit their lifestyle.

“We are delighted to work with Google and HTC to be the first operator in Asia to bring the HTC Dream to our customers. This demonstrates our commitment to deliver a unique experience to our customers and meeting their demand for quality communications and multimedia products and services,” said Yuen Kuan Moon, SingTel’s Chief of Consumer and CEO of SingTel Mobile. “This Android-powered mobile device and its range of popular Google applications and other multimedia-rich software will redefine our customers’ mobile phone experience. Coupled with SingTel’s unrivalled 3G mobile network, our customers can enjoy the full potential of the Internet with just a Dream phone in their hands.”

Press Release: SingTel and HTC Introduce the HTC Dream – the First Android-Powered phone released in Singapore