User Manual

30
Chapter 1 Pre-Flight Checklist:What to Do Before YouGet Your Windows Phone
Removable storage:3 Most non-iPhone smart phones (and virtually all popular
Android-based phones) ship with some kind of memory card slot so that you
can inexpensively expand the device’s internal storage (but not RAM). Today,
these mini memory cards typically range from 2GB to 32GB of storage, but of
course, technology improves as time marches on.
Ultra high resolution screens:3 At the time of this writing, the iPhone 4 sup-
ports a resolution of 960 x 640, which exceeds the highest resolution sup-
ported by Windows Phone. While there is little doubt that the Windows Phone
OS could handle higher resolutions, device makers are prohibited from selling
such a device at this time. As Microsoft evolves the Windows Phone hardware
requirements over time, this limitation will change.
Gyroscope:3 While Windows Phone does support an accelerometer, it is lack-
ing a gyroscope, a hardware component that is also found in the iPhone 4.
Speaking simply—because, let’s face it, this is complicated stuff—a gyroscope
simply provides a more accurate, or more sensitive, measurement of how the
device is being rotated in X, Y, or Z axis (or “directions”). Given the relatively
non-subtle hand movements that will be typical in human/phone interaction,
I do not feel that a gyroscope is a particularly important improvement over an
accelerometer and that its loss will not impact the Windows Phone experience,
gaming or otherwise.
Video recording:3 While Microsoft doesn’t specify that the Windows Phone
camera be able to record video, virtually all Windows Phones do, in fact, ship
with this capability. Expect VGA (640p) or HD (720p) or better video recording
capabilities.
Geo-tagging:3 Another neat camera feature, geo-tagging allows your cam-
era to optionally “tag” each photo with location data so that you can later
discover exactly where the photo was taken on a map. This capability is
absolutely possible with Windows Phone, thanks to its built-in GPS and other
location sensors, and is in fact a feature of the built-in camera software. So no
worries here.
Headphone jack, microphone, and external speaker:3 While Microsoft does
not require Windows Phone hardware makers to include a standard headphone
jack, microphone, or external speaker(s) on their devices, most of course will
do so. Be sure to look for these features, however.
In other words,

don’t skip out on
Windows Phone
because of this
missing feature.
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