HTC Surround Specs – Windows 7 Phone With Surround Sound

HTC has tried to understand a special need in the mobile phone market. It understood the fact that several mobile phone users are using their cell phones to watch full length movies. So, HTC decided to give users a phone with surround sound speakers. Apart from the surround sound, the other HTC Surround specs are also pretty good although not what you would call as impressive. In the passages below, we will try to cover the most important HTC Surround specs that we think might interest you. 
HTC Surround specs
The Good about the HTC Surround specs
The phone has a surround sound speaker system that slides out from under the screen. Though it makes the phone quite beefy, it definitely does enhance the movie watching experience. The nicely designed kickstand also makes hands free watching very convenient. Apart from the movie experience specific specs, other HTC Surround specs such as the 1GHz processor, the 5MP camera and the refreshingly new Windows 7 OS, are the selling points of this popular phone from HTC.
The bad about the HTC Surround specs
The phone is quite beefy and quite heavy as well. HTC have given users an annoying problem in the sense that speaker phone volume is really low. If you are in an environment with a lot of background noise, the speakerphone is almost inaudible. Another drawback to the HTC Surround specs is that the Windows 7 operating system does not swap to a landscape mode for all the functions in the phone. For example, the music player only works in the portrait mode. Only movies, browsing and messages line up in a landscape mode. We thought this was a bit odd.
Summary of the HTC Surround specs
This is a phone with excellent build quality. It also comes with a very attractive price tag of just $199.99. But, we thought that the selling point of the HTC Surround, the surround speakers, just does not give the average user enough of an impetus to buy this phone. There are a couple of other Windows phones that retail in the same price range (think Samsung Focus and Samsung Focus flash) that might be  a better purchase.
Design – HTC Surround specs
The phone has a height of 4.7 inches and a width of 2.4 inches. It is pretty thick, with thickness coming in at .5 inches. The thickness is largely due to the slide out speaker panel that rests below the screen. It is also fairly weighty, with the official weight being 5.82 ounces. The surround speakers are provided by Yamaha. The are officially titled as SRS WOW HD speakers that are enabled in Dolby Mobile mode. They are pretty good but just don’t expect any Bose speaker like audio quality from the phone. It is about 50-75% better than the average phone’s speakerphone.
The HTC Surround specs are very good when you look at build quality. There is a nice, solid metal banding that goes around the 3.8 inch screen.
Browsing experience – HTC Surround specs
Though the HTC Surround specs do not include Flash or HTML 5 support, we have to say that the browsing experience with the HTC Surround was more than satisfactory. It uses a very zippy Internet Explorer browser that can open up six different windows at a time. At the bottom of the web browser, the user will be able to view thumbnails of every page that is open. That will come in very handy when the user want to pick a webpage up quickly, without having to toggle through each and every window that is open, to find the right page.
The browsing experience is enhanced by the fact that the phone allows the user to zoom in one particular part of the webpage with just a double tap. Pinch and zoom works as well. Text and picture rendering was very smooth for the most part. There was just a little bit of a delay (on Wi-Fi) when the browser had to deal with some very graphic heavy websites such as CNN or ESPN.
Camera – HTC Surround specs
The HTC Surround specs include a 5MP camera that comes with a flash and HD video capture capabilities. The camera is so so. We say that because indoor shots had a greenish or graying tinge to it. Even the video was a little fuzzy and not as sharp as one would expect a smart phone camera to be.
As a small consolation, sharing photos and videos to social networks is very easy and can be done in just a couple of seconds, thanks to the Windows 7′s easily navigable UI.
Call quality – HTC Surround specs
When it comes to call quality, we can tell you that your voice will be heard very clearly when you use the HTC Surround. However, when you listen in, you can pick up some background noise. Also, the voice on the other end can sort of come in and go out inconsistently, posing an annoying problem if the other person has a faint voice or if the other person is in a noisy environment.
Processor and performance – HTC Surround specs
The phone is pretty zippy, thanks to the HTC Surround specs that include a 1GHz singe core processor that is supported by 512 MB RAM. Internal memory is at 16GB. There is no expansion slot of SD card slot. So, you are stuck with 16GB of internal storage space when you buy the HTC Surround. Just keep that in mind if you take a lot of pictures or if you like to store many movies on your phone.
Battery life -HTC Surround specs
The phone had a talk time of just over 4 hours. While it is not the worst, it is nowhere near the best either. On standby mode, the phone can last for more than 11 days. If you use the phone quite heavily, watching movies and also making a lot of calls, it might need a charge before the day runs out.
Conclusion – HTC Surround specs

The HTC Surround, with Windows 7, an average camera, a kickstand and a good surround sound speaker system just does not look very appealing enough for the average user

Honestly, we think that HTC got it wrong with the HTC Surround specs. Trying to integrate surround sound speakers into a smartphone will only interest very few buyers. The fact that the speakers are not extraordinary might not allow HTC to do even that. For $199.00, you are just better of buying the Samsung Focus or the Samsung Focus Flash, both of which are excellent Windows 7 phones that fall in the same price range or lower.
It has been a while since the HTC Surround came out. The next big buzz in the mobile phone market has to do with the iPhone 5. Check out the latest news and reports on the iPhone 5 here.