Windows Phone 7 minimum specs revealed

March 16, 2010 | By Surur

03-15-10samsungsolowp7 At MIX10 Microsoft has revealed the minimum specs of all Windows Phone 7 Phones, and they seem quite up to date for a 2010 phone, except possibly the memory requirements, which seems quite low for a Windows Mobile smartphone these days. Of course, on the other hand, Windows Phone does not multi-task, so maybe it will not need that much RAM after all…

The specs are:

Capacitive Touch: 4 or more contact points
Sensors: A-GPS, Accelerometer, Compass, Light, Proximity
Camera: 5 megapixels or more, Camera with a flash and dedicated camera button
Multimedia: Common detailed specs, Codec acceleration
Memory: 256 MB, 8 GB Flash or more
GPU: DirectX 9 acceleration
Processor: ARMv7 Cortex/Scorpion or better
2 screen sizes: 480×800 WVGA, 480×320 HVGA
Keyboard: Optional
Hardware Buttons: Must be fixed on the face

Is the template missing anything in particular? Let us know below.

Via FuzeMobility.com

About Surur

Site Admin and Windows Phone enthusiast, he has been using Windows Mobile devices since before they were called PocketPC’s. He is currently sporting a HTC 7 Trophy.

Tagged mix10, windows phone 7

http://celljudge.com celljudge

Why not let the bad boys(phones with a lot of ram) multitask then? The lower memory requirement goes along with my theory that MS is trying to make OEMs keep the price down on WP7 so the carriers make it free or cheap. No storage card means less money. No multitasking means lower memory requirements which means less money.

da9th_one

at the expense of alienating their core customers…if they want to appeal to the teeny-bopper crowd, it seems they are on the right track…

i think with all the news yesterday, ms is attempting to reduce/eliminate the control of freelance developers like the guys at xda-developers. Why else would they eliminate "non approved" apps…

http://intensedebate.com/people/Lennard Lennard

for security reasons, which is good for the end user (some crazy app the user downloads can't just steal their pim data and things like that)
for anti-piracy reason (this is good for devs, devs can actually make money from their apps, and not having to worry too much about people using it witout paying for it.)

xda devs can always release their apps on in the marketplace…they can create an xda-dev account and release the xda-dev free apps under that account. who will pay for the registration fees? the millions of users can always donate a little bit to make up the $99 reg fee

http://taker-under.blogspot.com/ undertakeror

how about a USB/mini USB port
3.5 mm jack
and the storage card (which i see has already been mentioned above)
zarxic

I think a requirement should be a 3.5mm headphone jack. If they're making a Microsoft version of the iPhone I would think that would be something they'd require manufacturers to incorporate.
steve jobs

hahha this is only min specs moron and wmpoweruser wrong it can expand up too 1gb memory and has multi touch capability. sorrry burst your bubble has only crappy phone that do not mutitouch is junk iphone and android. windows phone 7 wins again….

Jos Dewey

WMPoweruser: You need to start removing such comments and possibly banning the commenters if you can ban unregistered users.

Such useless comments bring down the overall value of your site IMO, which is already a bit lacking in all honesty with the spelling and grammar mistakes (which are admittedly getting better) and the eye-rape that is your site's layout with all these in your face advertisements.

You really don't need "morons" with names like this guy's to come out of nowhere and insult your other commenters. I don't even know who this guy was calling a moron, since he most surprisingly can't even be bothered to reply to the post he's actually replying to.

I've seen a few commenters roaming around and blatantly spewing garbage and calling people names in a totally unprovoked manner. This guy is definitely at the top of that list.

And Stevie, old boy, whether you like it or not Microsoft probably couldn't have made more of an iPhone clone even if they tried. True, it has a more useful homescreen than the iPhone with those ugly icons but in principle WP7 might as well be iPhone OS. Do not forget the iPhone OS will be at v4 by the time WP7 finally comes to market, and iPhone OS v4 is bound to be their biggest update thus far – I wouldn't' be surprised to find Apple finally change the design of the OS from the original 2007 layout. If it's Microsoft they will manage to perfectly screw up the momentum they've built with WP7 by allowing iPhone 4G to be released first and thus take credit for some of the stuff WP7 has (like an active, updating homescreen). Though it must be said as well, Micorosft aint' any better than Apple at designing icons… the iPhone unified look is annoying as heck, but those flat blue WP7 icons are even uglier.

steve jobs

Also yes it has 3.5 mm Jack and wiill have usb and micro sd slot too. it depends on phone brand you get which many phone brand will be sony, htc, samsung etc… so yes windows phone 7 will blow away iphone and android easy. why else many companies want incorporate it on there phones. also window phone 7 is not trying to be a iphone. they dont want be a iphone which lacks so many features. so again window phone 7 is all on it own. just be happy windows phone 7 does not have the ugly icons like junk iphone gots.

motty69

Actually MS has already said that user- removable memory is not allowed. That means no micro SDHC.

da9th_one

………….
andy

Looks like the 4-point capacative requirement will be a big issue for the HD2 (whose hardware can only do 2 point)

Jos Dewey

Why would it be a big issue, given it was definitively stated yesterday that the HD2 under no circumstances would get a WP7 upgrade?

Don't tell me you are still clinging to the pipe dream of having your 1.5 year old phone upgraded officially…

Guest

how about the 3 button max rule (which HTC HD2 did not qualify – 5 buttons on face)
Also Windows Phone 7 Series will not have memory cards

http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=5401995 Christopher Hippolyte

Its really not a 5 vs 3 thing. Its a having the correct buttons thing, which the HD2 doesn't have.

Jos Dewey

Microsoft just love mandating button layout… remember what a big deal was for them that WM6.5 was requiring all devices to have a Start menu and back key? It made no sense that they were so stringent previously, makes even less sense that they re-formulated their button mandates yet again for WP7.

I guess the search button is useful, but having send/end keys is a deal breaker for Microsoft? Oh, sorry, I forgot the mighty iPhone does without hardware answer and end keys – I apologize Microsoft, you are totally warranted.

http://intensedebate.com/people/Lennard Lennard

well in 6.5 they only said all windows phone will have a windows key, in 7 series they expanded on that a little but more and add 2 more buttons. so technically, they didn't change the button mandate from before

Kruk

Missing: Color depth …

Is it still 65K colors?

262K?

Or 16M colors?
darkcg

I'm still wondering how they will compete in the market with such an ugly user interface.
Seriously, mono-dimensional mono-color plain squares in 2010?
An home screen that waste 20% of the available screen? Is this a joke?
I have an HD2, they have just announced it won't be upgraded to Windows Phone 7.
My next phone will be something different from Windows and from a different manufacturer than HTC.
No more HTC, no more Microsoft on cell phones. They have screwed me and now my 4 months phone is just old.

motty69

I have to agree, I don't really care for the big colorful boxes. I don't want messaging and phone notifications taking up a 1/4 of the homescreen with stupid looking color blocks. Yes I know what's on the homescreen is customizable, but those many of those boxes are far bigger than they need to be for the info they convey. It VERY much needs a Sense-like clock with message and phone notifications. The more I see and hear about WP7, the more I think my next phone could be a Android handset.

http://www.facebook.com/Bugblatter Bug Blatter

Rather than the saviour we'd hoped for WP7 is in fact another competitor to Windows Mobile,

On top of that it will take developers away from WM.

It would also take Microsoft's attention away from WM, except it hasn't really had much of that anyway.
http://twitter.com/chmun77 @chmun77

What's the pt of having minimum specs when the phone dun even support MINIMUM operations like copy & paste?????

dun waste my time M$.
WAKE UP

NO ONE seems concerned about sufficient battery life in minimum specs until they get the phone in hand only to complain that the battery sucks and necessitates a return to sender. OS makers must start requiring minimum battery life performance before certifying devices to use their platforms.