Manual handbook

First known as the HTC 7 Pro at its New York unveiling, the HTC Arrive is Sprints inaugural foray into the brave new world of Windows Phone 7. And the Arrive also represents two other minor "firsts": its the first CDMA Windows Phone 7 phone in the United States, and its the first Windows Phone 7 model to ship with Microsofts cut-and-paste update.

As a result theres a lot riding on the Arrives rounded shoulders, and for the most part it succeeds in carrying that weight. Like the HTC Surround, the Arrive is a thick chunk of handset, but that extra bulk makes possible a responsive keyboard and a screen that tilts for optimal typing and media consumption. While the data speeds are fine, we were a little disappointed that 4G WiMax isnt an option.
While theres a lot to like, the Arrive also has its drawbacks, some having to do with the handsets construction and some stemming from the Windows Phone 7 OS. For the most part, though, it acquits itself well as a Sprint newcomer.

Design
The HTC Arrive looks good, and looks strong. Rimmed with shiny, dark-gray paint, the handset has a glossy appearance and feel. It has barely rounded corners, like the iPhone 4, and two cutouts that reveal the front-facing speakers. On the back, a swath of brushed stainless steel and a decorative screw reveal that this is not a phone to be trifled with. And if there were any doubt, the phones dimensions (4.6 inches tall, 2.3 inches wide, 0.6 inch thick) and weight (a whopping 6.4 ounces, nearly half a pound)--attest that the Arrive is one brick of a phone. Its bulk makes it a bit less comfortable to slip into a pocket, but you wont have to worry much if you drop it. We noticed, however, that the gray paint that rings the face easily flaked off in our bags and under our nail.
At 3.6 inches, the WVGA capacitive touch screen is slightly smaller than that of the HTC Surround, but has the same 800x480-pixel resolution. While its a fine screen that shows off bright colors and sharp edges, it doesnt have the richness or pop of the Super AMOLED display on the Samsung Focus.

Below the screen are three touch-sensitive buttons for Back, Home, and Bing search. A camera trigger button is on the right spine, and the Micro-USB charger and a large volume rocker are on the left. Up top theres a standard 3.5-millimeter headset jack and the power button. The Arrives back houses a 5-megapixel camera and a flash. As with all Windows 7 phones, theres no card slot for expanding the phones memory, but the 16GB built-in storage should be enough for most casual users needs.

More than anything else, what makes the HTC Arrive stand out is its tilting screen. HTC is no stranger to this design; it brought us the AT&T Tilt and HTC Tilt 2, much ballyhooed back in 2007 and 2009, respectively. Those two handsets ran Microsofts earlier Windows mobile operating systems.

As with its predecessors, the Arrives screen slides out to expose a full QWERTY keyboard before tilting up 30 degrees (previous models tilted up 40 degrees.) You simply push the front face flat and slide it back over the keyboard when youre done. It takes a fair amount of pressure to open, and our thumb kept slipping on the phones square design on our first few tries. The Arrives tilting mechanism appears to be fairly sturdy, and makes a metallic click when you lay the face flat.

The tilted display is best when youre typing with the phone in your hand or setting it down to watch a video play; be aware, however, that the handset will rock back slightly if you put it down and then tap on the screen in the open position.

Below the display, the Arrives keyboard manages to be spacious without being overly wide. Keys are fully separated, but barely rise above the surface. The backlit buttons are smooth and very responsive, although a skosh less comfortable than buttons with a more rubbery feel. There are dedicated buttons for emoticons and diacritical marks, and for adding currency symbols for euros and pound sterling.

Interface
Weve examined Windows Phone 7 in depth elsewhere, but there are several features worth noting here. First, the Arrive comes with Microsofts copy/paste feature installed, the first Windows Phone 7 device to ship with it. Touching a word on a Web page or in a document presents tags that you can easily drag to select an area. Highlighting a word also causes a "copy" icon to pop up. Tapping it then saves the selected text to the clipboard for later pasting. Finally, a "paste" icon appears when you tap an input field, like a Word document or a search field.
Copy/paste works intuitively and smoothly, and we love the visual panache. You can paste the same text multiple times. However, the functionality isnt strictly systemwide, although it does appear in the obvious locations, like the browser, e-mail, documents, maps, contact cards, and search results. For instance, copy/paste doesnt appear as an option in some of the settings menus, so you cant use it when configuring your e-mail--something we could do with both Android and iOS.