To be honest, I'm rather interested in trying out a WP7 phone. The problem that I have is the fact that it's a huge barrier to entry to dish out hundreds of dollars just to test out a small device. I'm not in a position to be able to just dish money out like that, and I assume there are many people in the same boat as me. I guess that's the greatest burden to anyone trying to break into this market - everyone questions why they should dish out the same amount of money for x phone, when they could just get an iPhone for approximately the same amount of money - they already know everyone loves the iphone.
With that being said, I think Brandon Watson is doing his job extremely well - he is eliminating that barrier to entry and getting hackers using WP7 devices. Perhaps creating evangelists.
On a side note, Windows 7 has got me to switch back to a Windows OS, from Debian, that I had been running as my main OS since Vista came out. I'm just one guy, but Microsoft is doing some things right. Maybe they can make WP7 work?
FWIW, you can commonly score an HTC Surround for about $100 on Craigslist, and they are completely capable, albeit unsexy, devices. I never experience the slightest lag or slowdown with Mango on mine, and it feels much faster than my iPhone 4.
I currently run an unsexy Android phone, so I could bare with something less than optimal. It runs, makes phone calls and I can play with it, so I am happy and fairly easy to please. With that being said, I just checked ebay and you're right, the surround is listed quite cheap. I'm currently in Canada (for now) so I wonder how easy it is to unlock so I can run it on a Canadian carrier?
I paid $25 USD to get mine unlocked from htcimeiunlock.com. I'm told you can get them for half that price. Got an unlock code back about 15 minutes after I paid for it.
With that being said, I think Brandon Watson is doing his job extremely well - he is eliminating that barrier to entry and getting hackers using WP7 devices. Perhaps creating evangelists.
On a side note, Windows 7 has got me to switch back to a Windows OS, from Debian, that I had been running as my main OS since Vista came out. I'm just one guy, but Microsoft is doing some things right. Maybe they can make WP7 work?