I recently bought some covers for my HTC Mozart from Case Mate after they announced a new line of  covers for various Windows Phone 7 handsets. Well a few days later they are here and below is a few photos of the cases they come in and how they look on my phone. I also hope that this is a sign that now that Microsoft have announced they have sold over 2 million copies of WP7 that more manufacturers jumping on board the WP7 train such as Klipsch that are “Working on” headphone with remotes that are WP7 compatible.

Interestingly they seem to be in high demand as originally Case Mate did list cases for the Samsung Focus and Omnia handsets as well…

Barely There

This is the hard cover that clips on easily and almost looks as if it is part of the phone. It probably does not offer as good screen protection as the Safe Skin case however the screen protector should give it fairly good scratch resistance.

Safe Skin

Nice soft rubber case that is still smooth however it has a little more grip so you are probably less likely to drop it using this case. The cover is a little raised above the screen so if put on a flat surface face down it should offer good protection. This rubber version would be much better at protecting the phone from drops however it is also quite obvious you have a cover on the phone due to the extra thickness.

Case Mate also have similar cases for the HTC HD7 and the HTC Trophy if you have one of those handsets instead. As a bonus I was also pleasantly suppressed to see that both covers came with a screen protector for the phone that fitted very well.

So which one should you buy…. ? Well that is up to you but at this stage I am keeping the Barley There cover on as it keeps the look and feel of the device much more authentic plus I think the Safe Skin cover will be more of a magnet for dust and dirt like a similar cover I had for my iPhone 3GS.

P.S. In case you were wondering the Barley There cover is so thin that you can still easily fit the the Safe Skin cover over top to have two cases on at the same time… For those that want EXTRA protection…

More Info: http://www.case-mate.com/Windows-Phone-7-Cases/Windows-Phone-7-Cases.asp

Engadget recently blogged about a statement from Microsoft’s Alex Reeve’s about the possibility of current devices that meet the Windows Phone 7 hardware specifications. Alex said:

It’s early days yet, and that’s really for our hardware partners to think about.

This really leaves the door open to the HTC to offer a Windows Phone 7 upgrade to the HTC HD2 which may confirm the authenticity of the below photo of the device.

However it still remains unclear if the HTC HD2 will be upgradeable to Windows Phone 7 as Andrew Coates on the FranklySpeaking podcast recently said:

It doesn’t sound like the HD2 quite gets there

However the specification does require at least 3 buttons (back, search and home) and the HTC HD2 has 5 buttons, but there is not mention if this specifically excludes additional buttons. If that is the case you could easily remap the Home key as the search key (see below).

Source Microsoft: Windows Phone 7 upgrades will be possible, up to OEMs to make them happen — Engadget