Microsoft's Windows Phone 7: When bad things happen to good phones

Windows Phone 7 devices began shipping last October to largely positive reviews. I had a chance to check one out and saw enough to like that I seriously considered making WP7 my first smartphone — and my first Windows phone.

But in the four months since, I’ve begun to waver. And the latest back-and-forth over the first update for WP7 has made me increasingly WP7-shy.

Here’s the back story: Microsoft announced on February 21 that it planned to push out to WP7 users a first “minor” update — something that seemed to be an updater for the real first update due in early March. As soon as some users began receiving notifications that the update was available, reports of “bricked” WP7 devices began appearing around the Web.