Windows Mobile vs Android

Which Mobile OS you Like

  • Windows Mobile

    Votes: 87 36.0%

  • IOS

    Votes: 31 12.8%

  • Android

    Votes: 166 68.6%

  • Meego

    Votes: 10 4.1%
  • Total voters
    242
I've used maybe four different Android phones in the last two years, from HTC to Samsung to Motorola with Sense/Touchwiz/Blur and stock Android. Froyo to Gingerbread to Honeycomb. I still own what I consider to be a great Android tablet (it's my second one). For my current phone I've been using a Windows Phone since last June. I lent my buddy with an iPhone a spare Samsung Focus and he dropped his SIM in and hasn't looked back.

I just pre-ordered five Lumia 900s and am switching my entire family over. A phone should be a great PHONE. A great communication device, easy to use, fast to accomplish tasks, etc. It shouldn't try to be a laptop and I shouldn't have to squint or give the screen tons of attention to be able to get things done. WP7 is just fast at what it does. Communicate. If you haven't seen this yet (and I apologize if it was linked earlier) then this embodies what I'm talking about.

http://www.microsoft.com/windowsphone/en-us/cmpn/smoked-by-windows-phone.aspx

Get your shit done fast and get on with life. At first I thought MS marketing was kind of dumb. "A phone to save you from your phone." But having used one now for over half a year, I totally get it. I wasted so much time on my Android phones trying to make them better, more usable, more convenient, whatever. I'm so much more productive now while on the go, and the e-mail client/office integration is a God-send for my work. Sure there are a few things that are still missing that you can get on Android or iOS. None of them are deal breakers, none of them I miss. If you have a specific app that you absolutely must have that isn't on WP7 (yet), that's about the only thing I would say should prevent you from trying it. If they made this in a tablet form I'd drop my Android tablet as well.

I looovveeee this video, how it shows off the hardware nice and up close. It's truly an amazing design, and I can't wait for the 900. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9tTqMT8cfQE (that's an 800 but it's the exact same design just larger)
 
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  • MS has a less than favorable impression amongst people
  • Media is in love with Apple - Apple products are in every movie/tv show, there are a million favorable articles about every Apple release, and lies about other products.
  • Apple themselves are kings of marketing, stealing ideas and lying in their ads
  • MS suck at marketing
Combine all this and the result is an excellent platform like WP hardly has any users even after MS has sunk billions in it. Android is a success because it lets carriers/oem's make any phone they want and load any kind of crapware they want without any care from Google. So its extremely cheap for them to use Android. With WP7 they need to follow strict guidelines and pay huge licensing fees with very little return.
 
danman said:
What is he wrong about? WP7 and IOS do not have traditional multitasking like Android does. Deflating or pausing apps in the background isn't multitasking.
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How come my Android device doesn't keep playing a youtube video in the background when I switch to something else? They all have their varying degrees of "true multitasking". I'm completely happy with the way MS does it.
 
heatlesssun said:
I had a sister-in-law who was new to smart phones so I suggested the HTC Trophy on Verizon. She switched to a Droid II because she couldn't figure out how to use Windows Phone which I have to say I almost can it believe. I got my wife a Trophy also and she loves it and thinks it's easy to use. Oh well, different strokes for different folks.
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Haha my mother-in-law was so frustrated trying to do simple things with the Droid 2 Global, I started just trying to get her to reduce down to a dumbphone. Then I thought let me see if I can find a Trophy on craigslist and have her give it a shot. She was practically in tears at how much easier it was to use, and is absolutely loving it (keeping tabs easier on the kids with facebook now too). As you say, different strokes I guess.
 
I've got an HTC Titan with WP7.1, I never owned an Android device so I can't really pass judgement on those although I have played with a few of the Androids that my friends have and been turned off by the bloated UI's that the manufacturers put on top of Android.

So far I am really happy with the phone although AT&T's coverage isn't always the best.
 
OldPueblo said:
How come my Android device doesn't keep playing a youtube video in the background when I switch to something else? They all have their varying degrees of "true multitasking". I'm completely happy with the way MS does it.
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Maybe the app is coded to pause or end the video when switching away? What possible reason would you have for having the video play in the background on a phone?
 
danman said:
Maybe the app is coded to pause or end the video when switching away? What possible reason would you have for having the video play in the background on a phone?
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A lot of youtube videos are basically just podcasts with pictures or something. I'll stream a youtube video while driving sometimes just to listen to it. Not a big deal, I've just always been curious why it would stop playing and the video would reload (albeit at the same point) whenever I switched back to it if Android had "true multitasking". It could be deliberate coding I suppose and I'd rather it do what it does than kill my battery if I've forgotten about an app.
 
OldPueblo said:
How come my Android device doesn't keep playing a youtube video in the background when I switch to something else? They all have their varying degrees of "true multitasking". I'm completely happy with the way MS does it.
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YouTube explicitly pauses when it is no longer visible - that is the app doing that, not Android. As for why, there could be a bunch of reasons. From power and data usage to legal restrictions from the premium video providers (VEVO, etc..) to that's what users expected so that's what they did. It's also possible that the phone just can't handle having the video decode happen in the background and it uses up too much resources.

All I know is that that isn't an Android restriction, it's a Youtube app one.

But no, they don't have varying degrees of "true multitasking". Android has multitasking, iOS and WP7 don't. It's pretty clear cut. Whether or not you care or it matters to you is a completely different story and I'm not saying who made the right choice or that one is better than the other, I'm just saying it's not a shades of grey thing - you either have it or you don't.
 
CHANG3D said:
Is your phone faster than a Windows Phone?

I just watched that video and I got to say, "Holy smokes!"
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Those are also kind of canned results. Good marketing and shows off some cool integration stuff, but you could get the same "speed" by using widgets on Android, for example (which is essentially what he did with his WP7 phone - he set up the live tiles to gain a "speed" advantage in the tests he proposes)
 
kllrnohj said:
But no, they don't have varying degrees of "true multitasking". Android has multitasking, iOS and WP7 don't. It's pretty clear cut.
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Both iOS and Windows CE have true multi-tasking, certainly Windows 8 does and that kernel will be used in Windows Phone 8 it appears from the rumors.

The difference is that iOS and WP and now even Windows 8 in the case of Metro apps have more restrictions on how apps multi-task. Battery life sells phones and tablets to the general consumer, not multi-tasking. It will be interesting how Windows 8 tablets and phones stack up to Jelly Bean and iOS 6 devices in battery life. Microsoft has gone all out on power efficiency in Windows 8, it'll be interesting to see how well they did compared to the competition.

kllrnohj said:
Those are also kind of canned results. Good marketing and shows off some cool integration stuff, but you could get the same "speed" by using widgets on Android, for example (which is essentially what he did with his WP7 phone - he set up the live tiles to gain a "speed" advantage in the tests he proposes)
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Who said that Android folks in this demo weren't using widgets? Were widgets not allowed or something?
 
kllrnohj said:
Those are also kind of canned results. Good marketing and shows off some cool integration stuff, but you could get the same "speed" by using widgets on Android, for example (which is essentially what he did with his WP7 phone - he set up the live tiles to gain a "speed" advantage in the tests he proposes)
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This can be argued of course, however they did mutually create/agree upon the test ahead of time with each individual person, and supposedly chose something they both do often. These weren't just challenges presented only by the MS guy. So the person should've been ready to do something they regularly do anyway. If they chose not to use a widget that was up to them really, and in some ways it's a testament to how easy it is to set things up. WP7 is all about cutting corners and simplifying steps. No bouncing between three different apps to do one task, etc. Having watched them all the tests are closer to valid than invalid in my book. (don't want to sidetrack the thread though)
 
There is no question that WP7 has much better integration between different contact providers (gmail, Outlook, FB) which goes much beyond simply syncing contacts - e.g. unified messaging between services and even including phone texts. This sort of thing is baked deep in the OS, it can't be achieved with widgets or apps. Android doesn't even sync Facebook contacts for god's sake!

iOS will never do anything new or exciting - it's still the same OS as iPhone 1, they added the notification bar (stolen from Android), some multitasking gestures etc. This is both a weakness and a strength, people familiar with iPhones don't have to learn anything new, same for app developers.
 
The gmail integration in WP isn't very good. You cannot delete mails - if you click delete it just archives them.
 
kllrnohj said:
Those are also kind of canned results. Good marketing and shows off some cool integration stuff, but you could get the same "speed" by using widgets on Android, for example (which is essentially what he did with his WP7 phone - he set up the live tiles to gain a "speed" advantage in the tests he proposes)
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Umm.. first, he's beaten Android users. Even those using Galaxy S II, Galaxy Nexus, and Droid Razr. So your defense of this is invalid. They had the widgets!

Second, the "contest" is agreed upon by both parties. And competition could easily name something s/he thought he can do quickly. To dominate these results as such is ridiculous to completely overlook.
 
I'm open to trying out WP7 as a staunch Android fanboy. However, just having one, mid-range model on Verizon right now (HTC Trophy) just doesn't cut it for me. If Verizon decides to get more models this year, especially with LTE, I'll think about it. I don't want to leave Verizon anytime soon due to having grandfathered, unlimited data which is truly unlimited unlike with the joke that's ATT, no throttling BS, etc.

With Microsoft's recent marketing at CES that WP7 is faster than all the other phones, did they take carrier's networks into account? Its not exactly a fair comparison if the WP7 used uses a carrier with great coverage in that certain testing area and most, if not all the Android phones being compared are on a carrier with weak coverage in that testing area. Of course a WP7 will post faster to Facebook if it can upload 100kb/s vs. an Android phone with only 10kb/s!
 
nerdydesi said:
I'm open to trying out WP7 as a staunch Android fanboy. However, just having one, mid-range model on Verizon right now (HTC Trophy) just doesn't cut it for me. If Verizon decides to get more models this year, especially with LTE, I'll think about it. I don't want to leave Verizon anytime soon due to having grandfathered, unlimited data which is truly unlimited unlike with the joke that's ATT, no throttling BS, etc.

With Microsoft's recent marketing at CES that WP7 is faster than all the other phones, did they take carrier's networks into account? Its not exactly a fair comparison if the WP7 used uses a carrier with great coverage in that certain testing area and most, if not all the Android phones being compared are on a carrier with weak coverage in that testing area. Of course a WP7 will post faster to Facebook if it can upload 100kb/s vs. an Android phone with only 10kb/s!
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According to this they both used the same hotspot and also did a trial run beforehand:

http://pocketnow.com/windows-phone/smoked-by-windows-phone-so-far

I understand the skepticism, but the truth is they focused heavily on streamlining tasks and it shows. WP7 winning these contests doesn't mean it's flat out a better phone, it just means if that kind of thing is important to you then you should seriously consider it. I love Android, but I still prefer WP7 because of this.
 
Windows Phone suffers from one thing - lack of application. There is not enough of good and needed apps. Microsoft done even "great" thing, and locked Kindle app outside US and few other selected countries (which is stupidity, for Android and iOS have kindle worldwide)... also there is not enough good games, and I'm not fond of the menu.

also, from what Samsung Europe regional director said yesterday in PRague, Samsung is going to offer, on their Android phones, a competition to iTunes - large service filled with movies and music, and they are going to do this year.

Speaking not of the things their android phones can do - managing the wifi cameras, tv or home cinemas. In future also fridges, washing machines and stuff like that. This is the vision the Windows Phone makers lack. Nokia is barely afloat and can't afford "grand schemes", LG phone sucks from poor build quality, Samsung pretends they never made Win Phone Omnia. Maybe Win Phone 8 will change the situation, but right now, it's going to be niche system.
 
I have zero experience with Meego and minimal experience with Win 7 mobile. Between Andriod and iOS I perfer iOS. That said, it is a slim slim difference that really comes down to preference. Both have pros and cons. I would recommend anyone looking at either spend some time playing with them both to decide.
 
MorgothPl said:
Windows Phone suffers from one thing - lack of application. There is not enough of good and needed apps. Microsoft done even "great" thing, and locked Kindle app outside US and few other selected countries (which is stupidity, for Android and iOS have kindle worldwide)... also there is not enough good games, and I'm not fond of the menu.

also, from what Samsung Europe regional director said yesterday in PRague, Samsung is going to offer, on their Android phones, a competition to iTunes - large service filled with movies and music, and they are going to do this year.

Speaking not of the things their android phones can do - managing the wifi cameras, tv or home cinemas. In future also fridges, washing machines and stuff like that. This is the vision the Windows Phone makers lack. Nokia is barely afloat and can't afford "grand schemes", LG phone sucks from poor build quality, Samsung pretends they never made Win Phone Omnia. Maybe Win Phone 8 will change the situation, but right now, it's going to be niche system.
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Too much to disagree with, I don't have it in me to make a huge post right now. :p But bottom line the more misinformation about WP7 that's out there the more it's growth will be stunted, yes.
 
Looking at my live tile WP7 app counter, there are 62065 apps. It took Windows Phone 7 14 months to reach 50000 apps. By comparison it took the iPhone 12 months and Android 19 months. When you consider the market share of Windows Phone currently, the app count is incredible really. And if Windows Phone 8 offers a good degree of code compatibility with Windows 8, the app count will explode.

Windows Phone is great right now, what it needs DESPERATELY, particularly in the US is more options on Sprint and Verizon. Sprint and Verizon my have ignored Windows Phone 7 with the exception of one device each but they will not be able to ignore Windows Phone 8 as both of them are going to want Windows 8 tablets and devices without doubt.

We'll have to see what comes out of the MWC but I expect there to be a lot of coupling with Windows Phone 8 and Windows 8 considering that the Windows 8 Consumer Preview is being launched in Barcelona where the MWC is and during the time though the event is at a separate site from what I here.

What Windows Phone is today and what it will be in 12 months is going the VASTLY different, a much bigger and bolder change than we're going to see out of iOS and Android phones this year.
 
Perhaps it has already been stated, but can we expect our wp7 devices to support wp8? or will wp7 be eol? I know much of this is up to manufacturers and the carriers, but I hope wp7 has longer legs or an upgrade path to wp8
 
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Silentbob343 said:
Perhaps it has already been stated, but can we expect our wp7 devices to support wp8? It will wp7 be eol? I know much of this is up to manufacturers and the carriers, but I hope wp7 has longer legs or an upgrade path to wp8
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Good question. I've not seen anything definite on this but I would suspect that some devices will be upgradeable and some won't but we should know for certain from the MWC at the end of the month.
 
heatlesssun said:
Good question. I've not seen anything definite on this but I would suspect that some devices will be upgradeable and some won't but we should know for certain from the MWC at the end of the month.
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Fragmentation!

Lol, on the number of apps discussion there will always be apps on the android market that will never be on the appstore or windows marketplace such as themes, widgets, live wallpapers, or anything you can use to customize your phone. Hell you can't even change the wallpaper on a wp7 device smh.
 
I hope the new WIn8 Phone will have microsd card slot, or more then 16 GB. That's biggest downfall for me so far.

What I don't like also? Lack of ability to create folders. Seriously, if you have more then 15 apps installed, then trying to use the tile menu, or the list menu, is a chore.

Zune software is bad move too... why I just can't copy my music/movies/documents without any poor copy of iTunes. Especially as Zune music store is not aviable outside US.

I like web browser, as it's fast, and it has the adress bar at the bottom, so I don't have to scroll up, when I want to type another URL, But, the virtual keyboard lacks the button to jump to another text field.

When it grows up, then WinPhone might be good. But right now, I've not a single reason to get rid of my Note and leave Android.
 
MorgothPl said:
also, from what Samsung Europe regional director said yesterday in PRague, Samsung is going to offer, on their Android phones, a competition to iTunes - large service filled with movies and music, and they are going to do this year.
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Its only a matter of time until Samsung forks Android, the same as what Amazon has done, and create their own 'version'' with their own services attached.
 
danman said:
Its only a matter of time until Samsung forks Android, the same as what Amazon has done, and create their own 'version'' with their own services attached.
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And then Windows Phone will be seen for what it is: the best mobile operating system.
 
LOL... apps per market share??? Really? Although I personally believe that there are more than enough apps on WP market, but that defense only make it sadder for WP because their lack of market share to begin with!

Still, M$ shot themselves in the foot for not making wp7 multicore compatible. Regardless of the superiority of the operating system that no one understands, it's the specs and the marketing people look at. Their specs are terrible, and their marketing had been atrocious. They need to make that competition video an 30 advertising spot.
 
Just got my first smart phone, and it's runs android. I really wanted to get a WP7 (love .NET, C# and the development platform), but with the very limited language support it wasn't an option.
Hopefully MS will change that soon, but I have my doubts..
For the time being, Android seems great.
 
Psych2l said:
Hell you can't even change the wallpaper on a wp7 device smh.
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Erm...yes you can? I change the wallpaper on my Windows Phone 7 device all the time...

MorgothPl said:
I hope the new WIn8 Phone will have microsd card slot, or more then 16 GB. That's biggest downfall for me so far.
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There are already Windows Phone 7 handsets with MicroSD card slots (I should know, I'm using this feature right now).

My Samsung Focus has 8GB of built-in storage, and I added a 16GB MicroSD card (could have added a 32GB card, but those cost a lot more). Total storage on the phone is now listed as 24GB.

The only limitation is that, once you install a MicroSD in a current Windows Phone 7 handset, it's striped with the internal storage on the phone (similar to RAID). This means the storage upgrade is permanent (removing the MicroSD or replacing it with a larger one requires a hard-reset).

I personally don't have a problem with this. Once I install a MicroSD in a phone, that's where it lives forever (I don't see many other people constantly removing their battery covers to swap SD cards either).

Windows Phone 8 removes this limitation and allows for fully removable MicroSD cards

MorgothPl said:
What I don't like also? Lack of ability to create folders. Seriously, if you have more then 15 apps installed, then trying to use the tile menu, or the list menu, is a chore.
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When you have enough apps installed, the full-apps list (to the right of the tiles) automatically enables alphabetical sorters.

Tap any alphabetical sorter, you'll get a full-screen list of letters.
Tap a letter and you'll be taken to that point in the full-app list.
Tap your app.

It's very quick, and I kinda wish the home screen with all the tiles let you set up a similar sorting system. It would cut down on scrolling slightly when you have a lot of live tiles pinned (like I do).

MorgothPl said:
Zune software is bad move too... why I just can't copy my music/movies/documents without any poor copy of iTunes. Especially as Zune music store is not aviable outside US.
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They're bringing back something similar to ActiveSync for Windows Phone 8. You wont have to use Zune if you don't want to (I personally like the Zune PC software).
 
OldPueblo said:
How come my Android device doesn't keep playing a youtube video in the background when I switch to something else? They all have their varying degrees of "true multitasking". I'm completely happy with the way MS does it.
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uhm because the app writer was smart enough to auto pause it?
 
Unknown-One said:
Erm...yes you can? I change the wallpaper on my Windows Phone 7 device all the time...


There are already Windows Phone 7 handsets with MicroSD card slots (I should know, I'm using this feature right now).

My Samsung Focus has 8GB of built-in storage, and I added a 16GB MicroSD card (could have added a 32GB card, but those cost a lot more). Total storage on the phone is now listed as 24GB.

The only limitation is that, once you install a MicroSD in a current Windows Phone 7 handset, it's striped with the internal storage on the phone (similar to RAID). This means the storage upgrade is permanent (removing the MicroSD or replacing it with a larger one requires a hard-reset).

I personally don't have a problem with this. Once I install a MicroSD in a phone, that's where it lives forever (I don't see many other people constantly removing their battery covers to swap SD cards either).

Windows Phone 8 removes this limitation and allows for fully removable MicroSD cards


When you have enough apps installed, the full-apps list (to the right of the tiles) automatically enables alphabetical sorters.

Tap any alphabetical sorter, you'll get a full-screen list of letters.
Tap a letter and you'll be taken to that point in the full-app list.
Tap your app.

It's very quick, and I kinda wish the home screen with all the tiles let you set up a similar sorting system. It would cut down on scrolling slightly when you have a lot of live tiles pinned (like I do).


They're bringing back something similar to ActiveSync for Windows Phone 8. You wont have to use Zune if you don't want to (I personally like the Zune PC software).
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ahh so MS is going back to some of the windows mobile feature set......nice....

The ability to tether and use my phone as a giant thumb drive is a BIG plus to me :)

I gotta admit though having the ability to remove your SD card without resetting the phone is a giant plus....take the HD2 users that got those crappy Sandisk class 2 cards that caused their phones to act funny....all they had to do was remove crappy card and put in a better one. This is exactly what I did when I got my card swapped it with a A-data class 10 card and have been problem free for nearly 2 years.....
 
danman said:
Sorry, I don't consider the colors black and white to be wallpapers. And I wasn't referring to the lock screen.
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What's the point of wallpaper if it's covered with icons, widgets, tiles, etc? With the lock screen you get both, a nice picture to look at to feel good about yourself (whatever who cares it's a phone) and then a usable area with all your "things."
 
OldPueblo said:
Ah so the multitasking is being managed for me. :D
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can't win either way but I am glad that the media player pauses when you switch away from it. be big old pitb to talk on the phone with a video playing at the same time... :D

OldPueblo said:
What's the point of wallpaper if it's covered with icons, widgets, tiles, etc? With the lock screen you get both, a nice picture to look at to feel good about yourself (whatever who cares it's a phone) and then a usable area with all your "things."
Click to expand...


I dunno I like having a picture of my wife as the background on my phone's home screen and another one of her on the lock screen
 
danman said:
Sorry, I don't consider the colors black and white to be wallpapers. And I wasn't referring to the lock screen.
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Then I'm not sure what you're talking about. Black and white? Do you mean the themes? Those are background choices that change the entire theme of the phone from white-on-black (for OLED and high quality LCD) to black-on-white (for cheap LCD)

As for wallpaper: I select a picture from the pictures hub, pull up the jumplist, and select "Use as wallpaper." I get a nice wallpaper on my lock screen.

That's simply where WP7 puts wallpaper (that is its own definition of wallpaper). Putting an image behind the tiles is kinda pointless, you'd only be able to really see the right-hand edge of it :confused:
 
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