Windows Phone 7 devices vs iPhone 4 vs android ?
when we take a look at the specs of each new phone and put them head-to-head with the reigning champions.
Microsoft and Nokia introduced the New Lumia smartphones based on the new Windows Phone 7 operating system to take on the iPhone 4,4S and the Android army.
Of the ten new Windows Phone 7 devices, six will be headed to the U.S. market: AT&T will have the HTC 7 Surround, the LG Quantum, and the Samsung Focus; Sprint will have the HTC 7 Pro; and T-Mobile will get the HTC HD7 and the Dell Venue Pro.
The phones are sold in United States for around $200 a pop. Now that we know the specifications for these smartphones, we can pit them against category titans Apple iPhone 4 and Motorola Droid X.
The six new Windows Phone 7 devices due out next month all run on a 1GHz processor, as do most smartphones on the market today.
Other features shared by all six Windows Phone 7 smartphones are Wi-Fi, GPS, and Bluetooth; none of them has an HDMI slot, however, as the Droid X does.
On the other hand, perks such as a slide-out surround-sound speaker on the HTC 7 Surround, and Dolby Digital sound on all three HTC phones, should compensate for this omission.
Windows Phone 7 may not be flying off the shelves, but in my extensive experience the platform is the most stable and reliable out there. I recommend that you at least give the platform a try because it is NOTHING like Windows Mobile and the Microsoft name does not kill the experience.
As regular readers know, I have used nearly every mobile phone operating system over the years and bounce around between devices, operating systems, and carriers faster than most people I know. I have been using Windows Phone 7 since July 2010 and can say without a doubt that Windows Phone 7 has been the most stable and reliable mobile phone operating system I have ever used, even counting the early technical preview and current beta development versions of Mango that I have been running on my phones. People may have preconceived notions about Microsoft’s mobile platform given that Pocket PC and Windows Mobile had issues, but you can throw all of that out the window and if you give Windows Phone 7 an honest chance I think you will find out the same thing.
My first data-enabled phone was the original T-Mobile Sidekick and then a Nokia Series 60 device. I then moved through various Palm Treos, Windows Mobile phones (smartphone and Pocket PC), a couple BlackBerrys, more Symbian phones, some iPhones, several Android phones, a couple webOS Palm phones, and a few Windows Phone 7 devices. I won’t go back to the “old days” when I had Palm OS phones and Windows Mobile phones since they are not applicable now and were quite unstable compared to today’s phones, but these are my experiences with each of the current modern platforms.
I will say that some platform instability likely comes from 3rd party software and sometimes even defective hardware. I think you will see in my discussions of each platform that there are some issues even if the 3rd party software is well developed.
Android
Out of the six modern smartphone operating systems, Android is clearly the least stable of them all. I have seen numerous low memory issues, force close warnings, random resets, freezes on apps and connections, and more. With so many different manufacturers, different versions of the OS out and available, and thousands of apps that are clearly not built well enough to prevent issues Android is clearly in last in the stability department.
Apple iOS
I was blown away by the sheer speed and fluidity of the first iPhone, especially when compared to my Windows Mobile phones. iOS is a very user friendly platform and for the most part is fairly stable. However, I have experienced complete lockups and failure to launch on every iPhone and even on my iPad 2. The iOS experience is funny because something will get goofed up in the OS and then tapping an app to launch it gives you an impression it is starting up and then you are taken right back to the home screen with no indication or explanation at all. You can keep doing this and always get returned to the home screen. I understand they don’t want to confuse the consumer, but some indication of what corrective action needs to be taken would be helpful.
It is also not always clear how to get an iOS device back up and running. There is no battery to remove so you have to generally follow a button press routine and maybe even have to connect to a desktop to restore your device.
BlackBerry
There have been some rock solid BlackBerry devices in the past, but over the last couple of years the models I have used have disappointed me at times, in regards to stability. The main issue I have experienced with BlackBerry devices is a lock up/freeze where the device gives you the impression it is doing something in the background, but then that never changes and you have to perform a battery pull to get things started again. I still think this is one reason RIM continues to have removable batteries on their devices.
Symbian
It’s been just about 10 years since I started using Nokia’s Symbian and for a long time they were my most stable platform. Then Nokia started messing with the hardware too much and skimping on internal capacities. I think many of the issues I had on Symbian were related to low internal memory. Then again, both of the Nokia N8 devices in my house randomly just lock up and won’t let the touch screen be used to activate anything so a reset is required.
webOS
Palm’s webOS (HP didn’t keep it going long enough to count in the name) has been quite stable, but still not perfect and I did experience a few random resets and freezes on my devices in the past. It does take a while for the initial sync when you setup lots of services, but I don’t count that as an instability. There have been issues in the past with backup and restore failures though and when you are relying on the cloud for so much, this just cannot happen. I also experience weird double key entry issues, but that may have been due to the crappy webOS hardware, which in and of itself was a failure of the platform.
Palm does have a major community built around hacking webOS and there are many hacks available that address issues with the platform so you can make your device more stable and reliable by following the guidance of the webOS Internals team.
Windows Phone 7
Zero! That is how many times I have seen a reset on ANY Windows Phone 7 device that I have been using in over a year. During that time I have used at least six WP7 devices on all four wireless carriers. This includes running the early tech preview on the first WP7 device all the way through the latest RTM version of Mango I have on my HTC HD7. I even have the Dell Venue Pro, with a 32GB microSD card in it, that has been rock solid stable even though I have read a number of reports of issues with that device. I don’t know if I have just been blessed with an uncanny knack for using stable WP7 devices, but from what I read online there are many more customers just as pleased as I am with the stability of Windows Phone 7.
The only issue I have seen on Windows Phone 7 is an occasional temporary freeze as many things are downloading at once, but I have not had to perform a soft reset or a battery pull on the devices yet. This only happened to me a couple times in the earlier version of WP7 prior to the NoDo and Mango updates.
I get comments from readers that Windows Phone 7 is junk and think these people likely have never used WP7 or just have a hatred for anything from Microsoft. I have been getting more comments from readers that have actually tried WP7 and the majority of them agree that it is a very good mobile operating system that continues to get better.
Is it better than an iPhone?
The question brings me back to an interesting and varied personal mobile device history over the past decade. Microsoft’s mobile smartphones all kicked off with Pocket PC 2000 Phone Edition. Most devices weren’t touch screen, lacked powerful hardware and mostly came in a candy bar form. The devices started to gain traction thanks to the Orange SPV range of devices. The original Orange SPV was built by HTC and powered by Microsoft’s Smartphone 2002 operating system.
I used each and every SPV device until the C600, switching over to a larger HTC slider at the time. The devices were functional but Microsoft’s attempt to support touch based computing in later devices was awkward and clunky, much like the experience with Windows 7. I switched to Apple’s iPhone device weeks before the 3G version was announced. Apple cut the price of the original iPhone and jail breakers had made it possible to unlock the device for use outside its original network. The entire first year of the iPhone saw me convincing myself it was nothing more than an expensive phone with a basic and functional user interface. At the time, Microsoft’s Windows Mobile operating system was at version six. Microsoft made a lot of effort to rectify some of the shortcomings of Windows Mobile on touch devices but ultimately it wasn’t enough. The iPhone 3G came along and changed the game.
Apple launched its iPhone 3G device on July 11, 2008 and brought with it the App Store. The store was an instant success and contains over 400,000 apps at the time of writing. The model of offering free and paid software in a single convenient place was clearly something that consumers desired. Google and Microsoft have both created their own marketplaces to offer similar applications on their own platforms. Flash forward to 2011 and the mobile smartphone market is dominated by Android and iPhone devices. Microsoft launched Windows Phone 7 a year ago but the platform has failed to gain much traction in the market. Microsoft’s recent Windows Phone 7.5 launch sees the company reveal its work with Nokia, Samsung and HTC. The devices are fast and the software picks up on some of the complaints of the original Windows Phone 7 release.
Is it better than an iPhone? It’s hard to say. Your view will largely depend on how you use your device. Windows Phone lacks a large portfolio of apps but the company is putting in a huge amount of effort to ensure it captures the top apps that consumers demand. The raw out of box experience of Windows Phone is a lot more unique and powerful than iOS in a number of ways. Microsoft’s inbuilt features are rich and the social aspects are unique. However, what iOS lacks in features it makes up for in apps. Microsoft still has a way to go to match the full functionality of the iPhone, but out of the box I’m comfortable with answering the question with a yes. I switched from my iPhone 4 to a HTC TITAN shortly before the iPhone 4S announcement. I, like many others, was expecting an iPhone 5 and found myself disappointed with the 4S features. Microsoft now has a gap in time where the company can ramp up its marketing efforts and get Windows Phones into the hands of consumers. Whether that happens over the holiday period remains to be seen but HTC, Nokia and Microsoft are clearly putting their money into showcasing Windows Phone. The next step is a good range of applications, something that is clearly paying off as Microsoft targets specific developers. Who knows where Windows Phone will be in a year but for Microsoft it will be rewarding if average consumers can answer the “is it better than an iPhone” question themselves.
