Android vs Windows Phones

knowlton

knowlton

knowlton

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Joined
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Hi all,

I've been putting off upgrading for a while now, however I've been told that it's coming to that time when I have to start looking at my options. Yes, after 2 years, it's that time when my contract is about to run out in a matter of 1/2 months!!

Now I've posted on here before about the Motorola Defy, which is still an Android phone that I'm particularly keen on. The price of it has dropped dramatically since I last looked - it's now just £220!!

However, I've always been a fan of Nokia phones and with their recent announcement of incorporating Windows on to their new phones, I was wondering whether anyone had any thoughts as to which one is ultimately better - Android or Windows?
 
At this moment in time Android is leagues ahead of Windows Phone 7.

Who knows in the future...

Defy is a half decent phone but I wouldn't personally recommend it, you could get a Desire HD for that kind of price now I think.
 
Skyfall said:
At this moment in time Android is leagues ahead of Windows Phone 7.
Click to expand...

This depends on how you judge it.

Sure Android has more apps and has more customisation but watching the Mango presentation earlier convinced me the that Windows Phone 7 OS is in a league of its own.
 
Get an iPhone 4, all other phones are rubbish in comparison.








Sorry, I'm bored. Can you tell?
Sarge made me do it!
 
Abooie said:
This depends on how you judge it.

Sure Android has more apps and has more customisation but watching the Mango presentation earlier convinced me the that Windows Phone 7 OS is in a league of its own.
Click to expand...
Can you link the presentation?

The main problems I personally have with WP7 is firstly the lack of sexy phones, secondly the UI which I'm not a fan of at all and the lack of apps.

From an objective viewpoint my impression of WP7 was that there was really not enough to it, mango and future updates may improve that but there is also the lack of apps available, sdk problems not to mention that WP7 is selling a meagre amount of devices at the moment, around a tenth of what iphone/android are selling.

For me it is currently not a great platform to back for consumers or developers.

However, look at how Android has taken off in the very few years it has been around and I would hazard a guess that android was not doing much better than WP7 at the same time in it's life and it had it's problems too.

With the backing of Nokia WP7 will sell a lot more units, there's no denying that, with more units comes more incentive for developers to make/port apps and more variety of handsets for consumers as I have a feeling Nokia will pull out all of the stops for their first WP7 phone.

In conclusion I would say hang fire on WP7 until it's a little more mature and maybe wait for a Nokia WP7.
 
Out of interest, when should we start seeing Nokia WP7 phones appear? They still seem to be flogging the last signs of life out of Symbian at the moment.
 
Skyfall said:
Can you link the presentation?

The main problems I personally have with WP7 is firstly the lack of sexy phones, secondly the UI which I'm not a fan of at all and the lack of apps.

From an objective viewpoint my impression of WP7 was that there was really not enough to it, mango and future updates may improve that but there is also the lack of apps available, sdk problems not to mention that WP7 is selling a meagre amount of devices at the moment, around a tenth of what iphone/android are selling.

For me it is currently not a great platform to back for consumers or developers.

However, look at how Android has taken off in the very few years it has been around and I would hazard a guess that android was not doing much better than WP7 at the same time in it's life and it had it's problems too.

With the backing of Nokia WP7 will sell a lot more units, there's no denying that, with more units comes more incentive for developers to make/port apps and more variety of handsets for consumers as I have a feeling Nokia will pull out all of the stops for their first WP7 phone.

In conclusion I would say hang fire on WP7 until it's a little more mature and maybe wait for a Nokia WP7.
Click to expand...

Have a look through some of these: http://www.winrumors.com/hands-on-windows-phone-mango-feature-demos-video/
 
Robbo said:
Get an iPhone 4, all other phones are rubbish in comparison.



Sorry, I'm bored. Can you tell?
Sarge made me do it!
Click to expand...

Yeah, You wouldn't want an antenna that actually works, or the ability to have widgets on your homescreen, or decent multitasking, or the ability to download apps of your choice rather than apple's, or custom roms, or a screen bigger tan 3.5 inches, or a choice of hardware at all for that matter, or...
 
tomk11 said:
Yeah, You wouldn't want an antenna that actually works, or the ability to have widgets on your homescreen, or decent multitasking, or the ability to download apps of your choice rather than apple's, or custom roms, or a screen bigger tan 3.5 inches, or a choice of hardware at all for that matter, or...
Click to expand...

The antenna problem was invented by the press.

Widgets are useless and you don't need them.

iOS has real multi-tasking.

Apps of your choice? What are you talking about.

Custom roms? I'm not a nerd.

3.5 inches is the optimal size for a screen, any bigger is just wrong.
 
Robbo said:
The antenna problem was invented by the press.

Widgets are useless and you don't need them.

iOS has real multi-tasking.

Apps of your choice? What are you talking about.

Custom roms? I'm not a nerd.

3.5 inches is the optimal size for a screen, any bigger is just wrong.
Click to expand...

both your posts have made me giggle.
 
Probably should contribute to the thread I guess,

Just looked through those windows vids (cheers for the links Abooie/Athanor), seems some decent updates, a lot of which the competitors already have, some 'neat' bits and some bits I have no desire for,

either way it does look like Mango will bring WP7 up to roughly the same feature level as iOS/Android (better in some areas, worse in others) which is good, but there are still some issues:

It's a much more closed system than Android, which I think has been one of the things that has made Android do so well, yet unlike apple they've allowed multiple manufacturers which has led to some issues with the updates, so kinda the worst aspects of both worlds in some respects...

Stigma of previous mobile windows versions, maybe not a fair point but definitely something that will hinder take up

And overall usage, does WP7 really offer anything that iOS or Android don't already? According to Gartner in the last quarter there were more pre-WP7 MS phones sold than than WP7, and the overall number was way way lower than Android/iOS/RIM or even the 'dead' Symbian,

With that level of support can it really make a dent in market share, Android is making staggering gains every quarter, as a primary target would you develop for an OS with base of (supposedly) >100 million, or one with less than a tenth of that?

We'll see, but I can't see WP7 making a massive impact any time soon...
 
I generally dont have an opinion on either side and I have owned the following:

htc hero
iphone 4
san francisco
desire hd
lg optimus 2x

both systems have pros and cons.

One thing that really stood out for me recently is a comparison of the htc hero and iphone 3gs. I am using a hero as a stand in phone until next month and it is UTTER pants. It is slow beyond belief and horrific to do anything on. I have flashed cyanogen 6 onto it and still I really want to throw it out of the window.

The 3gs was released at broadly the same time as the hero and it remains a pretty great phone to use day to day.

I think my point is that for all the wonder of the customisation of android, when you are locked into an 18m contract your phone may be like a dog at the end of term as software stops considering your hardware. With apple, I don't think this will ever be the case because their cycles are much longer than the average android manufacturer.

Just throwing that out there.

When you take a closed windows system and start having a high number of high hardware releases, this would seem like the worst of both worlds; locked into one system that stops considering your hardware.
 
Snax said:
I think my point is that for all the wonder of the customisation of android, when you are locked into an 18m contract your phone may be like a dog at the end of term as software stops considering your hardware. With apple, I don't think this will ever be the case because their cycles are much longer than the average android manufacturer.
Click to expand...


moot point now as that has been resolved with agreement for OEM's to supply updates for 18 months.

And a mid to top end Android phones have enough power and features to last 18 -24 months. HTC Hero was a Gen1 device thats why it didn't stand the test of time.
 
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