iOS - Android - Windows Phone 7 Comparison/Thoughts (3G, Verizon, computer)

[macjr82]

I've heard of multi-console gamers, but I'm the first multi-mobile guy I know . I now possess 3 of the major smartphone OS devices in my household. My wife's iPhone 4, my government issued Samsung Captivate (Galaxy S), my recently purchased ( for $1 ) HTC Surround. I have been using an iPhone 3G since September. After spending some time with all of them I thought I'd share my thoughts.

I initially wanted a WP7 with a keyboard. I still do, but the only one available on AT&T was the LG Quantum. The preferred WP7 phone on AT&T is the Samsung Focus, which is basically a Galaxy S device with the WP7 OS. I was going to get this device, as it is now available for $99, but found the HTC Surround available for $1 at Best Buy and couldn't argue with that price. I still plan on getting a Dell Venue Pro if it ever comes available on AT&T. Also, with MWC and WDCC not too far off, I won't feel bad if a new hot device comes out this year that I want to upgrade to since I only spent a $1 for my current phone. I passed my 3G down to my son, he wanted a phone and was going to get a touch for his Bday anyway. I'm definitely getting an iPad 2 and I may get a iPod touch as well, to still have access to the Apple app store. I'm glad i waited for the 2nd gen iPad, btw. The iPad isn't the type of device I'd refresh every year. Things that are missing from the current iPad that are integral to the future plans of Apple (like front facing camera/face time) seem to be making their way to the next iteration.

iOS/iPhone 4
A very solid device. My wife did have the dropped call problem but I never did. I realized this was b/c of the different ways we hold phones. She, has a case now, so no issues. The Safari browser is the best of the integrated browsers. In my opinion it has the second best on-screen keyboard (like the way word completion/correction works on WP7 better) but objectively it is about equal in accuracy with WP7 with any differences coming down to preference. Non-jailbroken you are limited with what you can do with the device, but everything it does, it does extremely well. It has cut and paste and multi-tasking. Which WP7 currently does not. The strength of the platform is, and has always been, with it's apps. It's app store is the easiest to navigate and find what's good. Also the app store tends to have the lowest median prices on apps. The thing I hate the most about the iPhone is iTunes, which is a horrible program IMO. I find it sluggish, and all the simplicity of the iPhone itself is lost on this software. I find the retina display to be the best mobile display, better even than the Galaxy S AMOLED screen.

Android/Samsung Captivate
The 1st thing you notice with this is the display. It definitely has a wow factor. The live wallpapers are awesome. My current one is a loop of the Thundercats opening sequence. The "droid does" commercials are apt for all android devices. Perhaps, it may even do too much for your avg consumer. Android phones are for people who liked windows mobile. It's definitely a tech enthusiasts device. It's chief problem is that it is no way elegant. You have to figure it out. Things that are simple on the other devices aren't here. One of the guys at my local AT&T store names the Captivate as his favorite device, stating if he could only have one, that's waht ti would be. Still, he laments that people constantly come in asking how to do this or that with the phone. He goes to google and types in the questions and see 30 or 40 threads of people asking the same thing. You shouldn't have to google to use your phone. Well at least google search is integrated to the home page. This phone also has the worst keyboard, I'm constantly making mistakes. It does have the most input options, including drawing, and Swype, which was use to set a Guiness record. Swype keyboard on the Samsung Galaxy S was used to set Guinness World Record - Phone Arena I have only used the standard default key board though. The android app store does not have as many apps as the iOS app store, but it does have apps you won't find there. Like SNES emulators. You also have to watch for malware, spyware, and adware as well. Haven't used any syncing software. For some reason the Captivate is incompatible with Kies, the software used by the other Galaxy S lines. It is recognized as an external hard drive when you connect it to a computer. There is third party software out,as well as hacks to use it with Kies, but I've not used or done any of them.

Windows Phone 7/HTC Surround
I once said comparing the iPod touch is better entertainment device, Zune is the better media device. This comparison still holds true for the iPhone vs WP7. The navigation is more elegant and even easier for one handed use than the iPhone. It's reminiscent to how you navigate around Xbox and definitely the ZuneHD. Some app developers have even incorporated this aesthetics into there apps. For instance, you navigate the IMDB and Facebook apps on WP7 by swiping and tapping, vice the dragging and holding of the other mobile OSs. The integrated Xbox Live, Facebook, and Zune apps are seamless. The OS is actually easier to operate/navigate than even the iOS. It also included an FM radio, and streaming from the Zune Marketplace for Zune Pass users. Also any videos you've purchased on the Zune marketplace are available on your phone,as well as your Xbox and PC. I find the Zune better at Music discovery than iTunes and Smart DJ better than Genius. It's nice to check what friends are on live without going to my PC or booting up the Xbox. Halo waypoint is on here as well. It's fun getting achievements on your phone. This may be specific to the surround but it has a sound EQ, pus Dolby Mobile and SRS. It has a kickstand a la' the HTC EVO. Unlike Android, (and like the iPhone) it has a Netflix streaming app. The combination of the sliding speaker with the stand and sound quality make it the perfect desk app. I now have netflix playing all day when I'm at my PC at work. All not perfect in WP7 world though. There are markedly less apps when compared to the other marketplaces. Especially outside of games. The marketplace, though easy to navigate, is harder to find what you're looking for. I know it sounds contradictory but true. This has even given rise to apps on the marketplace that are for searching the marketplace. In direct contrast to iPhone, I find it easier to view the marketplace on the pc than the phone. I think the problem is they basically adapted the music/video marketplace to the app store and it doesn't work as well for that format. There is lack of cut and paste. Though everything is so smartly done, i haven't needed it. The phone kind of anticipates want you want to do. I'd still prefer to have it though. It is supposedly going to com in an update. Also there is no multitasking, though I haven't had any issue with this as well, just as I didn't on the iPhone. The resume state works well. The view on the home (tiles) page as well as the apps page are portrait only, which is odd. Though once inside the view changes with the orientation of the phone, as you'd expect. Zune software is used ti sync apps, movie, and music. It works the best out of the three and even includes wireless syncing.

Summary
All three devices are awesome and have their own strengths and weaknesses. The iPhone has the best app store, and solid, beautiful hardware (death grip aside), but some may find it too restrictive. Also, the iOS is very elegant, it's getting a little long in the tooth. The Samsung Galaxy S is indisputably the best android device on AT&T. It does a lot more than the other two. Still, most people would never get the full potential out of it. It is the least user friendly of the three. Also, it's open nature can open you up to some bad things as well. The WP7 is a great break from windows mobile, it has the best multimedia experience of the three, and if you are already in the Microsoft ecosystem, it is the most integrated. It is also the most intuitive in it's operation, IMO. That, said it has the least number of apps and lacks basic features the other OSs have.

So basically iPhone/iOS for apps, Samsung Galaxy S for the poweruser, and HTC Surround/WP7 for the multimedia enthusiast.


Gallery:
Lock Screens - Wallpaper on Captivate is actually video. Yes, my wife has Marvel super heroes as her iPhone 4 wallpaper


Home Screens -Yes my wife has Mario as her background


IMDB






WHERE CAN I GET THESE PHONES CHEAP?

All of these are with two year service agreements. Upgrade lengths vary from 1yr to 18 months.

iPhone:
PDAs & Smartphones - Wireless from AT&T

Apple - iPhone 3GS - View the features of the iPhone 3GS.

3GS 8GB -$49

Apple iPhone 3GS (Refurb Cosmetic Blemish) -
8GB - $9
16GB - $49
32GB - $99

Apple iPhone 3GS 8 GB (Refurb) - $19


iPhone 4
Apple - iPhone 4 - FaceTime, Retina display, and more features

Apple iPhone 4 (Refurb Cosmetic Blemish)
16GB - $79
32GB- $179

Apple iPhone 4 (Refurb)
16GB - $99
32GB - $199

Apple iPhone 4
16GB - $199
32GB - $299

Android

Samsung Captivate
Android Phone - Captivate Smartphone | Samsung Captivate Galaxy S Android Smartphones

$.01 at Amazon for a new account, $49 if upgrading an individual account, $199 if upgrading a line on a family account, and $99 if adding a line.
AmazonWireless: Samsung Captivate Android Phone (AT&T) (http://wireless.amazon.com/Samsung-Captivate-Android-Phone-AT/dp/B003TLMQG8/ref=sh_br_ph_1 - broken link)

$149 at AT&T and Best Buy
Samsung Captivate (TM) Cell Phone - Wireless from AT&T
http://www.bestbuy.com/site/Samsung+-+Captivate+Mobile+Phone+-+Black+%28AT%26T%29/1113847.p?id=1218224463574&skuId=1113847&st=samsun g%20captivate&cp=1&lp=1&contract_desc= (broken link)

Several android phones, including Xperia available for free at Best Buy
http://tinyurl.com/4l2cmyz (broken link)


Windows Phone 7

HTC Surround
HTC - Products - HTC 7 Surround - Overview (http://www.htc.com/www/product/7surround/overview.html - broken link)

$.01 for a new account, $49.99 if upgrading an individual account, $149.99 if part of a family account, and $79.99 if you add a line at Amazon
AmazonWireless: HTC Surround Windows Phone (AT&T)

$99 at Best Buy
http://tinyurl.com/4seeumw (broken link)

$199 at AT&T
HTC Surround (TM) - Gray Cell Phone - Wireless from AT&T

Samsung Focus ( Samsung Focus | Windows Phone | AT&T | Samsung SGH-I917 - Cell Phones ) and LG Quantum ( LG Quantum C900 Cell Phones & Mobile Phones - LG Electronics US ) are available for $99 at AT&T. Their price starts at $.01 for a new account at Amazon.
Cell Phones & Mobile Devices - Wireless from AT&T (http://tinyurl.com/4rks6ah - broken link)
AmazonWireless: LG Quantum Windows Phone (AT&T)
AmazonWireless: Samsung Focus Windows Phone (AT&T)

[southgeorgia]

i'm interested to see what WP7 devices are coming to verizon.


there is a chance i may leave blackberry for one of these. i want to see how microsoft office and email works on the phone. it has other features that interest me outside of its capabilites as a "work" device.

[Peregrine]

My problem with Microsoft is how they blew the 6 and 6.5 Windows Mobile.
Those phones were ok but were lousy as an attempt to compete with Apple. The Media Player was a joke. The browsing was a joke. And then when Windows Mobile 7 came out they completely abandoned all those Win 6.5 people. Completely.
Even when 6.5 came out they were testing this thing caled "Sliding Panels" which would have made a great touch screen phone. But at that point all you could buy was WinMoby 6.5 with that stupid START button and sliding panels that were NOT touch activated.
As someone that blindly roots for Microsoft, that was the last straw for me.
I will never consider another Windows Mobile Phone.

[macjr82]

Your perspective is being skewed incorrectly when you say that they were lousy as an attempt at the iPhone. WM6 predates the iPhone. 6.5 was never part of the winmo roadmap, but was necessary evil b/c Windows 7 wasn't ready and they needed something that could at least do multi-touch. Also, what made winmo so buggy and crashtastic was at it's roots it was still pocketpc 2000 kernel with almost decade of updates layered on top of it. Also, they were trying to have the software do things the original kernel was never designed to do and couldn't handle. What created this problem was the fact that many businesses, Winmo's main users, had custom software upon which this kernel was based and their businesses ran. Windows Phone 7 is a complete break from winmo, but winmo still exists for enterprise users.

[Peregrine]

I disagree totally.

Even as late as Sept 2009, Microsoft was claiming that 30 new Winmoby 6.5 phones would be out on the market "soon". Hmmmm, whatever happened to all those?
Scrapped.

The entire time I owned several ( 3 ) Windows Mobile Phones I never recieved ONE update for any of them. Not one.

I went from Winmoby 5, to 6 to 6.5.

My last Windows Mobile phone was the HTC Ozone. This came out well after any iPhone. No my HTC Ozone might not have been designed to compete with the iPhone but by the time that thing came out MS was already losing marketshare by the bucket.
How do you do NOTHING to compete with a market leader?
Well they didn't and market share fell to SINGLE DIGITS.
Stupid and short sighted.

6.5 came with the sliding panels which MS themselves said they were going to use that as a test bed for the next touch screen phone. Apparently it tested poorly.

WinMoby is dead, man.

Enterprise users can, should and are being encouraged to switch to Windows Phone 7.

[macjr82]

Originally Posted by Peregrine

How do you do NOTHING to compete with a market leader?

That's waht Windows Phone 7 is. You can't just crap out a new OS, that's why 6.5 was created, b/c Windows Phone 7 was taking longer than anticapated. Windows Phone 7 doesn't even have all the stuff Microsft wants in it now (cut & paste, multi-tasking), or a released CDMA version, but it had to be out by this holiday season or else.

Ballmer: Win Mobile 6.5 an unwanted stopgap | Electronista

As I said, all 6.5 was was a stop gap b/c of al the Windows Phone 7 delays and windows 6 predated the iPhone. Windows Phone 7 is Microsofts answer to the iPhone. 6-6.5 weren't and were never intended to be. I had a tilt, it was updated to 6.1 by HTC via there website. From there I did subsequent updates myself via XDA. As far as updationg your phone, most updates are blocked by the service provider. Android is going through the same problem now. That is alao a correction Windows made with WP7, the abilitiy to push updates OTA. back to Windows 6, it has been updated several times(6,6.1,6.5, 6.51, 6.5.5) Yes, Windows want enterprise to move away from the older OS with the CE kernel, but they are not going to stop supporting the ones that haven't. In fact supporting them is what dug Microsft into the hole it is in.



Edit: Bad news for WP7 but winmo actually outsold it in it's inauaguaral quarter. granted it came out half-way through the quarter.

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/articl...e-7-2011-1.DTL

[Peregrine]

And that delay and subsequent abandonment of everything prior to 7 keft a bad taste in my mouth.
Done with you Microsoft...

[Coldjensens]

For me the windows system is simply more practical. With windows I can manipulate my Outlook E-mail folders in exactly the same way that I can on my computer. You cannot do that with the IPhone nor the Android. People keep claiming that you can and then when I tell them what I want to do, they say "Oh you cannot do that" I rely heavily on E-mail and I need to be able to find E-mail by sender, by whom I sent it to, by subject, or by text contents. I need to view subfolders and I need to be able to switch between various folders as well as look at sent and received mail together.

I had a Samsung blackjack and loved it. It was not great for browsing, but my phone is for business use. Calls and E-mail. It worked beautifully for those uses. The speaker phone was very good. I liked everything about it, except that it was connected to AT & T.

However I will not go back to AT&T. The service is horrible dropped calls all l the time, no service with some frequency. I have not had any of those problems since switching to Verizon (unless the person I call has AT& T then their end drops the calls). I hope that Verizon comes out with a good windows based smart phone soon.

[Peregrine]

Originally Posted by Coldjensens

. You cannot do that with the IPhone nor the Android

True. You can with a BB, though.

Like I said: I enjoyed my WinMoby phones.
But it's ONLY strength, prior to Win7, was Exchange integration. In every other aspect, every other phone made it look silly.

[Coldjensens]

Originally Posted by Peregrine

True. You can with a BB, though.

Like I said: I enjoyed my WinMoby phones.
But it's ONLY strength, prior to Win7, was Exchange integration. In every other aspect, every other phone made it look silly.

You cna only do it with a BB if you buy the super expensive verson of the BB exchange server. The less expensive one does not integrate well. I ahd a lot of problems with BB working with windows programs. I also had a problem withthem breaking all the time. They are very fragile and/or subject to quirky software problems that make them unusable. However The Androids seem to eb the same way. Maybe the IPhone is better, but my son has gone through several of those. I woudl love to get a phone that does telephone calls and E-mail really really well and nothing else, plus the phone is tough as nails. No more dead phones becuase it is in your pocket when you walk up a hil land get a little sweaty, or becuase you brush it lightly against the wall while walking, or becuase it has been operating for a long time and it just gets tired and decides to retire.

All I really want is three things excellent telephone operation (including speakerphone), excellent E-mail operation, and durability with no defects. Give me those three things and you cna keep the navigator, parked car finder, bar code scanner, games, internet surfing, and all the other junk, just make a phone that does the basics well instead of one that does a thousand things, but does nto work very well.