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FIRST: the intention of this post it not to flame. These is just my point of view and I would love to hear some other people’s point of view.
This is just an observation from a real cell phone junkie who is coming from WinMo and iPhone to android and is a bit disappointed.
It just feels like the Android platform is overrated and half baked. While it has its “Google apps” advantage, most of the other parts of it are seriously lacking.
Coming from an iPhone(which I hated because of apple’s dictatorship and because it feels like a dumbphone) and the HD2, which is a brilliant device with a very capable OS which has stability issues and lack of new useful apps development, I wanted to try something new with Android. It should have been the prefect mix between openness and development of new useful apps (which WinMo lacks). So far I have been nothing but disappointed.
Some of the issue I noticed and why I think Android is really overrated are:
- Very low end apps. Most of them are poorly designed and unstable. There are a few good apps but none from the major players.
- BUGGY apps!!! One of the reason WinMo was failing is because of cross device support for apps. Apps that would work on one device would not work on another because of different hardware chipsets. I was sure that Google would see this is a point of failure and will make sure this won’t happen with Android. WRONG: almost every app I downloaded has bugs and is not working properly with the N1 and if you just read the comments for the various apps you see the horror. So many people complain about FC’s and instability of the apps. This means that Google simply failed in this area and there is no real cross device support. Each app needs to be tweaked to work on each hardware set to get it right. This is going to be a huge point of failure for the platform.
- Crippled copy and paste. Seriously? You can’t copy and paste from everywhere in version 2.1??? didn’t they learn from apple?
- No built in Tethering. Again this is OS version 2.1 and there is no tethering option unless you root you phone.
- Feels sluggish at time: even on a 1Ghz processor the phone does feel sluggish at time (and yes I close my apps with task manager). Some say it is because the RAM was not fully utilized in this OS. Why have Google released a phone that suppose to have 512MB RAM with only half active? Didn’t they think it would cause bad experience?
- Very poor multimedia support: and I mean VERY poor. Even the built in YouTube Video player will not rescale the video to show on the entire screen if the video was not encoded specifically to the N1 resolution, not to mention other video apps who will NEVER show videos at full screen as they were designed for lower resolutions. There is really no way to watch DIVX or XVID and everything needs to be converted. There are dozens of media players on the market and NONE can do either tasks! And yxflash, the only player that can supposedly play DIVX is doing such a poor job it is a joke. WinMo has ONE player that beats all dozens on the android market. I read somewhere it isrelated to the SDK being very limited in Multimedia. I find it hard to believe that Google is trying to compete with apple witch such a poor Multimedia support. I even purchased OrbLive and the picture quality is extremely poor because they were forced to use the only codec that Android can support for streaming which is 3gp and has very poor quality.
- No big brand name apps: Skype, Sling and many other big brands are simply not there. I know you can use Fring as an alternative (or Nimbuzz) but both are very buggy and have delay when using skype calling. You also can’t turn off the screen when you use the VOIP apps as it is causing the sound to break.
- VPN: very poor support. I can’t get the connection to stay connected while it works just fine on the HD2 and iPhone. The latest software update from Google completely broke VPN support and now it won’t connect at all.
- There is no real way to backup all you apps AND settings of the apps unless you have rooted your phone. If you want to upgrade your ROM or change ROM’s you need to reinstall everything (unless you are rooted and then you can backup your apps settings as well). This is something that should be implemented out of the box. WinMo has exactly the same problem.
- Failure in the gaming area. There are maybe 20 good games on the Market that actually use OpenGL 3d. other games look like they are from the mid 90s. I was hoping to see better games on Android than on WinMo. I guess I was wrong here as well.
I wanted to like Android, I really did, and maybe it will get better with time, however currently it has exactly the issues as WinMo phones has (buggy apps mainly, some OS slowdowns ) and if Google is not going to address these issues they will find themselves in the same position as Microsoft is finding itself now.
For now I’ll have to go back using my HD2 and just wait until Android gets a little better and more usable for me. I just really don’t understand people hate WinMo so much if Android is not much better (at least from my consumer standpoint).
Thanks for reading.
Number one reason and the only one I need to hate WinMo is Internet Exploder. It's broken badly. They had better fix this in 7 or they are done. The fact that you have to use a third party browser to do anything useful is total BS.
I think for most people, who don't want to think to hard, Iphone OS is probably a better choice. The interface is dead simple and there are a ton of apps. Most people won't realize that they are being fenced in.
The majority of your rambling is about apps. I don't think anyone overrates Android's app catalog. Everyone knows it's much smaller than the iPhone's.
It's not overrated in the way that people tend to praise it, which is openness and customization.
I agree on IE but like the fact that you can chose various browsers.
App support is dreadful compared to the Iphone but you have to look at the sales figures in ITMS vs. Market; $ = incentive. Yes right now it's apples and oranges but when someone is researching what device to buy and what carrier to swear allegiance to for 2 years, there are certain variables considered.
Take a heavy facebook user. The iphone fbook app is solid. Yes it has issues, but compared to the android solution, there is no contest. The fact that you have to use m.facebook.com when linking from your notifications panel in android is quite unacceptable (just one of many issues people have brought up). Pandora on the iphone is also quite a bit better than on android.
I disagree in regards to your comment about the phone being snappy. I have my old iphone 3g and my nexus 1 sitting side by side and real world feel says that the n1 wins in performance.
For me there are two things I wish were present with the nexus one/androidOS that are present on the iphone.
1 - app support. That is targeting android.
2 - the keyboard. For some reason I can type far more accurately and with greater speed on the iphone than on my n1. Not a deal breaker at all
You bring up tethering. There is no native tethering on the iphone without jailbreaking or paying for an app (pdanet) for the official stateside carrier (att). Your nexus one has the ability to install pdanet and you can tether all you want at a small price. Of course, you can root your phone and suddenly this ask is satisfied; just like jailbreaking and updating your carrier file.
If you want to talk about setbacks; how about the lack of MMS for the first gen iphones while the 3g/3gs both have this. No reason whatsoever to not include the functionality in the 2g other than slow deprecation of support for the phone...that just sucks.
There are plenty of solid games in Market for your device. I had to watch a video "50 android games" to be made aware of quite a few of these tiles.
For me, nothing you wrote kept me from migrating back to android after spending a year with an iphone (g1->iphone->n1; the entire time I had the iphone I missed my g1) But I am not the target audience device manufs are going after...almost nobody here is.
All your points are valid and are what the atypical customer thinks about, cares about and bases their monetary decisions on.
Good post
deprecate said:
App support is dreadful compared to the Iphone but you have to look at the sales figures in ITMS vs. Market; $ = incentive. Yes right now it's apples and oranges but when someone is researching what device to buy and what carrier to swear allegiance to for 2 years, there are certain variables considered.
Take a heavy facebook user. The iphone fbook app is solid. Yes it has issues, but compared to the android solution, there is no contest. The fact that you have to use m.facebook.com when linking from your notifications panel in android is quite unacceptable (just one of many issues people have brought up). Pandora on the iphone is also quite a bit better than on android.
I disagree in regards to your comment about the phone being snappy. I have my old iphone 3g and my nexus 1 sitting side by side and real world feel says that the n1 wins in performance.
For me there are two things I wish were present with the nexus one/androidOS that are present on the iphone.
1 - app support. That is targeting android.
2 - the keyboard. For some reason I can type far more accurately and with greater speed on the iphone than on my n1. Not a deal breaker at all
You bring up tethering. There is no native tethering on the iphone without jailbreaking or paying for an app (pdanet) for the official stateside carrier (att). Your nexus one has the ability to install pdanet and you can tether all you want at a small price. Of course, you can root your phone and suddenly this ask is satisfied; just like jailbreaking and updating your carrier file.
If you want to talk about setbacks; how about the lack of MMS for the first gen iphones while the 3g/3gs both have this. No reason whatsoever to not include the functionality in the 2g other than slow deprecation of support for the phone...that just sucks.
There are plenty of solid games in Market for your device. I had to watch a video "50 android games" to be made aware of quite a few of these tiles.
For me, nothing you wrote kept me from migrating back to android after spending a year with an iphone (g1->iphone->n1; the entire time I had the iphone I missed my g1) But I am not the target audience device manufs are going after...almost nobody here is.
All your points are valid and are what the atypical customer thinks about, cares about and bases their monetary decisions on.
Good post
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Thanks for all the replies.
However please keep in mind that in my original post, i was hardly making any comparison to the iPhone and at the end of my post i stated that i am going back to the HD2 . The iPhone is the last platform i am going back to, even with all the apps. i Just cant keep with the Apple / Jailbreakers game and all the limitations.
You do have native tethering on the iPhone, only it is disabled because at&t does not want you to have it. in other countries it works out of the box. no Jailbreak needed.
I agree that market share = incentive for developers however i am a bit worried that with the current state of the SDK, we will see the same old issues with cross device support for apps, and this is exactly where WinMo failed and the iPhone won (because there is only one device to support (chipset wise), so far)
If only the apps that are in the market now would work better, my point of view will be much different.
I want to use Skype, OK there is no real skype app so i tried to use Fring...DELAY on the call. unusable. I tried to use Nimbuzz, it is better but you cant turn off the screen so the battery dies fast.
I want to watch a movie > need to convert.
I want to watch live TV > there is still not a single app that can actually do this. ORB's app is really bad at the current version.
I want to tether > need to root (i am ok with this) but wireless tether never connected to my laptop. unusable. Wired tether worked fine.
I did watch the 50 best games on Android Video and the are in par with WinMo's games and so far WinMo is giving better usability. but the OS is not so stable hehe...
I guess there is no perfect phone.
Overall is the lack of actual functionally is what killed it for me. I hope it will get better in the future and then i can give it another try
as you said, there is no perfect phone. but give it a little time, android is only a year old after all. i for one have little to no problems with FCs from any of the apps i'm using, so it also depends on what you like to do with your phone.
my main issue atm. is the lack of good bluetooth enabled voice dialing (and lack of any voice dialing at all for non-english users).
and the pet peeve would be the missing framework for the trackball colors.
other than that i'm really enjoiying the relative openess of the platform, and having cyanogen as a developer
Tether without root with PDAnet. This program works great.
Looks like the OP need's to have a read over yonder
There's also been a great deal of talk in the development forum regarding new openGL support in 2.0.
App space has been limited in android and thats a factor, but this is being resolved and we will start to see more 'pretty' applications, but I would argue that android has just as many useful and good applications as the iPhone.
The ONLY windows mobile device that I would trade my Nexus One for is an HD2. It'd be a tough decision though. My touch pro 2 was fun from a customization stand point because I seemed to flash a new rom at least once every couple of days. However, it was painful to use, it was slow, required frequent restarts, work-arounds galore, etc etc. Android may have some bugs, but I have far less trouble with day to day use with my Nexus than I did with my TP2. The hardware power of the HD2 would probably alleviate the thing that killed the TP2 for me and that was the annoying speed (or lack thereof).
Iphone OS is boring, but it works reliably. Safari mobile on my Ipod touch is a great browsing experience (nexus is better though, simply due to the power).
The only major problem I have with Android 2.1 on my nexus is its lack of full exchange support. However, if I really cared that much about it I would drop the $20 to get Touchdown and be done with it. Oh, and I would really love it if a full version of Epocrates made its way to android sometime soon.
This is of course for my uses, and in my experience. Therefore, I am just adding my opinion to the bunch...
Firstly, how can you say the N1 is laggy? Seriously? Especially compared to a WinMo device, and even the iPhone 3GS. The N1 is hands down the fastest smart phone I have ever used, whether it be my own personally owned smart phone, or one I was testing for work. Most actions are instant or near instant in their result, and the only time I find myself waiting at all is when data transfer from the network is involved, and it does that faster on my N1 than any other phone I have tried! Actually, I can load some websites faster than my computer, and I am not talking about sites that use flash either.
Secondly, yes a 1 year old OS platform does not have the same level of app support that a 4 year old platform has(iPhone/iTouch) or a decade old platform (WM). However, it is an open source platform that is growing quickly. While not all 15K apps are perfect for every device, this is true of the WM platform and the iPhone platform. There are plenty of great apps, that don't reqiure root.
Thirdly, the Android OS supports the same media playback functions as the iPhone OS... and actually can handle more in some regards. The N1 will have native flash support someday(hopefully very soon), where as Apple has picked a fight with Adobe, and likely never will have flash support. To say the Android OS, and the N1 falls short in multi-media compared to the iPhone is ignorant, to say the least. WM does support more formats, but at the same time that is a result of a OS in developement a lot longer than Android, as well the current Android OS can support Divx, et al, but companies like CorePlayer do not want to make an app until this support is in the SDK natively, and CorePlayer has pointed out they are working closely with Google, and it looks as though Android 2.5(Froyo).
Fourthly, as someone that sells cell phones for a living, the Android OS is the best smart phone OS for me to sell to consumers by a long ways. It is much more functional than the BB OS, yet maintains the ease of use. iPhone OS lacks most of the top smart phone functions, and WinMo is too slow and buggy. While 3rd party apps are not perfect, this is true of any platform, and at least with Android it will force close instead of freeze the phone. As well, the apps that are quality work very well and blow most other stuff out of the water, ie CameraFX. I have yet to have a customer complain that a free app wasn't working right... nor complain that the phones were buggy.
I was someone that came from winmo.
Android is much more polished than wimo, but it's barebones out of the box.
Winmo is much more packed with utilities out of the box, but lacks the polish of android.
That has alot to do with the timeframes of when these things derived. Android thrives on the "there's an app for that!" ecosystem.
Up until winmo (6.1?) there was no place to just get a quick app, so MS had to implement more things to give a better out of box experience. Too bad they lacked cleanliness.
Yes, Android has bugs and Yes, Market is poor compared to iPhone. But if you sum things up, I think Android wins. And Nexus wins as well, since I has the best hardware on the market today (or one of the best) 1Ghz CPU + AMOLED display + big resolution
Sorry, double post.
- There is no real way to backup all you apps AND settings of the apps unless you have rooted your phone. If you want to upgrade your ROM or change ROM’s you need to reinstall everything (unless you are rooted and then you can backup your apps settings as well). This is something that should be implemented out of the box. WinMo has exactly the same problem.
Give the market a closer look, and download MyBackup - it does indeed backup apps and settings, along with other things like bookmarks, contacts, the usual. This is the only point I could point out from your post without having to go into extensive detail ._.
As well, to add to my last post, there is multi-phone support with the apps and the Android OS... if this wasn't so, why would the Moto apps work on the Nexus One? While an app written for Android 1.0/1.5/1.6 might not work on 2.1 perfectly, this does not change the fact an app written with the 2.1 SDK will work on any phone running 2.1(actually, SDK 2.0+ will work with any 2.0+ phone, minus live wallpapers.)
But that is to be expected, just as an app written for iPhone OS 1.0 won't work properly with 3.1.3, or WM5.0 apps won't work with WM6.5 properly.
Isn't this a pointless debate.
It like like trying to debate good vs evil, butter vs margarine, pro-choice vs pro-life?
He seems to have come up with his own very logical, sound reasons why and why not android is over rated. There are countless arguments for both sides and I've read all 15 post of this. Android like the iPhone OS like Windows, like symbian all have their strong and weak points. No perfect phone OS out there. But rather whiny and complain of this and that maybe improve it, like some of the really great developers here which advances Android OS and make it great for all of us users.
In the end do I care if you move to Window mobile...not really. Hope you are happy. Move on. Have a nice life.
amen sir
this thread is only worthy of a one line reply. ...
Well... Having never used a WinMo device. I can't argue that side of things... I owned a Blackberry (NEVER again!!!!), and I own an iPod Touch. Sure, the iTouch isn't the phone, but they're certainly one in the same. My iTouch is jailbroken btw.
With that said, I've never owned a better overall device than the N1. Don't get me wrong, it has its quirks and issues. But man, this thing IS my Media Player, my GPS, my overall entertainment "finder" (Where/Places/Aloqa), Grocery Lists, Forum browser (I'd say I'm 50/50 with Phone and PC while surfing web and forums now).
Sure, the apps could use some work... But, with quality devices being placed on the market, the apps WILL follow. Realize that the main reason the apps market isn't bigger, is because of the strangle-hold that Apple currently has on the market. Many Devs have invested into Apple development and have customers there. It's hard to talk them into changing their ways. In time, they'll sure move over to Android though.
With that said, the apps I get... Work for me. Just the basics: Handcent, Meebo, Car Home, Where/Places, "OurGroceries", Mixzing (Still not my ideal choice, but it gets the job done for now... And yes, I've tried Meridian, nemoPlayer, Stock, and TuneWiki), "Listen", and so on.
Yes, I've deleted as many apps as I still have on my phone (Many more than listed above)... But I've stuck with some that get the job done. If I could ask for only 2 other apps, it'd be Mint.com and Audible.com... Otherwise, I can be content in knowing I have my ideal communication device, with some GPS goodness, and it plays through my car speakers wirelessly.
So no... I don't consider it overrated, but rather too young. It'll mature in time.
I have a Euro HD2 on T-Mo in the states. The phone is great but I admit even the best custom ROMs let me down with freezes and anomalies.
I have not used an android phone or iPhone. WinMo since the T-Mo Shadow (so 2.5 years.....seems longer) and of course blackberry (I mean...who hasn't?) which is a company phone on the Sprint network.
Couple of things: Sprint and T-Mo work equally well with phone and edge signal in my area. Signal quality is not a factor in any area I regularly (or not so) travel.
Here's my question: Is Android at least as appealing to most who have used a phone based on this OS? I am open to just about any changes needed, for example, google instead of outlook for contacts (I use both....prefer google due to portability).
Things like fluidity of the OS, appearance, video and audio quality. Are these comparable to WinMo, from some experiences who've used both?
I don't game, so that's not an issue, although I enjoy custom ROMs (and I contribute). But I don't think finding cooks will be an issue.
And maybe some shortcomings of Android will be overcome by an excellent kitchen and maybe, just maybe Android 2.2 will be in the works.
Anyone care to share, maybe this will help others, such as myself, to make an informed decision on the love Ev(o).
audscott said:
I have a Euro HD2 on T-Mo in the states. The phone is great but I admit even the best custom ROMs let me down with freezes and anomalies.
I have not used an android phone or iPhone. WinMo since the T-Mo Shadow (so 2.5 years.....seems longer) and of course blackberry (I mean...who hasn't?) which is a company phone on the Sprint network.
Couple of things: Sprint and T-Mo work equally well with phone and edge signal in my area. Signal quality is not a factor in any area I regularly (or not so) travel.
Here's my question: Is Android at least as appealing to most who have used a phone based on this OS? I am open to just about any changes needed, for example, google instead of outlook for contacts (I use both....prefer google due to portability).
Things like fluidity of the OS, appearance, video and audio quality. Are these comparable to WinMo, from some experiences who've used both?
I don't game, so that's not an issue, although I enjoy custom ROMs (and I contribute). But I don't think finding cooks will be an issue.
And maybe some shortcomings of Android will be overcome by an excellent kitchen and maybe, just maybe Android 2.2 will be in the works.
Anyone care to share, maybe this will help others, such as myself, to make an informed decision on the love Ev(o).
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Android to me is way better then windows mobile.
android way better than winmo?
i agree absolutely -it is not even close in terms of speed and stability. I have had a winmo phone for years (htc vogue) and 6 months ago i put android on it -WOW! i will never go back again. Just to be sure i flashed a streamlined, upgraded (winmo 6.5) version back on my phone...again, in terms of speed/stability no contest. As for features...android is light years better -and will most likely stay ahead of the curve. Now android is coming to cars, microwaves, tv's and more. ...will be nice to have your android apps (widgets) on the screen of you tv if you please. Winmo simply won't be able to compete w/ the android!! ...btw, i also recently purchased an htc hd2 from T-mobile (returned it. thought maybe i couldn't wait for an android version and figured it would be ported anyway...just wasn't worth the return to winmo)
audscott said:
I have a Euro HD2 on T-Mo in the states. The phone is great but I admit even the best custom ROMs let me down with freezes and anomalies.
I have not used an android phone or iPhone. WinMo since the T-Mo Shadow (so 2.5 years.....seems longer) and of course blackberry (I mean...who hasn't?) which is a company phone on the Sprint network.
Couple of things: Sprint and T-Mo work equally well with phone and edge signal in my area. Signal quality is not a factor in any area I regularly (or not so) travel.
Here's my question: Is Android at least as appealing to most who have used a phone based on this OS? I am open to just about any changes needed, for example, google instead of outlook for contacts (I use both....prefer google due to portability).
Things like fluidity of the OS, appearance, video and audio quality. Are these comparable to WinMo, from some experiences who've used both?
I don't game, so that's not an issue, although I enjoy custom ROMs (and I contribute). But I don't think finding cooks will be an issue.
And maybe some shortcomings of Android will be overcome by an excellent kitchen and maybe, just maybe Android 2.2 will be in the works.
Anyone care to share, maybe this will help others, such as myself, to make an informed decision on the love Ev(o).
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Keep in mind that I don't have an official android phone, the vogue was made 3 years ago and officially stopped at WM6.1, android is not ment to be on this phone but still runs beautifully.
I've been using the HTC vogue on sprint for a year, I had it running with windows mobile for the first 8 months, 3 of which were stock rom (i didn't know better), 5 were NFSFANS 6.5 build (a very good build), and lately the lovely people managed to put android on it, even with NAND.
When the G1 first came out, it looked cool until I tried it. 10 minutes with that device and I was floored, the speed, smoothness, useability, flair of the android operating system just blew me away. The second I put android on my vogue, I was hooked.
I personally think that android is way better then winmo, sure there's some things that windows mobile can do that android isn't able to do yet. Here's a handful of tasks and how each system handles them:
WM = windows mobile 6.5
Music Formats
WM = due to how long WM has been around in general, there's a million programs that can handle anything you throw at it, from aac to mp3
Android = supports aac, midi, mp3, wave, ogg natively. I don't know about 3rd party apps
Video Formats
WM = with the player TCPMP and the codecs you can play just about anything
Android = only supports H.263, H.264, MPEG-4 natively, to my knowledge no app is out yet to support more
Messaging
WM = wm's threaded text messaging is nice, but it seems so clunky. It was slow and annoying, soon as i got over 100 messages it would lag extensively while opening and closing the threads
Android = I haven't seen any problem with the messaging app, even with 1500+ messages
Email
WM = I had some push email with a sprint service but it was buggy and didn't really work
Android = gmail works beautifully, I haven't tried another email yet
Overall use
WM = seems clunky, IMO because it was built piece by piece, never really upgrading just tacking on more stuff and glitter
Android = since it was built from scratch it's much faster and cleaner
To me, android wins, if I had to go back to windows mobile it would be at gun point.
WOW!! Amazing responses. Thanks so much - I'm on board and I'll get the little woman (looks over shoulder) a new droid too.
I haven't used a Windows Mobile phone since the T-Mobile MDA, and even then, it was my dad's. Here's what I know:
Android Browser: Based on Webkit and in 2.1 supports HTML5 and other new standards. Compared to WinMo, which runs a pathetic version of IE. Not dogging on it, as it was one of the first mobile browsers capable of desktop sites, but the newer tech allows for a lot of web based apps and smoother browsing.
Android Market: Second largest app market for a smartphone. Lots of great apps and widgets, that easily rival iPhone apps. They are also easy to code and it doesn't cost much either.
Android has a much nicer UI. It uses homescreens with widgets, wallpapers and shortcuts. There is an app drawer to access all the apps with one swipe.
Android is just as customizable as WinMo, probably more since its open source. Easily make deep level changes, or just change wallpapers. Awesome devs working on stuff too.
Android isn't as good at media as some phones. From what I remember of WinMo, its not exactly a thrilling experience either. Nevertheless, if you want good media, Zune or even iPods are better than phones, especially since they have their own batteries and smartphones don't exactly last all that long.
Basically, I recommend Android over anything. The Google integration is awesome of course, and allows for some excellent base services that keep in sync with the cloud. There is still some fine tuning, but same can be said of WinMo. 2.2 should be out soon and it is 4.5 times as fast as 2.1, so major speed boost.
If you are looking at a specific phone, HTC Evo, Nexus One, and Droid Incredible are your best options. All feature fast processors (snapdragon) and plenty of Rom/Ram. Should see apps on sd cards in a near future release. Evo is probably the very best, since it includes everything you could possibly fit in a phone and still keep it in a pocket.
Good luck with your decision.
Which do you prefer and why>?
For me:
1. WinMo 6.5
2. Android
3. WP7
What do other users experience suggest>?
i prefer wp7 because the it unlocks 16m color of the screen
instead of winmo and android that works with only 256k colors
android
wm655
wp7
First off, personal opinion, winmo 6.5 is a PoS. It doesnt even make the list for me.
I love android through and through. I'm a big supporter of open source.
However, Since it has never been perfect on the HD2, (GPS is never right for me, signal loss, random other mishaps), WP7 is the best choice for me on the HD2 hardware. If Android was native on the device, and not everything had to be slapped on there Half-ass like, Android would be the only choice for me.
In WP7, the first unofficial pre-release from DFT is amazing. All my data is working (gprs, 3G, and HSDPA), GPS is EXTREMELY ACCURATE and very fast, the interface is simple and bliss. storage is somewhat of an issue atm but that will be dealt with, and the camera isnt focussing right. Those two things are the only problems that i have found so far. Call volume is also great, and speaker works.
The app market for WP7 needs a lot of work. The basics i got, Seesmic, Foursquare, TWiT. But it hasnt been out for long at all, and apps will come.
If you can tell me any different, id be flabbergasted.
Here is a short vid of my WP7 experience.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=78_Fz1K4HY8
m2shakiba said:
i prefer wp7 because the it unlocks 16m color of the screen
instead of winmo and android that works with only 256k colors
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Can anyone confirm this?
Haven't tried WP7 yet,but my findings so far with WinMo6.5 and Android....
WinMo will remain my main OS on the HD2 as it does what I want when I want it,
Android is great fun to use especially all the handy Apps and games,but
it frustrates me as equally as it entertains,particularly the lack of ability to
change the MAC code to the same one I have on WinMo.
There is absolutely no contest, it's Android every time. Open ended and so diverse.
WM6.5 was ok but very limited for capacitive devices and it was only really Sense that made it a decent experience, I haven't used it since Android became a viable alternative on the HD2 about four months ago. With WM7 Microsoft looked at Apple and the way Jobbby Jobs doesn't like the end user to have any control over their own phones and decided to have WM7 behave the same way - it is so limited in comparison to Android with very little scope to change the way it looks or works. Quite a lot of people might be jumping across to WM7 at the moment but a lot of them will soon realise the open ended experience offered by Android is infinitely better and come back.
Also, to say the UI on WM7 is an acquired taste is putting it mildly, it looks like it's designed for a short-sighted 5 year old. I prefer things a little more subtle.
xlr8me said:
m2shakiba said:
i prefer wp7 because the it unlocks 16m color of the screen
instead of winmo and android that works with only 256k colors
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Can anyone confirm this?
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Click to collapse
It's rubbish. The HD2 screen colour depth is a hardware limitation and can't simply be 'unlocked'.
1.Android
2.WinMo 6.5
3.WP7
Android is so open and easy to customize its just far better in that aspect. WP7 is pretty much iOS minus the words Apple on it. It is so closed and locked down that its damn near impossible for any customization, no access to your SD card as you have to format at it for it to even read it, and the biggest deal breaker for me is the lack of tethering. Tethering may be a niche market but damn it as a college student trying to save money this is a HUGE deal breaker that has automatically swayed me back to Android.
1 Android
2 Android
3 Android
and maybe android as well
I think people need to look at these choices objectively. When you compare capabilities of all three operating systems then you can see a clear difference. All you have to do is get a pen and pad and write down features.
Android is the best well rounded and feature rich Operating System. To argue that it's not is just uneducated to say the least.
WinMo was nice 5 years ago but now is just dated and doesn't have the simple feel a cell phone should have. Sure it has Sense but that lag fest of an interface (HTC Messaging) didn't impress me. Covering up a dying OS is what Sense was. Now that NAND Android is out why are people still using WinMO.....?. What does WinMO even have to offer to the table anymore not to mention it will be a dead OS.
Windows Phone has a very lovely interface and beautiful transitions and scrolling. I love the Operating System and as of yesterday I been using it regularly. Windows Phone is not even close to the functionality of Android but the smooth fluid behavior and interface I like. One thing I hated about android is its choppy behavior.
Conclusion:
Fanboying WinMo is going to leave you in the dark ages. Fanboying anything is just not good consumer sense anyway. If you want full featured OS then Android is 100% that. Windows Phone is for someone in the experience of a device. I most likely will flash Android back on my device once I have played enough around with Windows Phone because mass storage and tethering are kinda important for a business user such as myself. Its nice the devs have given us all these options
On native phones:
Android, WP7
On HD2:
WP7, Android
WP7 is so much smoother than Android on the HD2 it's almost comical. There's a near-negligible performance difference between the HD2 running WP7 and an actual HD7 running Windows 7 (in fact certain elements like the loudspeaker performance are even superior in the HD2).
Android on the HD2 has, comparatively, a very long way to go. Compare any of the ROMs on the HD2 with a native device running an analogous ROM (e.g. HD2 running anything vs. GalaxyS running anything) and the HD2 will be soundly embarassed.
friend'scatdied said:
Android on the HD2 has, comparatively, a very long way to go.
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That is news to me, I'm running Jaws MIUI and, other than the MMS being a bit flaky, it's as good as perfect. As for you thinking WM7 is near perfect on the HD2, the storage issues and button configuration say otherwise in my opinion.
I can see the writing on the wall for this thread, but I will post my 2 cents' worth:
Android is my OS of choice, and I really can't see that changing. The reason being is that I am able to customize every inch of this phone to my specifications. Windows OS is so limited in that respect.
I am using Darkstone's SuperRam Froyo and it really can't be beat. I have no glitches, no hiccups. Everything works for me.
I also love having an app for every aspect of my life. As soon as I think of something I need - google it and Bam! there's an app for that!
I can't for the life of me see why I would trade this in for something as glitchy as Windows Mobile 7. Maybe when the rough spots are smoothed over I might give it a try, but right now I'm not convinced.
And don't even go there with 6.5 - I hated it from the getgo. Was so glad when I finally took the plunge and put Android on my phone.,
My OS of choice is Android.
WinMo is very good OS, but simply outdated and there are practically no good commercial games/apps for that platform. It's more or less dead platform.
I have tried WP7 recently and i must say I'm impressed. When i watched about it on youtube, i thought it sucks hard. But i was impressed when i installed it. Everything was smooth and was simply working. Biggest problem was no good way to install apps. I don't want to give M$ my data for that code and sideloading does not work properly (it shows error that i have to uninstall app after some time). Also pinch to zoom is crappy. But otherwise really good OS.
android
I fell in love with WP7. I miss how cool I could make android look, but dang, WP7 is so smooth and everything just werks.
Pagnell said:
That is news to me, I'm running Jaws MIUI and, other than the MMS being a bit flaky, it's as good as perfect. As for you thinking WM7 is near perfect on the HD2, the storage issues and button configuration say otherwise in my opinion.
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Android's not smooth at all.
The button config can't be helped since the HD2 doesn't have a physical camera actuation button, and WP7 can't hardware map send/end call. But besides that, yeah it's pretty much as perfect as it is on an actual WP7 device (which also eats SD cards, doesn't save camera settings on exit, et cetera) if the end-user hasn't borked the install. The biggest part of this closeness comes from the smoothness and speed, which are comparable to WP7 on native handsets like the HD7.
Unless you mean to suggest that Android is nearly as fast and smooth on the HD2 as it is on native Android handsets..
k8108 said:
I am using Darkstone's SuperRam Froyo and it really can't be beat. I have no glitches, no hiccups. Everything works for me.
I can't for the life of me see why I would trade this in for something as glitchy as Windows Mobile 7. Maybe when the rough spots are smoothed over I might give it a try, but right now I'm not convinced.
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What kind of glitches, besides the OS-related ones inherent to WP7 (e.g. eating SD cards)?
I just think there's a different superiority on native handsets vs. superiority on a hacked handset.
Have had wp7 installed for about 24 hours now and its a breath of fresh air. I was increasingly getting fed up of not having room on the home screen of my phone for my links and info, I have always thought the 5 or 7 horizontal screen screen swipe was best for tablets as you can have each page for different interests where as when I'm on my phone I need it there.
If Microsoft can keep updating the flaws I will be using wp7 for a phone and android for a tablet.
Android wins for me.
WP7 is very smooth, which is awesome. Also, I like the "time set" UI element (such as when setting an alarm.) It's really convenient.
But it's so limited. I feel like I'm in handcuffs. I can't have a background image. Very few apps support live tiles. Tiles are only 1x1 or 1x2. Live tiles are not interactive. The status bar keeps insisting that it should disappear after a few seconds. USB mass storage is a no-go. Pinch-zoom doesn't work correctly. Why can't I replace the keyboard?
The basic UI is terrible. There is so much wasted space, and I can't figure out why all of the words are cut off all of the time. So cluttered. Also... why is everything only one color? Can't I customize my phone?
The marketplace is an utter mess. I thought Android's market needed work (and it does) but this is enormously frustrating, trying to navigate through this mass of music and apps.
There's also not very many apps, though I suppose that will change in the future.
Android is so much more flexible. I will gladly take a little bit of lag if it comes with the freedom to actually be able to use my phone.
WinMo isn't really on the list for me. I used it for probably a grand total of 20 minutes since I owned this device and removed it as soon as NAND was released.
Hello
My dilemma is the following
I currently have Android via Nand and its setup as I like it, but more importantly its setup how my little one likes it. Its got loads of games on it that she plays and was one of the main reasons for switching to Android.
Now I have got a Windows license key and am all ready to go to WP7 but wonder if its the right move.
With current troubles with WP7 I'm reading and the need for kids games should I stay on Android or move to WP7?
Don't really want to go dual boot.
Games on WP7 are expensive. Something to keep in mind.
Thanks for taking to the time to do poll and reply.
Stopped me from put wp7 on, will wait and see what people think tomorrow.
Ian
That and there really aren't too many wp7 games. The android market has been around longer.
Swyped from my Evo on steroids.
Why don't you want to dual boot? Then you can try out wp7 and still have android on your phone. I'm dual-booting and it works great... both OS's are smooth and fast. Getting decent battery life with wp7 and great battery life with android (3-6ma on standby... sometimes as low as 2ma). That's what makes the HD2 special.... you can boot multiple OS's on it.
You have some great points, perhaps I should rethink.
Does anyone else have experience of dual booting both.
If you want games than WP7 is your choice for sure. The selection may be not that great in numbers and there is no Angry Birds yet, but the quality is overwhelming. I'm playing The Harvest for 3 days now and still can't believe this is a mobile game
I took WP7 for a spin for 4 days and I absolutely loved it. Smooth as silk after the initial install and activation. Had a few minor problems like the phone locking after a sync with Zune but this was known and I belifve that there is a fix available.
So, that was really the good side. My take on it is that there are relatively few (few in comparison to other OS) apps. My biggest concern was tethering while being away on a business trip but I could not find a way to do it.
So although I went back to Android, all in all I think WP7 is great. It just needs time to mature in terms of the home brew offerings and Marketplace apps.
Good luck.
I absolutely loved Android, but after using wp7 since it was out I can't use Android again, I will switch back but then flash wp7 before the day was over. Wp7 is great for its silky smooth UI and speed, GPS works instantly...and it looked funny running Android with a windows start button lol joke.
Until I use Windows 7, Android was very fast and preferred OS for me.I like the speed and quality of WP7. But Its too early to choose because lack of application's availablityin WP7.Android has thosands of apps meanwhil WP7 has not many apps.I will decide to use which OS in 6-9 months.until then I will use dual boot(WP7 and Android)WE HD2 OWNERS HAVE ALWAYS 2 OS ON THE PHONE THAT IS WHY HTC CALLED THIS HANDSET HD------- 2(2 OS)that is the speciality of HTC HD2
I have wp7 & android. I find myself using wp7 80% of the time, because of the snappiness. I switch to android only when I need to take a picture or use apps that wp7 doesn't have.
I tried several Android roms both sd and NAND even a few ram versions however once I used the win7 I loved it. True there's not as many apps and games but how many do you actually use? I lost pandora but gained Netflix and found alternatives to pandora. The ui is awesom on win7 ,smooth ,nice hd resolution ,great FB and gps I'm in with the win7 now just sitting back and waiting on updates.
If WP7 could give you even the slightest bit of Multi Tasking, perhaps allow three apps to be held in ram
If the camera worked OK under low light flash conditions
Gsensor needs fixing as its 10 degrees out when playing games like Need for speed
And there needs to be a few more very important apps available.
All of these will be sorted via XDA or Microsoft, fingers crossed for the first point.
OK Android may be slower and feel a bit old fashioned and clunky, but its app market is brimming like the Apple one, multitasking seems to work better, although never as good as WM6.5
Any issues with cameras for me totally destroy the whole build, this is why I waited to go over to Android until they eventually sorted the camera issues, with WP7 the camera is annoying as its brilliant ok slightly greenish in daylight but use a flash and the thing cant focus and totally green blurs the whole image.
I could even just about cope with out multitasking, shame as you cant even have resco radio running while you do other things.
Please get these things sorted because WP7 blows all the other UI's out the water with:
GPS fix instant and accurate
Keyboard wonderful
UI fast, fun and interesting
Games are unbelievable
Calendar is quick and simple to use
Office, even better than WM version
Sound quality is outstanding
Don't mention dual booting to me, can you imaging your in a meeting, my choice of UI would be WP7 for its quick calendar and super fast and brilliant office application, then comes the point for a quick snap of what we are discussing, before the fast passed meeting fly's onwards, "errrr hold on everyone while I boot up Android so I can take an indoor picture of this product"...
LOL ... 'retard' moment
THUDUK said:
Don't mention dual booting to me, can you imaging your in a meeting, my choice of UI would be WP7 for its quick calendar and super fast and brilliant office application, then comes the point for a quick snap of what we are discussing, before the fast passed meeting fly's onwards, "errrr hold on everyone while I boot up Android so I can take an indoor picture of this product"...
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psyCORe said:
LOL ... 'retard' moment
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Funnily enough this actually happened to me the other day, bloomin thing just wouldn't focus or take a decent picture...thus why I am back with Android for now
i'm a noob when it comes to WP7 but i have some xp with android...i would like some advice on which to stick to from other HD2 users..
I will stick to WP7 longer I guess ..Sticking with AND Nand for 6months and just move to WP7 few days back and it's really impress me a LOT..
Windows is just problem free ....
Window phone 7 great for me too
man, the number of applications on android will make you never look back. Google apps are amazing. the only app on wp7 that i constantly use is google map &gmail. what do you think?
Sent from my Nexus One using xda premium
I still don't believe that wp7 is faster than wm 6.5... I never used android,because wp7 is all i need,and its really great.
Off NAND both work very well indeed, so the only deciding factor for me would be what i want to do and what suits my needs more.
I got both on dual boot and can never decide which is better. WP7.5 Mango is great, but Android has more apps and is more democratic playing different format videos and perfect for ebooks. Mango has better overall integration, the People hub and many others just blend in flawlessly with everything incorporated together - contacts, photos, social networking, appointments etc, which I love. So I switch between the OSs during the day, could never stick with just one.
Wp7 is an ideal phone, android is ok, it has a lot of apps, but is that really a good reason to use an OS? since i tried WP7 ive never used Android and i think its time it got deleted. Each to their own, they both are good at what they do, i would say that you give WP a chance, try it out for a month or at the very least a couple of weeks, if after that you dont like it, then its not hard to go backward to android.
i used android for quite sometime. i enjoyed it and when the android market kept getting filled up with more apps, i was near the conclusion that Android was the best OS ever.
Then i gave WP7 a try nearly 3 months ago.
I'm still using WP7 to this day.
Depends on what your needs are. I've used android since 1.5, now using wp7 and I'm really happy with it.
For WP7 to be perfect and for me to give up Android it still has a way to go. As an example, I need to be able to just load files other than music or videos, such as e-books or docs, for example. Otherwise we get PDA reader app and no possibility to just load whatever we want to read, let alone any other format reader, other than sending files to oneself or using drop box, but neither of those will be free of data usage. Another biggie for me is movies, I like to just get my movies in 3Gp, drop them on my card and watch them, which is not something WP7 is capable of managing, in fact, anything that will allow the card to be used as simple storage will be appreciated. Personal Virtual assistant is one of my favorites on Android, I use Speaktoit and enjoy it a lot, hoping to see something along the same lines on WP7 at some point. And finally the simple sync options overall would be a bonus, going through Zune for every little thing is not as convenient as just using your card. Hence I am torn between the two and feeling grateful I am able to dual boot.
I had WP7.5 on my HD2 and during the holiday blues I installed Android 4.0. I was excited in the begining but yesterday I went back to WP7.5
Android 4.0 felt slow on the handset and I really really really dont like the UI :S
My experience with coming to WP7
"Better" is a matter of taste and personal preference, I'd also say. I like Android's flexibility in terms of settings and tweaks and the extent of configurability it provides. Not to mention the application base and the huge development community, which results in a myriad of different flavors and setups for each taste. A big advantage.
However, I've just recently switched from using SD android to trying and testing NAND android to finally discovering the WP7 on my HD2 - and I was naturally impressed with the straightforward, elegant, but most importantly - very fluid/smooth user interface. However, my reason for turning to WP7 was not the UI - a NAND runnymede/Sense35 build was as responsive, smooth and fast as well. But it, like ALL android implementations running on HD2, had one big, but a very important drawback from my point of view - the camcorder. The recorded video is jerky, lags terribly, and is absolutely unusable. Most importantly, the HD2's hardware has nothing to do with it, as I now know. Tried several different builds, NAND and SD.
With WP7, I was literally blown away by the actual capability of my HD2's camera hardware - it felt like the first day I got my hands on the HD2, all over again. If there's anything that's unbeatable about WP7 here, it's the camcorder performance.
Video at [email protected] is fluid and sharp, both outdoors and indoors under poor lighting conditions. And, 720p video is also steadily @ 24fps - showing some noticeable jerkiness here and there (which is most likely due to it being recorded at 24fps instead of 30fps in the first place), but overall - I really was amazed.
WM6.5 camcorder performance in the beginning was "alright" and acceptable as I didn't have high expectations. After all - it IS a phone, not a real camcorder.. But having used various android builds on both NAND and SD after WinMo, the one big disappointment was the camcorder performance. Android just lacks a correct driver/lib implementation for the HD2-s camera hardware and nobody has been able to come up with one so far either.
In short - WP7 seems to have unleashed the true potential of the HD2-s camera hardware. In comparison to the fluidness and smoothness of recorded video between a DesireHD (which is a native android device) and my HD2 using WP7 - the HD2 came on top.
Now if I could find a way to have [email protected] (widescreen) and get the 720p record at 30fps instead of 24fps, it'd be ultimate Where there's a will, there's a way.
As for the other features of WP7 (apps, marketplace, tweaking options, useability), I have more to discover before reaching a solid opinion).
Wp7.5 on nand and Android in sd...why not best of both worlds ;-)
Sent from my HD7 T9292 using XDA Windows Phone 7 App
thanks
thanks everyone....i have tried both of them and they are both good but i guess i am loving android more
Windows Phone 7.5 and Android 4.0 dual boot, that's the best solution in my opinion, but anyway - WP is faster and its my primary OS
Best of both worlds to me would be WM and WP =) or better still would be WP UI, driver model and usability without any restrictions allowing for WM level of customization and flexability
Sent from my HD2 using XDA Windows Phone 7 App
It's all personal preference. for instance, i do miss the android market and it's vast selection compared to the WP7 marketplace. Android on the HD2 also had more capabilities of tweaks and other settings. i also missed the custom wallpapers on the home screen. obviously not obtainable on WP7...yet?
but overall, i think WP7 is far more superior regardless of the negatives. I am able to get work done on the go and everything is easily accessible quickly. WP7's UI is also better than android's UI.
pakure said:
Wp7.5 on nand and Android in sd...why not best of both worlds ;-)
Sent from my HD7 T9292 using XDA Windows Phone 7 App
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that sounds like something worth trying.
is there a way to backup/restore or sync sms messages fron android to wp7?
no absolute answer i think . personal view , wp7 is great