Connect with us

Mobile

iPhone & Android Out, Windows Phone & Lumia In at CNET

Published

on

CNET UK editor Rich Trenholm, a long-time iPhone user, recently wrote an editorial about why he is giving up his iPhone for–not Android but–Windows Phone 7. Trenholm highlights that it’s the UI that has converted him into “a Windows fan now,” highlighting the difference between the iPhone’s restrictive iOS platform and Android’s chaotic but open and customizable ecosystem and that there is a middle ground with Windows Phone.

Windows Phone isn’t ‘toylike,’ but still is playful and that’s the ultimate reason that Trenholm “won’t be swapping my Nokia Lumia 800 for an iPhone any time soon.”

The article’s an interesting read and harks to the evolution from Windows Mobile to the more elegant Windows Phone UI. You can also read Chris Leckness’ journey of migrating from Android to Windows Phone 7 with the HTC Titan and my own review of the Nokia Lumia, a device that has seemingly captivated my heart as well as Trenholm’s.

For me, personally, the UI on Windows Phone 7 is a nice balance of the refined elegance of iOS with the customizations of Android. The Start screen with the Metro UI Live Tile is just easier to get to since you don’t need to remember which home screen you placed a widget a la Anroid as Windows Phone’s list interface makes it easy to navigate and remember where things are placed. The same is true with apps. Rather than grids of apps, the alphabetical listing of apps make it easy to jump into the correct app. In terms of hardware, Microsoft’s tight standards for specs make it easy to hop between an HTC, LG, Samsung, or Nokia device and have similar experiences unlike on Android where a high-end device may be fast and a low-end device will be slow. The lack of UI overlays–like HTC Sense or Samsung TouchWiz–also helps to make the experience consistent.

But as Trenholm states, not everything is perfect: “The pool of apps is more like a muddy puddle.” Carrypad’s Ben Lang composed an excellent list of recommendations for Microsoft to make Windows Phone even more compelling.

5 Comments

5 Comments

  1. Philip Gould

    11/29/2011 at 12:07 am

    I made the switch too, not because of the Metro UI although I do really like it, it was because of Steve Jobs’s arrogance about the iPhone 4 antenagate saga, saying there was nothing wrong with his phone, it was us left hander’s who didn’t know how to hold them. That’s why I switched, and I’m really glad that I did. I got a HD7 the very first day it was released in the UK but soon sold it and bought a Omnia 7. I recently sold this too and some friends of mine who were on holiday in Florida bought me a Focus S which is awesome.
     
    Windows Phone (or Mango) is so refreshingly different and so far ahead of the other O/S’s in app out app approach with it’s live tiles and it’s near total social integration, it makes the other O/S’s seem almost pedestrian. Sure it doesn’t have 500,000 apps, Apple is cear winner here and sure it doesn’t have half a million activations a day, Android is stellar here, but I don’t care. All I care is that Microsoft and the the manufacturers supporting Windows Phone quietly keep doing what they are doing.

    • Robin Ashe

      11/29/2011 at 4:27 am

      I agree, acknowledging mistakes and doing something to not repeat them makes me more willing to continue buying from a company. There’s a bunch of other reasons I wouldn’t get anything Apple again (except maybe earbuds, for all the shit people talk about them, they sound pretty good and don’t hurt my ears).

  2. Robin Ashe

    11/29/2011 at 4:22 am

    I’m quite impressed with Windows Phone as well, although Ice Cream Sandwich mutes it. Google did a good job of copying aspects that make Windows Phone good, and also aspects that make iOS good, particularly on a visual level, and continuing to add functionality that isn’t available on other platforms.

    Android vs Windows Phone now pretty much comes down to the fact that I like Nokia hardware better than Motorola, and that I like those two better than anything else by a wide margin.

  3. Alexander Garcia

    11/29/2011 at 6:30 am

    I was at my local T-Mo store yesterday and had the chance to play with the htc Radar. Let me tell you… I was very VERY impressed! If the Nokia Lumia makes it out here in the States, I swear I will drop my fandroidism and switch over to WP7! :-)

  4. kutty

    11/29/2011 at 3:05 pm

    Nokia made wp7 more beautiful

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published.

As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases.