Switching from Android to Windows Phone Part 2: Oddities and Stock Apps

7. Joshing4fun posted on 23 May 2012, 15:42 3 3

I agree the browser could use some work but it works pretty good for me.

9. remixfa posted on 23 May 2012, 15:50 4 0

Good write up Michael. Looking forward to part 3. Honestly though, im surprised you didnt break up XBL into both 2 and 3. The app itself and its functionality as a stock app for pt2 and the actual game/app selection for pt3. But hey, writers choice.. lol. :)

13. Gcombs posted on 23 May 2012, 16:12 2 2

I've found WP to be great Os. If your totally into customization and apps than no it's not for you but your missing out on a very fluid Os. Very easy to use, social networks are intergrated well into the Os and your not fumbling through all the bloatware that Android has. WP is a clean Os and I will be going back to WP once W8 comes to Verizon. I'm not feeling this Droid Razr.

27. KingShango posted on 23 May 2012, 16:36 1 1

Thanks for the solid article. My contract is up this summer and I'm thinking about switching up. I like android (currently 2.3) but don't think its anything special. Looking forward to part 3.

PS - Does anyone know where to find a similar deep comparision between Android and iOS thats somewhat unbiased.

33. demarmj posted on 23 May 2012, 16:45 3 2

How about a fresh new comment? :
I just came from the Aria to the Nokia Lumia 900...I agree with just about everything in this article....love the UI and how third party apps follow that UI system...it's seen the best on the FB and Twitter apps. Nokia Maps has worked great so far...although I never used too many "labs" settings on my aria. I love the web browser simply because i was coming from a 3.2 inch screen with htc flash light...so even if it has limited html 5 technology, i'm just happy that it's smooth. I laughed about the search button issue because i've caught myself doing that many times. Multitasking satisfies me; it's just something you have to get used to on WP7. Lastly, the one things that's frustrating is not necessarily Open Source...but the fact that there are some limited applications that could use some WP open source and my main example is the battery...there's no application that indicates battery percentage so you have to go to settings, find battery etc etc it becomes very tedious. I'm assuming there's no app because the phone doesn't display that information openly...Besides that...i have to say that I'm really enjoying WP 7 much better than Android 2.3 or even 4.0 that I had running on my aria...just imho. Great article.

40. ZEUS.the.thunder.god posted on 23 May 2012, 18:07 4 1

good article Michael. nice, informative and fair. looking forward to next part of the series. as an android lover i cant think of switching but its always nice to know something different. its good that WP7 is doing good from the begining. it will actually help android/google to do even better because competition is always good for tech and innovation. again very nice read.

49. lzsbleach posted on 23 May 2012, 19:21 2 0

Im paying very close attention to windows and I like wat I see but I feel Android is more superior and is still growing fast, but I would take a cheap windows phone over a low or mid-range Android phone any day.

50. ron1niro posted on 23 May 2012, 19:24 2 0

Very nice article. Doesn't overpraise the platform, nor does it underestimate it, only talks about the facts in an unbiased way. We should have more of these articles that can actually answer some questions and help an ordinary user make a choice. I just wish the fanboy madness could stop.

62. snowgator posted on 23 May 2012, 21:14 2 0

Micheal, You do your job well. Anyone can tell you are putting In a lot of effort to do this story correctly.

I will happily wait on part three before I make any real, comments. But WP is a 2 year old OS, and not as mature as Android or iOS. The differences seem to mostly come from that.

66. TROLL.ISAHA (banned) posted on 23 May 2012, 22:21 0 2

To be honest all 4r platform should be in a house-hold
enjoying the good the bad. Nothing is almost perfect....
Younger brother has a ip4s, sister has a L800, dad has a N95 8gb, i have a The Note, oneX, S2 and the new Nexus.
All 4r platform have there ups and down. But i prefer Android..... Every-one is different.....enjoy.

73. indigo87 posted on 24 May 2012, 03:27 0 0

Thank you Michael for shining some light on windows phone. I have had wp for a year now & I love the OS, to bad the company I work for only decidess to only carry Iphones and android devices.
They have discountinue the windows phone's from our line up on the three major carriers. They're very anti-windows phone even if the carrier is pro-windows phone but since we our a third party carrier we only get a small selection of the three main carriers phones and not all.

79. Nico85 posted on 24 May 2012, 11:35 0 0

I have 2 smartphones; my personal HTC Trophy and a Droid 4 given to me from work. My 1 brother has the Droid Bionic and my youngest brother is expecting his new Razr Maxx. Both Windows and Droids have their strengths and weaknesses. Yes, the Android system can be buggy but it can also blow my Trophy out of the water when doing certain tasks. The low end Androids like the Motorola citrus can't keep up with my Trophy

I've had Windows Live/Hotmail accounts for years and I have all of my photos backed up to the Skydrive. I still own my 8GB Zune with my music. I have an Xbox 360. Obviously a WP7 phone is best to sync everything together. The OS is simple to use, quick, and you either love it or hate it. I was an in-store technician for VZW and didn't want to have to work on my own phone when I came home from work (this was when the Droid 2 and LG Vortex were out.) I waited 6 months before buying my phone to make sure there weren't any known issues.

The high-end ANDroids (Droid 4,Razr Maxx, Nexus, Rezound, etc . . . ) have the much better specs on them that do make me a little jealous of them, like 4G, better cameras, and things like that. They also have a ton of more apps available and they support Adobe flash websites. They're great devices but with all that extra influence from 3rd party apps they have a tendency to crash more often. I'm also a little worried about Google's new privacy policy. I know it sounds stupid but something just didn't sound right; one of those things where I can't pick out what but it's something.

And to please the Apple users, my girlfriend has the Iphone 4 with AT&T after having the Iphone 3GS. It works for her, but it doesn't do anything for me. I don't understand the attraction to it. Again, that's JUST ME!

Hope this helps anyone . . . Now . . . BRING OUT THE TROLLS!

80. profperez1 posted on 24 May 2012, 12:14 0 0

The article is spot on. I think in a year many of these issues will be mute. I am a mobile addict (I get 2-3 phones per year) and have an upgrade with VZW and my contract is up in Sept. I am just waiting. I am hoping Sprint has something for me in Fall. Iphone4 didn't feel great out of the box----and ALL my Androids phones got slower over time. So for me I need an OS that is going to be stable and fast out of the box and 1 year later. I miss some of the Google services----but the MS stuff works and will only get better. I am getting concerned about the shear size of phones. Guys have to carry there phones around with them---usually in a back pocket. So something over 4.3 inches seems nice---but a bit much at the same time. I just bought a Kindle 3G and like reading on a 6 inch screen---but don't want to use it as a phone or carry it 24/7!

91. shanay posted on 28 May 2012, 11:01 0 0

To all the people arguing the differences in growth between android and iOS please remember that iOS has 3 phones being sold which is the 3GS,4 and 4S while android has so many different phones. Also the amount of people leaving android is much higher than iOS and I agree with anyone who says android lags because try having many background tasks running and see how slow the ui becomes!

92. sprockkets posted on 28 May 2012, 14:26 1 0

" It's a much more unified and well designed system than Android 2.x, which still dominates the market. Android 4.0 comes a long way, but as we mentioned, ICS is technically the 7th major iteration of Android, while Windows Phone 7.5 is really just the 2nd major iteration of the platform, so WP has something of a headstart in that respect."

Hmmm, sure, let's just ignore Windows CE, PocketPC 2000, Pocket PC 2002, Windows Mobile 2003, then 2003 SE, 5, 6, 6.1 and 6.5 while we are at it huh?

93. Hammerfest posted on 29 May 2012, 02:12 0 0

Well then, I wrote this after the guy above me (didnt see his comment)...

Well played...

)I)()(_)**

"""Windows Phone 7.5 is really just the 2nd major iteration of the platform"""

Really? As a WM2003 and up user (stopped at WinBLOWS Phone 7), you REALLY could have fooled me... I mean you got me stumped... blown away even...

BRB, gotta tell my Mogul, TP2, and a few other devices in my family that they dont count as a Windows Phone "iteration"... (lets not forget that they changed Windows Mobile to Windows Phone, technically, WM5-6-6.5 where all Windows Phone along with previous versions like WM2002-2003...)

egadz batman... a new UI and you forget where you came from...

94. Mohamed_Abdulkareem posted on 29 May 2012, 04:09 0 1

I think WP is a strong and well-built OS, but, it's still poor comparing to IOS and Android. It looks like a baby which is grwoing slowly but healthily. may be after 3 years WP becomes the big man. but now IOS and android (supported by a great and diverse collections of mobile phones) are the ones.

95. 7thspaceman posted on 29 May 2012, 08:19 0 0

One thing for sure The New Windows 8 Smart phones will be an easier smart phone to make a switch from Adroid to Windows smart phones because most of them will have the high tech gear inside them that Android and Iphones now have so a former Android or Iphone smart phone user wont feel they are using a less capable smart phone. My hope is that The Microsoft software team adds more features to the Windows 8 smart phone OS there was an article on the Internet that pointed out a lot of functions the Windows 7.5 mango smart phones did not have. I hope the software Engineers at Microsoft read that article and are taking swift action to make sure Microsoft Windows smart phone 8 does not come to the Market place behind the Android and Iphone as far as software reatures are concerned. The main problems Microsoft had when Windows 7 series Smart phones came to the market place was software and hardware weaknesses Windows Phone 8 specs show that the hardware problem is gone but what about the Software features of windows 8 smart phones?

97. jack1059 posted on 31 May 2012, 06:47 0 0

Bada has a larger market share than wp does. So why not an article on switching to bada? So far this 'third ecosystem' hasn't amounted to much. Despite probably the largest chunk of cash spent on promotion I've ever seen. Will it grow? Undoubtedly. Will it be significant? That's the big question.

98. balajin1 posted on 15 May 2013, 07:31 0 0

Entry of Windows phone changed the look and feel of mobile phones. I have used symbian, iOs and now Windows 7.8, but not an android till date. The look and feel of the screen on an android phone is the same, whether you pay $50 or $500. What's the big difference in the home screen of an android 2.1 and 4.1, except for the hardware changes? The interface on the Windows series starting from 6 to 7.8 is totally different. Moreover, the back button is not for multi-tasking. If you have to do a multitasking in windows phone, you need to long press the back button where it shows the open applications on the background. All you need to do is scroll and choose the application you want to go back and work on. Windows is always a user friendly platform. I have used windows 6.1 with HTC TyTnII, where I had android installed on it. Show me one user having windows or ios or bada installed on an android device? Likes and dislikes are limited to the individual commenting, basis the mobile platform they are into. From a lower end mobile to a costlier tab, the android interface looks the same. Every OS will have its own advantages and disadvantages. If HTC oneX has more functions/features, one will say its the feature of an HTC and NOTan android, however, HTC lower end home screen and HTC one X home screen are the same, except for the screen size and hardware difference.