Ask the Readers– WP7 or Android
I figured I would start another conversation on everyone’s favorite topic at the moment.
So this past month my company has decided to stop handing out corporate phones (Blackberries) and is now putting us on a stipend plan. YAY!! I can finally get rid of my Blackberry.
Only problem is I have a family plan on Sprint and my stipend will not fully cover a new plan. I really want a WP7 device which makes my only choice the Arrive. Bad thing is I don’t want to pay $200 on the Sprint site but Best Buy has them for $100. The only problem is the Best Buys around me do not carry that phone anymore. They are currently offering the Nexus S for ZERO dollars at the moment. It is tempting. But with my wife having a HTC Hero and seeing how atrocious her battery life is now I have my reservations.
So I am asking you, the readers, what would you do?
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Check out WireFly or Amazon Wireless. Better deals can be had if you look for them.
Price of a phone shouldn’t really ever have to factor into a decision. With the amount of money that one pays for service over a 2-year contract, the price is irrelevant in my opinion.
However, I’d suggest looking at looking at Amazon Wireless or Wirefly. I got my Focus on Wirefly for free shortly after they released last year. Then the prices are irrelevant even more, and you just need to decide whether you want WP7 or Android.
Did I help? 😉
As a follow up, Amazon Wireless has them for a penny: http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B004QO9SWM/ref=as_li_ss_tl?ie=UTF8&tag=pkortcom-20&linkCode=as2&camp=217145&creative=399373&creativeASIN=B004QO9SWM
@Patrick..
I saw that, however, that is for a new plan. If I add them to my existing it goes back to $99 and it won’t let me add my phone to the plan as they say my number can’t be released. I know I have to talk to my phone person here to get it switched over.
There not carrying it any more or they haven’t started yet? I had the same problem but since the HTC arrives release I have only seen the phone show up in 2 stores in my area both within the last month. I got mine from radio shack but ordered it online since at that time no stores seemed to have it in stock. I like my phone and to be honest on heavy usage I get about a full day out of it and on light usage I can squeeze almost 2 days out of it. Developer update mango beta 2 refresh 7712 adding multitasking and a whole slew of awesomeness has barley affected my battery life. I’m also live pushing to a exchange server, 2 live accounts, a google, and yahoo account.
Go for WP7!!!!! Its so much more intuitive than Android, easier to use on the go, you can navigate,search,open apps,call people+ more with just the windows capacitive button by voice.more user friendly camera system that can be launched even when the device is at standby to catch a quick moment with an actual camera button. If you are a social person then you are completely plugged in natively with WP7 and not app reliant like Android……the rest is coming in the mango update.the market place is growing faster then Androids on its debut year along with market share and developer interest so its future will be bright and promising .
Waiting for Mango and more CDMA devieces but will switch the Windows Phone by the years end most likely. Will miss 4G and front facing camera when i make the switch but i hardly use the front camera and 4G is such a battery drain. Still happy with my Thunderbolt just tired of the same old Adroid problems.
“more intuitive than android” “compared to android” “faster than android” “not app reliant like android”
When I talk about Android the platform software for it I do it, naturally, without bringing up Windows Phone (the platform and software for it — I do occasionally rail on its sales performance and how much Microsoft sucks, which they do — except for their ability to hire good phone people, they did do a good job of that).
Why don’t you try doing the same but with your thing? Or maybe that’s what you normally do but I’m just catching you out of context?
Also David, while I’ve got your attention, how about doing the WP community a favor and check out the Windows Phone Hacking Scoreboard and see if you can come up with any updated tweaks and hacked features since someone published that after working pretty hard for the interests of your people.
Oh woops, my apologies, didn’t read the title and just sort of stumbled on here. As you were.
Here, a token of my admiration: On Android you can’t even take screen shots, how lame (unless you root it which is quite easy, apps to accomplish that one-click style right on the market).
Oh wait you guys can’t either.
For business, I would definitely recommend a Windows Phone. Having Office on a phone is awesome! Especially once WP updates to Mango, it’ll be awesome.
For fun, I would recommend Android. More customization, a lot more apps, etc.
The Arrive also has a QWERTY keyboard and a titled screen making it even better for emails and videos and such.
However, the Nexus S has a gorgeous screen.
That is a really difficult choice…
The HTC Hero is not a fair phone to judge Android by because it’s so old.
I would pay 5 times more to own have my wp7 over old Android any day. Especially with mango….no other phone can compare seriously! Ask @brandonwatson to participate in the challenge 🙂
Who cares about the screen shot?? Come on now Doug.. We don’t want that iPhone crap on windows phone….
I really recommend WP7 as well, I had my Omnia 7 for a couple months now and it is just getting better, faster and sweeter with the beta Mango updates rolling out. (if you can get your hands on the beta – which really isn’t that difficult to do)
Also as someone already stated here on MD somewhere, the Super AMOLED display is to die for. (obviously not applicable to WP7 as a whole)
I also think that the UI is much cleaner and simpler to use than Android (yeah, you can configure much more stuff on Android though) and with the growing count of apps base plus Mango getting close to being released into the wild, it is looking to be a bright future for the newest mobile OS. 🙂
Oops, that should’ve been: “I’ve had my Omnia 7 for a couple of months..”
Anyway I also want to add that the Outlook + Office apps are quite amazing and with SkyDrive integration (which you can easily integrate in your desktop using a program like Gladinet to get even smoother experience with management of the storage) that now allows streaming music and videos from there, it’s just sooo good…
(I admit the streaming experience isn’t that smooth in the beta right now, but it is still a nice surprise as MSFT didn’t even announce that it’ll be possible)
And the price of most WP7 devices is just so ridiculous now that it would be insane to buy something that costs the same (or similar) and is marginally worse (at least hardware-wise).
There’s just so much stuff (positive and negative) to mention. I also think that the question is a little bit early and if I was choosing a new smartphone, I would probably wait a while for new Mango phones / Android phones / iPhone 5 or 4S or whatever they’ll call it (even though it will probably be in a different price-league, as usual)
All I can say is get wp7 because of it’s crispy smooth operating system. There is no lockups, no lagging, and no rebooting your phone 2-3 times a day, I had 7 android devices believe me they are very good at doing what I just mentioned. If you want a reliable phone get the arrive trust me.
Buy the one you “really” want. You’ll be stuck with your new phone for two years.
In that time span, $200 is not much at all.
Thanks for the replies! I am more than likely going with WP7. Just wish my company could wait another 2 months before making me switch.
100-200 ain’t a big deal to me.. The wife tho thinks a lot different than me..
The arrive is not a bad device… With mango around the corner, office,Zune there’s nothing like it.. Ur company won’t go android ots just to risky….
I have both a wp7 and an Android and once Mango comes out I expect I will be using wp7 on a daily basis and the android for remote media control around the house.
I do love the ability to do whatever you want to Android but the problem is that, imho, you MUST do so much to bring it up to speed. I’ve rooted the phone, replaced the stock…um…everything and still the experience, overall, is just not as smooth and nowhere near as fluidty integrated. There is plenty to like about it, in particular, when using wp7, I miss launching apps with a swipe on the “desktop” in Android and the ability to switch keyboards. It is great for tinkering but frankly, I’ve got real work to do! The big issue for me, is that there is no “plan” in Android and it shows. It is just a collection of stuff that happens with almost no thought whatsoever put into how it can all work together. A flaw that becomes all the more obvious when you use wp7 which, whatever its flaws, has some guiding principals.
My other complaints are pretty standard Android-mess stuff. At least every other day the sd card doesn’t scan right and has to be reinserted because the music apps claim that they can’t play the film type on the card, apps I haven’t launched in days are suddenly running with no explanation at all (it is to the point where the “kill all apps” (not that hitting that once works, it takes a couple of tries to take down everything) is simply a shortcut on the desktop and then odd stutters and freezes.
The end result is that, for all the customizing I’ve done, the phone does not feel like my own. Wp7 on the other hand, despite being so locked down does feel a lot more like “me” in part because it is leaps and bounds more fluid but aslo because of the chromless approach, when it works, really makes it feel like you are just browsing your information, not a UI. Android, for all its potential, never rises above being a collection of things you can do. Without the benefit of a real vision to bring cohesion to the ux experience it is less than the sum of its parts wheres wp7 is much more.
I have been using HTC HD7 for more than 9 months.I am very impressed by the OS smoothness and stability. I owned Samsung Behold II, Galaxy S and both of them ended up on craigs list.
I have been using hd7 since day 1. cancelled my vzw droid x…. MANGO!!!!!!!!!!
No love for Sprint and WP7 at Best Buy. Even if someone wanted to look it up on their website they have the Arrive listed under Windows Mobile and NOT Windows Phone OS 7. ATT must be subsidizing more than Sprint as 3 phones are free for Best Buy. I found a store that is sorta by me and will be stopping there next week.
While i have no idea what stipend is, I really love WP7 and i would dish out 100/200 extra dollars for it. I love it so much that i am willing to forgive some omissions they made (finger scroll in music player) and also SOME bugs it has (for example, space button on soft keyboard sometimes, but very, very rarely, does not work. Instead, smiley button is registered as pressed). I am just smitten by the approach ms has taken with WP and hopeful that all of the kinks will be solved my mango/tango.
I know this replay is not helpful in any way, but that is to be expected when you ask a question like yours 🙂
@markiz: There is finger scroll in the Zune player. Just swipe to the left or right to skip back and forth. As far as the soft keyboard, I’ve never had that happen, but I have had the phone register the backspace button as M and all the other keys “shift” one key to the left. But that is easily cleared up by backing out of the app (usually Messaging hub) and going back in.
WAIT FOR THE FALL!
More – and better – WP7 phones coming in September/October, I’ll bet!
I would hope a new marketing blitz for Mango and the new oem phones will be starting soon.
Usually, there will be deep discounts on some phone models for short periods of time.
I’d wait for that. We got our two Focus phones for only the tax at Costco last January..
And that is why I am upset with my company.. They are making me switch this month. I have been trying to hold out as long as I can so I can get V2 phones. I can prolly wait another month but that is about it. Hoping BrandonWatson can give us some new info soon!
So I stop at the Best Buy to buy my Arrive. Well find out they can’t transfer my number from a corporate sprint account to my family plan! WTF!!! Now I am forced to goto a sprint store and pay twice as much now for the same phone. Anybody know if they do price matches or anything.
AND..
The associate asked my why I would even consider WP7 instead of Android. When I mentioned that I write for a tech website and have some better info than most people he went “And you still want to swtich??”
We really need to get the word out that WP7 does not suck and get the damn associates to help this cause. This guy twice tried to get me to change my mind. I can only imagine that any newbie will never get a WP7 phone unless they come into the store knowing that is what they want since the associates will never recommend it.
@Jeremy Bartz: Dont expect to see any change in MS’s lacklustre attitude to WP7’s lack of advertising till it affects Windows 8. Since it will be Metro UI based I expect any bias from sales reps will definitely not be tolerated and MS will respond more swiftly to stories like yours. Sinofsky does not seem like someone who is going to take such widespread sabotage to MS’s life blood lying down. Till then no one in MS is going to be able or willing to do anything about the continued misinformation about WP7.
@Jeremy Batz
Have you considered call forwarding your corp. number to your personal device.
Your company “May” have some security concerns but I have had multiple numbers forwarded with no issues.
Jeremy: I feel your pain, but I wouldn’t direct your rage toward individual sales reps. I imagine he’s used to people asking him to sell them the other phones and that you may have been his first or one of the first to approach him about WP and you caught him by surprise, and he was genuinely curious and thrown off. Not exactly much in it for him to sell you a Thunderbolt versus an Arrive, and I suppose there’s not much in it for Best Buy to make this guy want to show you toward the WP display. If I were you, I’d be irritated at Microsoft for not handling this on a macro level.
But Efjay “expects any bias from sales reps not to be tolerated and MS will respond swiftly..”
Really? So Microsoft is going to gather accounts of incidents like Jeremy’s and send the order down to the dealerships to fire these kids? Maybe make an example out of some of them to the other reps?
Here’s another wild idea of mine, not as wild as giving away the phones for free along with unlimited contracts on any carrier, might solve this problem realistically without firing too many people out of nowhere or otherwise acting “more swiftly” or whatever: Microsoft works something out with AT&T to mandate that all reps use a WP as their work phone for a couple months and have it on them at all times when working.
?
And I am now a proud WP7 user! Got the Arrive and have to say I am pretty damn impressed with it. The keyboard is by far the best one I have used. And I have used my fair share of Blackberry keyboards.. Bought a holster and it sucks. Will be looking for one that has a magnetic strap for the top for ease of use.
Now I need to learn how to write some apps. Need to get a kick ass Bowling tracker app created soon..
Good , free programming video tutorials offered by Microsoft, all the tools are free, and soon, the $9 legal jailbreak app to sideload your own apps will be released..