dawindbag
New member
Leaving Windows Phone for Android - My Story
This weekend I began migrating everything away from my Nokia Lumia 925 to a new HTC One. I figured I'd write and share my experiences, hopefully it'll be interesting and informative to who ever out there might be reading. I may start a sister thread over in Android Central as well to tackle things from that POV. I expect to write this in quasi-blog format with occasional updates as new things pop up so I can document the growing pains I encounter (and pleasant surprises). You can probably skip ahead to the side-by-side comparisons if you're impatient, but I'll start with a bit of background. So, without further ado, here goes.
My History
I'll keep this brief, but I wanted to give some disclosure on how my POV is colored. I'm a long-time Windows Phone guy. My first WP device was a Samsung Focus running WP 7.0 and I've been on WP ever since. Prior to the release of WP I was a avid watcher and eager early adopter, largely because of my dissatisfaction with iOS and Android. My first smartphone was either a old school Blackberry 8700 or a 1st gen iPhone, I carried both at the same time for personal/work use and I loved the BB's keyboard. Eventually I migrated to a HTC MyTouch 3G Slide for a stint with Android and was pretty jaded by it. Over the next few years I bounced between devices: a Droid 2 slider, Blackberry 8800, iPhone 3G and finally a iPhone 4 as I awaited the WP7 release. Safe to say that I'm power user (though not a gamer at all) with a lot of experience on all the platforms.
My Likes
Once WP came along I settled in a started getting comfortable in an ecosystem. I went from Focus to Lumia 900 to Lumia 920 to Lumia 925. I liked a lot of things about Windows Phones and became familiar with it's warts as well. I loved Zune (I had several Zune media players and that's why I was so excited about WP7) and the way everything synced wirelessly to my Windows PC. I finally felt "integrated". I've always been partial to the Microsoft ecosystem. Hotmail was my email service of choice back in the day and I never liked Gmail. Xbox was better than PlayStation (mostly because of the controller), etc. Windows Phone 8 never really fulfilled the promise of a "integrated" experience and was even a step back post-Zune, but nevertheless I'm a staunch advocate of SkyDrive, OneNote and Outlook.
Generally I prefer first-party apps and as unified of an experience as possible, which makes my move to Android ironic and might be a recipe for disaster. I really liked the idea of hubs and I want to be able to move from device to device seamlessly and have my preferences follow me, with the big exception of media. I prefer to manage my music locally and I'm not on the cloud music service bandwagon at all.
The Why
Based on the above the question of why I'm leaving might be on your mind. It's pretty simple, my company was acquired and we're being moved off of EAS. Since WP8 doesn't support CalDAV and CardDAV I can no longer manage my critical calendar my my mobile device, so it had to go. We're also moving to a more restrictive network policy making VPN a must-have for a mobile device. Since WP 8.1 isn't likely to get either of these features, I'm leaving Windows Phone. The upside is that my new company will be paying for my cellular service now so that'll save some ducats. I might come back if I get a new job or WP 8.1 adds that functionality, but I'm going to give Android the old college try.
I had the choice of moving to either iOS or Android with a new device. on AT&T. Ultimately I picked Android over iOS because I was able to get the 64 GB HTC One for $100 compared to the 32GB iPhone 5s for $300 (Galaxy S4 was the same price) and because i loathe iTunes with the heat of a thousand suns. Also the widgets on Android more closely resemble live tiles.
Side-by-Side (HTC One vs. Nokia 925)
I'll walk you through my side-by-side comparisons of the two platforms, and to a lesser extent the devices, as I start getting things set up and living with this new flavor of Android.
OS Fragmentation
I've been SUPER frustrated with the delay in getting WP8 GDR3 and Black on my T-Mo 925, I find it comical that I'll never get to use it. Who knows when I'd actually get WP 8.1.
Out of the box my HTC One had Jelly Bean 4.1. 4.3 is available for the device but I can't get it updated and support says it sometimes takes up to a week for newly activated devices to receive the push. Not off to a great start here, and that doesn't even address when I'll get KitKat. It will be interesting to see which is worse, the glacial pace of Windows updates from MS or knowing that Google updates are coming fast but my manufacturer won't be providing it with my skin. The carrier problem is a push I suppose.
Power Button
This is a seemingly minor detail, but the HTC put the power/sleep button on the upper left side of the device. This was STUPID in the extreme. It's really hard to wake the device with one hand and I accidentally press it all the time since, as a righty, this is where I hold the device to type. I'm seriously considering exchanging the device over just this. Huge win for the 925, this is the only place power buttons belong.
Camera Button
No dedicated camera button. In snapping pictures I'm not sure how big a deal this will be (I suspect not much), but I miss the wake to camera feature.
Size & Weight
These phones are basically the same size in practice. I'm sure the raw dimensions vary slightly, but in the pocket they feel basically identical.
Wireless Charging
Really gonna miss this. The 925 was far from ideal with the charging case adding a lot of bulk (plus some color and protection) but I was really glad to have it. No luck with the HTC One here, going to be a downgrade when I have to fuss with the USB every night and morning. I would have chose the Nexus 5 over the HTC One for this feature if I had the option from AT&T BusinessDirect.
Speakers
This was a obvious feature of the HTC One, dual front-facing speakers with BoomSound and Beats. While the sound out of the HTC is great (I use built-in speakers a lot for podcasts while doing stuff around the house) it's not louder than the Nokia. The HTC is much clearer and fuller for music, but for talk it's a push and I think the Nokia is slightly louder and clearer without the post-processing. I expected this to be a landslide for HTC, it's not.
Camera
For now this one is TBD, I haven't been out and about with the HTC Ultrapixel yet but the camera on the 925 is nothing short of incredible. I expect this to be the most painful downgrade, but I will reserve judgment until I actually use the HTC in the real world.
Style
Very subjective here, but I think the HTC wins handily. The HTC is simply a sexy device. The 925 has the brushed aluminum and is a nice, premium feeling phone, but the HTC kicks it's ***. The charging cover hurts the hand-feel of the 925 a lot, especially if you tend to pinch it by the corners like I do to watch/read stuff. The curved back of the HTC settles into the hand almost perfectly. I don't have quite enough time with the HTC One yet to declare this a blow out, but it's not looking good. I still like the 925 a lot, but things are looking up for the One.
Glance
The HTC on 4.1 doesn't have any type of Glance-like functionality. My g/f has a new Moto X that has the ActiveDisplay tech and I'm not sure if the 4.3 upgrade to my One will bring thins along or not. In any case, at this instant, I'm missing the feature that I've grown to like a lot on the 925. Having not gotten the GDR3/Black update there's no notifications so it's primarily a cosmetic issue, but I'll miss it. Another win for the Nokia. I will have to revisit this to see how much I miss that feature and how the updates to the two devices shape up.
Screens
I'm not a screen snob, so I won't be raving about the extra pixels in the HTC. It's a little bigger and has a higher resolution, S-LCD vs. AMOLED. Time will tell on how valuable this really is. In my side-by-side comparisons of web pages the differences are negligible. Obviously more text fits on the HTC which is great, but the 1080p vs. 768p isn't meaningful to my eyes, you can see it but it's not a difference maker. The HTC is much brighter, but again that's a trade-off. Will have to check back later once I get a chance to test the One in sunlight.
Battery
TBD. Not impressed with the 925 so far and I had occasional bouts of random battery drain and never was able to go a full day with anything over what I consider "light" use. Hoping for better from the HTC, we shall see.
Calls
TBD. Nokia has been great here. Always had terrible experience with AT&T devices before so we'll see about the HTC, I never know who to blame for these issues.
Speed
TBD. I fully expect this to be a push. Both are 4G LTE devices and I never felt like anything in WP ever lagged at all. The HTC is a lot more powerful on paper but Android is far more bloated, we shall see.
Storage
I would have called this a moot point until recently. I started having issues on my 16 GB 925 over the last couple weeks, between the big "other" storage area (~2 GB) and gradual addition of apps I maxed out. I could have paired back my music, podcasts and pictures to recover that space but I really shouldn't have to. Some people live by steaming music these days so 16 GB may be enough if you don't store anything locally, but for me that's not enough. The HTC variant has 64 GB. I expect to be thrilled with this.
I'm going to take a break and come back with some side-by-sides detailing the WP8 vs. Android stuff, stay tuned.
This weekend I began migrating everything away from my Nokia Lumia 925 to a new HTC One. I figured I'd write and share my experiences, hopefully it'll be interesting and informative to who ever out there might be reading. I may start a sister thread over in Android Central as well to tackle things from that POV. I expect to write this in quasi-blog format with occasional updates as new things pop up so I can document the growing pains I encounter (and pleasant surprises). You can probably skip ahead to the side-by-side comparisons if you're impatient, but I'll start with a bit of background. So, without further ado, here goes.
My History
I'll keep this brief, but I wanted to give some disclosure on how my POV is colored. I'm a long-time Windows Phone guy. My first WP device was a Samsung Focus running WP 7.0 and I've been on WP ever since. Prior to the release of WP I was a avid watcher and eager early adopter, largely because of my dissatisfaction with iOS and Android. My first smartphone was either a old school Blackberry 8700 or a 1st gen iPhone, I carried both at the same time for personal/work use and I loved the BB's keyboard. Eventually I migrated to a HTC MyTouch 3G Slide for a stint with Android and was pretty jaded by it. Over the next few years I bounced between devices: a Droid 2 slider, Blackberry 8800, iPhone 3G and finally a iPhone 4 as I awaited the WP7 release. Safe to say that I'm power user (though not a gamer at all) with a lot of experience on all the platforms.
My Likes
Once WP came along I settled in a started getting comfortable in an ecosystem. I went from Focus to Lumia 900 to Lumia 920 to Lumia 925. I liked a lot of things about Windows Phones and became familiar with it's warts as well. I loved Zune (I had several Zune media players and that's why I was so excited about WP7) and the way everything synced wirelessly to my Windows PC. I finally felt "integrated". I've always been partial to the Microsoft ecosystem. Hotmail was my email service of choice back in the day and I never liked Gmail. Xbox was better than PlayStation (mostly because of the controller), etc. Windows Phone 8 never really fulfilled the promise of a "integrated" experience and was even a step back post-Zune, but nevertheless I'm a staunch advocate of SkyDrive, OneNote and Outlook.
Generally I prefer first-party apps and as unified of an experience as possible, which makes my move to Android ironic and might be a recipe for disaster. I really liked the idea of hubs and I want to be able to move from device to device seamlessly and have my preferences follow me, with the big exception of media. I prefer to manage my music locally and I'm not on the cloud music service bandwagon at all.
The Why
Based on the above the question of why I'm leaving might be on your mind. It's pretty simple, my company was acquired and we're being moved off of EAS. Since WP8 doesn't support CalDAV and CardDAV I can no longer manage my critical calendar my my mobile device, so it had to go. We're also moving to a more restrictive network policy making VPN a must-have for a mobile device. Since WP 8.1 isn't likely to get either of these features, I'm leaving Windows Phone. The upside is that my new company will be paying for my cellular service now so that'll save some ducats. I might come back if I get a new job or WP 8.1 adds that functionality, but I'm going to give Android the old college try.
I had the choice of moving to either iOS or Android with a new device. on AT&T. Ultimately I picked Android over iOS because I was able to get the 64 GB HTC One for $100 compared to the 32GB iPhone 5s for $300 (Galaxy S4 was the same price) and because i loathe iTunes with the heat of a thousand suns. Also the widgets on Android more closely resemble live tiles.
Side-by-Side (HTC One vs. Nokia 925)
I'll walk you through my side-by-side comparisons of the two platforms, and to a lesser extent the devices, as I start getting things set up and living with this new flavor of Android.
OS Fragmentation
I've been SUPER frustrated with the delay in getting WP8 GDR3 and Black on my T-Mo 925, I find it comical that I'll never get to use it. Who knows when I'd actually get WP 8.1.
Out of the box my HTC One had Jelly Bean 4.1. 4.3 is available for the device but I can't get it updated and support says it sometimes takes up to a week for newly activated devices to receive the push. Not off to a great start here, and that doesn't even address when I'll get KitKat. It will be interesting to see which is worse, the glacial pace of Windows updates from MS or knowing that Google updates are coming fast but my manufacturer won't be providing it with my skin. The carrier problem is a push I suppose.
Power Button
This is a seemingly minor detail, but the HTC put the power/sleep button on the upper left side of the device. This was STUPID in the extreme. It's really hard to wake the device with one hand and I accidentally press it all the time since, as a righty, this is where I hold the device to type. I'm seriously considering exchanging the device over just this. Huge win for the 925, this is the only place power buttons belong.
Camera Button
No dedicated camera button. In snapping pictures I'm not sure how big a deal this will be (I suspect not much), but I miss the wake to camera feature.
Size & Weight
These phones are basically the same size in practice. I'm sure the raw dimensions vary slightly, but in the pocket they feel basically identical.
Wireless Charging
Really gonna miss this. The 925 was far from ideal with the charging case adding a lot of bulk (plus some color and protection) but I was really glad to have it. No luck with the HTC One here, going to be a downgrade when I have to fuss with the USB every night and morning. I would have chose the Nexus 5 over the HTC One for this feature if I had the option from AT&T BusinessDirect.
Speakers
This was a obvious feature of the HTC One, dual front-facing speakers with BoomSound and Beats. While the sound out of the HTC is great (I use built-in speakers a lot for podcasts while doing stuff around the house) it's not louder than the Nokia. The HTC is much clearer and fuller for music, but for talk it's a push and I think the Nokia is slightly louder and clearer without the post-processing. I expected this to be a landslide for HTC, it's not.
Camera
For now this one is TBD, I haven't been out and about with the HTC Ultrapixel yet but the camera on the 925 is nothing short of incredible. I expect this to be the most painful downgrade, but I will reserve judgment until I actually use the HTC in the real world.
Style
Very subjective here, but I think the HTC wins handily. The HTC is simply a sexy device. The 925 has the brushed aluminum and is a nice, premium feeling phone, but the HTC kicks it's ***. The charging cover hurts the hand-feel of the 925 a lot, especially if you tend to pinch it by the corners like I do to watch/read stuff. The curved back of the HTC settles into the hand almost perfectly. I don't have quite enough time with the HTC One yet to declare this a blow out, but it's not looking good. I still like the 925 a lot, but things are looking up for the One.
Glance
The HTC on 4.1 doesn't have any type of Glance-like functionality. My g/f has a new Moto X that has the ActiveDisplay tech and I'm not sure if the 4.3 upgrade to my One will bring thins along or not. In any case, at this instant, I'm missing the feature that I've grown to like a lot on the 925. Having not gotten the GDR3/Black update there's no notifications so it's primarily a cosmetic issue, but I'll miss it. Another win for the Nokia. I will have to revisit this to see how much I miss that feature and how the updates to the two devices shape up.
Screens
I'm not a screen snob, so I won't be raving about the extra pixels in the HTC. It's a little bigger and has a higher resolution, S-LCD vs. AMOLED. Time will tell on how valuable this really is. In my side-by-side comparisons of web pages the differences are negligible. Obviously more text fits on the HTC which is great, but the 1080p vs. 768p isn't meaningful to my eyes, you can see it but it's not a difference maker. The HTC is much brighter, but again that's a trade-off. Will have to check back later once I get a chance to test the One in sunlight.
Battery
TBD. Not impressed with the 925 so far and I had occasional bouts of random battery drain and never was able to go a full day with anything over what I consider "light" use. Hoping for better from the HTC, we shall see.
Calls
TBD. Nokia has been great here. Always had terrible experience with AT&T devices before so we'll see about the HTC, I never know who to blame for these issues.
Speed
TBD. I fully expect this to be a push. Both are 4G LTE devices and I never felt like anything in WP ever lagged at all. The HTC is a lot more powerful on paper but Android is far more bloated, we shall see.
Storage
I would have called this a moot point until recently. I started having issues on my 16 GB 925 over the last couple weeks, between the big "other" storage area (~2 GB) and gradual addition of apps I maxed out. I could have paired back my music, podcasts and pictures to recover that space but I really shouldn't have to. Some people live by steaming music these days so 16 GB may be enough if you don't store anything locally, but for me that's not enough. The HTC variant has 64 GB. I expect to be thrilled with this.
I'm going to take a break and come back with some side-by-sides detailing the WP8 vs. Android stuff, stay tuned.
), but also many bad sides - lack of good/official apps, no good voice assistant. Ofcourse, those aren't the only bad sides, but they are the ones I can remember right now.
Facebook
Twitter
Instagram