I am now an Android user

[bilzkh]

Long story short, my dad wanted to swap his Galaxy S2 for my Lumia 710...

The long story... I decided to update my dad's S2 to Android 4.0, and after doing so gave it to my dad. I was pretty excited, 4.0 is definitely a big improvement over Gingerbread, and actually made Android a bit fun to use. So I gave it to my dad in the hopes he'll like his new smartphone more. Then started the 2 hrs of constant questioning, "where is the airplane mode?" "where is this" "where is that..."

Truth be told, he's a senior and on the S2 he had like 2-3 additional apps installed (wasn't a power user). You could see that he wasn't really catching onto where his S2's functionalities were, and that's fine, even I was failing at times.

So he needed to talk to one of my professional contacts, so I gave him my phone and asked him to hold the windows button (for TellMe) and state the name. I left for exercise, and 2 hrs later I came back, and he said "take my phone, I'm using yours now"

So basically he was sold on WP's simple UI and figured out how it worked within an hour. He really liked Office Mobile and actually spoke to a relative using Skype on the phone. Overall, he loved the experience and that only got better when he used Nokia Drive for work. The irony in all this is that he began playing with Play To DLNA on his own with his laptop, but couldn't figure out Android. He called Android "a big drama."

So now, until Apollo comes out, I will be using Galaxy S2. My thoughts? Times have changed since I last used an Android, and I can see why power users love it. Definitely has a lot of strengths, and with 4.0 I haven't experienced crashes, freezes, reboots, etc. as of yet. Experience is definitely nice and Angry Birds Space is fun. That said, I miss the 710's solid build (yes I'm calling 710 a solid build, S2 feels too light and the screen a bit cheap IMHO). But here's the big irony...it feels weird...but I don't feel like searching for apps, I have way less apps installed on this phone than I did with my 710.

 

[scottcraft]

The galaxy s2 is a solid phone. There's a reason a ton of them have been sold. There's definitely nothing wrong with using an android phone.

Sent from my Windows 7 phone using Board Express

 

[Seketh]

The galaxy s2 is a solid phone. There's a reason a ton of them have been sold. There's definitely nothing wrong with using an android phone.

Sent from my Windows 7 phone using Board Express

Exactly. And bilzkh, you give the exact reasons why some people would prefer Android.

Windows Phone isn't as feature rich as Android, it's true. But users like me, they don't really need the extra features on Android, and what features Windows Phone has, they are better than Android, in my opinion. And I know that lots of people would reach the same conclusion if they gave Windows Phone a real try.

It's a matter of preference and choice. Pity many people (even in the media) can't recognize that and try to defend a certain platform no matter what.

 

[lolken]

this is a great post.. i had an S2 for about 2 weeks before i had to return it and wait for the lumia..

i consider myself a power user.. but I just don't care for the type ugly that i feel android is.

not to mention historically, i have had bad experiences with Samsung..

 

[HeyCori]

Hope to see you again come Apollo.

And grats on your dad's new phone.

 

[jimski]

Bilzkh, your Dad proved an important point. Try WP for 15-30 minutes and you won't want to put it down. Glad he now has a phone that works for him.

Sent from my HTC Surround using Board Express

 

[foosball]

Thanks for sharing your experience with your dad. Similar to your story I have been enjoying seeing my 75 year old grandfather getting to know and use his Titan. Windows Phone has been absolutely perfect for him and there is no way he could be using a smartphone at his age if he had to use Android (too complicated) or iPhone (too small). In most cases I'm convinced the average user would be better off with WP.

That being said hopefully Apollo will raise the bar by filling in the areas that appeal to power users. I find myself testing WP to see if it can compete against Android ICS and its offerings of high quality hardware (HD screens, great cameras) combined with options & functionality that WP doesn't offer at the moment.

 

[eric12341]

The galaxy s2 is a solid phone. There's a reason a ton of them have been sold. There's definitely nothing wrong with using an android phone.

Sent from my Windows 7 phone using Board Express

they're selling because people think it looks good and don't know better. Not because it's Android or because it's a SGS2.

 

[bilzkh]

Using ICS now for a while, I am starting to get a feeling that Apollo will adopt the same "PC-experience on a phone" approach Android has right now. Except, Apollo will be your Windows 8 on a phone.

My reasoning is simple here, if you open Apollo to multi-core, HD, blah blah, then it's likely the OEMs will more or less adopt comparable hardware anyways. In terms of differentiation they have more options now, and it seems there may be a lot of room in Apollo Metro for more deeper customization for OEMs & carriers. Fragmentation may not be a critical issue if Apollo is opened up to OEMs & carriers, IMHO. Sure some standardization will be there to help app developers, but the emphasis will probably be on "core user experiences" - e.g. certain games, news apps, readers, etc.

 

[cedarlog]

good for your dad bad for you now you will remain unhealthy for 5 months or more

 

[scottcraft]

they're selling because people think it looks good and don't know better. Not because it's Android or because it's a SGS2.

So people buy the SGS2 and the iphone out of sheer stupidity and it has nothing to do with these phones being solid? Interesting.

 

[Mio_Ray]

No but most of the people reviewing (SG2S) are to a certain extend "nerds" and are more focussed on extreme capabilities which for most "normal" users are not relevant.

Sent from my Lumia 800 using Board Express

 

[freestaterocker]

No but most of the people reviewing (SG2S) are to a certain extend "nerds" and are more focussed on extreme capabilities which for most "normal" users are not relevant.

Sent from my Lumia 800 using Board Express

This. I'm actually a bit of a nerd myself but the only Android feature I truly miss on WP is custom messaging tones.

 

[willied]

So people buy the SGS2 and the iphone out of sheer stupidity and it has nothing to do with these phones being solid? Interesting.

Actually, yes. Not saying they all do, but I can only imagine how many people buy the iPhone just because of the branding.

 

[ymc932]

For people living outside of US, a lot of features on WP7 are useless. Users can't access Zune music because its not available in their region. Voice recognition is unusable if you don't speak US english accent.You can't buy apps if you don't have a credit card or can't register your credit card with MS.

With Android, users don't have this problem. You can buy apps through paypal, money order,or any other forms of payment transactions, etc by sending payment to developer & they will send you the app file to install on your phone. For students who have money but legally not old enough to own a credit card, they can still buy apps.

If the app is yank out of marketplace, you can still reinstall because you can keep the app file.
This is just a few example why Android will still be the world leader. While the WP7 OS is much user friendly & smother than Android, the actual usage of the phone for people not living in the US is still very much practical with Android.

That's why with all the money Nokia spent on advertising their lumia phones, the uptake is very poor. Also out of the US, many people owns multiple number of phones or trade their phones very regularly without being tied down on service provider plans. With WP7 your account is limited to only 5 phones. Getting your sixth WP7 phone registered with MS is a nightmare & not worth the hassle for the average user.

Cloud service is another hot topic. There are many people still opposing to this sort of integration & prefer to have local sync instead of through online servers which they have no idea where their files actually resides. The worldwide uptake of Win 8 will be a test of whether the world accepts cloud services weaved into the OS.

 

[bilzkh]

Man I haven't seen anyone except Daniel Rubino who owns more than 5 smartphones, let alone 5 different WP7s - that's pushing it. Besides, the Lumia 710 I have/had is pentaband, it works on at least one of the smaller carriers in Canada (on top of the big 3) - my dad is switching SIMs on that thing as he travels, and so do I with his GS2.

But I agree about the limitations outside U.S, even users in Canada/U.K/Australia feel it. Microsoft/Nokia can get around this by localizing the WP7s to the region/country, they've already started with app development, but purchases, Zune, prices of apps, etc. are a real problem - 100% agreed. I hope this is rectified with Woodstock (Zune replacement) and a better implementation of Marketplace and universalization of Bing. And it might be pushing it, but MS could also license from Google its services in search, map & voice for WP7-series in Asia, Africa, etc.

 

[socialcarpet]

For people living outside of US, a lot of features on WP7 are useless. Users can't access Zune music because its not available in their region.

Didn't realize this. Does Google offer a music download store that works everywhere in the world?

Voice recognition is unusable if you don't speak US english accent.You can't buy apps if you don't have a credit card or can't register your credit card with MS.

The voice recognition needs a lot of work, they need to build it out to work with other languages, I agree. That said, any voice recognition uses a lot of data and requires a fast and stable network connection. People in countries where they don't have credit cards and/or who use prepaid phones probably pay so much for data and have crappy networks so voice recognition isn't going to be practical for them anyway, whether it's Google, Apple or Microsoft.

With Android, users don't have this problem. You can buy apps through paypal, money order,or any other forms of payment transactions, etc by sending payment to developer & they will send you the app file to install on your phone. For students who have money but legally not old enough to own a credit card, they can still buy apps.

In the U.S. absolutely ANYONE can get a prepaid Visa card that works just fine with the marketplace. It's 2012, not 1991. I'd be willing to be they can get them in many other countries too. Now if you're a student in a third world country with no shoes, then OK, I guess it could be difficult to get a prepaid VISA card, but come on. If you can get a smartphone, you can manage a $25 prepaid VISA gift card.

If the app is yank out of marketplace, you can still reinstall because you can keep the app file. This is just a few example why Android will still be the world leader.

First of all, it's pretty rare that this is ever an issue. I really doubt that letting you side load an app that was probably removed from the Android Market because it was yet another piece of malware is what is making Android a "world leader". What makes Android a world leader is getting out of the gate after Apple first and having low standards and no rules. Basically any Chinese crap factory that wants to slap together a garbage $25 Android phone can do it, so they do. The result is Android breeds like cockroaches and it's everywhere. So what? Windows Phone is never going to match that because Microsoft actually has some standards and rules for how the phones should work. That's OK, they don't need 60-70% of the market. If they can get to 20-30% that will be just fine, especially when it is the top 20-30%, the people who will buy $3-600+ phones and buy apps with credit cards, like a grown up. Android can have the farmers in Africa who buy $20 phones and never buy any apps because they can't barter the fruit they grow for apps like they can with Android.

That's why with all the money Nokia spent on advertising their lumia phones, the uptake is very poor.

No, the uptake is not "very poor". They've sold 2 million Lumia phones so far. They have only just started. Android has a massive lead and mountains of cheap Asian crap phones in every country on the planet. It MIGHT just take Nokia more than a few months to start to catch up with that. :dry

Also out of the US, many people owns multiple number of phones or trade their phones very regularly without being tied down on service provider plans. With WP7 your account is limited to only 5 phones. Getting your sixth WP7 phone registered with MS is a nightmare & not worth the hassle for the average user.

This is a good point. Microsoft needs to simplify that policy, stretch it out to a 25 phone limit like Android perhaps. That said, most people aren't going to burn through 5 smartphones in a couple of years.

Cloud service is another hot topic. There are many people still opposing to this sort of integration & prefer to have local sync instead of through online servers which they have no idea where their files actually resides. The worldwide uptake of Win 8 will be a test of whether the world accepts cloud services weaved into the OS.

Cloud computing is already here. It's not some wacky theory that we'll have to "wait and see" if the world accepts or not. It's here. It's already happening and it is going to be happening more and more because it is the future. People are going to have to pull their heads out of their butt-holes and wake up. They don't have a choice unless they want to stay on an old computer and an old phone for the rest of their lives. There will probably always be ways to back things up locally, but it would be in most people's best interests to learn about what cloud computing actually is and all the advantages it offers instead of clinging to serial cables and floppy disks and all of these old ways of doing things.

Bottom line, it's 2012. Get a damn credit card or at least a VISA prepaid and learn what cloud computing is. The future is here and the rest of humanity isn't going to hold back technology back waiting for you to ride your donkey into town to the Internet cafe and check your email on a dial up connection.

 

[lilb1190]

Didn't realize this. Does Google offer a music download store that works everywhere in the world?



The voice recognition needs a lot of work, they need to build it out to work with other languages, I agree. That said, any voice recognition uses a lot of data and requires a fast and stable network connection. People in countries where they don't have credit cards and/or who use prepaid phones probably pay so much for data and have crappy networks so voice recognition isn't going to be practical for them anyway, whether it's Google, Apple or Microsoft.



In the U.S. absolutely ANYONE can get a prepaid Visa card that works just fine with the marketplace. It's 2012, not 1991. I'd be willing to be they can get them in many other countries too. Now if you're a student in a third world country with no shoes, then OK, I guess it could be difficult to get a prepaid VISA card, but come on. If you can get a smartphone, you can manage a $25 prepaid VISA gift card.



First of all, it's pretty rare that this is ever an issue. I really doubt that letting you side load an app that was probably removed from the Android Market because it was yet another piece of malware is what is making Android a "world leader". What makes Android a world leader is getting out of the gate after Apple first and having low standards and no rules. Basically any Chinese crap factory that wants to slap together a garbage $25 Android phone can do it, so they do. The result is Android breeds like cockroaches and it's everywhere. So what? Windows Phone is never going to match that because Microsoft actually has some standards and rules for how the phones should work. That's OK, they don't need 60-70% of the market. If they can get to 20-30% that will be just fine, especially when it is the top 20-30%, the people who will buy $3-600+ phones and buy apps with credit cards, like a grown up. Android can have the farmers in Africa who buy $20 phones and never buy any apps because they can't barter the fruit they grow for apps like they can with Android.



No, the uptake is not "very poor". They've sold 2 million Lumia phones so far. They have only just started. Android has a massive lead and mountains of cheap Asian crap phones in every country on the planet. It MIGHT just take Nokia more than a few months to start to catch up with that. :dry



This is a good point. Microsoft needs to simplify that policy, stretch it out to a 25 phone limit like Android perhaps. That said, most people aren't going to burn through 5 smartphones in a couple of years.



Cloud computing is already here. It's not some wacky theory that we'll have to "wait and see" if the world accepts or not. It's here. It's already happening and it is going to be happening more and more because it is the future. People are going to have to pull their heads out of their butt-holes and wake up. They don't have a choice unless they want to stay on an old computer and an old phone for the rest of their lives. There will probably always be ways to back things up locally, but it would be in most people's best interests to learn about what cloud computing actually is and all the advantages it offers instead of clinging to serial cables and floppy disks and all of these old ways of doing things.

Bottom line, it's 2012. Get a damn credit card or at least a VISA prepaid and learn what cloud computing is. The future is here and the rest of humanity isn't going to hold back technology back waiting for you to ride your donkey into town to the Internet cafe and check your email on a dial up connection.

So uhh.... Android users are poor Africans who cant barter for apps? Interesting theory. I am going to assume that the interwebs will not let that comment slide. However, I wish you luck, sir.

Yes, iPhones are generally purchased because of branding. So are Nikes. That doesnt mean its a bad product. The iPhone is really good about some things, and apparently its a lot of the things that people care about. WP is great of about some things too (hardware not being one of them). I hate Android, but I can understand the allure of customization and things generally being open.

I think its funny when people get all offensive about their favorite OS. Does anyone REALLY care that much? As long as WP becomes profitable enough at some point that Windows keeps supporting it, I dont care what other people do with their phones.

 

[bilzkh]

To be honest, outside North America and Europe, the Tango/current WP7 devices will be key... Nokia needs to keep evolving the Lumia 710 and 610-series, and lower their respective price points. When people see a $150-175 Windows Phone, they need to see a worlds of difference in performance, app quality, utility, etc. than the Samsung Galaxy Ace or whatever. This is where you'll see smartphone growth in the coming years, and I daresay, it'd be a good idea to develop a variation of WP7 that replaces the Asha-series and aims for the <$100 range.

And now that think about it, as much as we love high end devices, in the absence of Apollo it might've been a good idea for MS to mostly focus on the low and medium-end consumers. IMO the Lumia 710 is a piece of art, it's almost the perfect smartphone in that you technically get almost everything at a average joe's price ($250). For example, when childishly comparing my 710 to my brother's iPhone 4S, I could always counter his "oh I have Retina, 1080p recording, this, that, etc. blah blah" with a good, "...shame that your $500+ toy can barely scratch past a $250 phone."

That is/was Lumia 710's selling point to a lot of people I know, especially those who are temporarily switching to 710 either because they lost their iPhones, are waiting for iPhone 5, or want to try out the WP platform. In essence you get 90% of the same user experience as 900 on the 710, but for $200 less w/o contract. We have like 3-4 carriers in Canada pushing Lumia 710 or on the verge of doing so, somewhat suggesting that it is an attractive device. Of course, 900 is a great deal when bought on contract, but it isn't as easy to jab at iPhone 4S or GS2 as it is with Lumia 710.

IMO Nokia should develop a similarly priced successor to the 710, except this time with Apollo, dual-core, HD screen, FFC and LTE - but retain the LCD screen, 8GB storage, etc. Nokia can put more premium features on a 3.7" or 4" Lumia 800 evolution, e.g. polycarbonate, premium camera(s), AMOLED, larger storage, etc. and price it well below iPhone 5.