My move to an Android Phone

[mikewp]

Getting ready to go on an extended trip outside the US and wanted to get a Dual Sim phone. I REALLY wanted to stay with MS on principle but the 630 didn't do it for me. After looking around, I decided to give the Moto G 16GB a shot. Worst case, it would do the trick. This would give me the chance to evaluate an Android phone with an open mind.

There are quite a few dual sim Android phones, but all of them are pretty big. That was actually my deciding factor in going with the Moto G. When I received the phone and took it out of the box, I was immediately happy. Perfect size and weight for me.

For the next week, I spent a signifcant amount of time learning the system, trying out a couple launchers, downloading and testing various other apps, etc.

SERVICES: Luckily MS supports Android with all the services. Onedrive works perfectly. I have my phone setup to sync photos automatically. Outlook is 99% there. Calendar entries sync to/from outlook. Unfortunately, Contacts do not sync to outlook. Good news is that there is an app called "Contact Editor Free" that will let you create an Outlook contact.

LAUNCHER: I thought that I would use one of the WP launchers. I tried Launcher 8, but it didn't have any decent widgets. I paid for the premium version and emailed the developers and got no response. Thinking about the WP launcher, I really never liked resizing and moving around tiles, so I decided to look around. Nova launcher seemed to be pretty mature and well supported so I gave that a shot. For me, it is perfect. Exactly what I want. I have everything on one workspace with a email widget up top, 3 rows x 4 colums of drawer groups in the middle and a 2 row calendar widget at the bottom.

MUSIC: I'm giving Google some business here, so I've been buying music through that service. They don't make it super easy to download music. There are two ways. You can do it from the web and they let you download specific selections 2 times. Or, you can load Google download manager onto your PC (if you are running windows) and download your entire cloud library. For my music app, I chose Rocketplayer premium. I like it a lot. I like the look and feel and functionality. I appreciate being able create playlists on my phone (Hello MS!!!).

GPS: I looked at all kinds of GPS and finally settled on Sygic (One of the members here had brought it to my attention). I'll be doing a road trip across the US and wanted to create my own route. Sygic will let me do it fairly painlessly. I can use any of the online mapping tools (Google, Bing, Here) to create a route and then create a link to that route. There is another program called ITNConverter that needs to be installed on your PC. You paste the link into ITN Converter which sees and intereprets the link into a route. You can further edit the route or export the route into ITF format. I save it directly to my Onedrive directory. ITNConverter has access to all map products and you could create your route using that program as well. Once the route is uploaded to Onedrive, I get on my phone and use the Onedrive app to save to the Download directory on the phone. From there, I bring up my ES FileManager app to copy from the download directory to sygic/res/itinerary directory. That's it, bring up sysgic and load the route. I'm just using this convoluted system to create custom routes. You can do it in sygic, but it's to cumbersome on a small device.

Other Apps
Weather: Accuweather. I don't need live tiles or widgets. I can have that if I want though. What I like is that it puts a current temp up in the notification area that turns red if there is some kind of warning. I can bring up the the app to get a detailed weather report if I need it.

Power Toggles. I really like this little app. It provides two rows of easily accessible toggles in the pull-down notification area. It also puts a nice little battery indicator showing a percentage value in the notification area.

Nokia Sounds.. Can't remember the app...I didn't trust it for some reason, but whenever you changed ringtones in the app, it saved it out, so I grabbed all the ringtones I liked and uninstalled the app. Like my Nokia sounds

I have a bunch of other apps that are not worth mentioning.

Overall, I REALLY like the look and feel and functionality of the OS and I like the app support. I have access to a lot of information and capability from one screen. I'll keep my MS services as long as they continue to support Android. I'll keep up with future versions of WP and the app landscape, but for now, I'm really enjoying Android. We'll see how it goes as the OS and apps get updated.

 

[SSgt Bruskowiz]

I wish you luck with the moto.
Nova is a good launcher, i use it on my tab

For navigation, i would go for CoPilot.
You can try it for free, just check it out.

 

[switch side method]

Always good to see what the competitive side is doing. I have nothing against android but I am a windows fan. For some reason I never took to android. Maybe its because the low end phones kept crashing and needing to clean the casch on a regular basis. But the 520 was a low entry phone and had none of them problems. Now with a 1520. Can't say personally I would go back to android as i like everything I have seen and not bothered about the app store as I am not a gamer. But keep us updated on how the phone went with your trip as it would be nice to hear

 

[salmanahmad]

Getting ready to go on an extended trip outside the US and wanted to get a Dual Sim phone. I REALLY wanted to stay with MS on principle but the 630 didn't do it for me. After looking around, I decided to give the Moto G 16GB a shot. Worst case, it would do the trick. This would give me the chance to evaluate an Android phone with an open mind.

There are quite a few dual sim Android phones, but all of them are pretty big. That was actually my deciding factor in going with the Moto G. When I received the phone and took it out of the box, I was immediately happy. Perfect size and weight for me.

For the next week, I spent a signifcant amount of time learning the system, trying out a couple launchers, downloading and testing various other apps, etc.

SERVICES: Luckily MS supports Android with all the services. Onedrive works perfectly. I have my phone setup to sync photos automatically. Outlook is 99% there. Calendar entries sync to/from outlook. Unfortunately, Contacts do not sync to outlook. Good news is that there is an app called "Contact Editor Free" that will let you create an Outlook contact.

LAUNCHER: I thought that I would use one of the WP launchers. I tried Launcher 8, but it didn't have any decent widgets. I paid for the premium version and emailed the developers and got no response. Thinking about the WP launcher, I really never liked resizing and moving around tiles, so I decided to look around. Nova launcher seemed to be pretty mature and well supported so I gave that a shot. For me, it is perfect. Exactly what I want. I have everything on one workspace with a email widget up top, 3 rows x 4 colums of drawer groups in the middle and a 2 row calendar widget at the bottom.

MUSIC: I'm giving Google some business here, so I've been buying music through that service. They don't make it super easy to download music. There are two ways. You can do it from the web and they let you download specific selections 2 times. Or, you can load Google download manager onto your PC (if you are running windows) and download your entire cloud library. For my music app, I chose Rocketplayer premium. I like it a lot. I like the look and feel and functionality. I appreciate being able create playlists on my phone (Hello MS!!!).

GPS: I looked at all kinds of GPS and finally settled on Sygic (One of the members here had brought it to my attention). I'll be doing a road trip across the US and wanted to create my own route. Sygic will let me do it fairly painlessly. I can use any of the online mapping tools (Google, Bing, Here) to create a route and then create a link to that route. There is another program called ITNConverter that needs to be installed on your PC. You paste the link into ITN Converter which sees and intereprets the link into a route. You can further edit the route or export the route into ITF format. I save it directly to my Onedrive directory. ITNConverter has access to all map products and you could create your route using that program as well. Once the route is uploaded to Onedrive, I get on my phone and use the Onedrive app to save to the Download directory on the phone. From there, I bring up my ES FileManager app to copy from the download directory to sygic/res/itinerary directory. That's it, bring up sysgic and load the route. I'm just using this convoluted system to create custom routes. You can do it in sygic, but it's to cumbersome on a small device.

Other Apps
Weather: Accuweather. I don't need live tiles or widgets. I can have that if I want though. What I like is that it puts a current temp up in the notification area that turns red if there is some kind of warning. I can bring up the the app to get a detailed weather report if I need it.

Power Toggles. I really like this little app. It provides two rows of easily accessible toggles in the pull-down notification area. It also puts a nice little battery indicator showing a percentage value in the notification area.

Nokia Sounds.. Can't remember the app...I didn't trust it for some reason, but whenever you changed ringtones in the app, it saved it out, so I grabbed all the ringtones I liked and uninstalled the app. Like my Nokia sounds

I have a bunch of other apps that are not worth mentioning.

Overall, I REALLY like the look and feel and functionality of the OS and I like the app support. I have access to a lot of information and capability from one screen. I'll keep my MS services as long as they continue to support Android. I'll keep up with future versions of WP and the app landscape, but for now, I'm really enjoying Android. We'll see how it goes as the OS and apps get updated.

I share some of the same experiences you have but I've been using Android for over 2.5 years now, and I used Windows Phone for around eight months.

Both platforms have their own benefits, the Windows Phone UI allowed for some pretty beautiful apps to be created for example Atmosphere Weather, Wikipedia and the default Calendar app.

If I ever had to choose a low-end device again I would go for Windows Phone any day, if photography was my only preference I would go for Windows Phone any day and there are so many more reasons.

With all that said I am a different type of user who heavily relies on quick multitasking and since Android is currently the only OS to offer that, it appeals to me. Couple that with the fact that Android and Android apps have the most functionality and it contributes to why Android still is my favorite, with Windows Phone being a very close second.

While your Moto G might beat the 630 in display quality and maybe specifications, I am nearly 90% sure that the 630 would perform better and would provide better quality photos.

Oh and I also use Microsoft's services, OneDrive and Outlook, love them a lot. I'm also thinking of starting to use Office Mobile, I hear that is pretty good.

For launchers I think that the Nova Launcher is meh, try the Google Now Launcher made by...you guessed it...Google itself. It is a very fast launcher that offers you news and weather straight on your home screen via the Google Now functionality.

I really like the Play Music app over the Xbox app found on Windows Phone, the Play Music app is much faster and shows me the songs playing in my notification center it also has some pretty neat animations and it's improving a whole lot with Android L.

GPS navigation meant a lot to me and for this particular reason I really disliked my 520, no maps app was good and HERE Maps didn't support my country.

I heavily rely on Sygic Trakker and Nav for Pakistan and I paid $19 for it.

For weather I use Yahoo Weather, it's design is better but it stutters a bit from time to time.

Haha with all that said, I own a Nexus 5 and there are a few performance issues that Sygic and Yahoo Weather really need to work out, my device sports some of the best hardware out there yet these apps have small stutters.

Sygic for Pakistan hasn't been updated since 2012 so maybe the universal Sygic app you are using might not lag on your Moto G, Yahoo Weather is a very good app let down only by the performance issues it has.

But Android has matured into a state where people can't call it laggy anymore, just very few apps that still lag but the interface is flawless.

I hope you enjoy your Moto G.

 

[Kel Bin]

I think launcher8 by timo was discontinued, Coz I received a refund from him.

Can try launcher 8 by qihang. The animation not as smooth, but it's the only slightly better wp8 launcher, with even more option than wp8 itself

Sent from my D5503 using Tapatalk

 

[prasath1234]

Android will not lag very much if u have at least 1 gb ram nd at least jelly bean version.but if u load lot of apps that run in the background .then it will lag.for first few months even 512 mb ram Android does not lag or freeze.After say 2 months any low or mid end droids hang or lag or even freeze.

 

[mikewp]

I wish you luck with the moto.
Nova is a good launcher, i use it on my tab

For navigation, i would go for CoPilot.
You can try it for free, just check it out.

I may look into CoPilot. I was testing with Sygic on the way to work with a custom route that had waypoints. I took another route on purpose. At an intersection common to both routes it kept telling me to go to the waypoint when the obvious and closet way to my destination was to simply continue on to the destination. Even once on the way to the destination, it kept prompting me to uturn back to the way point. I get why it is like that, but there needs to be some parameters that allow it to give up after a certain point. I emailed Sygic with screenshots and a thorough explanation and heard nothing back from them, so I may try CoPilot and see if it does a better job. Other than that, I'm not too bothered with the various versions. As long as I can load a custom route, I'm pretty happy.

 

[mikewp]

Always good to see what the competitive side is doing. I have nothing against android but I am a windows fan. For some reason I never took to android. Maybe its because the low end phones kept crashing and needing to clean the casch on a regular basis. But the 520 was a low entry phone and had none of them problems. Now with a 1520. Can't say personally I would go back to android as i like everything I have seen and not bothered about the app store as I am not a gamer. But keep us updated on how the phone went with your trip as it would be nice to hear

Like you, I'm not bothered by the lack of the "typical" apps. However, I am bothered by the lack of "useful" apps. I'd like to have SiriusXM and I would have like to have the Viper alarm app. Got a new Sony camera and guess what? They only make apps for Android and iPhone. It would be nice if that would change. I had the SiriusXM app back when I was giving the iPhone a try and cancelled it after I moved to WP and an email response from Sirius stated they wouldn't be supporting the platform in the near future. I voted with my dollars and it made no difference. Hopefully things will change in the future.

 

[mikewp]

Both platforms have their own benefits, the Windows Phone UI allowed for some pretty beautiful apps to be created for example Atmosphere Weather, Wikipedia and the default Calendar app.
....Agree

If I ever had to choose a low-end device again I would go for Windows Phone any day, if photography was my only preference I would go for Windows Phone any day and there are so many more reasons.
... If the phone camera was my only choice, then maybe. The camera on my 920 took some nice shots. I bought a new camera for shots I really care about. Quick daytime snaps, I have already tested and they are fine on the Moto G. Was definitely a consideration and a compromise.

While your Moto G might beat the 630 in display quality and maybe specifications, I am nearly 90% sure that the 630 would perform better and would provide better quality photos.
.... Hard to quantify "perform better" I have a lot more background processes running on the Android since I'm using it for more things. Currently, 0 lag and it is easily using less battery than my 920. I'm sure you are right about photos, but that currently isn't an area that's a concern. Daytime snaps using the Moto G will be fine and I'll have my camera with me during times where I'm trying to get a shot.

Oh and I also use Microsoft's services, OneDrive and Outlook, love them a lot. I'm also thinking of starting to use Office Mobile, I hear that is pretty good.
.... yep, that was a must. If that didn't work, then worst case, I'd have a dual sim phone that does the minimum. As it is, I have a fully functioning system using services I like.

For launchers I think that the Nova Launcher is meh, try the Google Now Launcher made by...you guessed it...Google itself. It is a very fast launcher that offers you news and weather straight on your home screen via the Google Now functionality.
.... I just can't bring myself to fully adopt Google. Just not a fan. Nova Launcher is a little "meh", but that's not a bad thing. It does allow me to set up the launcher exactly how I want with no compromise so from that perspective, Nova Launcher is currently much less "meh" than WP 8.1

I hope you enjoy your Moto G.
....thanks!

 

[mikewp]

Android will not lag very much if u have at least 1 gb ram nd at least jelly bean version.but if u load lot of apps that run in the background .then it will lag.for first few months even 512 mb ram Android does not lag or freeze.After say 2 months any low or mid end droids hang or lag or even freeze.

I read this quite a bit. Moto G comes with 1GB so we'll see how it goes. If it turns into a laggy piece of crap, then I'll move back to WP. I'm also interested to see how it fares on its first drop. I treated my 920 very badly and it was dropped several times...never missed a beat.

 

[salmanahmad]

An apology may be in order, I thought that WP performed better in the low-end, I was wrong.

It's a myth that Android needs beastly specifications to function smoothly especially with the latest versions, Android L will improve performance further and your Moto G will get Android L.

I watched a video recently about a speed test between Nexus 5 and Moto G and the gains we're small and the Moto G can do pretty much everything with the same fluidity as Nexus 5.

Plus multitasking is a little better on Android than WP, an added benefit.

Considering you already have a camera your Moto G was an excellent choice!

 

[BobLobIaw]

Thanks for the informative post, OP, and good luck! I've been trying to get some info on Android Central about using an Android phone (like the G3) in a MS ecosystem but haven't gotten much response. Sometimes I guess it's better to get the info from a former WP user who posts on WP Central.

 

[tgp]

I've been trying to get some info on Android Central about using an Android phone (like the G3) in a MS ecosystem but haven't gotten much response.

I think most users on AC don't use Microsoft services much. I don't much either for personal use other than Office, but I use Microsoft heavily for work. It actually works very well for me, as it makes it very easy to keep work & personal separate.

 

[pjs37]

Just something to keep in mind I got tired of the Outlook app not syncing properly on contacts so instead I set up my outlook.com account as a AES connection. The only thing I don't like so far about it is the default app doesn't search the server as well so I have to find another email app for that but otherwise it works better for me.