PocketNow Editorial: Windows Phone 7 is Winning

[wolf1891]

So I checked again for some kind of source but couldn't find one. I still remember though, that I've read that the SeaRay does not have the highest end hardware possible and there might be better Nokia WP7 phones. With your statement though, my point still stands: when there are no facts about it, the editorial author shouldn't praise it as god-sent hardware and "industry standard" either. Do you want to send him your silly idea too, or shall I?

I am inclined to agree with you on the silliness of any editorial or review that makes blind assumptions about what Nokia will be coming out with while having little or no actual info to back up those assumptions. I like Nokia, I like what they have shown that they CAN do in terms of high-end/high quality hardware but, until we see some actual phones getting out into the wild where they can be honestly reviewed/tested then we just do not KNOW anything (regardless of what we want to believe).

 

[smartpatrol]

So I checked again for some kind of source but couldn't find one. I still remember though, that I've read that the SeaRay does not have the highest end hardware possible and there might be better Nokia WP7 phones. With your statement though, my point still stands: when there are no facts about it, the editorial author shouldn't praise it as god-sent hardware and "industry standard" either. Do you want to send him your silly idea too, or shall I?

Nokia's high-end phones have AMOLED displays, unibody design, Gorilla Glass cover, Carl Zeiss camera lenses (BY FAR the best you can get in a smartphone), excellent battery life, HDMI out, OVI Maps (which I hear is the best navigation/maps software out there), and great call quality. N9 has all that, Sea Ray will have all that, and we have every reason to be excited about it.

Yes, Sea Ray is probably based on a 1GHz 1st-gen Snapdragon and probably has 512MB of RAM just like the other Windows Phones. So what? WP7 runs amazingly well on that hardware, and Mango actually improves performance on the same hardware. Mango runs smoother on the single-core Snapdragon than any dual-core Android phone I've tried, so I don't really see how this is a big downside to the Sea Ray. Besides, the Thunderbolt, Charge, and Incredible 2 have all been selling like hotcakes lately, and they all use "oudated" single-core CPUs just like the Sea Ray.

Bottom line: just because the internal specs don't sound very exciting compared to the latest dual-core Android phones, that's not necessarily going to hurt the user experience or the sales of the Sea Ray. There is still a lot to be excited about.

 

[jesdt]

I didn't rate the user experience of the SeaRay with my post but am criticizing the editorial with its subjective and unproven statements. If you have a reliable source with a detailed spec sheet, it would be amazing if you could provide the link to it. You also seem to know of tests and industry comparisons for the camera lense, navigation software and call quality. Please share them with us. (Again, I'm not criticizing the device but you for just saying "Best Best Best" even as we already made the point that this device hasn't been reviewed or tested yet)

And as you mentioned, the high-tier hardware of WP7 devices is not on-par with the high-tier Android hardware. So, calling the SeaRay's hardware "industry standard" as did the author, is total bullocks as well.

Bottom Line: I love WP7 but that is a bad editorial. Don't fall for content without substance just because it praises your favourite.

 

[Noidd]

What is mediocre about the hardware on the SeaRay as it relates to running Angry Birds? Facebook, Twitter, Youtube, Word with Friends / Alpha Jax, Telenav, Office, Pandora, Iheart radio, 4th and Mayor, EasyTube, FoodSpotting, Fuse, Huffington Post, Kik Messenger, Netflix or whatever else available on the market?

What?

What is your answer jesdt? Do you have one? See you guys talk this mediocre nonsense as if you're sitting at a desktop when you are not.

There is a good deal more to consider when you are playing the long game as Microsoft is playing right now.

At this point in its existence, it has MORE applications to date than both IOS and the ad agency in the same amount of time.

That is Winning.

WP7 has most of the mobile standards in place.

That is winning.

In time, it will be a dominate player in the mobile market. You can't see it because your metrics are outdated and severely flawed.

In my opinion, I don't think you can attribute app numbers as a marker to the success of WP7. You have to remember that when iOS came out that this whole "app" ecosystem was relatively new and not many people jumped on board with it right away including devs.

Now with Android, you had a decent dev community but nothing like iOS at the time so the progress was relatively slow. Once devs saw that Android was gaining market share, they decided to do double duty with the more popular apps and games and just ported them.

What I think will make WP7 successful is the UI coupled with functionality that makes the overall experience more appeasing to consumers. If WP7 stays locked up like iOS, I think that will put off a lot of people who love the customization of Android. Hopefully, WP7 will get it's own "jailbreak" so it would level the playing field even that much more across all platforms.

As a side note, I love the WP7 experience as far as the UI goes. The initial offering of the OS left a lot to be desired and put off quite a few people that I know. With Mango, I hope those people will try it once again...

 

[1jaxstate1]

Even though you are 100% correct, you'll never get your point across. You are using logic and facts on a fan site.

I didn't rate the user experience of the SeaRay with my post but am criticizing the editorial with its subjective and unproven statements. If you have a reliable source with a detailed spec sheet, it would be amazing if you could provide the link to it. You also seem to know of tests and industry comparisons for the camera lense, navigation software and call quality. Please share them with us. (Again, I'm not criticizing the device but you for just saying "Best Best Best" even as we already made the point that this device hasn't been reviewed or tested yet)

And as you mentioned, the high-tier hardware of WP7 devices is not on-par with the high-tier Android hardware. So, calling the SeaRay's hardware "industry standard" as did the author, is total bullocks as well.

Bottom Line: I love WP7 but that is a bad editorial. Don't fall for content without substance just because it praises your favourite.

 

[smartpatrol]

I didn't rate the user experience of the SeaRay with my post but am criticizing the editorial with its subjective and unproven statements. If you have a reliable source with a detailed spec sheet, it would be amazing if you could provide the link to it. You also seem to know of tests and industry comparisons for the camera lense, navigation software and call quality. Please share them with us. (Again, I'm not criticizing the device but you for just saying "Best Best Best" even as we already made the point that this device hasn't been reviewed or tested yet)

And as you mentioned, the high-tier hardware of WP7 devices is not on-par with the high-tier Android hardware. So, calling the SeaRay's hardware "industry standard" as did the author, is total bullocks as well.

Bottom Line: I love WP7 but that is a bad editorial. Don't fall for content without substance just because it praises your favourite.

For what it's worth, I didn't find that article very informative at all. There was really no substance to it. It's a fluff piece. I agree with you that it's too early to say just who is "winning". And I don't really know what "industry standard" is supposed to mean given how vastly devices vary in the smartphone world.

I'm basing my statements on Nokia's past hardware plus previews of the N9 (nearly identical hardware to the Sea Ray). Read any review of the N8 if you want some idea of what to expect from Nokia's hardware. Basically every review praises them for the things I mentioned, and only takes points off for the lousy OS (obviously fixed with WP7), and the low-res 640x360 screen (Sea Ray will be 800x480 like every other WP7 device).

In terms of hardware build quality and features, it's fair to say that Nokia is one of the best in the industry. The only one in the same tier as them hardware-wise IMO is Apple.

There are also plenty of reviews of the Ovi Maps software out there on the web, and they are overwhelmingly positive. Nokia has already confirmed that it will be coming to WP7.

And in terms of the internals (CPU/RAM/etc), again, why does it matter? You're comparing vastly different operating systems with vastly different performance characteristics. Today on this forum there is someone who traded in his Trophy for a Droid Bionic and is now complaining about how slow and choppy the Bionic feels. It's the user experience that matters, not necessarily the CPU specs. If WP7 ran on dual-core processors but felt choppy and laggy on them, would you then consider it "industry standard"?

 

[Reflexx]

The obsession with specs is pretty silly.

Performance is what counts. And that is the metric we should be using.

If better specs are needed because of a specific performance issue, that argument would hold more water.

For example, I'd like to see some phones with a better GPU. Why? So that all of the games run smoothly with absolutely no jitters at all.

That is a measurement that everyone could look at and make a fair assessment with. But just throwing out specs and saying we need it because another phone running a different OS has it doesn't prove anything.

 

[gerrymad]

WebOS was all kinds of pretty and had some significant momentum in its early stages.

webOS was pretty, but it never got nearly the monementum. Pretty much the first month it was out owners were complaining about speed and the poor quality of apps (what few there were). After 6 months it was already beginning to get ignored by Sprint. Please don't misinterpret this as a slam on the webOS. It was great and I had my Pre overclocked and tweaked all sorts of ways and I loved it.

That said the momentum in WP7 after a year of being in existence is much different. There are new devices and apps coming. A major update has already been released to the manufacturers. All of these are real progress - not vaporware or vague promises.

It's still going to take time to reach the same level as Android and iOS, but this platform is moving forward. I don't really care if it reaches #1 (clearly I'm not a Microsoft employee) as long as it gets enough recognition and respect that the salespeople stop telling potential customers that nobody is buying WP7 phones and then acting surprised that customers are not buying the phone.

 

[gerrymad]

The obsession with specs is pretty silly.

Performance is what counts. And that is the metric we should be using.

Exactly. The android folks tout specs all the time. iOS users virtually never even mention specs. They just talk about what their devices can do. That is actually all that matters. If a 200 MHz CPU can do everything I want smoothly and quickly then the specs are meaningless.

 

[theefman]

The obsession with specs is pretty silly.

Performance is what counts. And that is the metric we should be using.

If better specs are needed because of a specific performance issue, that argument would hold more water.

For example, I'd like to see some phones with a better GPU. Why? So that all of the games run smoothly with absolutely no jitters at all.

That is a measurement that everyone could look at and make a fair assessment with. But just throwing out specs and saying we need it because another phone running a different OS has it doesn't prove anything.

Sadly the whole internet community seems to have adopted this stance. Reviews are rife with lamentations of lack of dual core, terabytes of RAM, etcm and the actual performance of the device is given but a cursory mention. The fact that desktop class components are required to get android phones to a satisfactory level of performance is glaringly overlooked, while any WP7 review spends its time telling you what hardware spec it doesnt have.

Its the way of today's internet and today's world, blogs spout what brings hits, people park their brains and refuse to think for themselves.

 

[cckgz4]

Sadly the whole internet community seems to have adopted this stance. Reviews are rife with lamentations of lack of dual core, terabytes of RAM, etcm and the actual performance of the device is given but a cursory mention. The fact that desktop class components are required to get android phones to a satisfactory level of performance is glaringly overlooked, while any WP7 review spends its time telling you what hardware spec it doesnt have.

Its the way of today's internet and today's world, blogs spout what brings hits, people park their brains and refuse to think for themselves.

THANK YOU! Not to generalize but most of these fanboys are so quick to point out the lack of GHZ and other things that are missing from WP7 but fail to comprehend that their OS can't even perform in the same fluidness WITH high specs

 

[jesdt]

Even though you are 100% correct, you'll never get your point across. You are using logic and facts on a fan site.

I'm just glad I could reach out to at least one other person here. Thank you for this.

 

[ikkf]

Well, here's another article with a little more detail. It's probably old hat to those of us who have been following Mango closely, but probably resonates more with those who haven't.

5 Reasons to Get Excited About Windows Phone 7 Mango | PCWorld Business Center

Shiny, New Hardware
Bing Gets Fun (and More Useful)
Better Entertainment Experience
Enhanced Microsoft Office
Smarter and, Hopefully, More Apps