Smoked by a Windows Phone

[mkr10001]

I would bet that just proves people talk alot if crap over a keyboard, but wouldnt in real life.

haha yeah, any of the guys badmouthing this smoked thing would love Ben to give them a free Windows phone that just beat their own phone.

 

[Reflexx]

I would bet that just proves people talk alot if crap over a keyboard, but wouldnt in real life.

It helps that Ben is a Juijitsu black belt that nobody in their right mind would want to start any trouble with.

 

[mprice86]

How did it get so serious in here!?

It's a marketing campaign, of course it's bias towards the product they're trying to sell.

Personally I'd have gone further with it and pointed out how everything (I think) was performed just with the OS, where as the Android/iPhone people were launching apps left right and centre to compete.

Yes there are shortcomings in Windows Phone, but they are usually being pointed out by someone ignoring the shortcomings of their own Android or iPhone.

 

[martin_strahilovski]

Just awesome!

 

[welsbloke]

@pronk

Your posts got longer and more desperate that should be telling you something. I understand what you trying to say but your examples were not good ones. Yes they showed the windows phone in a good light but they are still more common phone examples than yours.

Sorry.

 

[kylej1050]

Why waste time turning off wifi and GPS? I never turn either of them off and have great battery life. ****, I've been playing games on and off all day, BT/WiFi/GPS all on, cell streaming for 30 mins of netflix for the little one, and my Arrive has 39% battery, says its been off charge for 13 hours and has 11 hours left. Can't argue with that for a smartphone! Especially a smartphone that I'm happy with.

I think this challenge is a great idea and I think my company should do that when we go to shows

 

[Big Supes]

The facebook one I haven't seen, so I don't know. The restaurant one isn't necessarily an unfair test, but the result does have to be taken with some heavy caveats.

Did WP get a list of four star restaurants up first? Yes (sort of - it got a list of restaurants up graded by rating, not specifically 4-star ones only). But that's where the comparison has to end really because the people are likely looking at and doing different things in their apps. What if, for example, I want to filter by distance then star rating? That might be easily doable in another search app but Local scout doesn't allow that, so it would take longer to find the same end result using it as I'd have to eyeball the star rating for all local entries. Who has the best customer ratings system with the most feedback, and where is that info sourced from? Did the contestants all know the best way to just get a list up fast or were they doing it in a way that got them the most information or the most accurate result for what they specifically wanted? This isn't saying Local Scout produced poor results at all, just that the results everyone produced aren't really directly comparable. Or to put it another way, someone searching via a restaurant app might have to wait a few seconds more, but they might get richer info that someone using Local Scout might have to run a new search to get. In the circumstances it might not matter if you're e.g. just looking for the nearest coffee shop as fast as possible regardless of what chain it is or any other criteria. Or it might matter a lot if you want a vegetarian restaurant 3 star and above within a 3-mile radius with customer reviews.

Getting the end result fast might indeed be the test, but there's no assessment of how useful that result is so the test to me is flawed because speed isn't the only criteria that's relevant. I can get dressed fastest for the day if all I wear is a sack, but will I be comfortable? Probably not, so my boast about being quickest is consequently devalued.

That's why I liked the tweet test - it's doing the exact same task to get the exact same end result. And the fact that WP effectively drew with an iPhone 4S doing it is something to genuinely be proud of. I'd love to have seen WP7 beat Android and the iPhone running an identical search via Yelp!, as it's available on all three platforms, but we didn't get that - and that's what bugs me (with the caveat I'm a real stickler for detail and fairness so probably get annoyed by this sort of thing more than most would).

Now if you'll excuse me, I'm going to go and change out of this sack. It's itchy

I understand what you're saying, but I really don't see any discrepancies in the information Local Scout provides. In fact, I've tested it numerous times, in numerous locations I'm very familiar with, and every time, it delivers. Fair enough if LS and Bing maps were sub-par, but - and I think this is the general consensus amongst users - they're well above and beyond. I guess I just don't see room for your argument.

For me, this was a little bit of fun that was made that much sweeter due to the past and on-going argument: hardware vs software. WP showed that the software is the real key to the experience. Hardware is great, but it'll always be restricted by the software. WP (the underdog with it's unworthy specs in the eyes of it's critics) humorously took on the best, and gave them a hiding.

I think it's it fair to say that the experienced WP users recognise this platform is merely getting out of nappies, and we still have a long way to go to reach it's potential, but we're on the right track. When WP is boosted by 'current' hardware specs, THAT's when the competition had better look out.

 

[scottcraft]

On Ben's twitter feed I've seen several people tweet that they have gotten a WP as a result of watching the videos. That's what it was about.

Sent from my Windows7 Phone using Board Express

 

[Pronk]

@pronk

Your posts got longer and more desperate that should be telling you something. I understand what you trying to say but your examples were not good ones. Yes they showed the windows phone in a good light but they are still more common phone examples than yours.

Sorry.

What it tells me is that I'm a stickler for fairness and will stand by my opinion. Read it as desperate if you like (though length isn't really relevant - if you're replying and explaining something, why be overly brief and not as thorough for the sake of it? Not as if we have a word count to stick to). Besides, ultimately it's not dislike of the platform, just one particular marketing scheme's angle.

 

[Exomondo]

There were apparently only 10 things or so that were open to challenge, and all skewed to suit WP (as you'd absolutely expect).

Of course, I thought it was pretty obvious that it was advertising. You think Apple makes an ad for an iPhone and includes a whole heap of things the iPhone can't do? Or that they put a little caveat in their web browsing elements to tell you that in fact you can't view anything that requires 3rd party plugins like Flash or Silverlight?

Marketers will always accentuate the elements that the product excels at and almost never mention those in which it doesn't. It's pretty naive to think this is anything new.

 

[brmiller1976]

One-off things? Come on.

I turn my wifi on and off all the time because I like to save on battery when I'm leaving the house and not using my wifi network. Ditto GPS when I come into the house.

You must be an Android user. Android users have developed all sorts of funny adaptations to keep their juice on for longer than three or four hours. Turn off "live wallpaper," turn off WiFi and GPS, turn off 3G, turn off 4G, turn off push, set task-killer to "aggressive," etc.

As a result, Android can do all those things with the click of a widget or seven. BUT...

Windows Phone doesn't need to do any of those things, since it's efficient. I keep WiFi, Bluetooth and GPS on, have three push e-mail accounts with frequently-shifting calendars and stream Spotify for two hours a day (walk back and forth to work) and still have 20% to 30% of my battery left at the end of the day. I doubt I'd see an appreciable difference by implementing Android style "now, turn off WiFi and GPS." I want all the functions of my phone to work, all the time, AND the battery to last.

To be fair, I do suppose Android would smoke Windows Phone in the all important "how soon before you need to plug it in" contest... and the "how quickly will this device crash" contest as well...

 

[koolkid09]

You must be an Android user. Android users have developed all sorts of funny adaptations to keep their juice on for longer than three or four hours. Turn off "live wallpaper," turn off WiFi and GPS, turn off 3G, turn off 4G, turn off push, set task-killer to "aggressive," etc.

As a result, Android can do all those things with the click of a widget or seven. BUT...

Windows Phone doesn't need to do any of those things, since it's efficient. I keep WiFi, Bluetooth and GPS on, have three push e-mail accounts with frequently-shifting calendars and stream Spotify for two hours a day (walk back and forth to work) and still have 20% to 30% of my battery left at the end of the day. I doubt I'd see an appreciable difference by implementing Android style "now, turn off WiFi and GPS." I want all the functions of my phone to work, all the time, AND the battery to last.

To be fair, I do suppose Android would smoke Windows Phone in the all important "how soon before you need to plug it in" contest... and the "how quickly will this device crash" contest as well...

My device last 12-14 hours a day. I use stock everything. I keep everything on except for Bluetooth and 4g.

Sent from my Nexus S 4G using Tapatalk

 

[Pronk]

You must be an Android user.

Actually, no. I came from an iPhone 4 whose battery lasted much longer with everything on because it was a whopper, so I'm just trying to eke it out to the same level because I'm used to 2+ days between charge cycles. And also, I'm used to a longer battery life because my first Windows Phone, an HTC Mozart, had an extended battery that could also take me to 2+ days.

I can't do that with my Lumia 800 because the battery is sealed in (and unfortunately isn't that huge), but also don't want a phone that won't last a day before expiring. And as the Lumia has battery issues anyway, running it down even faster leaving functions and radios on I'm not using and leaving 3G on in an area where I know there's no signal, meaning multiple energy-draining network searches, doesn't exactly help.

I also want a smartphone where I can use everything. But above that, I want a smartphone I can use for more than a few hours before it expires. If that means doing some housekeeping until Nokia get their updates out (and hopefully that'll improve things), so be it.

 

[HeyMoosh]

Just a quick response to the comments about changing settings like WiFi, Bluetooth, screen brightness etc etc... Time and time again I have done these things with my WP with one of my Android or iPhone using friends with me wanting to do the same thing. And every single time it takes me approximately 3 seconds max, whereas it takes them up to and over 10 seconds every time, it gets to the point where if we are walking somewhere and need to turn vibrate on, or lower/increase the screen brightness my friends actually have to stop and think while they do it!

Now I'll say that the android users aren't using high end devices, but really, the mess of settings and just bad user experience is throughout all the devices... and it's just shocking for me to watch how much of a struggle it is for them to do such simple things! Coming from a WP being able to do everything and anything I want in a matter of seconds, even if I haven't done it before, is something I take for granted and couldn't stand using a device that made things as complicated as theirs seems to be. (Also a shocking percentage of the time their phones crash trying to do these simple changes in settings!)

Sure other devices may have quick ways to change some settings, but it's the consistency across WP, with the settings all laid out in a logical way, and any common task you might want to do the stock OS can do for you extremely efficiently. The other OS's might have other faster ways of doing these things, but if you were to measure the speed and ease of doing all your usual everyday tasks on WP7, Android and iOS and averaged the scores I'm sure that WP7 would hold it's own, if not beat the others completely.

 

[TheWeeBear]

Never tried Android, not wanting to, after seeing my friends experiences with it.
Welcome along to WPCentral HeyMoosh.

 

[scottcraft]

I think android is faster at turning off and on WiFi, Bluetooth, GPS, etc. For each of these tasks you can put a widget on the homescreen that toggles this function on and off. I'm not saying android is better by any means, just that at some tasks it is faster than WP.

Sent from my Windows7 Phone using Board Express

 

[HeyMoosh]

Thanks WeeBear What an entrance I made with that huge post huh... lol

Maybe it's just me with this opinion on the settings thing then. Yea android is faster at some of the settings, but when you're talking about a matter of 1 or 2 seconds difference it's a bit of a non-argument. I just tested myself out of interest and I can change ANY setting on my phone in 3-6 seconds That is from the settings menu, with no shortcuts or apps... Thats where the advantage lies in WP, the user experience is fantastic because everything is organized so neatly that using it is incredibly quick and efficient!

 

[TheWeeBear]

And why not have a dramatic entrance with an informative post HeyMoosh.

 

[TheWeeBear]

Just a couple of additional 'Smoked' videos to add.

It seems a couple of Carrier stores have been visited.

Windows Phone vs. Android - YouTube

Windows vs. Android Showdown! - YouTube

Andy why not show them pesky sales people how fast WP is ?

 

[Big Supes]

Andy why not show them pesky sales people how fast WP is ?

Thanks for sharing, Weebear.

BTW, speaking from personal experience, the local Carphone Warehouse really seem to be pushing WP. I pop in there frequently to tease myself and the reps are always taking people over to see the Windows Phone handsets.