Test drive thoughts...

[doublebullout]

I picked up an LG Quantum off eBay for $164 this week to try out in place of my iPhone 4. So far I'm impressed. Using WP7 does seem to be more efficient for many of the same tasks that I used my iPhone for, but that may just be because I don't have any games yet. ;-)

Initial thoughts/questions:

- The Quantum has a lot of trouble holding a wifi connection in parts of my house where the iPhone has no problems at all. 3G reception seems weaker on the Quantum as well. Has anyone else experienced this?

- Love the WP7 calendar much more than the iOS calendar, except that WP7 won't sync anything but the main Google calendar.

- Notifications in WP7 are much better than iOS. However, I seem to get audio alerts for texts and emails that don't spawn either notifications or an updated email count on the lockscreen. I'll hear a tone, and then can't figure out why. Anyone run into this?

- Love the WP7 lockscreen. If I hadn't jailbroken my iPhone to use Lockinfo, I'd have pulled my hair out long ago over iOS' complete lack of useful information on the lockscreen.

- I'm not sure what the big fuss over the Zune app is when compared to the iPod app on iOS. The Zune app doesn't seem to me to be any better in either function or capability. Am I missing something?

- My browser experience so far has been worse on the Quantum. Mobile Safari seems quicker to me. Admittedly, the biggest difference is the retina display on the iPhone4; sites are so much clearer on the iPhone due to the higher pixel density.

- Dislikes: the power button on the Quantum is too small. And the Shift / Fn keys on the keyboard are recessed too far.

As I said, I'm impressed with both WP7 and the Quantum. I don't think I could make a permanent switch yet, but it is a great platform and device. Any comments from other Quantum users are definitely welcome.

 

[doublebullout]

Update...
I swapped my SIM card back into the iPhone4 for a few days. But remarkably, I actually missed using WP7. Today the SIM card went back into the Quantum because WP7 is just so much fun to use. Hmmmmm....

 

[Tobyus]

It is pretty addictive, I must say. Before I bought the Quantum I was actually considering buying the Atrix, and told myself that I could always exchange it for the Atrix if I am unhappy with WP7. So far, all of the little things that originally bugged me about WP7 have cleared themselves up nicely. I've gotten used to the all noise or all vibrate setup and the global volume control, and actually have grown fond of its simplicity. I originally couldn't get my bluetooth headset to sync up with my phone, but realized it was just because my headset is picky about how you hold the button to put it into pairing mode (now I've got a working bluetooth headset again, yay!). Then the whole deal with AT&T holding updates so long worked itself out because of the little network disconnect trick that popped up, so now I've got NoDo and it made this phone even better.

I think I might be hooked.

 

[VernonEL]

Double and Toby: Glad to hear things are looking up!!

 

[Ivan006]

I'm sure as more updates come to the WP7, the phone will function the way you want it to. I'm a little surprised to see your review doublebullout, cause I don't know too many people moving from Iphone to WP7 (esp. the Iphone 4). I guess I would expect to see more Blackberry users to move over to WP7, but this is good to see.

 

[doublebullout]

I wouldn't read too much into it -- I'm not intending to make a permanent switch to WP7. I'm no longer loyal to any particular mobile OS since Palm turned its back on enterprise users by taking webOS in a different direction from the previous 15 years of PalmOS. (If you're really interested, see my many posts on this topic on precentral.) Because of my long years using PalmOS, I value efficiency and reliability in the UI more than most users. For example, if the calendar requires too many taps to enter an appointment, I tend to get frustrated easily. iOS has enough advantages to make me overlook the poor built-in iOS calendar (I prefer Calvetica on iOS.) I really like WP7's calendar and live tiles paradigm. Is that enough to make me want to switch? Not yet, but I readily admit that using WP7 for PIM functions is generally more fun than using iOS for the same functions. At the moment, my feelings toward WP7 are a lot like the Dread Pirate Roberts': "Good night, Wesley, I'll probably kill you in the morning." ;-)