I'm interested to hear your stories.
How did you come to decided to take the road less travelled with Windows Phone when the majority of people choose Android or iPhone by default?
My story goes like this:
I used Palm Pilots for years. My first smartphone was a Palm Treo 180g back in 2002. I had a few non-smartphones in between (including 2 Nokia's, one was the iconic Nokia 3650 with the circular keypad), later a Palm Centro, then a Blackberry Curve and finally an LG Esteem (Revolution) Android phone.
Before I bought the LG, I had been looking at Windows Phones. I wasn't really sold on Android and the iPhone didn't click with me for a number of reasons.
I stayed on the fence for months. I'd go to the phone stores periodically just to play around with all the devices and I always found myself coming back to the Windows Phones. I just liked the UI more than any of the others, the keyboard worked great.
Every time I went to a phone store, I always wound up spending more time playing with the Windows Phones than anything else...
But, I was not really excited enough by the phones that were available at the time and a little uncertain about Windows Phone, a friend convinced me to go with Android. Against my better judgement, I got the best Android phone my no contract provider offered, an LG Esteem.
Flash forward about a year. My uncertainty about Android was confirmed, the thing wound up being a buggy mess. I realized I really do not care for the chaotic Android ecosystem in general with apps that don't follow good UI and interface behavior rules. LG did a terrible job supporting my phone, and my carrier was useless for help.
I was at the end of my rope with my phone and fed up with Android. The iPhone 4S was out, and I was leaning towards it, but the tiny screen, all glass construction, lack of LTE and good, but dull feeling OS just didn't excite me enough to want to sign a contract and shell out a few $100 to get one.
As much as my Android experience sucked, going back to Blackberry seemed like a step backwards. So I began to think
maybe this is the time to make the leap to Windows Phone.
I came this close to buying a no contract Lumia 710 from T-Mobile, but I couldn't quite get comfortable with it. I remembered what my Android loving friend told me when I was miserable with my LG: "Don't buy a cheap smartphone and expect good results. If you're going to give the OS a try, get the best phone for it." He was referring to Android, which I wasn't about to try again, but it applied here as well I figured. If I want to try Windows Phone, I should give it a fair chance and get the nicest phone I could.
I was vaguely aware of the Nokia Lumia 800 and thought it was beautiful, but with no U.S. carrier and no LTE, it wasn't for me.
Enter the Lumia 900. I heard it was coming. I knew it looked very similar to the 800, which I loved. I knew it had a nice big screen (one of the few things I liked about my Android) and I had nothing but positive experiences with the Nokia phones I had owned in the past.
All the pieces came together for me then. I knew I liked the Windows Phone OS, now here was phone hardware that I was actually excited about, and it was made by Nokia which I had confidence in, especially given that they had committed 100% to Windows Phone. I figured there was little chance the "flagship" Windows Phone of the moment would be as poorly supported as my LG crapdroid was. That, plus the excellent price gave me the confidence to pull the trigger, and here I am.
Used Windows Mobile on and off when it came out through the then branded HTC devices, Qtek. Also tryed some Symbian devices along the way. After the HTC Universial i then culminated with the move to a uniqe laptop/smarphone named the "Flybook". I always wanted my phone to be a computer and had already dressed my Universial as if it were Windows XP, the thought of a mini super computer was a dream i desired. The Flybook was, for what i know, the worlds first mini laptop that also had a built in sim slot, built in cellphone software, rotation screen to fold it as a tablet. It was a incridble machine for its time, but as you can imagine....a 10" screen with keyboard and all didnt make for a great phone experience and there was no support for BT headsets so i was stuck with some gaming headphones with microphone to it ... I must have looked like a freak. It also had no cd rom or anything ...but i could play WoW and surf the internet and make calls, text ... all from the same source!! It came installed with XP Proferssional and i could share my DVD player from my PC sooo i kind of had a CD player.
After some time i grew tired of Smartphones and there isuess and decided to stop using Smarphones and gadgets all toghether. It was waaay to expensive to be doing and the experince was always half assed. The Flybook was the closest i?d come to my dream and i couldnt use BT headsets...and it costed me somewhere around 3000$ ... touch screens looked like crap back then also.... i found the Dell XPS M1710 laptop and but all my effort in to that (Still a amaziung computer today...what a screen!), sold of everything and bought a Samsung Samsung SGH X830 as a cool mini MP3 phone and stayed with it for some years, everything was great and calm...it could make calls and play music, had 1GB memory (was a lot back then, specially for a dumb phone).
but...
Then the LG KU990 Viewty came out and i feelt that i wanted a good camera phone. It also had TV out and lot of other feat. When the follow up modell LG KM900 Arena arrived (Looked and worked the same but better) i instantly upgraded from the Viewty.
Now the LG KM900 Arena was the first phone i ever lost, and i got a replacment very quickly. Turned out there also was a lot of bugs on The Arena and the phone was to be replaced ...but it had already gone out of production....here i found my self without a phone.
What to do, what to do. Well Sony Ericsson had a new device named Satio and it looked pretty awsome, the camera alone said it all. I decided to buy one and ....it was terrible. By this time Symbian was already out dated and slow, so while the camera was good, i despiced everything els about it, i sold it after 3 days. And i went out searching on the webb...what to buy next?
HTC HD2 had been announced and was just some weeks away to come out. I looked long and hard since i didnt want to buy another phone again, this buy need to last, i wasnt made of money after all. All studies of the phone showed it to be superior in any situations and in late 2009 i bought it. Hey, a nice camera, and i rememberd the Windows Mobile OS to be flexible so it should give a lot of value, but i never was to tweak it, only use the greatness, buy some apps and be on with my life.
Turned out Windows Mobile 6.5 wasnt that perfect, and HTC couldnt even make language translations correct ... and i was back in the tweaking mess. I must confess i became obsessed and downloaded every rom that ever came out, always looking for the perfect experience, and it was always close, but the ROM?s had a tendency to start go laggy and buggy after a couple of weeks. It was a love and hate thing, Windows Mobile was great, and i learned a lot during the time. I could always show my friends with iPhones some new feat they never had and it kind of started a hate wave for me against the iPhone. Here we had a superior phone, the HD2, and nobody knew how to handle it and bought iPhones instead...buying a more lesser experience, i was stuned and spent a lot of time trying to convince people to buy Windows Mobile instead of Iphones.
I enjoyed the freedom WM6.5 gave and liked trying out Android ROM?s as side loads, never giving up my Windows Mobile heritage.
Now, there was always some kind of issue with WM6.5 or 6.5,5 and i started wondering about my dedication ot Microsofts operating system....i bought a iPhone 3GS .... i found my self not liking the experience, i used it for 2 days or so and then went back to my HD2.
Then Windows Phone roms started to leak and though it was a hassle, i got my HD2 to, for the first time let me enter the realm of Windows Phone.
It was simplier, and the locked down UI scared me, the freedom of WM6.5 was gone .... but in the same time it was charming. I ended up using it for a month or 2 and keep reading about the new phones released.
During my "trial" time i started to notice i never needed to flash a new rom, it was, compared to WM6.5 rock solid and i went through this transformation, where the weight on my shoulders of using Windows Mobile and always needing to tweek, went away.
Now there were still isuess in using these roms on the HD2, and i started to think of the new Windows Phones, maybe they had no isuess at all.
After i saw the Omnia 7 in first hand...i was in love, and with much tears in my eyes i sold my HD2 to make the transsison.
So i now, over a year later i still use WP. I recently sold my Omnia 7, and Nokia Lumia 800 to buy the Titan and here i am today, a lot wiser =)
So my final thoughts are....is Windows Phone perfect, free of buggs? No, its a lot of isuess, and its the manufacturer and Microsoft?s fault. Omnia 7 never truly worked full out for many people, Lumia 800 is missing feat. and other buggs, Titan is weak on signal strength and goes totally bananas if its memory is to full. And for some this is not happening, and for others its happening. I use my phone a LOT and i am one of thouse always running in to these bugs that probably normal users never will find.
So i wonder, is Smartphones ever to function properlly? I think not, were always gonna get wierd bugs, inconsistency?s, and other isuess. And buying in to the Microsoft?s echosystem, will i ever change again? Well, i guess time will tell, there is isuess or small things missing that keeps reminding me that i should not get to comfortable in one world, even if i turned in to a Microsoft lover.
And being early in the game have given me the insight that the UI have to get somewhat more customizible, not advanced stuffs, but there is more needed, because how lovly WP may look, its getting somewhat tiresom to look at the same thing day in and day out, and buying a new phone aint changing that, its still the same look from my HD2 to Omnia 7 to Lumia 800 to my Titan, only performance and some apps to differ. Sure there more feat. now then before, but is it enough to keep one entertained? Im not so sure these days.
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