Is Windows Phone WP7.5 (Mango) up with iOS and Android?

[Wilt]

I've always been a Sony and Ericsson fan, Sony will be making a big comeback this year since buying out Ericsson, I expect Cybershot, Walkman advertising to bury Microsoft and Nokia's advertising.

Sony have also advised they will no longer make feature phones, and will only make smartphones, Androids with hardware to match and excel Apple will be interesting

While I would love Sony to come out all guns blazing with some amazing phones, looking at anything they have made since perhaps the ps2 doesn't fill me with confidence that this will happen. They have had to pretty much abandon TVs, portable music has been abandoned to Apple, the PS3, while popular, isn't nearly popular enough considering the traction that the ps2 gave them.

They are far too 'clunky' as an entity - they have all of the component parts to make great products, however none of these parts talk to each other properly, so when there is a product that tries to bring several of the different brands together it invariably ends up shite.

Take a look at the Xperia Play as the latest example - it was supposed to be the playstation phone, however due to what appear to be internal squabbles the playstation brand never even made it onto the phone in any meaningful way. Perhaps this is justified given that the phone appeared to be crap, but I can't shake the feeling that if Apple were making the phone, the two departments would have worked together until they got at least the full suite of psp games working on it. But it just wasn't in the interest of the playstation guys to help out, since it had the potential to cannibalize psp sales.

Maybe this will get better now that SE will be 100% Sony, however taking into account that SE was the only Sony company to ever release any meaningful cross-branded products I'm not so sure that there will be any improvement.

But I would love to be proved wrong - always had a soft spot for SE. I think before they try and work on the cross-branding Sony need to get something other than a mid-range phone out of the door - I'm not sure why but each new SE flagship is always about a year too late specs wise.

Edit: Just realised I am completely off topic - oops!

[hecatae]

Take a look at the Xperia Play as the latest example - it was supposed to be the playstation phone, however due to what appear to be internal squabbles the playstation brand never even made it onto the phone in any meaningful way. Perhaps this is justified given that the phone appeared to be crap, but I can't shake the feeling that if Apple were making the phone, the two departments would have worked together until they got at least the full suite of psp games working on it. But it just wasn't in the interest of the playstation guys to help out, since it had the potential to cannibalize psp sales.

Edit: Just realised I am completely off topic - oops!

Interesting you mention the Xperia Play, this was meant to be the Google Nexus Two, until Google chose Samsung for the Nexus S as Sony Ericsson pulled out 2 weeks before the end of the development stage: http://ausdroid.net/2011/08/16/the-n...-how-it-works/

This means the Xperia Play was actually designed in 2010, and would have been ready to be announced in October 2010, if Sony Ericsson had not pulled out of development. Instead it was announced in February 2011, and released in March 2011, to not steal sales from the Nexus S.

Unlike Sony, Nokia cant stop selling feature phones, they would disappear into obscurity.

[Hands0n]

Lots and lots of interesting comments. It seems difficult to discuss WP7.5 without drifting into Nokia-land.

Although to be fair to Nokia this OS is not their exclusive territory, there are several other manufacturers such as Samsung, LG, HTC to name but three. So, returning to the topic "Is Windows Phone WP7.5 (Mango) up with iOS and Android?", taking into account the preceding comments the answer appears to be a resounding "No".

That said, I have become particularly sensitive this week to the reviews that professional and non-professionals have been espousing about the various WP7.5 devices, most particular the Nokia as that is "the one to watch". It seems, if the reviewers are to be taken at their word, the whole world is waiting on Nokia to make WP7 a success. Certainly, no other WP7 manufacturer is making any meaningful advertising push to promote the presence of WP7.

But those reviews are rather superficial, dwelling on the aesthetics of the hardware design, the curved glass, the super AMOLED screen, the plastic resin case and so on. Where the OS is touched upon commentary is reserved to the headline aspects of the Metro interface, those floating tiles on the screen. With the sole exception of the Guardian's reviewers, so far as I have read, no other has delved deeper into actually using the WP7.5 OS. Instead, the reviewers seem to have taken the smartphone out of its box, had a fiddle for an hour or so and then written their review article. Totally inadequate.

I know how difficult it is to conduct a review based upon a few minutes handling. The only way to truly understand a product is to live with it for at least a few days, longer preferably. For example, I did this for five weeks with a BlackBerry 9700, the first, only, and last BB I will ever own. By the time I switched back to my iPhone I could feel 100% qualified to pass comment. That is, of course, the most extreme case experience of mine. I'm not suggesting all reviewers be that extreme, but at least run with the device for a few days first.

In reading the Guardian review of WP7.5 as applied to the HTC Titan I felt a great resonance with my own experience of WP7.0 as on the Samsung Omnia 7, reported in January 2011 on Talk3G (here --> http://www.talk3g.co.uk/showthread.p...ighlight=omnia ). Back then I came away with mixed feelings about the OS, although somewhat more positive than otherwise. But a year on, based on the Guardian's most extensive review of the OS I've seen yet, makes me feel that matters are worse rather than improved.

Seriously? Twelve months on and the WP7 OS still has usability issues that indicate fundamental software architecture and design flaws? And that laced with the promise of Tango (Q2/2012) and Apollo (Q4/2012), the latter to "... enable the release of high-end super phones" (citation: http://wmpoweruser.com/leaked-window...to-the-future/ ).

So what exactly do we have here with WP7.5 Mango then? Its all very well the world holding it's breath for the Nokia Lumia 900 to take on iOS and Android flagships. But we're talking OS here, and it will be the same WP7.5 on the 900 that is on the 800 and its peers from other manufacturers.

By its own words Microsoft is positioning WP7.5 as a mid-range smartphone OS, certainly not on a par with iOS 5 and Android 4.0. Buyers be warned.

[Hands0n]

Just to throw another log onto the fire ... and the reader's comments are worthy of a look too Charlie Kindel is wrong about Why Windows Phone has not taken off

[Ben]

Reading that now; just got a couple of paragraphs in and read this, which mirrors my exact feelings about why Android is successful tbh. Yes, I know it has many qualities of its own now, but even so - it's reason for existing seems clear.

The central secret for the success of Android is that it provided a cheap iPhone copy. It is as simple as that, and it is no wonder the most successful Android OEM is Samsung’, who’s TouchWiz UI most closely copies the iPhone. When TouchWiz was on Windows Mobile it also helped sell a huge number of Samsung Omnia 1s and 2s.

Not to mention that Samsung are also mass producers of relatively high-end but low-priced electronics.

[hecatae]

looks like that Jil Sander wp7 has sold out, next cheapest is Acer Allegro, which looks like a HTC Mozart in a cheaper case. Thats what is not impressing, the strict specification of WVGA gives no real room for innovation

[Hands0n]

Mine turned up today, I have it charging on the arm rest next to me Let the trial begin ... I'll post my Mango 7.5 findings on a separate thread.