Windows Phone vs Android vs iPhone

[chrisk]

Originally Posted by Bungwirez

I blame the The Mrs ... she's addicted too BBM
so when the corporate plan came up for renewal I had no choice in the matter.

If I had to do it all over (and could afford the divorce) ... Samsung Galaxy all the way.

There is an app called Whattsapp...it allows for all (most?) of the functions plus more of BBM.

The best part? Its cross-platform (IOS, Android, and Blackberry). Will allow you to communicate BBM-style to most smartphones, and everybody does not need to be on the same platform.

I've been using it for over a year and very reliable. My buddy who is a Blackberry fan likes it too and has it on his Blackberry, and finds himself using it more than BBM...

[Bungwirez]

Originally Posted by chrisk

There is an app called Whattsapp...it allows for all (most?) of the functions plus more of BBM.

The best part? Its cross-platform (IOS, Android, and Blackberry). Will allow you to communicate BBM-style to most smartphones, and everybody does not need to be on the same platform.

I've been using it for over a year and very reliable. My buddy who is a Blackberry fan likes it too and has it on his Blackberry, and finds himself using it more than BBM...

+1 ... but she's a rimmer. just like I can't convince her to play any game other than YoVille.

on topic... go get an Android. HWC just showcased the new Samsung Galaxy Note. another great device for big hands!

Hands on with the Samsung Galaxy Note - YouTube

[Nodscene]

I was looking at the Note just a couple days ago. Man that thing is huge! I have to admit though that I want it badly haha. The screen is beautiful and the OS looks spectacular, it's quick and easy to navigate. Android has come a long way in just a year since I last tried one. If it wasn't for the fact you still can't see any of the body of the emails without opening it I would sell my iphone and get that.

[Mars]

I'm a big fan of Windows Phone, though I own an Android device as well... if you've got any WP questions, I should be able to answer them for you.

Originally Posted by supaflyx3

Android.
Google backup is wonderful, you keep all your contacts and photos backed up to google, so whenever you get a new android phone, or restore your phone you'll still have your contacts & pictures.

I'm pretty sure every platform does this.

Originally Posted by JMCD

Android has some phones that support 2 sim cards if I recall. Personally I think this is an amazing feature for those people who have work phones, and personal phones. Might be something your people would thoroughly enjoy.

Dual SIM support has never been very good - there's a very limited number of phones with it, individual SIM slots are tied to particular antennas in the phone, you can't properly run both antennas at the same time, etc. Carriers in the US are pretty hostile towards dual-SIM phones, so there's no real push to develop anything other than low-end devices for markets which do demand them.

If you've got multiple phones you want to consolidate, easiest thing is probably to set up call forwarding on one of them.

Originally Posted by SKYMTL

I'm a loyal Blackberry user. The new Bold is a great phone IMO and I don't really needs Apps, etc. nor do I buy into the fad of touch screen typing.

I was like that too, until I got a touchscreen phone. I still think they keyboard is a marginally better typing device, but it's not worth it for me, while having a half-size screen or added bulk of a slider.

Originally Posted by chrisk

I hate that i won't be able to take my iPhone with me to Asia this summer...Bell refuses to unlock iPhones. No problemo with Androids...

Sell it and buy an unlocked one from Apple?

Originally Posted by chrisk

That said, as for platforms I think Android 4.0 (Ice Cream Sandwich, or ICS) is really refined. It will give Apple a real run for its money (as if Android has not already...) For the folks who used to get lost in Android's OS, or liked Apple better, the new Android OS has really stepped up. Very responsive.

This has been one of my largest complaints with Android - 4.0 doesn't quite fix responsiveness for me, but I think we're almost there. Anandtech just put up some thoughts and numbers on Krait, I'm thinking that should finally get Android to the point where I'm not annoyed my skips in responsiveness.

Originally Posted by chrisk

I have not looked, but would be shocked if there were no custom 4.0 roms for it.

Nothing good yet. Unless you're getting a killer deal price-wise, I have a hard time recommending anything other than Nexus devices on Android, the glacial pace of updates for everything else is infuriating.

Originally Posted by chrisk

The best part? Its cross-platform (IOS, Android, and Blackberry).

Also Windows Phone. I really wish Apple/MS/Google would coordinate a cross-platform solution with imessage/gtalk/wlm, automagically based on email and using 3G/wifi if available (like imessage). They're all (along with facebook chat) using the XMPP protocol, if the companies wanted to, it should be relatively straightforward to link all the services together.

[Jake_HT]

Another vote for android here. There really is no advantage to the iphone anymore, the new android phones are bigger, nicer screens, better battery life, just as fast or if you're rooted much faster. As a computer geek you'll appreciate the customization android has to offer. You can also run many different custom roms to make your phone run better and change even more things.

Another huge advantage is being able to change the keyboard. Swype is fantastic, typing on the iphone is a nightmare

Look into the galaxy nexus.

Win7 mobile is nice but there aren't much apps or phones that use it, while its a great product it just doesn't compete with android quite yet.

Rim? Who?

[Mars]

Originally Posted by Jake_HT

Win7 mobile is nice but there aren't much apps or phones that use it, while its a great product it just doesn't compete with android quite yet.

Just Windows Phone, "Windows Mobile" refers exclusively to the pre-WP7 OS. :)

I feel the lack of apps on WP is generally overstated, Microsoft has really solid developer program, and has reached 60k apps faster than either iOS or Android.

Taking a quick look across several dozen apps I personally have installed on my Android and WP device, they do the following better (or exclusively, in the case of Flash):
Android: Flash, IRC client, Dropbox, Google Reader, Speedtest app
WP: Academic Search, Reddit, Golf app, OneNote, Skydrive

IMO integrated ecosystem support is a better selling feature for either platform than 3rd-party apps. Windows Phone does Office really well, and has nice skydrive integration, which should be big with Windows 8, going by the news over the past couple days. On the other hand, the native Google Reader and gmail clients on Android are the best around, and Google Maps is still better than Bing Maps. (Primarily for transit - Bing Maps doesn't route transit directions in Canada.)

[enaberif]

Touch typing on Android is a thing of the past with Swype and SwiftKey.

You can essentially type a couple letters of a word and you can just choose the word you want. Accuracy is good and forms to how you normally type and tries to predict what you want to say.

Swype is nice because you don't even type you just drag your finger.

[Eluder]

Android by a huge margin.
Best OS on a phone right now, especially if you get the Nexus with ICS.
It's just a far more flexible, fast and powerful OS, more so than iOS because of it's open vs closed ecosystem.

If gaming is your primary concern, then get iOS, but if you like to do something other than game on a phone, Android by far. Typing on an Android is the best when it comes to touchscreen because of the haptic feedback and multiple choices for keyboards. Plus you can try different browsers, email clients and anything else to get the right setup on your phone.

[NyteOwl]

Not a huge "computer that makes phone calls" fan but my choice of such phones is Rim :)

Given the options you stated however, I would choose Android, simply due to the openness of the platform and the lack of "lock in".

[Eldonko]

Android all the way for me- highly enjoying Galaxy Nexus. I like that everything in my google account (contacts, email, calendar, etc) are all synced to my phone and whenever I replace it they will be still there. Android 4.0 is win as well.