ArnoldRimmer said:
While the specs have been lowered, they are still a lot higher than Android hardware requirements, leading to higher entry prices. I just had a look at the available WP7 devices and their prices in my country, and the cheapest WP7 phones that appear to be somewhat popular come at about 250 Euros. That's definitely affordable, but I think the majority of people is nevertheless looking for even cheaper devices. Android Smartphones on the other hand already come as cheap as 99 Euros and considering the price they are quite feature-packed, usually having WLAN/GPS/Bluetooth/Digital Camera etc. already builtin. Their biggest downside is being slow and the display being of bad resolution etc. - but in the end that only affects comfort, you can still do almost anything with them that you can do with high-price Android phones. I think a person who is today looking to replace his old mobile but who doesn't want to spend more money than necessary will likely choose an Android device, because when looking and comparing feature lists, the cheaper Android devices will look like the best deal for the price. And of course, WP7 has the problem of being rather late to market and simply not having a reasonable market share yet. For customers that's a clear downside, because as long as it's not sure how bright WP7's future is going to be, spending hundreds of bucks on a WP7 phone is a bit of a risk and going with the established choices seems much safer. WebOS for example really is a nice OS as well, yet commercially it failed and was abandonded, and many people who spent their precious money on those devices are probably a bit pissed now. The fact that Windows Mobile didn't have the best reputation etc. probably is a problem too, but I don't think its one of the biggest problems. I once had a Windows mobile smartphone as well, and back at the time I didn't even think it was that bad. I actually consider the Metro UI to be a bigger problem. The general concept might be great (I really don't know, since so far I never had a chance to try a WP7 phone), but I think many people will find the simplistic design a bit boring (or even cheap looking). One can of course say that this was a consious decision because in the end eyecandy is rather distracting than actually improving efficiency etc., but in practice many people love eyecandy. When I would go in a mobile phone store looking for a new phone, walking past a device with the typical Metro home screen probably isn't much of an eyecatcher. When they would try out the phone they might realize that the user interface concept is very clever, but they probably don't come that far because with several other smartphones around, the simplistic Metro user interface probably won't be catching their attention. |
Lol instead of commenting on the metro UI you should better go to a store and test it. The metro UI isn't simplistic, it is just one of the easiest to use. Easy=/=simple. I love the way how the smiley on the messaging tile changes when I get more messages. Or how my friends their facebook photo's are shown on the people tile. You call this simplistic? Well I have one advice for you. Test things before you start commenting on it. People should start to give WP7 credit for the thing it is; one of the freshest and most fun OS to use on the market today.
