Android from a Windows Mobile perspective - Smartphone Round Robin

Of all the other smartphones and all the other operating systems we've looked at over the course of the third annual Smartphone Round Robin, none is as similar to Windows Mobile equally Android. That'due south a little odd, as Windows Mobile at its cadre is rapidly crumbling, and Android is one of the newest players of the bunch. Simply information technology's truthful.

With Windows Mobile you go a high customizable operating system, with myriad options bachelor to manufacturers, carriers, modders and finish-users. We're constantly preaching the benefit of custom ROMs, chopped up from official releases and recompiled into smaller, faster packages. Android? Same matter. It's bachelor on virtually major carriers, in several course factors (though front-facing QWERTY keyboards haven't really materialized), and with multiple versions of the operating organisation.

So is Android merely Windows Mobile'southward brother by some other female parent? Volition its rapidly ascension market share (and mind share) swallow upward Windows Mobile and everyone else in its way? Let'southward talk nigh that a little afterwards the break.

First things first: Permit's revisit my sit down-down with AndroidCentral'due south Casey Chan, where nosotros have a look at the Sprint HTC Hero running Android 1.5, and the Motorola Droid, which at the time was running Android two.0 merely has since been updated to 2.0.i.

A new user interface image (for united states of america, anyhow)

Probably the biggest departure between Windows Mobile and Android -- and the i that has taken me the longest to grow accustomed to -- is having widgets on the home screen. You previously saw widgets in this year'due south Round Robin on the Nokia phones Matt Miller introduced us to. The closest we've come to full widgets on either of our two Windows Mobile phones in this year's round robin -- the HD2 and Touch Pro 2 -- are in the tabs. The weather tab, Twitter tab (on Sense), the stocks tab. That sort of matter.

But those are all total-screen widgets. With Android's user interface, yous become what I'll call micro widgets. Actually, they're widgets of any size. They're interactive. they can show information, like RSS feeds, clocks, weather, whatever. They tin control applications in the background (like the Music tab in Sense and TouchFLO.) Just they don't have to take up a whole screen to do it. They tin alive alongside icons, shortcuts, folders and the similar.

Think of it like this: Call up in old-schoolhouse Windows Mobile when you lot'd hit the Windows push button, and yous'd become the binder/explorer metaphor. From there you'd dive deeper or cull and icon to launch a programme. That's Android's dwelling screen. Merely there are multiple screens (the Droid has 3; the new Nexus Ane has five), and icons stand up abreast widgets and shortcuts. My favorite: contact icons on the home screen, from which yous can call, text, etc. Quick and easy.

The HTC Hero

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Whatever of yous out there with an HTC Hero have Windows Mobile to thank for it. Go alee. Detect your nearest WinMo-toting friend and shake his or her hand. While it may be the HTC Hero that launched the future of HTC's custom interface -- the "Sense" UI -- we came to know and love it on Windows Mobile as TouchFLO. We're currently at TouchFLO 3D on the Touch Pro 2 and Touch Diamond 2 lines. Simply then came the Hero with Sense, and we all stood up and took notice.

And now the HTC HD2, the biggest, baddest Windows phone to ever walk the World, has its own version of Sense, which has, erm, since been ported over to just about every other Windows Mobile device out there, thanks to some enterprising fellers.

Sense may kind of look the same on Android and Windows Mobile, just they're 2 very unlike creatures. On Windows Mobile, Sense (and TouchFLO 3D) are what's known equally a homescreen plug-in. You can turn it off and return to stock Windows Mobile (on WM6.5, you get what's chosen "Titanium, which looks a lot like the Zune Hard disk drive'south UI). As we learned in our interview with HTC's Eric Lin, Sense is baked into Android at a deeper level -- you can't but turn it off like a plug-in. The HTC Hero gets effectually that, yet, though the use of "Scenes." Recall of them every bit multiple (multiple) home screens. Don't like Sense? Change to a dissimilar scene and customize to your heart's content.

The Hero is no slouch of a phone. The particulars: Qualcomm MSM7600 proc at 528 MHz; 512MB ROM/288MB RAM; three.2-inch HVGA (320x480) capacitive touchscreen; 5MP camera; 1500mAh battery. That said, it's already been eclipsed by the new Nexus 1, in hardware (Snapdragon processor, iii.7-inch AMOLED screen) and software (Android two.1).

Compared to the HTC HD2? No competition -- the WinMo behemoth wins hands-down. It's merely too big and too powerful non to. And with it coming to T-Mobile and the possibility of it one day getting Windows Mobile vii, the HD2 should accept some shelf life over the next year.

The Motorola Droid

Remember when Motorola was the pride of the Windows Mobile Standard world? More than a few of us around hither were large proponents of the front-facing QWERTY Motorola Q9 serial (at to the lowest degree when the bugs were worked out) back in the day. Then Moto kind of barbarous off map. We got give-and-take that development was focusing on Android (and it looks like it's going to proceed to do then for some time).

Verizon announced the Droid (or the DROID) on Oct. 28, 2009. It was available a week later. A television commercial blitzkrieg followed and nonetheless continues today. "Droid Does" became the official motto as it fired shots (accurately or not) at the iPhone. You lot might non be a smartphone nerd, but chances are y'all've heard of the Droid. (It's the phone I'yard most oftentimes asked a bout by civilians.)

Whereas the iPhone is sleek and svelte, the Droid'due south design took a different road. It's cold. (Actually. Feel information technology.) It's angular. Information technology'south heavy. And it works. So information technology's kind of an odd match-upward, the Droid taking on the iPhone. For our purposes, still, the Droid'southward nearest competition is the HTC Affect Pro 2. Both have large, high-resolution screens (iii.half dozen-inch, 480x800 for the TP2; 3.7-inch, 480x854 for the Droid), though the Droid'southward is capacitive and is the winner there. Both accept horizontal sliding keyboards. But while the Affect Pro 2's takes upwards the entire length of the phone and has v rows of large keys, the Droid'southward keyboard is four rows deep and is hampered by the directional pad that takes up virtually a half-inch of real estate.

The Droid's keyboard is usable, simply just barely. And information technology suffers from the same odd mappings that afflict the AT&T Tilt ii. But compared to the Touch Pro two keyboard (even AT&T's version), well, it makes you want to weep. And you volition cry trying to peck out e-mails on those cramped little letters. Otherwise, the Droid is an outstanding piece of hardware. Information technology's the best Android phone (with a physical keyboard) available today. Coretex 8 processor (same as in the iPhone and the Palm Pre). The sliding machinery feels like it will hold up long afterward you're dead and gone. The screen is beautiful. The battery life -- despite being simply 1390 mAh -- seems virtually endless, and the telephone charges quicker than almost any other I've seen. Oh, it has other shortcomings, besides -- a sub-par photographic camera, a flaky battery door and one of the craziest difficult-reset key sequences yous've seen (OK, we actually shouldn't count that, but we're gonna).

And that's just the hardware stop. Software-wise, the Droid was on the cutting border (until the Nexus 1 came along). It's actually pretty frustrating. Considering aside from the keyboard and photographic camera, the Droid is a standout device, largely worthy of all the hype.

Why Android?

I've been using Android phones (the Droid and the Nexus Ane) pretty heavily over the past ii months. Coming from Windows Mobile, in that location were things that have taken some getting used to: 1. Desktop widgets, which nosotros talked about above. 2. App management. I proceed wanting to quit an app when I'm done with it. Force of habit, I guess, and near reasonable people won't have three or four Twitter clients installed at the same fourth dimension. (Didn't want them all using API counts.) At that place are third-party task managers available, but it was a little odd not having one available by default.

The Android Marketplace is solid. With upward of 20,000 apps, there'south plenty to explore. But it does endure from some disorganization. Do I actually need 30 on-screen keyboard skins?

The single-most reason I could switch to Android total-time? Google. Integration of Google'southward services -- gmail, Google Voice, Google Talk, Google Navigation and the similar -- is nearly-flawless. It's the manner it'south meant to exist. No third-party jankiness. No button east-mail alternative. To steal the line from Apple tree: It just works. I've asked before whether Google will properly implement gmail and its other services on other platforms. And the more I see Android grow, the more I worry that in spite of the platform's open nature Google may well proceed its best products for itself, at least for a while. Nosotros'll simply have to see.

And that brings us back to Windows Mobile. The launch of Windows Mobile half dozen.v and the slew of hardware that came with information technology is nada to scoff at. In the WinMo world, it'south a pretty big deal. But aside from the sheer hardware power of the HTC HD2, it's nonetheless lagging behind. That likely will change by the fourth dimension the next Round Robin rolls around. Question is, how much farther will Android take progressed by and then?

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