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It has been more than six months now since i made the decision that it’s time to get an Android device, and switched from my last Windows Mobile device (XDA Orbit II) to the HTC Hero. Up to now my review series was primarily about the HTC Hero and the features Android as well as HTC Sense provides. After getting to know the Android platform much better during the last months, it’s time to compare the core elements of Windows Mobile and Android in this final part of the review series. Hopefully this article will help you evaluating which OS is currently better suited for your needs, and clear up some questions regarding the data migration from Windows Mobile to Android if you decide to give Android a try.
Android vs. Windows Mobile: Hardware
On the hardware front Android and Windows Mobile are very similar, since both OS are designed to run on all different kinds of smartphones. Contrary to the IPhone concept, you will find a diverse hardware offering by different companies like HTC, Motorola, Samsung and many more. While this segmentation has it’s bad sides too (software developers have a much harder time releasing apps with good compatibility), there are still many people who like the option of different formfactors like sliders, touchscreen only devices or QWERTZ devices. The specs of the newest generation of Windows Mobile and Android phones are quite up to par, just take a look at the HTC HD2 versus the recently released Google Nexus One. Windows Mobile doesn’t have native support for capacitive touchscreens, but new devices like the HTC HD2 come with capacitive screens since HTC has implemented capacitive support, and i’m sure that we will soo more Windows Mobile devices emerge with custom made capacitive screen support. So the pure hardware specs won’t be the real deciding factor when choosing between Android or Windows Mobile, since both provide flagships with cutting edge specs. It’s more interesting to see how those OS perform with similar hardware.
Android vs. Windows Mobile: Performance
There was a time when Windows Mobile was really fast, without the need of 512 MB of RAM and a Snapdragon CPU. To be more specific i’m talking about Windows Mobile 2003 SE for Pocket PC, which was my first contact to Windows Mobile many years ago. Back then i bought an MDA Compact (HTC Magician) and was overwhelmed by the performance, 3rd party apps selection and customizability of Windows Mobile, besides the incredibly good built quality and formfactor. I was coming from an Symbian UIQ device (Sony Ericsson P800) which was also a great piece of hardware, but Windows Mobile still was the most impressing smartphone OS for me at that time because of it’s customizeability, processing power and 3rd party apps. With the introduction of Windows Mobile 5 and all following updates, Microsoft never was able to reach the quality of their Windows Mobile 2003 OS again sadly. The main reason is that they kept most of the Windows Mobile kernel untouched (and still do this for WM 6.5), while adding new features on top of the framework which resulted in high hardware requirements. But even the best hardware can’t hide the fact that Windows Mobile 6.5 needs a complete overhaul to be competitive with the othere players on the market. And that’s what Microsoft is planning to archieve with Windows Mobile 7. If you compare the performance of current Windows Mobile pocket pcs with Android smartphones, you will realize that Android is a much sleeker and efficient OS. This might not be obvious on the first sight, but after working with the device for some time, you will encounter more lag on Windows Mobile devices. Android isn’t perfect too, as you will also find some lags when many apps are open, but overall the OS is still much faster on similar hardware specs. This is especially evident when opening/closing apps, and scrolling through lists or while switching between the homescreen pages. Until Microsoft really modernizes Windows Mobile on it’s seventh iteration, the competition like Android, WebOS or IPhone OS will stay ahead. Continue reading A longterm Windows Mobile user switching to Android – Part 6: OS comparison roundup
         
Many Android smartphone owners are still eagerly awaiting their Android 2.0 updates, and for some carriers it’s uncertain if there will be ever any Android 2.0 update at all. So at the moment there are only two options to get Android 2.0: Either root your device and try your luck with some cooked Android 2.0 roms, or get a Motorola Milestone (Droid) which is the first device to get Android 2.0 out of the box. Since i have been using my Motorola Milestone testdevice for nearly one month now, i got a good insight on the new Android 2.0 features as well as the Milestones performance running Android 2.0. This articles will not be only about Android 2.0 running on the Motorola Milestone though, but more of a roundup containing the most important new features from Android 1.6 – 2.0. I chose this approach because i wanted this review to be useful for people who are new to Android too, and therefore it makes sense to give a general Android overview besides showing off the new Android 2.0 features. Nevertheless i’m going to highlight the Android 2.0 enhancements particularly, so Android users can easily identify which features have been updated/added compared to Android 1.6. Furthermore i’ll mention differences between the Motorola Milestone and it’s american counterpart the Motorola Droid, as well as all pros&cons when working with the Motorola Milestone on Android 2.0. Let’s start off with one of the most important changes in Android 2.0, the introduction of multiple google account support.
Android 2.0 multiple google account support
When TMobile released the G1 as first Android device, many google service users were not happy about the fact that you could only have one active google account on your Android device. It was not possible to add different google accounts, i.e. a private gmail account and a seperate gmail account for business. While there was a workaround (setting up one gmail account as main account, and the other gmail account as regular IMAP account) you couldn’t use the real gmail app for both. Android 2.0 finally adds multi account support, and not only for google accounts but also for exchange server accounts. From the accounts and synchronization options window you can easily add new accounts by pressing the “Add account” button.
It’s still not possible to have a combined inbox of gmail accounts and your exchange server connection though. Google added a combined inbox only for IMAP/POP/Exchange server accounts, but not for your Gmail accounts. Continue reading Review: Motorola Milestone (Droid) Android 2.0
Android is really picking up speed in the last quarter of 2009. We have seen some new Android devices during the whole year, but the Motorola Droid aka Milestone marked the arrival of a new Motorola flagship as well as the first Android 2.0 smartphone on the market. Therefore the public interest was immense: Everybody wanted to see whether Motorola could make a comeback, after many years of stagnation. The glorious days of the Motorola Razr were over a long time ago, and it was time to prove that Motorola has still a chance to compete in the overcrowded mobile market. Fast forward to now, the Motorola Droid was quite a success in the US and o2 recently released this device as Motorola Milestone in germany. Those nice folks also provided me a testdevice, which i have been using for one week now. As always i will start with a hardware review, and then later follow up with an Android 2.0 review next weekend.
Motorola Milestone (Droid) Packaging
The Motorolas Milestone package comes with the regular accessories like an ac adaptor, mini-usb cable, earplugs, a cd with software and a 8GB micro-SD card. The micro-SD card size is bigger than in most other smartphone packages these days, which is a nice move from Motorola. I think that anything smaller than an 8GB Micro-sd card for the flagship smartphones doesn’t make much sense nowadays, since there are so many use-case like navigation or media downloads where a 2GB card would be full in no time.
My first impression after taking the Motorola Milestone out of the package was: “It’s as slim as my HTC Hero!”. Motorola managed to produce a smartphone with a full hardware slideout keyboard which is not much thicker than many other keyboard-less smartphones out there. Of course by reading the hardware specs it should be obvious that the device is slim, but after holding it in your hand you’ll truly realize it. Continue reading Review: Motorola Milestone (Droid) hardware impressions
On Windows Mobile the definitive Twitter app for me was PocketTwit. Although there were many different Twitter clients available on Windows Mobile, none of them could match the functionality and the user interface of PocketTwit. But on Android i still haven’t found the single best Twitter client for my demands. I started out using HTC Peep because it comes with great UI style and a good widget, but because of performance issues (updating tweets just took way too long) i switched to Swift, which is my current default Twitter client. Recently Seesmic released a Twitter app for Android (also available for Blackberry) which i tried out for a few days. Let’s take a look how good the newest entry to the Twitter client list for Android fares.
When it comes to the user interface, Seesmic is the best Twitter client on the market. You don’t even have to use the app for a long time to realize this, just take a look at the timeline view after setting up your account and you’ll see that Seesmic provides a much more professional look than any other Twitter app out there (including Twidroid Pro). The only Twitter client which may look even better is HTC Peep which is not available on the market, but only preinstalled on HTC devices like the HTC Hero with HTC Sense UI. So as already mentioned, after setting up your Twitter account you’ll see the following timeline view.
The top area shows the timeline, replies, direct message and profile tabs. This is one of the standard layouts many apps on Android use, and it just works very well. Every tab is comfortably reachable and i prefer this layout to the other approaches on the market. Continue reading Review: Seesmic (Twitter app) for Android
My Palm Pre hardware review made it clear, that while the Palm Pre is a nice device it’s not groundbreaking on the hardware-specs front. The real unique selling point is the new WebOS, which aims for a fingerfriendly and innovative touch interface while incorporating different web technologies to provide a seamless internet experience. This review will be about the WebOS functionality, innovations, biggest pros and cons as well as the UI philosophy. Furthermore i will make comparisons to Android and Windows Mobile in order to give you an impression about the strengths and weaknesses of each OS.
After the first startup you will be prompted to setup a “Palm Profile”. This profile is needed for the backup services, as well as for the OTA (Over the Air) firmware updates. You need to have internet access for setting up a palm profile, and it’s not possible to set it up via WiFi (i wasn’t able to activate WiFi or to search for wireless netorks). So make sure to have a simcard at hand which has 3g/edge/gprs access. This should be the case for nearly all simcard nowadays, but you should really get an internet flatrate for your simcard since using the Palm Pre, which relies heavily on internet services, can get VERY expensive otherwise. It doesn’t make much sense to get a Palm Pre without an internet flat.
When your Palm profile has been set up, the default homescreen will appear, with a nice wallpaper and the main navigation shortcuts at the bottom of the screen. The main navigation is customizable and consists of: contacts, mail, calendar, dialer and the main menu arrow. Continue reading Review: Palm Pre WebOS
Not too long ago Palm was seen as a company which had a great past record, but no future. They just couldn’t keep the competitive edge, and therefore lost consumer trust and their marketshare year after year while other players like Nokia made big gains (now Nokia faces the exact same situation in regards to the smartphone competition from Apple and Google). Many people said that the secret new device which Palm was developing, would be the last chance to keep the company alive.
And against all odds, Palm didn’t disappoint and suprised many people in the business with a very strong smartphone device. They introduced the Palm Pre – the next generation of Palm smartphones sporting a completely new webcentric operating system called webOS. This project was lead by Jon Rubinstein (one of the main responsibles for the IPod project at Apple), who left Apple for Palm. The new OS not only provided a lot of very interesting innovations like the new feature Palm calls “synergy” which incorporates different social media services to your contact list and calendar, or the new “cards” system, but also a very sleek looking and intuitive UI. Shortly afterwards manufacturers like HTC copied some of the webOS innovations, and enhanced them with their own ideas (just take a look at HTC Sense and you will find many pages taken from Palms WebOS book). Now germany got some Palm Pre love too, thanks to O2 Germany launching the device exclusively. The launch is supported by quite a big marketing campaign like tv spots and print media commercials. I managed to get my hands on a german Palm Pre sample for a week (thanks @o2 Germany), and used it as my main device during that period. This review part will be about my impressions of the Palm Pre hardware, while the second part of my review will be published next week, and go into the depths of Palms new WebOS.
Palm Pre Packaging
The Palm Pre comes with a small and stylish box, very similar to other devices like the IPhone and the HTC Hero. This kind of packaging seems to be the de-facto standard these days. But as with the XDA Touch Diamond, o2 chose to use a different shaped box to stand out of the crowd.
The Palm Pre comes with an usb cable, a pouch, a power supply unit, earplugs and a booklet. It’s a pretty basic packaging, and up to par with most other smartphones out there. Nothing special here. Continue reading Review: Palm Pre – Hardware impressions
A lot of hype was generated about the HTC Sense widgets when they were shown off the first time. But as soon as the first reviews of the HTC Hero started to emerge, we could hear voices complaining about the laggyness of the HTC Hero, when there are many widgets used on the homescreens. Widgets like Peep (Twitter widget) seem to be infamous for eating up too much battery, or being not reliable enough. In this part of my review series i will go in-depth into the widget functionalities, and all the different available layouts, since i found that while there are many HTC Hero reviews out there none of them presents all widget layouts in detail. But especially when considering buying the HTC Hero it makes sense to check out all widgets and widget layouts so you know what awaits you. In example i was curious to know how many different calendar layouts exist, but couldn’t find a review online which really got into detail. Therefore i hope this review will help further to get a clear picture of HTC Sense widgets. Furthermore i will try to explain if the widget is really pratical for daily usage or not. Let’s start with the already mentioned Twitter widget.
The HTC Sense Peep Widget
Twitter is all the hype currently, nearly every phone manufacturer wants to provide features to link contacts to Twitter or provide standalone Twitter apps. HTC introduced a HTC Sense Twitter app called Peep, and added two different widgets too. The big widget will show the timeline view of the Twitter users you are following. Scrolling is very fluid and you have the possibility to add your tweets directly via the widget. But as soon as you want to do more than that (reply to a person, direct message, retweet and so on) you will be directed to the main HTC Sense Twitter app. I found this widget to be very useful actually, since you don’t have to open an app to see the timeline view of the friends tweets. So for read only purposes this makes sense, especially if you follow a lot of people and just want to be up-to-date about the current tweets. Also posting updates is very comfortable.
There is also a small widget version, which only lets you to tweet directly without opening the Twitter app. Continue reading A longterm Windows Mobile user switching to Android – Part 5: HTC Sense widgets review
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