Specifications
- Dimensions: 4.84 x 2.56 x 0.39 inches
- Weight: 4.07 ounces
- Battery: 1500 mAh lithium-ion battery
- Talk Time: Up to 6.5 hours
- Standby Time: Up to 10.5 days
- Technology: GSM/GPRS/EDGE/UMTS/HSDPA*/ FM RADIO
- Frequency: 850/900/1800/1900 MHz (GSM/GPRS/EDGE); 850/1900/2100 MHz (UMTS/HSDPA)*
- Data Transmission: 3G
- Operating System: Windows Phone 7
- Hearing Aid (HAC) rating: M3
- Memory: 8 GB upgrade with MiniSD card up to 32GB
- Display: 4-inch wVGA Super AMOLED capacitive
- Resolution: 480 X 800 HD
- TTY Compatible
- 5 MP camera, Smart Focus, Flash W/Macro, Video Camera (HD 720p, 23 FPS)
Opinion: The sections that mattered to me have been Bolded above. The one category where the iPhone, for me, was superior is in red bold above. This basically means that the phone has about 2 days extra standby time than the focus. That is important to me. however, when weighed against the rest of the features above, it’s not as important. One feature where some may scoff is the FM radio receiver. For me, living in an area prone to hurricanes, having the ability to tune into the radio for emergency instructions is pretty necessary. When power is out and wifi and cellular networks may be unavailable, I can usually pull up an FM band. And with the ability to charge my phone up using my car, this becomes pretty handy.
Another selling point for me was the quality of images taken with the built in camera. One of the gripes I honestly had with my iPhone was the really substandard quality of the pictures it took as well as the really crappy jitter filter it had (I.E. none) As you can see below, the difference is pretty clear.
Note: I had both phones held still using a rig i had here. All i had to do was press the button to take the pic.
Taken via iPhone 3Gs. click picture for full size
Taken via Samsung Focus. click picture for full size
As you can see, even the sensitivity to light and development ability of each camera is super different. Personally, I have found that the pictures I have taken with my focus come out 100% better every time. This isn’t to say that I have not taken some great pictures with my iPhone, I absolutely have! The difference is that with the focus, EVERY pic has been crisp, colorful, and incredible. While with my iPhone, I normally had to take several pictures of the same scene to get it just right and not out of focus from jitter. With the focus…one shot is all it takes.
Syncing calendars/ contacts:
For me, this is where the iPhone shines! With my iPhone I was able to make updates to my contacts and calendar from any portal that had access to Google and its services and the changes would automatically show up in my Google app. My life was very simple then. Unfortunately, a decent Google app has yet to surface on the WP7 platform. This means that I had to essentially recreate my calendar using my live account and the calendar available through that.
Now, in the past, when i got a new phone all i had to do to transfer my contacts from one phone to the other was load them onto my SIM card and then import them on my new phone. The iPhone, however, doesn’t do this AT ALL! At least not natively. You can import your contacts from your SIM but you can not EXPORT them back to your SIM for use with another phone. There are some third party apps who can do this for you but they are not free and not 100% reliable. What apple, and several apple neophite forums suggest, is for you to sync your contacts via itunes to your google contacts and then import them that way.
Unfortunately, the import process from google to my live contacts folder was less than perfect. I suspect this was due to itunes creating a CSV file with improperly labeled columns. (I.E. they didn’t use standard column labels) as a result all my phone numbers for contacts came across into my live account but not into the phone number field. Because of this, I had to manually move the phone number over for a metric fuck ton of my contacts. Annoying. I still find myself updating my contacts whenever I get a phone call from a friend I haven’t heard from in a while.
Apps:
iTunes has something around 300 thousand plus apps in its iTunes app store. The WP7 apps marketplace has something like 50 thousand apps and rising. So, on a numbers basis alone it would seem that the app store for apple is WAY ahead. But really, what does that mean? It certainly means that whatever I can dream up more than likely has an app for that on the app store; and certainly that appears to be the case. I never ran into a situation where I could not find a good, solid app on the app store whenever I wanted and about whatever I wanted. The windows marketplace for apps has not delivered that same experience to me yet. Many of the apps I used on a daily basis are only now being added or will be added in the next month or two. But as of right now..no dice. (I miss my google app so BAD) A great example of some apps that have yet to be developed for the windows marketplace are Angry birds, Plants V Zombies, Echofon, Tweetdeck, Blizzard Mobile Authenticator by Blizzard Entertainment Co., WoW Mobile Armory app.
Now, some of these should be out by end of June. For example, angry Birds and PvZ will be out by end of June. No word yet on the rest. Tat said, the good part about the Windows App marketplace is that the development platform for WP7 is the same used by windows developers for the last few years! This means that you get a TON of already well established developers working on stop gap apps that work great now. The above mentioned authenticator from blizzard entertainment is a great example of this. One of Microsoft’s own, a developer working for the redmond powerhouse, has released a mobile authenticator that is COMPLETELY legit. It may not be endorsed by Blizzard but it is a legal and perfectly usable authenticator. Anyone who knows how two stage cryptology and authentication works will understand it. Link below:
http://www.freewarepocketpc.net/wp7/download-battle-net-authenticator.html
The OS:
Not much to say here. I like both of the OS’s. The only thing I can add is that I love the live tiles on the WP7 phones that give you information at a glance without having to start up the app and the quick look info I get on my lock screen that includes my calendar appointments, number of emails that are new, what song I have paused if any, and if i have voice mail or not. (also missed calls if any). All that from a lock screen. Just a small, yet neat, feature that makes me wonder why apple has not implemented it yet.
Final Verdict:
I think both platforms and devices are super viable and fun to use. For me, right now, I really like the windows platform and the Samsung focus because of the little quality of life features that are superior to apple’s comparable device. I say comparable because I think a more fair comparison for the iPhone 4 would be the latest HTC phone running with either the Android or WP7 platforms. The focus is more in line with a 3Gs. For me, having the FM radio for emergencies, a much better camera, a smooth and streamlined UI with at a glance information along with a well established development community along with HD video recording are all very nice features that I find uber useful. In terms of performance, I find the hardware for the Samsung Focus itself to be much more responsive and the WP7 OS to be more fluid and smooth. Both devices are fairly effective at everything else. I will let you decide on everything else.
About my creds in Tech:
I do have tech credentials. I worked desktop support in a mixed Apple and Windows environment for 5 years, prior to that I was working as desktop support and network admin in a Windows network environment with windows clients for 2 years. Prior to that I was tooling around with computers in my apartment and learning how to fix what I had broken. My experience with apple goes back to the IIe and my experience with windows dates back to 3.1 I also have my A+ accreditation from CompTIA and Several certifications from Microsoft for the now extinct Windows 2000/ NT platform. I am also a closet Linux monkey and run a firewall/email server at my house that is running SuSe. I also have a laptop which I am in the process off repairing that will be running Ubuntu’s latest release. So my experience in things tech is pretty well established. (About 10 years of tech related experience)
Add to all that the fact that i read several online periodicals that deal with the tech industry and you can pretty much get that I am not a code monkey but my tech monkey credentials are there and in order. My experience with mobile platforms, however, is pretty lacking in an actual corporate environment. I have set up several smart phones for my own personal use on my home network and the networks of family and friends and that has involved setting up email accounts, exchange server accounts, WiFi networking accounts. I consider myself to be a mobile platform enthusiast and I believe that cloud computing is not the only shift that the corporate environment will be moving to. I believe that sometime in the future, very near future, we will all see smart phones being used as the standard office computing device. Especially with the advent of docking stations that will allow people to dock their phones in and use a full size keyboard and mouse to really blast their productivity.
