Samsung Focus or Captivate

[chiewable]

Let’s get this out of the way now as this topic was bound to appear sooner or later :P

I’m up for HUP and have been eyeing a new smart phone as my LG Eve is just not cutting it.

Since rogers screwed up with HTC I’m torn between Android and Winphone7.
I really only use my phone for the following: Calls, txts, music, web-browsing.

The points I’m torn on:

-Win7 has a smaller app market however for the 4 things I do it looks like it does most of them really well, handling of multimedia looks to be a lot better than Android

-I like the Metro UI/homescreen. Could at least the homescreen be replicated (officially or unofficially) down the road by android? It makes ios and android look like an unorganized mess of apps.

-I’m not at all impressed by Android’s carrier/handset update process. However the reason I don’t have a iphone is that I’m not a fan of Apple’s “walled garden ecosystem” which win7 is with the exception of handset choice.

-android has navigation and tethering.

-on my desktop I pretty much live in google’s cloud (gmail, doc, cal, picasa, chrome) and don’t know if I can go back to window’s live (I have an account, but I check it maybe a dozen times a year) I wonder how well win7 will support google services?

-256megs of RAM for the Focus compared with 512 for the Captivate. I don’t game but I wonder if the Focus will show any lag?

Your thoughts and opinion’s are welcome

[chiccora]

Android is the winner in my option...Do you remember all prev WinMo devices; they are buggy as well; I am talking about anything ranging froma Touch Pro to a Mogul. Its buggy, it took them ages to update the darn thing as well for new OS updates. Plus, Microsoft is trying to make it seem awesome that "Copy and paste will be available early 2011!!!" Are you kidding me, a basic and essential feature will not be available right away. The problem with WinMo7 is that it will be too little too late; while they sat around and hyped the OS for months now; other OSs such as Apple and Android have been dominating and advancing themselves. Android is my best bet, it is constantly evolving with a rapidly growing app market. I agree with you that the LG Eve is NOT a solid upgrade for a smart phone. This is a LOW RANGE Android device; Rogers needs to step up its game since Telus has the Desire and Milestone and Bell is getting the Desire Z and has the Vibrant. Rogers has the Xpheria and I am not too big of a fan of the ancient Android system it runs (I know it will update to 2.1 but come on, the device has the ability to run 2.2) and the HTC Magic (Which I have and is amazing) is slowly becoming outdated and not worth to upgrade considering more top line devices are coming out. My best bet at the moment would be to wait for the Captivate; that is a solid high end phone. And if you have courage; when it comes out I would root the device to get a 2.2 ROM and you will be able to have FULL Adobe Flash support in the web browser. Something WinMo wont have for awhile if they wont even have copy and paste at launch.

Call quality will vary with phones and carriers; I would read reviews from multiple devices about this.

Texting it will depend; I have not seen the WinMo7 interface for texting. Again, always play around with a device first to see if you prefer QWERTY or Touch screen texting. I do know that Android provides different keyboards you can download from the Android Market if you do not like the stock one on a touch screen keyboard and also has a stock texting client that is excellent as well as lots of amazing alternatives (I use handsent personally). WinMo however will most likely be good due to the fact that most of the devices will have QWERTY keyboards and the WinMo Pro 7 Device looks sick with its design.

Music - WinMo is going to have some bomb devices (Most wont be on Roger's network tho) such as the HTC surround which will have awesome music quality and even has surround sound speakers. However, Rogers has the Captivate and the music quality with the speakers is supposed to be amazing based onr eviews with AT&T. The Android Music app is OK, it does the job for sure but the best thing again is the Android Market and the ability to find tons of music players that you think works best for yourself. WinMo wont have that right away. Android alaso has FULL SUPPORT of the best program ever; DOUBLE TWIST (Doubletwist.com); this allows you to sync media from your computer, for example you can sync a movie file from your computer to your phone and the program converts the movie to fit on your phone matching the phones resolution and sound codecs. AAAAMAZING!

Web Browser - Early prototype reviews from boyGeniusReport were not really diggin the browsing on Win7. I doubt IE7 will be anything great, and it for sure will be a RAM hog. Opera will probably be the best option for available devices. Android's default browser is spectacular; full pinch and zoom support; however again, with the Android Market you can download alternative browsers such as Opera and Skyfire which has semi flash support for videos. I use Dolphin Browser which supports tabbed browsing similar to Google Chrome or Mozilla.

The Metro UI is nice but I prefer Android. Android has full support of customization and adding widgets and folders. My Android home screen are extremly organized and it looks sexy.

Androids problem is the fragmentation with the fact that different devices will beo n different versions of the OS due to hardware issues. However, Win7 is so far showing how the previous versions of WinMo were like ; terrible at updating. I have to bring up the copy and paste again, copy and paste not available till 2011!?!?! If you remember many WinMo devices were launched on WinMo6.1 and just recently turned to 6.5 (I.E. Touch Pro II).

Windows is just a buggy OS for mobile platforms and the support is worse; and to add to that now we have Windows AND Rogers working on firmware updates int he future for WinMo OS. These two companies are known for failing miserably when it comes to timelines for firmware updates.

When it comes to the system lag we gotta remember two things:

a) System resources such as processor and RAM are important to how fast a device will run

and

b) THE OS itself.

This being said we cant compare to how a WinMo device and a Android device will run; they are on two way sdifferent platforms; WinMo devices depend on closing programs to conserve RAM which can lead to multi tasking problems since other programs are eating your RAM. Android is amazing when it comes to this, because the OS can handle multi tasking but it is also able to hide programs that arent currently in use so it doesnt take any system resources.

I hope my incoherent rant was of some help! Go Android!

[chiewable]

thanks for the reply.

my wife has the Magic and likes it alot.

I wanted a Magic for myself but was made an offer i could not refuse for the Eve (Eve for $50 + nokia e61i)

i'm leaning towards the Captivate but want to see more in deph reviews of the Focus before making a final decision

[artstate]

While @chicora makes some valid points about some Android advantages such as the Android Market and the ability to be highly customized, there are still faults with the reasoning.

Specifically referring to Windows Mobile's history. One cannot compare the previous versions to Windows Phone 7 and simply claim that it's a buggy OS. They are completely different ecosystems. I had the chance to play with the omnia hd replica prototype during a Microsoft (mostly Kinect) event in Michigan. I gotta say, the OS was very fluid, lag free and very enjoyable to use.

On to my own opinions about Android vs. Windows phone 7:

Android is a great OS, and it got significantly better with the release of 2.2 as it introduces very good memory management and excellent overall perfomance. You can basically do anything you want with it from downloading unnoficial apps and porting different ROMs (though issues regarding warranty start to emerge). Basically, it's pretty much everything you'd expect from an open source OS. Not exactly a great music player (as previously mentioned) and while support for pretty much every conceivably useful app is there, the OS itself lacks in-depth integration with microsoft's key sellling points, making up for it by adding it's own google apps which are also great: Things like google voice, maps, translate, finance, goggles, etc..

WP7 has deeper integration of some services because of its ties of Microsoft products, such as office, Zune, Xbox, Bing, Exchange, Windows Live, TellMe and the strong Facebook relationship. Unfortunately, this means closed ecosystem and inability to load whatever you want on it. But this depends on user's preference. Lack of copy paste, secure connections to enterprise networks, no uncompromised multitasting, no flash player: these things are deal-breakers for many advanced users and their date of implementation is still unclear.

End of the day, both Samsungs are top-notch devices with very compelling OS's. (Oh, and if you want another android device unavailable at Rogers, look into an unlocked phone. There are a lot out there, don't let Rogers limit you.)

Figure out what features you are currently lacking and would like to have. If both systems can accomodate for them, I suggest you then try both phones. You should be the one to say which interface you prefer, not me.

[chiewable]

thanks for the input. i'm thinking because i'm so immersed in Google services right now that i should probably stick with android for this upgrade cycle.

i've been following technology long enough that i know nothing is forever so i always keep my options open during upgrades. who would have thought motorola and apple would rise from the dead?

[lovemymobile]

Android is proven now. I would give WM7 a few months.

[underwhere]

^ agreed. even if the captivate was delayed.

[steveblue]

winmo is dead on arrival. too little too late.

ms (standards w/ hw from all vendors, there os, open) versus apple (apple only hw, sw closed) is now:

google android versus apple

ms has lost and will begin to fade. hence deals with bing and facebook to search "likes".

[chiewable]

i would not go as far as saying win7 is DOA

MS has no other major products coming out and with the amount of money they have they will buy there way into the market.

now, how big a market share they will have and if they get my business or not in the future is a different matter.

i'll probably go with the captivate. the Dell Streak is tempting but i dont like bluetooth headsets and holding a 5inch phone to my head will make me (and anyone else under 6"5) look like a jack@$$

[KingGeo]

i am having a hard time deciding on this too... i need to get two devices. one for me and one for the wife... she would make use of the best exchange access for her work and i will make better use of gmail...
so i most likely will get a Galaxy for myself, if it ever does come out.

(thinking out lound now) what if i wait to hear about the Tab and get that with a BT ear peice? or is it 100% that we are getting shafted on the voice support for the Tab?

[The_Saga]

I've decided to go with the wp7 device rather than the captivate. In the end it just makes more sense to go with it, here's my reasoning:

There is a better upgrade path. Right now, the phone is fresh and launching brandnew, every handset has minimum specs that EVERYONE has to meet in order to push out a phone, which means any and all Apps will work with any handset that I have or will have. If there is an upgrade to the minimum hardware specs it's at MS discretion and not the hardware war that is currently Android, where you almost have to upgrade you phone every 12 months at the lastest to keep up.

Updates are pushed out directly from MS and not from the carriers, the software upgrade path of an android roughtly(to me) looks like this. Google updates the software, the software is then pushed to the OEM, then from there it goes to the carrier and the carrier pushes it to the phones. Now all along this path, crapware and crapplets are added to the update that the OEMs and the carrier get paid to add that the customer may not want or need, and because it's being handled by three different persons along the way it becomes unstable and certain things stop working. With MS, its only one company doing the updating, they may not having the best rep sometimes, but after using Windows 7, they did great with that.

1 main app store, not this giant fragmentation of app stores you see on an android device, with every carrier or online retailer having one of their own.

Everything syncs with everything, the one live ID works with everything.

Xbox live ID, I think thats self explanatory, I just hope that they make windows phone 7 work with Games for Windows Live as well for PC.

I'm not as worried about the apps on Windows as much as I am on an Android, there is less control to what goes into the app store on Android as was evidence by those hate/racist apps that entered the store a couple months back, and with engadgets/gizmodos reporting on apps stealing a lot of info and selling it and with google getting in trouble for breaching privacy in Canada over street view, I really don't trust them at all with any of my info, never mind everything on a smart phone. I know MS isn't much more trust worthy, but I kinda expect that from most companies but they seem not as bad to me, they are not as brazen as to collect info from wireless networks as they drive by.

I could add more, but I think this is long enough as is. I like the whole android thing about openess, but I'm just not feeling safe using it at all, with all this openess, there are a lot of people out there who will expose and use that openess for unfair gain.

[Keithyv]

Just so you know ... from what I understand Microsoft will not be pushing updates directly themselves.

They will be issuing them to the Cell Providers to issue. The cell providers arent allowed to change anything but they will "test" the update to make sure it won't affect their network.

Microsoft don't see this as being a potential problem and see no reason that Cell Providers will withhold the updates (except I don't think they quite understand just how greedy Rogers is and how by withholding updates they can force handset sales and rope in more people to 3 year contracts).

[The_Saga]

http://www.microsoft.com/windowsphone/en-us/howto/wp7/basics/phone-updates.aspx


Who ever told you that or sold you on that info is wrong, just like Apple, all updates to the phone will be handled through propriety software(MS>Zune, Apple>iTunes), The Carriers have no say as to what happens with the update.

MS will self test any big updates that may affect phone conectivity to the carriers network, but it's unlikely that those certain portions of software would be affected. Most of the updates will only be changing features on the phone, such as adding copy+paste, not changes in the code on how the phone functions on the network.

[Melk]

I'm going with the Focus. After using the Zune HD for awhile now, I have really like the Metro UI and the Zune software is a great experience.

MS id doing a great job with this project too. They are focusing on getting developers and succeeding with it. Right now, there are little over 1000 apps in the marketplace. So in a few months, I would expect many more apps to come in.

WP7 also does a great job with integrating their top projects all on one mobile OS. Xbox Live, Zune, Office, etc.

Like Saga said, it's a fresh project and if it's anything as stable as the Zune HD (bug wise), there should hardly be any. It's great to see MS trying new things like live tiles and with the Metro UI. It really makes them a competitor and I don't see it as 'too late' for them, especially since they are really working hard for this to be successful.

Also, little update. The Focus has 512mb RAM now. ;)

As you can tell, I'm very excited to get my hands on a Focus. Been waiting for a Zune HD phone and now it's almost here. It's pretty sick how much I refresh the Rogers Windows Phone page and mobile blogs for news on when it will be available on Rogers. :p

[KingGeo]

anyone know if some stores have live demos out?
i need to play with one before i can really say if its any good or not...
if it is i might look at one for the wife..

[TheCyberKnight]

@Chiewable,

I have few comments for you.

1 - Forget all this cr*p about the Windows Phone 7 interface being <insert your favorite rant here> and go try it. It is different in the good sens of the expression. The "Metro" user experience is outstanding and will be copied.

2 - Forget all the sh*t about the Windows Phone 7 OS being <insert another rant here> and go try it. It is rock solid and blazing fast. It is built on proven technology and sufficiently mature. And it will be updated regularly.

3 - Determine if you absolutely need an app store with 90 000 useless apps. I don't. I use few of them and most are already on the WP7 app store. And the WP7 app store just opened. It will grow. Development tools are simply the best...and free.

Finally, just go try it. You'll see.

[moogleknight]

I would just say: try both if you can for a few minutes, and choose the one you like best.

I like the customizable PDAish feel of android, but I can understand people wanting a standardized OS. That being said, I'd probably choose an iphone if I wanted a standardized OS.

[btkli]

You can test Bell's version of the Galaxy S at Fairview Mall. Inside Bestbuy Mobile Store (not the Bestbuy store itself). Both phones are identical to each other.

[Strychinine]

Android phones are proven. W7 still needs more time. I like how easily android phones can be customized with the seemingly unlimited apps

[KingGeo]

as an android owner i have to say i love it, but that is also because i love gadgets...
however i have to say that when i played with WP7 it was REALLY nice, very fast and simple. i dont think i would own one just becasue it does not fit my gadget needs (most the like SD card problems!!) but i am considering one for the wife as it will fit her needs without being to complex

[Xperienc3]

personally i would wait for the next wave of WP7 handsets. the current crop of devices are pretty generic and don't differentiate significantly from one another. On top of that WP7 just hasn't matured enough when compared to android and iOS.

If you had to choose now, the captivate would be the best option as it has a large fanbase on sites such as XDA so theres going to be support even after it is discontinued from carriers.

[Lilly Dad]

I haven't seen any live in the stores. The Futureshop in my town has an HTC Surround running WP7 and an HTC Hero running 2.2 I think.

Hands down UI goes to WP7. Very, very clean and well thought out. When it comes to apps and "Hackability" Android is where it's at. Although I can't even begin to express my frustration with how OS updates are rolled out with the different carriers.

I think based off of what you want to do on a daily basis the Focus is the phone for you. Keep in mind that you can use Gmail with WP7 as well.

[Luke]

i would go with the captivate, the large screen and many apps make it a good phone. imo wp7 isn't a good os, it just looks to plain and boring and it's missing alot of key features

[Boratilike]

I'd say definitely try the new windows. It looks and performs amazingly. There can only be good things for windows 7 now. Android I dint like it cuz they leave it too open. I feel it's lost in terms of its identity.

[monstermess]

Go with the Captivate. Probably one of the best Galaxy S phones in Canada, and a very handsome one that's actually symmetrical. There's no lower lip on the bottom, compared to the vibrant and fascinate. Beautiful phone, okay battery life, and stunning graphics. But be careful about the weight, I held one once, and it didn't feel substantial at all, and it wasn't heavy enough for me. This applies to both the focus and the captivate....

[Shalma]

samsung will be fine

[Nathan]

I'm going to have to agree with Monstermess.

The captivate is the best looking of the galaxy line (in my opinion), and it outspecs the focus.

Although, if you don't care about the specs, and like the wp7 os, go with that. I have lots of friends who love them.

[inningsdefeat]

W7 is like a beautiful women with no brains

[kyussmanchu]

W7 is like a beautiful women with no brains

the perfect woman. ;)

[Nathan]

the perfect woman. ;)
For a one night stand perhaps, just don't let her drive.

[Melk]

W7 is like a beautiful women with no brains

WP7 is like a beautiful woman with all the brains so you hardly have to do a thing.