My Tech Dilemma: Windows Phone or Android?

Our world is definitely evolving. The revolutionary PCs and the earth shattering Internet are now taken for granted and so is having a laptop and a robot that can cook a minute rice in thirty seconds. Okay, I was kidding about the robot (only Chuck Norris can do that). But PCs and laptops aren't the center of attention and innovation anymore. Since that eventful day in 2007, when the iPhone became official and broke all records, mobile phones have evolved at speeds that  make the Internet and PC revolutions look like snails. Outselling PCs last year smartphones now form the link between you and your entire social life, online and offline.

           

By Sameer

Video: Windows Phone vs. Android

Windows Phone, a new entry into the market. Mango (beta version 2 is used in this video), it's first major update. Android, trying to be the 'iPhone killer' for 3 years or more. Gingerbread, it's 5 major update (excluding the first version). Android 2.3.2 to be precise, with Sony Ericcson's custom skin on it.  A face-off, who'll win find out after the video.

It’s a silent video, play your own music if you feel like.

As you can see, despite the Xperia Neo having a newer processor and a much more matured (read: iterated) Operating system, not to mention  market ready software (it's launched) it consistently got beaten by the HTC Trophy, running mango, beta version 2 to be specific.


The benchmark results were fairly even, with the HTC trophy equaling the android handset. Please note that the Xperia Neo is powered by a second generation Qualcomm 8255 SD processor, whereas the HTC Trophy is powered by a first generation processor. The IE9 browser consistently out-performed the Android browser in every-field. The HTML5 tests gave better results in IE9 and also pinch-zooming and scrolling were much smoother. The hardware acceleration and so is the desktop version’s code in the new IE is more prominent . Whether flash might have tipped the scales to the Windows Phone side can be argued.


If yesteryear's handset can beat a more advanced android handset, imagine what a second generation handset might be capable of doing to those ‘super-phones’.




[Source]

By Sameer

Windows 8 metro UI on Android tablets previewed (Video)

I am not a fan of Android Operating system and particularly dislike Android tablets because of underwhelming UX. Well, Rabid Android fanboys will counter me with their famous 'open' and ' customizable ' argument and well I can't argue with em because it's useless. Your Android phone can be given any facial layer you like (but it's the still the same old crap underneath!) which tends to keep things exciting unlike the terribly boring stock Android UI. The guys from WP7Android (famous for bringing several WP7 UI elements to Android)  have managed to create a custom Windows 8 UI 's  using ADW EX on Galaxy Tab running Honeycomb 3.1.  Watch the custom UI in action below:

By Rahul Mathur

After HTC, General Dynamics Itronix will pay Microsoft royalties for using Android

It wasn't a long time ago, when we reported about the HTC - Microsoft patent settlement news where HTC was required to pay $5 , as royalties, per Android device sold which is less than the licensing fees for Windows Phone, which is $15 according to Asymco.

By Rahul Mathur

Microsoft earns 5 times more from Android than it does from Windows phone !

Pretty sure you read this somewhat hilarious yet fact filled report which said that HTC pays Microsoft $5 for every Android device, yes - 5 dollars for every device. Why in the world is Microsoft getting paid for a device manufactured by HTC and running Android? Patent settlement. Microsoft and HTC reached patent settlement over intellectual property infringement. Now the patent settlement resulted in HTC paying Microsoft royalties.
It's not just HTC, Microsoft is also suing every single Android manufacturer and aiming for $7.50 to $12.50 per device. 

Analyst Horace Dediu  makes an interesting comparison with Windows phone :

A rough estimate of the number of HTC Android devices shipped is 30 million. If HTC paid $5 per unit to Microsoft, that adds up to $150 million Android revenues for Microsoft.

Microsoft has admitted selling 2 million Windows Phone licenses (though not devices.) Estimating that the license fee is $15/WP phone, that makes Windows Phone revenues to date $30 million.

So Microsoft has received five times more income from Android than from Windows Phone.

Read complete article here.

Note - $15 per windows phone is a working assumption, Asymco clarified this to me on twitter.

Try to put yourself in the place of OEMs, what would you think would be a logical step now that Microsoft has proved with mango update that Windows phones has the caliber to compete aggressively with iOS and Android, drop in your thoughts. It's a win win situation for Microsoft because they get paid anyways. Now they need to buck up, push next gen windows phone devices with improved hardware and sue more android manufacturers to disrupt the market. They have won me over with their OS anyways, which is quite obvious.

Source : BI and Asymco 

By Rahul Mathur