We attended the big windows Phone 7 launch day last October and got hands-on with the new handsets from LG, Samsung, HTC and Dell. It was only four months ago, so we weren’t really expecting to see any new Windows Phone 7 devices launched here at Mobile World Congress. What is a little surprising, despite the Nokia announcement, despite the Steve Ballmer keynote, is just how difficult it is to find anything relating to Windows Phone 7.
On the LG stand I couldn’t see any Windows Phone 7 devices. On the Samsung stand there were some, but they were at the back, in the corner. HTC had a good selection, with the HTC 7 Pro attracting some attention, but there’s definitely a David and Goliath feel to things here in Barcelona. It’s not the fault of the manufacturers. They’re selling the Windows Phone 7 phones, it’s just the fact that there’s far, far, far more Android devices in the range and right now they’re getting promoted so heavily. Walk into the Congress and you’re literally smacked over the head with Android devices.
A lot has been said about the Nokia and Microsoft partnership. A huge amount has been written about the direction of Nokia and how lucky they were to switch to Microsoft. For me, it’s Microsoft who need Nokia, not the other way around.
For me, WP7 (despite certain missing features at launch) is a fantastic OS that HAS one me over. However, it seems to me that there has been a failure in 2 big areas:
1) Awareness – Who actually knows about it outside of those who religously follow tech news? Sure they had ads showing for a while, but it didn’t tell anyone enough about it. They were, however, seriously lacking indepth mainstream media coverage. In particular TV. Even the crappy Gadget Show didn’t give it ANY covereage (not even to tell us how much better Apple is).
2) Handset Availability – Of the 5 handsets released, 3 of these (the HTC ones) were locked to specific networks. For me personally, I really wanted the HD7. But I went Android instead. Why? Because HD7 is O2 only. Not only is their network useless at my home, but they get away with stupid tariffs cos only they have it.
I was really looking forward to moving on to WP7 when my next renewal comes around, but I can see other manufacturers dropping them now. And my opinion (which seems to vary from the mass) is that, design wise at least, Nokia are stuck in the 90s. Not for me thanks.
Sad times for WinMo. 🙁
Get youself an HD7 and unlock it… I’m on Orange – works a treat.
Correction:
“… that has WON me over.” Sorry. 🙂