Win7 Phone Demo for iPhone and Android

When it comes to types of smartphones there are basically 3 options: iOS (iPhone the phone market leader), Android (the OS market leader), and Windows phones. Microsoft is trying to get a share of a booming market and to draw iOS and Android users to their product. It is difficult for a user to switch phone types. I should know – I’m an iPhone to Android convert. But more importantly, how to you get a happy iOS or Android user to even TRY your new system? Microsoft has amazingly come up with a clever method.

It’s very simple. Open your iOS or Android Browser and go to http://aka.ms/wpdemo. This is an HTML5 page that allows you to play around with Windows Phone 7.5 (Mango). I think that it’s extremely clever of Microsoft to allow people to do a test-run of the OS. Score one for the Microsoft marketing team.

I’m a Dolphin browser user and had some trouble with the wider pages. I’m not sure how it’s *supposed* to work, but the main page worked well enough. Microsoft has an interesting design. It’s simple, but frankly pretty lame in my opinion. Below are 3 screenshots of the app on my Samsung Infuse.

My Opinions

  • Design – the homescreen (on the left) is boring and the font selection is terrible. I looked around online and you can change the colors and what buttons are on the homepage, but the design is still the same. It just looks cluttered to me. A big downside when the designers were probably going for simplicity.
  • Demo functionality – I’m assuming this is a demo problem and not an OS problem. I was unable to scroll the pages to the left or right. On the People page, there is clearly information to the right that I can’t access. Does that mean that on the phone I would be able to scroll? That doesn’t seem like good design. Phone users want to see everything in one page and MAYBE scroll down.
  • Google Integration – the thing that I love best about my Android phone is the ease of integrating Google. I’m a heavy Google user – Gmail, Calendars, Docs, Reader, Voice, etc. From what I’ve read, Windows phones work well with MSN services, but not so much with Google.
  • The take-away for me – I love my Android phone and when I’m ready to upgrade, it will be to another Android phone.

Author: Steph

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