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Windows Phone 7 Web browser comparison versus iPhone and Android (video)
No, sadly it's not my video (whose accent do you prefer, incidentally? The squeaky American, or mine?) but still, it's a great early look at the browsing experience on Windows Phone 7.
Lee really likes the tabs (those close buttons look fiddly though). I like the Metro UI, and the ability to add favourite pages to the Start screen. Froyo looks like a crusty donkey in comparison -- and iOS4 even manages to look a bit bland. I never thought I'd see a Microsoft product on the bleeding edge of user interface design...
Microsoft's new mobile OS is all but finished now, incidentally. The final release of its developer tools comes on September 16th (one day after the IE9 beta!), and handsets should be out in the wild by October. Did you see the list of games that will be available at launch? Commence salivation.
Comments
8
Subscribe to commentsSchwinnAug 24th 2010 8:18AM
You can add shortcuts to webpages on Android as well. Long-tap on the screen, select shortcuts, then bookmarks, etc...
I don't see anything new on the WinMo UI that hasn't been done on either Android or iOS? Tabs - got it on stock Android (not in a graphical form on the stock browser, but easily added with a 3rd party browser).
I'll admit the WinMo is smooth, but we also don't know what it's doing in the background (if anything)... or what the CPU speed is (likely faster than the N1 or iOS phone?)
As for the "speed tests"... a rotation speed test? WTF. Who gives a crap? Like he said, the N1 wins because it doesn't do an animation for the rotate... so why is he testing that? In other words, the rotate animation is a function of the speed of the animation, and nothing more. So what if WinMo chooses a slower animation rate?
Mostly a pointless video. But, it's good to see that WinMo is finally speeding up and catching up to the competition... but hardly anything that could be considered a "step ahead" either. In the end, they're all about the same.
Sebastian AnthonyAug 24th 2010 8:23AM
Yep, agree -- it's definitely not ahead of the competition, though if it keeps up AND it looks nicer (and is more user-friendly?), that's gotta be a good thing :)
The WP7 minimum CPU is 1GHz -- same speed as the N1. I don't know what speed the WP7's CPU is in this video, though.
JordanAug 24th 2010 8:52AM
I'm getting sick of the Pocketnow videos, he always explains that Android doesn't have any checkerboard for webpages. No duh! Because Android loads the entire page and keeps it all in memory. It's like he has a sliver of a view of how these OSes actually function, and can only understand what he sees in the operation.
I still don't see the advantage to the Metro UI. It may look new and fancy, and I'll agree it's more unique than iOS or Android, but underneath a fancy UI there aren't many new concepts there, just rehashing of old WinMo and other smartphone feature parts.
As a side note, considering this was a browser test, I'd be curious to know if WP7 will allow external browser engines. I'd love to see a Webkit browser and even a Gecko browser (if Mozilla's up to the task) beating out Trident as they should.
SugarDaddyAug 24th 2010 9:08AM
These little differences mean f. all. Who cares which browser loads a half of a a second faster? If Win Phone 7 succeeds, it will be because the developers jumped on board. Microsoft has a long history of developing platforms, APIs, and SDKs so I think they probably have a friendly development system going on. In the end, it's all about the apps and Win Phone 7 looks like it's going to be a contender in the gaming arena.
pristy.siteAug 24th 2010 9:19AM
Why not try with Opera?
JonnyAug 24th 2010 12:33PM
I agree with the above, if I get windows phone 7 I would hope opera would make a browser for it as that would be the only one I would use. They are light years ahead of IE in terms of rendering and advanced features like bookmark sync and tabs.
All in all though, I'd say that all platforms are very competitive with eachother, making my next smartphone purchase very difficult to choose.
BTW - I prefer the american guy cause he sounds more like me. Brits come across as stuck up or evil with their pipp pipp cherio's - ;-)
Sebastian AnthonyAug 24th 2010 12:34PM
I have never said pip pip cheerio!
But now, in the next video, I will... just for you.
DrashnaAug 24th 2010 2:16PM
You've obviously never used a Zune HD, then. A great interface on that device, which they've apparently IMPROVED UPON! And considering the issues with "UI" that MSFT has had, I'm sure they spend a lot of money on developing the UI, and it paid of big time (Go charlie).