Comparing Apples with Mango's

Just finished the first week my LG Optimus 7, Windows Phone 7.5, so time for a quick first impression.  Of course I compare this (as everyone) with Apple’s iPhone.  Apple succeeded in becoming the standard for mp3-players, smartphones and recently tablets. They dominate the market in such way (I am not talking sheer numbers here) we even can talk about the Apple index. A quick googlebing  search tells me that I can claim authenticity here in eventing this term. So from now on we not only have the Big Mac Index but also the Apple Index (iApple?), remember you heard it here first.

It just works

Well in that Microsoft has done an outstanding job. After just a few hours I was completely familiar with the interface and after a week now I don’t want back to IOS. It is smooth,  ultra responsive and it simply does what I want.
The score would have been higher if I wasn’t unpleasantly surprised with the fact I couldn’t authenticate with certificates onto my wireless network.

Apps

Well if we play a numbers game it is clear that Apple is light years ahead. But I used a different approach, can I get the apps I used on IOS on Windows Phone 7.5 or at least the same functionality. I succeeded almost for 100%. Funny enough the most dominant missing app was Skype, but something tells me that will not last very long.  Why still the 85% and not 95%, well simple the immense app store of Apple gives me the confidence that future demands will surely also be met.

Hardware

Well LG has made a solid 16 GB phone, but clearly not on the same level as the iPhone.

Coolness

Well this is of course a matter of taste so I used a simple test. I told a very fashionable lady friend of mine that I had a new phone and I liked it very much. She said: “oh what phone do you have?” and after showing she replied: “Well nice, but of course not near as cool as my white iPhone.”

Price/Performance:

With Euro 200,- as retail price this is obviously the area where the Optimus 7 slaughters the iPhone. The fact that Apple is not totally sliced up by the vicious Mango (free from Blackadder goes Forth) is the fact that the apps for  Windows Phone 7.5 are as a rule more expensive. Of course quite logically given economics of scale, but still a fact I couldn’t ignore.

At the end

As a closing remark I really like my Optimus 7 and will show it with pride at parties instead in the old day when I used to sneak into the back room to call home with my old Nokia. But now I mention Nokia I am very curious about their WP7.5 phones. I hope they will bring some old fashioned phone logic in the smartphone market, because oh boy what are those smartphones sometimes dumb when  you want to use it as a simple phone, where are the profiles you could select for meeting, outdoor, normal, etc, etc  and I always used my phone as alarm clock, but I don’t want to wake up because my friend in Bellevue forgot the time difference, a Nokia would start the alarm clock even when turned off, but a ‘smart’phone will wait for you to wake up and push the power button, who is that for smart?