Why Windows Phone Rocks

First let me say that this is a “what I like” post and not a comparison of platforms.  The Windows Phone is the first smart phone that I have owned (no, I’m not 100 or 15 years old).  Now that I have done the full disclosure I did want to talk about the features of the Windows Phone that I really enjoy.

I have had the Samsung Focus since shortly after it came out.  I have found it extremely capable and enjoy the performance of the device.  It is light, durable and bright.  My wife has the LG Quantum that feels like a brick compared to the Focus.  But they all seem to be well functioning devices and it is nice to have a choice.

Of course hardware is nothing without the software features to go with it so here are the things I find valuable.

The first thing you may notice are the Bing features.  Vision and Music while not new ideas are fun to have built into the software loaded on the phone.  QR codes have become the new sales tools.  Being able to just point the camera and have it detect QR code, bar codes, album covers and books is great.  Music replaces Shazam and takes you straight the Zune market place.

From there I go to XBox Games.  They are not a deal breaker for me, but it is fun to sit with my son while we are waiting at a restaurant or to get our hair cuts and playing Assassin’s Creed.  Just having great games to preoccupy the kids makes waiting a lot easier.

Having Office preloaded is another win for me.  Not the least of the benefits is having OneNote where ever I go and being able to lookup notes for clients without having to start up my laptop.  Add to that opening the three main document types of the office suit just puts the cherry on top.

The bonus is that the market place is fast building all the popular apps and then some.  It is getting harder and harder to run into a situation that you can’t find an app you are looking for and it is only getting better.

The last area is development.  Personally it is the development story that really attracts me to the Windows Phone (yes, I am a strange techie).  Having spent so much of the past two decades developing with Microsoft technologies means I both have an investment there and understand the benefits of the tools. 

Microsoft may be late to the game, but I think they have combined the strengths of the other platforms and are pushing past.  I would say go check one out and see if they rock for you too.


Source: http://geekswithblogs.net/tmurphy/archive/2011/10/10/why-windows-phone-rocks.aspx