[Q] To previous Android owners

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I currently own a Captivate and I'm tired of the ROM-switching, and the laggy interface (On each and every ROM I've installed) and want to give this device a shot, so my questions to people that migrated from Android to WP7 are:

What's better? What's worse? What will I miss? Is it worth the move?

Thanks!

Originally Posted by xgibran

I currently own a Captivate and I'm tired of the ROM-switching, and the laggy interface (On each and every ROM I've installed) and want to give this device a shot, so my questions to people that migrated from Android to WP7 are:

What's better? What's worse? What will I miss? Is it worth the move?

Thanks!

I just left the droid bionic 4 days ago. I am not new to windows phone though. What's better:
Ease of use. Its simple
Reliable. Connects every time
Hardware is now comparable with a lot of dual core droids. This does not lack for speed.
Its attractive and light.
Once you learn the Os, it becomes addictive in its simplicity.
Connects my jabra hands free and allows voice actions. Cool.

What's not so good:
If you have any notion of custom, forget it. What you see is what you get. I mean that...exactly as it sounds.
Apps. WP has many of the more familiar apps, but not all, yet. There is no Starbucks app, or Barnes and noble to name 2. Its getting better though.
Still limited in ringtones. Takes some doing to get your tone.
Battery life is not great. Not awful either.
The buttons on this focus are backwards. The volume id on upper left. A right handed phone holder changes the volume everytime.
No led notifications..at all.

Would I buy this again. Yes. I say this knowing I'm getting the 900 soon. I'll have both. This is a good phone.

Thanks, that is very helpful. One thing you didn't mention is that compared to Androids of the same level the speed is astonishing. The experience is so smooth!

So far I have found most of the same apps I used regularly on Android and a very good alternative to another.
As you said, battery life is not the best in the world, but it sure beats the 7-8 hours I got on the Captivate. I went through a whole day (~13 hours) of heavy use (OTA downloads, take a couple of pics, etc) before I needed to recharge.

The one thing that ticks me off in particular is the way multitasking is managed. I open something and hit the home button. If I go through the active apps (holding the back key) I can get back to the exact place I was in before I left it. If I tap on the tile of the app it restarts the app from scratch. What gives?

Originally Posted by xgibran

Thanks, that is very helpful. One thing you didn't mention is that compared to Androids of the same level the speed is astonishing. The experience is so smooth!

So far I have found most of the same apps I used regularly on Android and a very good alternative to another.
As you said, battery life is not the best in the world, but it sure beats the 7-8 hours I got on the Captivate. I went through a whole day (~13 hours) of heavy use (OTA downloads, take a couple of pics, etc) before I needed to recharge.

The one thing that ticks me off in particular is the way multitasking is managed. I open something and hit the home button. If I go through the active apps (holding the back key) I can get back to the exact place I was in before I left it. If I tap on the tile of the app it restarts the app from scratch. What gives?

I didn't mention speed because most people's first response to a speed claim is no way, or you missed something. Fact is, I didn't believe it either. I went to t-mobile to pay my bill. There was an in store special on the 710. $20, that's it. So I took it. That little low end phone outpaced the bionic in almost everything. When my bionic went on vacation decided to take off, I did not hesitate. I have not looked back. I'm successfully weaned from android, with no regrets..even my girlfriend made the trip back. She's even more integrated with windows live, office, SkyDrive, OneNote, the entire cloud scenario. She uses the concept at work. They think shes a genius.

So yeah, good concepts, good phone. Perfect, no. Like you mentioned. But a good show none the less.

I just made the switch from the HTC Desire. Honestly, the Focus S is a great phone. It's beautiful, stupidly thin like a cat walk model, great camera, etc.

WP7 is a beautiful OS, oh I've wanted to have it on my phone for so long now, but it's got a gammy leg. My main gripes are:

-Multitasking is a pain - it's so slow to resume applications I'm not sure what the difference is in relaunching an app. That said, without proper multitasking apps that should receive push notifications sort of... DON'T! This whole, let it run under the lock-screen is lame. In Android I thought it was ridiculous that EVERYTHING just ran in the background and now I'm complaining about the inverse. Is there no happy medium?
-Facebook Chat integration is another hobbled feature. I can't send pictures which you can in the Android app. I receive pictures as a LINK to the desktop FB site which is ridiculous because if you zoom you are bounced back to the left margin for some reason. Even the official FB app is useless when it comes to FB chat/IM! I used this with my wife constantly. The alternative is WhatsApp but then the whole seemless continuity from mobile to desktop is shattered!
-Integration with Gmail is a bit ropey, but seems quite adequate I suppose. I guess here too push notifications aren't possible it has to be 30 min intervals.
-I do admit to wishing that the keyboad had the key long press functionality for special characters like in Android. Flipping to the numeric keyboard is labourious
-Notifications are also a little inconsistent. The whole toast thing. Without a doubt the Android (and now iOS) pull down notifications bar is fantastic. This also goes for quick access to stuff like switching wifi, airplane mode on or off, etc

I'm sure I could go on... The positives are amazing. Damn it's smooth, beautiful and functional, but the above issues and others make it kind of a deal breaker for me. Android has sucked for a while, but it has matured and WP7 needs to do the same pretty quickly. I know the above issues might not be a deal breaker for a lot of people, but for me they are

Hmph! I'm a little annoyed now...

Coming from an ATT Cappy, I'm stoked.

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Been on the Focus S for a few weeks now and I love it. IMO, it just works. What I need and want a phone to do, it does very well. EYE CANDY! There are a few things I miss coming from Android however.

1. The ability to toggle WiFi always on. This really sucks when sitting on my couch and using my phone to control my htpc (xbmc). It takes about 10 seconds for the wifi to re-connect after the screen is turned on. By no means a deal breaker and I'm sure will be addressed in future updates.

2. Individual audio volume controls. I miss the ability to have my alarm, system, media and other notification volumes at different pre-configured levels.

3. Apps are more expensive and the free ones are still a bit lacking.

4. Home screen customizing. I really would find it useful to have 3 home screens rather than 2 (tiles and apps). There's just too much **** i want quick access too I guess

5. Zero expandable memory. This one totally blows and was almost a deal breaker for me. ~16GB's is enough storage space, but just barely. There is no way I can have all my music, audio books and some movies on here. Currently I just have music :/

That's my 5. Everything else I think is comparable or better than Android currently. This phone is sleek and super fast. We just need some updates and app development to get this thing tip top.

Switched from Captivate to Focus S via the Smoked challenge.

- As far as operation goes, the Focus does indeed smoke the Captivate. Severely. I was always fighting the Captivate, but with the Focus S, the phone actually works as it was intended to. Metro is a bit plain, but the performance is steady and predictable. Personally, I'll take steady and predictable every time.

- The app situation on Windows isn't as solid as Android. Which only matters if the specific apps you are looking for aren't there. For example, if you can't live without Angry Birds, stay home.

- Video transfer *SUCKS*. Moving over large video files (movies) that aren't already formatted in a Zune friendly format takes *hours*. Seriously. Once they are transferred, they are beautiful, but if you are the type that likes moving different movies back and forth, stay far away from WP...at least until Apollo.

- Taken as a whole, this is an easy upgrade to recommend.

Originally Posted by sarlo100

Switched from Captivate to Focus S via the Smoked challenge.

- As far as operation goes, the Focus does indeed smoke the Captivate. Severely. I was always fighting the Captivate, but with the Focus S, the phone actually works as it was intended to. Metro is a bit plain, but the performance is steady and predictable. Personally, I'll take steady and predictable every time.

- The app situation on Windows isn't as solid as Android. Which only matters if the specific apps you are looking for aren't there. For example, if you can't live without Angry Birds, stay home.

- Video transfer *SUCKS*. Moving over large video files (movies) that aren't already formatted in a Zune friendly format takes *hours*. Seriously. Once they are transferred, they are beautiful, but if you are the type that likes moving different movies back and forth, stay far away from WP...at least until Apollo.

- Taken as a whole, this is an easy upgrade to recommend.

I actually returned my Focus S for an SGS II. There were just too many little things I missed coming from Android that I couldn't live without. Going to the SGS II seems to be the best of both worlds for me and I'm super stoked.