You need to try a WP7 phone. I genuinely think that it represents a 'third way' between Android and iPhone. Yes, it's locked down, but the UI works around very different principles to iOS.
It really isn't very app-centric. For instance, it has a 'People' tile that is basically your phonebook... except that each person also has a 'history' section that collates all your Facebook, Twitter and e-mail exchanges with each other. It also shows you a feed that combines your Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, etc into one place. I don't have to load up a separate app for every action I want to take.
It's very, very well put together. Their next step (IMO) needs to be to allow more third party integration- I want GChat alongside FB and Live chat, Foursquare integration with the 'Places' tile, and so on. I'm pretty sure that it is on the way.
* how about cheap:android €60 on prepay v €380 for wp7, €460 for iphone. this is ireland so your country may vary.
* how about writing code on the device itself:symbian and android can do this. wp7? friendliness to gpl for me counts here to.
* how about battery life:this would be symbian where you can last days of heavy use. iphone and android barely last a day for me. wp7?
* how about the ability to run your own version of the os:cyanogen mod for android. this way i can remove all those preinstalled apps that i will never use.
i've used symbian since 2004 (loved), ios since iphone 3g (liked) and am now on android (meh). i've played with every version of wince/pocket pc/win mobile and all without fail have been woeful. microsoft has fouled their own nest before launching wp7. why would any one who tried any of those previous versions give the new one a chance?
i'm not the average consumer but many average consumers ask me for advice. these days i recommend fluffy v flexible. if they want a fluffy easy to use phone then get an iphone and if they want flexible then get android as there are so many choices they can find one that does precisely what they want.
There's the "more information at a glance" marketing angle that Microsoft initially took, but that doesn't strike me as being sufficiently captivating for the average smartphone seeker.
What it brings to the table is largely irrelevant; consumers don't make their phone purchasing decisions based on these one-liner cliches that the grandparent lays out. The important question is: what does Windows Phone bring to the carriers (the people who sell the phones).
It's a different world altogether. When people think of paying for a mobile. They are by default thinking of paying for the hardware. They don't care, about what runs inside. When people buy an iPhone they are automatically imagining an awesome form factor an awesome UI. By default shipped to them.
So now here is the problem, If HTC ships a phone, will it be an 'HTC phone' or a 'Windows phone'? Now you see there is a problem there. People have trouble imagining the term 'HTC phone running windows'. They understand only single branding. Its either Windows phone or a HTC phone. That's the same thing as during the PC era, for an ordinary user it was always 'I have a Dell computer' or 'I have a Toshiba', It was never a 'Windows computer'.
That is what dug MS's grave here.
When people go to buy televisions, mp3 players or even cars. They don't care who is writing the software/shipping the engine for the car. They talk about manufacturers like - 'Is this toyota car good?' or 'Is this Panasonic TV good', even though Sony may probably be supplying the OEM components to Panasonic.
So people have a lot of trouble imagining 'Windows Phone'.
Android is different here, because Google main business is not selling Android. They sell a totally different thing for which Android is an enabler. So the branding problem doesn't arise there.
So people don't have any reason to consider 'Windows phone' special. Heck they don't understand what a windows phone is basically, Just like how I and you don't care about what engine is built into our cars, or who supplies the filament inside the electric bulb.
To me I can only imagine the electric bulb as a whole, I don't really have the time, money or the resources to go researching for the quality of filaments used inside and who manufactures them. I imagine the bulb as a whole, so the user does the same thing when buying a mobile. Its a whole mobile not a specific component running inside it. And from the direction of view, there is nothing special about windows on manufacturer X.
If I want locked-down smoothness I'd have an iPhone (it has all the apps). If I want openness, I'd have Android (I can install anything I like).
What does WP7 give me?