New windows phone specs are not impressive - why is that?

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daninbusiness September 02, 2011

New windows phone specs are not impressive - why is that?

The specs on these devices are more in-line with products released in 2010.

Considering that most new flagship Android phones are dual-core and have 1 GB of RAM, and that the iPhone 5 is likely to be on par with that, it's hard for me to get too excited about these new Windows Phone devices - they seem out of date before they've even arrived.

I suppose it's debatable if one truly needs 1GB of RAM on a mobile phone...though I feel that having more is better; I doubt that future versions of any of these mobile OS will get lighter over time.

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CptBlu 8 months ago

Android and windows phone are entirely different beasts you should think of it more like the iPad no one really cares what it's processor is because it doesn't matter it just works the os is optimized for the platform I have a first Gen windows phone running mango and it is still must as smooth and responsive as it was when I got it this hardware is expected to get us through to widows phone code name Apollo where as android is not very optimized and requires tons of powers yet on many device it still seems sluggish and unresponsive

We should worry less about hardware specs and more about performance the things that should matter are screen size battery life and cameras these are things that are not effected by the os and what differentiates the devices windows phone like ios is optimized to run on one set of hardware devices

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daninbusiness 2011-09-02 16:28:30

Fair points.

Among the types of people that read GDGT and other tech sites, I think that Microsoft will have a marketing challenge in this regard, however - the latest Android handsets (Bionic, new Galaxy phones, etc) tend to have cutting-edge specs.

When a new iPhone comes out, it tends to be carrying some type of leading hardware, though the spec-level details of that are not always played up in the marketing.

Then again, most consumers are probably not too concerned about this, so it may not be a big deal at all.

I do want to see Windows Phone get more traction in the market, I think they need to do more in their marketing to draw attention to what it excels at. The people I know that have Windows phones seem to be pretty happy with them. However, Microsoft hasn't yet (from what I've seen) offered a combination of marketing and device that says "I gotta have that" rather than "this is a pretty good phone among many other pretty good phones".

CptBlu 2011-09-02 16:45:53

I really think you hit the nail on the head with marketing that has always been Microsoft's problem but in fairness they are a company that has always been enterprise focused and they rely on their partners which works for business not consumers they need someone to tell them what to buy. I do expect to see some great hardware for windows phone, but I do keep in mind its great for windows phone and may not be so great for android but again android seems to require great hardware to achieve the same performance. Now I do disagree with apple having cutting edge specs they have cutting edge design but their hardware on many cases is last Gen remember iPhone didn't support 3g until it second revision they have always been in the habit of using older tech and putting it in shiny new packages and then marketing the hell out of it to the point you are to feel stupid for not having one just like slates/tablets Microsoft has done that for 10 year but it didn't take off until apple told everyone you got to have this thing its awesome. I expect to see even more momentum for the windows platform once windows 8 unifies their UI you will see more people choose the device that looks like everything else you use and metro seems to be where their headed even Xbox the only consumer brand they have that does well if getting a metro facelift

CptBlu 2011-09-02 16:59:37

Oh and by the way my Samsung focus has the same basic hardware specs as the HTC evo and the iPhone 4 all of which came out with in months of each other 1g CPU 512 ram even so far as to have the same chipset as most of the android devices that came out at the time. Also if you go back and look at advertising from then android was only touted as have just over 30,000 apps which is where windows is at in only one year

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ahdr 2011-09-20 13:44:28

Hardware is becoming obsolete soon because the rate of technology is increasing ever faster (Moore's Law), so what is more important is a focus on software (UX). There is going to be a peak point where no matter what components are used consumers will all experience an optimum experience that is fast, fluid and functional.

Windows Phone and Windows 8 has already shown that you can use last generation components and still maintain a solid, snappy and fluid OS because the software is optimised to run on all kinds of hardware scenarios. -- This is the future of computing, consumers should not have to worry about RAM, CPU that much anymore because the standard is getting so much better.

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biggles1000 2011-09-26 01:00:42

Yeah, as everyone else points out, the OS does count, but I'm rather disappointed with the amount of RAM the Titan has. I've got the HTC 7 Trophy, and plan on switching to the HTC Titan when it comes out, which has a faster processor, but same amount of RAM. Both beat the specs of my Touch Pro2 and last year's Legend, but they are nowhere near as impressive as some Android phones out at the moment. £490 is rather a lot to ask for a phone with rather basic (yet clearly still high end, just not cutting edge) specs. The resolution on the HTC WP7 devices is hardly impressive either, hopefully that's just a MS imposed limitation though.

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patfactorx 2011-09-02 14:15:47

Wp7 is never going to carry the flagship phone for an OEM until the market shows that it wants a Windows phone. As long as they are sitting at 5% marketshare of new phones purchased; no one is going to give it their best hardware.

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CptBlu 2011-09-02 15:19:37

That would be an incorrect assumption since the next Samsung windows phone is supposed to be the galaxy s 2 wearing windows instead of android. Windows phone gets a bad wrap because it's Microsoft windows phone is not selling as fast because you have to argue with a sales rep about how you don't like android and you want the windows phone people complain that it's only got 30,000 apps its app store is growing faster then android or ios did. The app for everything is an apple and now google model windows phone is more about integration.

nefnet13 2011-11-11 11:28:05

"No one is going to give it their best hardware"

Nokia has a vested interest in doing just that. The Lumia 800 is a recycled design and "crippled" compared to its big brother (the N9) but that one was a rush-job just to get something on the market; expect to see top-of-the-line Nokias running Windows Phone early- to mid-2012 (including more RAM, dual core processors, FFC's, and LTE). Probably will be in conjunction with the Tango update(s) early in Q2.

silentmemories 2011-11-11 19:37:23

It's quite likely that the hardware manufacturers are saving up the hardware for Apollo.

aveynes.com/2011/11/windows-phone-8-apollo-predict...

As of right now, even if they wanted to, the drivers have not been developed yet though for the hardware, and will likely be for WP8.

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