And not a single word devoted to the user experience - boggles the mind how geeks continue to ignore the most obvious, the most important part of any consumer device, even after seeing the incredible rise of the iPhone.
No claim is made that the factors they lay out are the only important ones. I'm sure they assume many of the user experience differences are well-understood, and they are just laying out the costs.
IMHO this sort of comparison is pointless - it appears on the surface to be relevant, but in our experience we have seen that consumers will base buying decisions on far more subjective parameters. It's really out of touch with what the general buying public looks for when buying such a device.
Take the battery life data for example: hand a phone shopper two smartphones and let them play with it. How much weight do you think he/she would place on a 250h vs. 300h standby time? Compared to how slick/snappy the UI is? Compared to how intuitively they can get around?
The focus on spec-sheet comparisons IMHO is missing the forest for the trees.
How do the facebook apps on each phone compare?
I only have android--curious what additional features iPhone has for facebook?
It still had a base level of features that it needed to gain popularity, and user experience is not everything. If you need feature X and the iPhone doesn't have feature X then it is worthless to you regardless of how great the rest of the user-experience may be.
> Take the battery life data for example: hand a phone shopper two smartphones and let them play with it. How much weight do you think he/she would place on a 250h vs. 300h standby time? Compared to how slick/snappy the UI is? Compared to how intuitively they can get around?
People 'flocked' to get the Motorola Razr because it looked slick, that doesn't make it a good phone. Most people make impulse buys. How many people do you think bother to look at anything more than 'how many megapixels does it have?' when they want a new digital camera? Things like battery life are always going to be secondary considerations because people (in general) are very poor at planning ahead and making careful, considered choices. Things like that will (most of the time) end up as complaints about the phone after they have purchased it. Now I realize that most people (even after contemplation) may not want/need that extra 50 hours, but there is a difference between ending up with what you wanted and/or needed due to blind luck or due to weighing of your choices with your wants and/or needs.
It's a little like doing car comparisons by mere horsepower and cargo space - sounds relevant on paper, but in reality not so much... the only valuable advice is "test drive them all". In the end your satisfaction with your car probably has little to do with the fact that it has 20% more cargo space than the nearest competitor.
Source: http://www.billshrink.com/blog/nexus-one-vs-iphone-droid-pal...
"Some of us out there find money very important, even if you don't."
Hi, I'm a human being behind this keyboard - and would appreciate if you'd lay off the smug condescension, especially since I have shown you none.