When Choosing A New Phone, What’s A WebOS User To Do?

Windows Phone

I have to confess, I liked Windows Phone 7 a whole lot more than I thought I would. Yes, there is a relative lack of apps compared to some other OSes, but with the exception of Pandora, there’s nothing that I miss on a day to day basis (yes, I can live without Angry Birds Seasons, Rio, and Space). WP7 has the best social network integration of all the choices, and its IM/text app feels the most like webOS’s synergy based solution.

There are, of course, downsides to the OS. I have to ignore the fact that most Windows Mobile handsets have expansion issues, because you can only use certain cards. Online storage makes this less of an issue. I’m also intrigued by the integration of Windows 8 and Windows Phone 8

The last time I was this excited about a desktop OS was OS X 10.0

However, there’s the matter of hardware. Windows Phone is relatively young and there aren’t as many handsets. If I wanted to stay with my current carrier, my only choice would be the HTC Arrive, which lacks LTE just as much as my Pre does. That’s also assuming I can find one, as many outlets no longer sell this device.

Basically, if it's not Android or iOS, you're not getting it on Sprint.

With that said, the Nokia Lumia, HTC Radar/Titan II and the Focus 2 are all great phones. Except that’d mean switching to one of two carriers with weak reception in my current region. Then there’s the final issue — with Windows Phone 8 coming down the pipe, I don’t want to commit to any handset that won’t have an official upgrade path.

Even with reception issues, I’d be willing to switch carriers, but it would have to be an LTE device that would absolutely run WP8 when it comes out.  In short, what I want doesn’t seem to exist yet. I’m willing to revisit this when such a device exists.