[Windows Phone 7 General] N8ter:
No. It's not different strokes for different folks. Most consumers wouldn't find a desktop linux distro useful to them compared to a Mac or Linux desktop - because Linux is terrible on the desktop. You don't have to be ridiculously subjective to realize this, unless you're a rabid fan of some sort.

WP7 has obvious issues with performance, stability/robustness, and a lack of features that have become par for the course in smartphone OSes and even some Feature Phones. Video over MMS, for example...

That's a clear failure on Microsoft's part, and that's a 100% objective observation.

When will people stop using the "different strokes for different folks" argument? Microsoft is targetting ALL consumers with this OS so they have to at least attempt to try to appeal to all strokes and folks. It doesn't look like they put any effort into it. The OS basically looks like they rushed it out a year early. IMO, WP7 is an Alpha, NoDo will be Beta, and Mango will be the release version.

I have all three of these OSes (WM, Android, WP7 - my sister has an iPhone so I can use that a lot if I want) and I've tried Blackberries (Bold 9780, Curve 3G).

I don't recommend anyone get a WP7 device until Mango goes mainstream and phones start shipping with it on them.

For a phone OS that was supposed to make your device easier to use and "make sense," it seems like they went out of their way to do the exact opposite. No Video MMS. Camera Settings Resetting. Marketplace Crash Loops. Pressing Enter in the SMS Program: no option to send the message instead of inserting a carriage return. Oh, Options seems Anathema to WP7, it's devoid of even the kind that make complete sense.

This has nothing to do with personal opinion, wanting to be a geek/tinker/customize on a low level. These are just purely usability failures and the "Quality of Life" using a WP7 device is factorably below that of almost any other smartphone OS I've used.

Yes, it's cute and it's actually pretty awesome when you first get it, but after you've gotten use to the overall UI differences the raw parts start to read their ugly heads. I carry both my WP7 and Android phone with me everywhere I go and it's hard not to notice how many tasks I turn to the Vibrant to accomplish because it's simply either 1. Faster or 2. Easier.

Also, 3rd Party Apps that exist for the other platforms as well as WP7 tend to look better on WP7, but the functionality and stability of the apps are much worse, not to mention the long load times whenever you start them because WP7 apps 90% of the time do not cache data. God forbid you have a busy twitter or FB account, and I have only been able to check in successfully once on my WP7 device - every other time the Official 4Sq app just crashed on start up.

If you do tons of email and messaging, and want on the second push notifications for social networking, a Blackberry is far superior.

If you want a system you can tinker with with fast-moving hardware innovation, tons of manufacturer choices, and good cloud integration; Android is far superior.

If you want a system that just works and has the highest quality mobile applications and performance/stability/robusness with exceptional desktop synchronization and gaming; iOS is far superior.

I don't see WP7 going mainstream at the rate it's moving, especially now that HP has WebOS and Android is starting to saturate the tablet market (and Google's getting their Music Cloud Sync, etc. ready to launch - and I heard iOS 4.3 is really good, too...). Blackberry will be getting ready to launch their QNX smartphone OS in 1st or second quarter next year as well, and they have a foothold on the corporate market.

So between Android/iOS in the consumer market and RIM in the corporate market (and consumer market in places like CAN and UK and emergent markets), I simply am not seeing much room for factorably growth for Microsoft. They are moving too slow to swoon users away from other platforms, and WP7 as it currently stands is almost unusable for a lot of those users due to the lack of features - which makes it uncompetitive in the market right now...

Most people do what you did, that's why Microsoft's Marketshare isn't growing even following the release of WP7. People me who buy it anyways do so because we can afford it and buying a new phone in a year won't be a hit to our budget, anyways, so why not... It's not like I don't have 2-3 other decent smartphones to put my SIM card in (and I typically keep two phones activated with data plans so I can pick and choose which ones to carry/use at any given time with little to no hassle).