Focus Focus Focus!

I did the seemingly unthinkable yesterday. I bought a new phone. And not a new iPhone. I hooked my wagon to the newest iPhone competitor, the Windows 7 phone.

I know what you're thinking. "Dude, how can you not get the new iPhone? Are you a commie?" To that I say, because I didn't wanna, and yes.

Honestly, ever since I finally got my 3G updated to the (gimped) iOS4 update, I was thinking about changing. Being able to put apps into folders made me realize that I never used 90% of the apps on my iPhone. Once they were put into folders, that was it. I kept the apps that I used on a regular basis out of folders, which added up to roughly 1 screen of apps.

I use my phone for a handful of things. Phone calls, the camera, Twitter, Facebook, e-mail, and music. I use it for some gaming as well, but there are only a handful of games that are worthwhile on the platform. Flight Control. Real Racing. The Spiderman game. Cut the Rope. That's it. And Game Center is a big bag of fail.

When they announced that Phone 7 would have Xbox Live support, that sealed the deal for me. Actual games with achievements supported by Microsoft. Not a bunch of 3rd party crap that is designed to get your cash in exchange for 10 minutes of tilting your phone.

Some of the great things that I've found so far in Phone 7 are the integration with my Gmail and Facebook accounts. I was worried it would be a nightmare getting my contacts updated on the phone. Fortunately, it took little more than me logging into each account for Phone 7 to have my address book populated and ready to go. The iPhone can't even reconcile your Gmail contacts between what you've sent on your phone vs what you've sent via the internet.

The Xbox Live application is amazing. I've played ilomilo and The Harvest so far. ilomilo was free and it's adorable. The Harvest looks awesome and plays very well. I plan on getting a few more of the launch titles like The Sims 3 and Need for Speed pretty soon.

Basically, change is good I think. After 2 years with the iPhone, I feel like I've seen everything there is to see on the platform. Not only that, but the performance was suffering.

I'm not saying this phone won't have issues. I started out with one right off the bat because it downloaded an update as soon as I got it and I finally had to hold the power button down to make it reset itself. Also, the memory is expandable via a microSD card, but once you put in the card, you can't take it out. It becomes part of the memory and can't be swapped out like most other phones. This is a small thing and something I can deal with.