Why wait for a Zune Phone? Smartphones are here now!

Andrew Arnott

The iPhone was a hit, and people look to Microsoft to produce a ZunePhone in some future version of their Zune music player.  But I ask you, “Why?!”  What you may not be aware of is that Windows Smartphones already do everything that we hope ZunePhone will do.  Just check out this feature list:

1. Music player (WMA, MP3, WAV, ringtones), with all the convenient music navigation of browsing by artist, album, genre, track, etc.
2. Video player (WMV, and I don’t know what other formats)
3. DRM-free
4. Bluetooth and wi-fi support (depends on actual phone)
5. Phone
6. Contact list (that syncs with Outlook/Exchange)
7. Calendar (that syncs with Outlook/Exchange)
8. Email (that syncs with Outlook/Exchange)
9. Voice notes
10. Games
11. 3rd-party apps (step aside iPhone!)
12. Not locked as a platform to any particular carrier
13. Free downloads of ringtones and apps (no carrier-tax just to put apps on your phone)

I have only listed features that might appear on some future ZunePhone (I have no insider information to make announcements for future Zunes, so don’t read into these).  There are way more features on Smartphones than just what I have listed here.

Just a small plug for the contacts list in a Smartphone: I’ve never seen and could never imagine a more easily and quickly navigable interface than the contacts list on a Windows Mobile Smartphone.  I can usually go from pulling out my phone to dialing someone’s number in about three key presses.

The price for one of these amazing Smartphones?  Since we don’t have a closed platform like Apple, I can’t give you a single price because there are so many different devices that you can choose from.  But here are a few really neat models available today with their links:

• HTC 2125
• HTC S710
• HTC S730
• Moto Q

Personally, I bought an HTC 2125 Smartphone off of eBay for $100.  I thought it had the perfect balance of fits-in-your-pocket and decent viewable screen size.  As I’ve demonstrated, it runs circles around the iPhone and what I expect from the not-yet-produced ZunePhone, and it’s at a small fraction of the cost, and with no two-year contract either. 

Compare that to iPhone’s $500 price tag plus 2 year contract requirement.  Oh, and it only works with AT&T (officially anyway).

So get out there and buy a Windows Mobile Smartphone today!

Andrew Arnott Principal Software Engineer, Visual Studio Platform

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