WP7 - 15 reboots in a day? Results of Brandon Watson's WP7 challenges.

Molly Wood at Cnet was challeged by Windows Phone Apps evangelist / manager Brandon Watson to try out a WP7 phone (HTC Trophy running Mango / Verizon) to compare to her Android phone (Motorola Droid X running Android 2.2 / Verizon), and apparently she reached her verdict by the end of week 2.  While she says that there were things to like, there were also some frustrating moments, including this little zinger:

"Two weeks doesn't sound a lot of time to live with an entirely new platform, and I might have lasted longer but for serious problems with the HTC Trophy I've been using (one-day record for spontaneous reboots: 15, including three in 15 minutes)."

Ouch!  Could be a hardware issue...I don't know, but one would assume that if your goal is to try to convince a tech blogger to come over to your side, then you would test the hardware to verify it is working.  If that's the case, then the WP7 software is to blame?

Separately, Scott Adams (Dilbert) also took up Brandon Watson's challenge, and decided that he liked his WP7 phone (Samsung Focus running Mango / AT&T) and called it the winner (in comparison to an EVO 3D running Android 2.3 / Sprint and iPhone 3GS / AT&T).  Curious, I'd like to know if he'd take up the same challenge in a few months when Android Ice Cream and WP7 Mango are released to the public.

But this is worth noting from Adams' post:

"The intangible coolness factor is impossible to ignore. Even the names Microsoft and Windows feel dated. And the home screen of the Windows phone is great from a usability standpoint, but lacks sizzle. I'd be lying if I said that didn't matter to me."

I played around with the WP7 phone at a T-Mobile store, and it wasn't that compelling for me.  Contrasting to the idea that fragmentation is bad, I like fragmentation -- I get to decide between one company's UI layer over another, or if I want just a stock Android UI.

If I want a uniform UI, I'd definitely get an iPhone, not a WP7 phone, because the iPhone's UI is smooth, slick and doesn't fail...and all those apps and appliances built for the iPhone doesn't hurt either.  WP7's got neither.

And doggone it, I still don't like them live tiles.  Yes, they are slick, but geez they're boring as hell.