Browser Wars
By WC Staff
last updated 
Windows Central Newsletter
Get the best of Windows Central in your inbox, every day!
5 Comments
-
Yeah, there is some serious Windows Mobile hate on that site.
-
To be fair to Gizmodo readers, about 75% of the commenters that weighed in on this "review" are annoyed at the attitude of the reviewer and his transparent agenda and anti-WM stance. This is another example of "iPhone user who ****s all over WM just because it's different and/or not as pretty as the iPhone".
Plus, we all know that browsing on WinMo isn't going to be as good as browsing on Safari, but the gap seems to be closing. And to be honest, I've been using NetFront 3.5 "concept edition" (ie limited to two month trials with major features disabled) for as long as I can remember and I am consistently impressed with its ability to render webpages. Unfortunately with larger websites, the anemic 64MB of RAM on my Mogul does not allow for the entire website to load (ie reddit, espn.com, etc) but I'm seriously considering the Touch Pro in the very near future. -
The biggest problem about the Gizmodo "review" is that the reviewer(s) made a conscious decision not to upgrade Opera Mobile. I understand the rationale behind testing the phone as a consumer would experience it OOTB, but I daresay the average WM user is comfortable with installing CABs to update their applications (just like anyone else does with a regular desktop PC). Even iPhone users upgrade Safari through firmware updates.
The Opera Mobile 19xx builds offered significant performance improvements over the original 17xx builds, and the 2xxx and now 15xxx builds continue those improvements. It's a shame then that the Gizmodo reviewer(s) dismiss the slow performance of earlier builds as "clearly an OS issue [...] not an Opera one", despite having overlooked the opportunity to test more recent builds (or to at least mention the ability to do so in the article). It's hard to imagine that a majority of WM users who use Opera Mobile are still depending on early builds. -
I love Gizmodo and am a frequent commenter on that site (actually commented a couple times on that post as well.) They're all about the Gawker Media attitude and zeal with their posts and I generally love it as that's more entertaining when I'm reading about posts I may only marginally care about.
But you're right in that it's definitely become Apple Fanboy central over there when it comes to their authors. Out of the site's 12+ authors, only one uses a PC as his primary machine, the rest use Macs. Not to say they're all Borg-like fanboys lining up to munch on Steve's wang as several of them also use PCs on a semi-regular basis and don't automatically rip all things Microsoft. But if you go into Giz expecting a Microsoft product to get a fair shake or positive take you're going to walk away disappointed the vast majority of the time.
After seeing how well Android runs on my Sprint Touch I'm also a bit frustrated with WM sometimes. But it's still a productivity powerhouse and that's still my primary need out of a phone right now. Obviously guys who get paid to surf the web and play with toys have different priorities so different strokes . . . -
WOW...that was quite possibly the worst attempt at a legitimate review I've ever read. It's too bad people who have never used windows mobile will read that and automatically agree with the author. Somehow the purpose of the article was to compare browsers? Didn't sound that way.
I would like to to see a legit article on the subject though...definitely including opera mini, skyfire, iris...and a good list of pros/cons. I'm sure opera 9.5 still comes out on top.