For the past week I’ve been reviewing the Samsung Focus S. I believe that competition drives innovation, so I love spending time with multiple devices and operating systems to see what works well and what doesn’t. I think most of us have spent some quality time with an iOS device and are aware of the competition it presents, but I’m guessing that most of us haven’t played with Windows Phone very much. So how does Windows Phone 7 stack up against Android?  

As Android fans, I know that most of us don’t want to hear it, but if NFC (Near Field Communications) is ever going to take off and be widely adopted, we need the iPhone 5 to support it.

When the Nexus S was released on December 16, 2010 as the first NFC-enabled phone, Google made an early push to get both businesses and consumers into accepting the idea that their phones could share information by simply touching it to objects. The thought of paying for your morning coffee or cab fare without having to dig into your purse or back pocket seemed so game-changing. Since we all make our phones the most readily available item on our bodies at all times, what a brilliant idea this was. 

For the past week I’ve been spending some quality time with the Samsung Galaxy Tab 10.1. While I like the hardware for the most part and I don’t mind TouchWiz, I’ve been struggling to find a place for the device in my life. While a large part of it is simply that I’m not entirely convinced that a tablet is the best form factor, I keep finding myself disappointed with the app selection and quality. There are some great apps available for Honeycomb and Ice Cream Sandwich, but overall I’ve been disappointed time and time again. 

Netflix and Hulu Plus had limited app rollouts because of it. Eric Schmidt and Matias Duarte say it doesn’t exist. Charlie Kindel says it’s the reason Google will lose control of Android. Jon Evans says it’s the single greatest problem facing Android. Sanjay Jha says that carriers require it and he needs it to make money. It’s a subject that Android supporters are tired of talking about and that Android competitors can’t stop talking about. It was the subject of my first official post here at Droid-Life. Fragmentation is still a serious problem.

Yesterday our fearless leader criticized Nokia’s CEO, Stephen Elop, for bringing up Android fragmentation, saying that fragmentation is no longer an issue. While Kellen made some good points about how far Android has come since 2009, I disagree with his conclusion that Android fragmentation is no longer a problem. Four different types of fragmentation remain problematic for Android users. 

So this story from Pocket-Lint is floating around the web today that quotes Nokia’s CEO Stephen Elop. Not that this should surprise anyone coming from the guy that is betting the bank on Windows Phone 7, but he of course referenced Android and this mythical fragmentation problem it has. He is quoted as saying that he doesn’t want fragmentation “being introduced” to Windows Phone because “we are” starting to see it “become a problem” in a “certain other eco-system.”  And time for a rant… 

Over the holiday weekend, I had a small budget to buy a new TV for my bedroom and maybe a cool something else to go with it. (Was thinking PS3?) I was budgeted to spend under $500 and I wasn’t really sure what I wanted but I know I definitely wanted a TV with WIFI and it had to be able to stream Netflix as well as some media off my network. To get the biggest bang for my buck, I was looking at a no frills 37” HDTV with a higher end BluRay player with wifi. As luck would have it, right when I thought I figured it all out, I saw a pile of Sony BluRay Players with Google TV built-in, for $199 each. I dropped the ‘SMART’ player player I had and headed to cash out. All in all, I spent right around $475 for the TV and the unit. Not bad for what has now basically become a smart TV with a WiFi  BluRay player.

When I got home, I unpacked and hooked up my new toys and it took me about ten minutes to set everything up and get it running. The longest part of the setup was the software update to Honeycomb for the player. It came with a qwerty remote, which I love, and the remote also doubles as a true universal remote. Aside from the full keyboard, the remote also has a touch sensitive cursor to fully navigate the screen like a mouse on a desktop. My only complaint with the remote is a lack of backlight. As far as the BluRay player goes, it runs great and I will leave it at that. It is a Sony, it is BluRay (their invention), it plays great. End of review for the BluRay portion. 

Within the last week the top three Android manufacturers reported their most recent earnings. HTC reported its first quarterly profit decline in two years, Motorola’s sales are expected to be disappointing yet again, and Samsung is doing fairly well (though their earning numbers were boosted by the sale of their hard drive division to Seagate). In short, except for Samsung, the top three Android manufacturers are not doing well.

It’s easy for us to look at market share and assume that because Android is dominating, that means every manufacturer is doing well. That’s simply not the case. So far every manufacturer’s strategy has been to make as many models as they can and hope they sell well. The result is a flood of devices in the market and delayed updates. If you make some really good devices you might be able to avoid financial trouble (Samsung), but if you make terrible devices this strategy is just going to kill you (Motorola). HTC has managed to stay in between these extremes by making some good devices, all of which were very similar to each other.