I understand, that if you know your hardware you can size your software. And it's true for an iPhone. While on the Android platform you have cheap phones, with weak processors, and you have excellent phones with dual core processors. With the same OS and apps. Yeah, it is a problem!
I would never go for an iPhone. Don't exactly know why, but I somehow wouldn't. Blackberry? I don't know too much about it. We used to call it 'I have no life anymore badge'. I think the market segment and the functionality is too well defined. And that's RIM's biggest problem. Windows Mobile? I used to have a Windows powered PDA, no thank you! Without question the two platform that gets the most support (and I mean apps and other content here) is Apple and Google.
So my choice is Android.Here's what I've learned so far by owning my phone. First of all I need to make it clear I love my phone. The QWERTY keyboard is a must. At least to me. Yeah, you can learn how to type on the screen. And if you rotate your phone the whole screen becomes a big keyboard. But if you have the real buttons, it's different. I can write long emails, blog entries, Word documents on it. Easy to get used to it, and way better than the on screen keyboard. Remember I work as a consultant, so sometimes I do have to write long emails, explaining stuff in the evening (thanks to that India is not in the Pacific Time Zone).
One thing which is a must I believe is dual core!! What I learned the hard way. When my phone (which is single core) is busy with something. like downloading an update, etc., it lags like crazy. Even though it has a 1.2GHz processor! My desktop PC i replaced with a Intel Core i7 machine 2 years ago was about that fast! But still, Android is a real multitasking OS, so it needs multiple cores. Not to mention the heterogeneous hardware. You cannot fully optimize your software so you need more craft! Now I understand why Apple does not allow multitasking on its device except for a couple of privileged applications. But even dialing is challenging if your phone is busy with something else. Priorities are not handled very well. Basic functions like text, dialing, screen response should be prio 1. All the time by completely suspending other running tasks if it is possible. Maybe that should be the real problem solver for single core hardware. Select the functions to handle with immediate attention, and when it's done, background processes can be resumed.
The other thing that's important is the OS version. I had the chance recently to upgrade from 2.2 to 2.3. Huge difference! And the Android platform is over 3.x version now. So I think the user interface, that is customized mainly by vendors has to be decoupled from the OS, and treated more like a plugin. So I can update the OS, and the UI sticks the same. Win-win. Well I don't know if it is something that could be achieved with the OS' architecture. I'm still too lazy to read a book on Android programming... But getting the latest OS all the time is essential.
Third thing is battery life. It will never be enough. My last Sony Ericsson w910i phone, which was considered to be a smart phone (multimedia support, emails, RSS, browser etc.) could last up to 4-5 days in the beginning. I got my Droid with the standard battery. Most of the time I had to plug it in to charge in the afternoons. When I was traveling to a client, it was a nightmare hunting outlets in a conference room or at the airport to get a couple of drops of energy. So I bought the extended battery. Best decision ever. With average usage, in the evening it is still only in the orange zone. So, there's a reason why manufacturers make extended battery packs! Buy them, you need them! It's a shame they don't sell the phones with them by default. Or you could choose when you purchase it from your provider. Environment friendliness... What do you do with your never ever used standard battery pack? I keep it in my desk drawer and eventually I'll throw it out...
4G speed? I don't know. Yes, sometime I need to wait, but I still get my things faster then on the office Internet. So I'm not sure. If you're on the budget, then I think this is the least important. Probably if I tried a 4G phone on a 4G network, I'd think differently...
So I think Android is a great platform, but it has some major challenges. Dual core is a must, and latest OS or easy OS upgrade is strongly preferred. I need the real keyboard, but maybe I'm old fashioned. I'm 31 years old after all :)
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