LG Made Windows Phones?

In complete contrast, here is a reviewer who is somewhat delighted with his recently delivered Lumia 900. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hDOHG1r62xI&feature=related Yep, I think he likes it..

There's something that's always bugged me about phone sales. It's common for a phone to be released exclusively on a particular carrier network - when in fact that often artificially limits the choice of phones available. There's been a few phones released which I've had an interest in trying, but since they're not on my network - which happens to be the only viable option in terms of signal round here - then they're immediately out of the question. It's about time handset manufacturers became carrier agnostic.

@gorath I have no idea whether this is true or not, but are you sure it is the device makers that don't want to be carrier agnostic? I would think it would be in the best interest of the device makers to have say, device X, on as many networks as possible... However, the carriers best interest would be the complete opposite: to be the only one with device X. That way if a person wants it, they would have to come to their network. While that may not be good enough for certain people to switch, you have to think it has some merit to it (especially for new customers who don't have a phone at all). I would think that the carriers may pay a bit more for the phones, or pay an upfront fee, to get a device exclusive. As I said, I could be wrong, but that sounds more likely to me.

Paul, your assertion that the LG Optimus was the most boring of the Windows Phones sounds more like sour grapes than an informed opinion. In Canada Bell Mobility was the only carrier to offer a Windows Phone with a physical keyboard, the LG Optimus C900B. In my opinion it was the best of the first generation Windows Phones BECAUSE it had the real keyboard. I'm not sure if there are any physical keyboard-based Windows Phones left on the market, and that is a problem for customers like myself who want such a feature. The biggest issue with what I'm ready to concede as the failure of Windows Phone in the marketplace is Microsoft's absolute lack of developer support (at least here in Canada). I was at last year's Tech-Ed where Microsoft and Nokia were giving away handsets to developers who would promise to develop for the platform, but sorry, not in Canada. Over the last year I've contacted Microsoft Canada twice about handset support and have been ignored. The retail marketplace here is dominated by Best Buy and Future Shop and you rarely see a Windows Phone included in their weekly flyers. So as a company Microsoft has failed to back up its words of support for Canadian developers with hardware and it has failed to spend as necessary in the marketplace to better push its product. I say this as someone who DID spend my own money to get on the early Windows Phone train, but as my first app nears completion I'm focusing my development time on the iPhone platform first, followed next by Android and Blackberry. I wanted to go Windows Phone first but I don't see why Microsoft deserves my effort if they aren't prepared to be a participating partner in OUR success.

So, LG is the second handset maker to drop Windows (Dell begin the first). Not a good trend for MS.

Windows Phone is starting to take off. Almost doubled its market share since the holidays: http://marketshare.hitslink.com/report.aspx?qprid=9&qpcustom=Windows+Pho... The rest of the field: http://marketshare.hitslink.com/report.aspx?qprid=9&qpcustomb=1