Don't agree at all of what is said about Windows Phone 8. It's something new and fresh, and I feel people will get around to it. Have a Lumia920 and couldn't be happier. Win8 on the other hand... Different story :D
My Lumia 920 is going back as soon as I find the charger it came with. It's a well-built phone with a great screen, but it's not polished enough to be the game-changer that Nokia/Microsoft need it to be. It's huge (60% heavier than an iPhone), and the battery life is very questionable (despite a battery 40% larger than the iPhone 5). If I leave it on standby for two hours, I can never tell whether it will have blown through 2% or 20% of the battery in the meantime.
WP8 is slick in some ways, but it's not polished enough for prime time. Take for example the text messages app. Who decided that the chrome should take up so much space that you could only see 1 message in portrait mode (or zero in landscape) with the keyboard open? On a 4.5" screen?! There is no good app for Google Talk; the few that do have it on the Microsoft Store have weird issues (flashing while redisplaying content, logging out/in every time you switch to another app). There are no apps to access OWA accounts (if your Exchange server has ActiveSync off, tough luck). Integrating the "back" feature on your apps and on your browser is an idea that wears poorly. The "people" app is kind of cute, but jumbling Facebook/Linked-In/etc together with your contacts is an idea that sucks more the more you use it. I'd much rather be able to see peoples' timelines than be able to post the same message on Facebook and Linked-In at the same time... The UI is slick but lacks landmarks to help you figure out what's going on on-screen. There are weird and questionable choices throughout the UI. Who decided "+" was the right icon for a new e-mail? Etc.
Weighs as much as an iPhone 4 with a case :) Not a deal breaker. The iPhone 5 feels way too plastic to me.
As I always point out to my friends iOS and Android needed ~3 years to become competitive. It's getting there. The App argument is also kind of flaky... Other than Mint app, everything I use is there.
The app argument used to be more of a "thing", but they've made great strides over the years to get competitive there, and as a WP7 user, it's just about at the point where I can feel comfortable recommending it to people without feeling any regrets.
The OS itself has always been pretty great though, in my opinion - they took a lot of lessons from what Apple and Google did and used those to build a platform that does a lot of stuff right out of the box.
I think your comment about the iPhone 4 + case is funny. I see people carrying around these ridiculous brightly colored foamy brick-ish things that are iPhones in cases, and I wonder why they would put up with that. It doesn't matter how beautiful and lightweight the device inside the case is if it can never come out!
The 920 may be brick like, but physics being what it is, it'll land harder on the ground than an iPhone 5. I don't use the 920 with a case but never used the 4 with a case either. Most people at my office don't have cases on their work-issue 5's from what I've seen.
I've got a Lumia 920 and I'm a bit disappointed with it. I don't know if this is a programming fault or something wrong with the OS itself but the best apps I could find for reddit and HN cut off text for story titles. This is a serious issue for me because these apps constitute 90% of my phone usage throughout the day. I also have problems with web pages not rendering at all (probably the web site's fault but still). Also, the phone is really heavy and not comfortable to hold, with the buttons on the side always getting pressed by accident, especially while reading. The only thing I like is the eReader I have, but it's not quite as good as Aldiko was on my Droid Incredible. I'm going to stick it out because I'd like to try my hand at developing for it.
It must be hit or miss. I'm actually returning my Lumia 822 tonight and getting an iPhone. Just way too many problems. However, at least WP8 has given me some fodder for my blog.
I've been using a Lumia 710 as my primary phone and like it quite a bit. I still haven't decided to upgrade to Win Phone 8 though, as I like the smaller size of the 710 quite a bit, and the apps that I have are working well for me.
Unfortunately for Windows Phone 8, I don't think most people "come around" on things they are never forced to use. People will come around on Windows 8 because, despite the market presence of OSX, PCs are going to continue to be sold and people are going to start being "thrown into" it.
Windows Phone 8 isn't going to be forced on anybody though. I expect people to "come around" to it like people "came around" to BeOS. Argued to be superior by its fans, but ignored by the majority because ignoring things is easy.
I think both WP8 and Windows 8's problems are that they are mostly beautiful "skin-deep", and that it mesmerizes you a little with all its different colors and animations. But once you start using them for a while you get frustrated with the lack of OS functionality, lack of apps, or even the OS interface itself, which wastes a lot of space for stuff, and doesn't make stuff as clear as on other platforms. Sometimes it's difficult to even realize what you're looking at or what you have to do, because the symbols and identifiers are so simplistic.
Having not used Windows 8 extensively, I can't say much about it, but I have to disagree about Windows Phone. I've been using WP7 for about two years now, and I really like it.
The OS actually has a lot of features built-in that you have to resort to separate apps for on other devices. And after some use, I don't find the icons any more mysterious than those found elsewhere... you can almost always pull the menu up to reveal the textual name for the icons if you need to know what they do, however.
From what I've seen, Windows 8 certainly needs some polish, just like Windows Phone 7 did when it was first released. I don't have any doubts that both products will continue to mature into things that are better, though.
Microsoft's biggest problem, in my opinion, isn't that they do a bad job - it's that they are too quick to bail out if things don't go their way right out of the gate. If they stick with the platforms they have in the market now, I think consumers will pick them up and enjoy them over time.
