I don’t mean to start a war between iPhone vs Windows Phone 7, nor am I against Windows Phone 7. But I’ve noticed on both of my computers Windows Phone 7 emulator (Beta and CTP) lags like it’s running on a crappy last-decade Celeron computer.
I have 2 computers: Macbook Pro 13″ (2010 Model) with 2.4GHZ Core 2 Duo, 4GB RAM and ASUS G1 with 2.0 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo, 3GB RAM with fresh install of Windows 7.
Now iPhone emulator on Mac OS X is on the other hand so much smoother, and loads faster and just has better feel to it.
So why is Windows Phone 7 emulator so slow? Is that what we should expect from the devices that will be coming out this october? I hate more than anything on the phone is laggy UX; it just gets under my skin.
It would be nice if someone with the prototype device could comment on this issue.
That is because the so called “iPhone Emulator” is a simulator (hence the real name is “iPhone Simulator”). Simulators are non-native programs re-written for that computer. Emulators are non-native programs not re-written they are emulated which takes extra effort to translate everything to display the right things etc. This is why the Windows Phone 7 Emulator is slower than the iPhone Simulator.
But, since simulators do not quite as accurately represent the device as an emulator you can get better error results since the stuff is rewritten in simulators but everything is preserved in an emulator. But, even saying that, you usually don’t need to worry about that.