I rather like the Metro look and feel, especially on my Win8 slate. I guess it's a take it or leave it kind of thing. Phone7 seems to be getting a lot of positive press lately too so it feels like there will be a decent uptick in marketshare in the next year or so. All MS has to do is hang in there. They joined a crowded market but they'll be able to chip away at it. Windows Phone 7, the Metro UI and the tile concepts are things that you have to spend time with to appreciate but it's kind of nice that all I have to do is turn on my phone, take a quick look at the home screen and I know what the current temp is, how many e-mails are waiting for me, what the latest updates on Facebook are and I also get a quick snapshot of the latest headlines from my news apps because of the Live Tiles. I've spent a lot of time with iOS and Android naturally but Windows Phone just seems like...home but it all comes down to personal preference.

When I bought my Arrive at a Sprint store when it first came out, the salesman said "Oh that's a Windows Mobile phone, you won't want that." and then directed me to some Android phones. At the time, Android was starting to explode and I had walked into the store ready to buy a 'Droid but I couldn't figure out which of the ones they had I wanted. They all seemed a bit different, they weren't smooth and just seemed (again, it's personal preference) to be a bit of a mess. Then I saw the Arrive, asked the salesman about it and he tried to direct me back to the 'Droids. Whether it's the problems with Microsoft's relationship with the carriers, the salesmen wanting to push the "hot" platform to close the sale, etc, the brand doesn't seem to be a problem for "most" people and by saying "most" people, I mean non-IT. Half the people in the world would have a hard time explaining the difference between Office and Windows so I highly doubt that the brand is what's holding the buyers back, but rather the brand is what's holding the salesmen back from recommending it. The people "in the know" know it's not cool to recommend Microsoft. Apple and Google are the "hot" companies right now so everyone's going to ride the trends and push others to hop on the same products.

The major issues with Phone7 have nothing to do with Phone7, you're right about that.