Just tried this on my HTC One M8 (so, definitely running Android 4.4). The first option upon navigating to People > Settings is a toggle to "Filter Contacts" which lets you elect to only show contacts with phone numbers.

It is indeed trivial.

Windows Phone doesn't do any of the "contacts fishing" you described.

As for the contacts themselves, you pick which accounts (email, Facebook, etc) show up in your contacts list, whether to filter out contacts w/o phone numbers, and whether to sort/display first/last or last/first.

And that's about all the options there are for contacts. Some folks coming from Android may find the lack of options problematic but I've become a fan of the streamlined approach that eliminates the need to explore every nook and cranny of options menus to get things set up "just so". That's not to say that WP is dumbed down, it's just designed differently from Android, with an emphasis on different things.

On WP you can avoid updates if you want to, but so far you pretty much never want to do that.

The difference in size of the app stores can be an issue -- depending on what you want to do. What apps do you use most?

My Android ver is 4.4.2

Trying to manage the contacts list, the options are as follows:

People => Me => Contacts to Display => Customize => Define Custom View

and then it lists, as the only options, my accounts: Skype, e-mail, Google+ (which I didn't activate, but they list it anyway).

My only choices are to include or exclude each account as a whole, except on the e-mail accounts, where there is option to select My Contacts (Current selected), Starred, Friends, Family, CoWorkers, All Others. No option to select Phones only.

(This is a Motorola Phone, sold while Motorola was a Google company; so I believe this is stock Android - no Motorola customizations)

Thanks, tai4de2. I'm used to fully customize all computing environments I use, which is mainly Windows based, to the ways that best fits my needs/workflow; so I really dislike when I was forced to work otherwise than my way. I know that Windows Phone has a much smaller selection base of apps but this is not an absolute impediment to me as I'm open to doing things through a browser if necessary.

I don't use Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter or other social networks, send and receive few text messages, find checking e-mail on the phone a missed blessing (and usually don't reply or send e-mail on the phone).

I use it mostly for browsing, Skype, phone calls ;), VLC (video watching), Cool Reader (e-book reader), Google Maps, also have some apps such as AA and one for my Bank, which are nice to have on the phone but rarely used.

Don't know if a Windows Phone environment would have these apps, but the make or break thing to me would be how customizable it is. Guess I would only know for sure after having some hands on time on it, for sure, but what I'm trying to do asking here is how Windows Phone compares vis-a-vis Windows OS in terms of customizability: Windows Phone is Windows only in name or is it comparable to a real OS, with lots of customizable options?

- - -

As an aside, are there other options beyond Android, Windows Phone and iOS?
Are there any phones with a Linux-based OS?

Yup. Android is a flavor of Linux.

My Android 4.4.2 People app is the same as yours. I think the designers' thought is that People is where you go for complete contact information; you go to the dialer when you want to make a call. If you follow that path you'll find it doesn't matter how your contacts display in People: only contacts with phone numbers display when you search for a contact within the dialer.

Personally I like the new dialer that searches everything. I have a Nexus 5 running 4.4.2 - which should closely match your motorola phone experience. HTC tends to include their versions of certain apps so you can't always compare. However the beauty of Android is if you don't like the "stock" way of doing things you can use a 3rd party app to replace almost any function.

Go Contacts Pro (free) can do what you need: https://play.google.com/store/apps/d....jiubang.gopim

As is iOS. But it is not fully customizable.

No it isn't. It's based on the BSD fork of UNIX.

Ubuntu is theoretically capable of running a phone - the new version of Ubuntu is the first to support it.

I agree, except many apps (specifically, games) do not give you an option to disable notifications in their settings. You have to go into Application Manager page to disable them.

Windows Phone is not a palm-sized incarnation of desktop Windows. It is not designed to be heavily customizable in the same sense that desktop Windows is open and customizable. I used to be more of the "customize everything" type but now that I am used to WP when I have to use Android I find exploring lots of menu nooks and crannies in order to tweak everything to be a tiresome PITA. This is of course entirely subjective and personal. That all applies to the built-in experiences; apps can do what they want just like on Android, and some offer more exhaustive configuration options than others.

Some of the apps you mention exist on Windows Phone: Skype, AA, maps (native maps are from Nokia but several excellent Google Maps clients exist), ... your bank may or may not have an app. There are media players and e-book readers but I am less familiar with specifics there. You can check on http://www.windowsphone.com/en-us/store/overview.

Interesting discussion. I recently very nearly ditched my iPhone for an Android, because there's a lot I don't like about Apple. But the seemless integration of Contacts and Calendars with Outlook was what persuaded me to stay with iPhone. Reading this, I'm pleased with the decision.

tai4de2, your posts have been very informative. Thank you!

Thanks, I will take a look at it.