After learning about Microsoft’s latest “Smoked by Windows Phone” challenge, Sahas Katta visited his local Microsoft store equipped with confidence and his trusty Samsung Galaxy Nexus. The Windows Phone challenge is issued to users with non-Windows Phone handsets, and it calls for these users to perform a variety of tasks faster than a Microsoft store sales associate armed with a Windows Phone. Microsoft was rewarding 10 winners a limited edition Hunger Games PC (HP Folio 13 Special Edition) valued at $1,049.00, and challengers who lose are given the option to trade in their current smartphone for an unlocked Windows Phone device. After waiting for his turn to challenge an employee, Katta’s task was to “bring up the weather of two different cities.” Katta smirked, knowing he had two weather widgets on his home screen. Victory was all but certain, until the employee proclaimed victory “just because.” Read on for more.
Katta claims he won the challenge easily because he had disabled his lock screen. All he had to do was tap his power button and because the two weather widgets were present on his home screen, he was done. At the same time, the Microsoft store employee would have to tap the power button and the swipe away the device’s lock screen in order to display two weather tiles that were pinned to the phone’s home screen.
The Galaxy Nexus user had a split-second advantage and he claims he shouted “done” before his Windows Phone-toting rival. Katta was quickly told that he had lost, however, and when he asked for a reason, he was told the Windows Phone device won because “it displays the weather right there.” When he showed his two Android widgets had the same information he was told that the Windows Phone won “just because.”
A manager noticed the dispute and told Katta that the weather widget was required to show two different cities in different states, and that his Android phone “could not do that.” Fed up, Katta gave up and accused the management of being misinformed and biased. Before leaving the store, Katta was asked to take a picture in front of a sign that read, “My Android was smoked by Windows Phone.”
A Microsoft employee has since tweeted that while he wasn’t there, the company will make things right for Katta. “I want to make things right,” Microsoft’s Ben Rudolph posted to his Twitter account. “So I’ve got a laptop & phone (& apology) for you. Email me!”
