9 ms·

Windows Phone 8.1 review

114 points by yread 13y ago

kabdib 13y ago
I really liked my Win8 phone. That said, battery life on the Nokia 920 was so poor (about half a day) because some low-level driver was spinning like mad, gobbling power and making the device physically warm. Microsoft took over a year to fix the problem (if they ever did). While WinPhone 8.1 sounds great, my experience with support would make me think twice. I switched to an iPhone. Kind of boring. But it's pretty easy to find accessories for it. The mail client on Win8Phone was much nicer than anything I've found on the iPhone. If there's one thing that Microsoft PMs understand, it's productivity via email :-)
- diminish 13y ago
  After many people mentioning they actually like Windows Phone, I can't help but think, will 2014 be the year of the Windows Phone?
  - sz4kerto 13y ago
    No, it won't. I personally like WP a lot, but this is (again) a winner-takes-it-all market. I think most people would say they like OSX (even if they have never actually used it, but it's fashionable to like OSX anyway), still, OSX market share has been stagnating forever. What Microsoft can do with a good mobile OS is to stay in the game until the next big thing (as Apple stayed in the game with Mac until the iPod and the iPhone became a big hit). And again: I think WP is a great OS.
    - jawngee 13y ago
      > still, OSX market share has been stagnating forever. 28.5% growth last holiday season is not stagnating.
      - jusben1369 13y ago
        You're confusing overall growth and market share. To keep things really simple if the overall number of smartphone users goes from 1 million to 1.5 million that's 50% growth of the market. If my particular flavor of OS grows 30% during that same year I'm actually losing market share even though I am crowing from the rooftop "Hey we grew 30% last year!" Here OP is saying just because there's a lot of love for Windows what it really needs to do to be the year of the Windows phone is take share from iOS and/or Android.
        symfoniq 13y ago
        Nevertheless, the statement that OS X's market share is stagnating is not true: http://www.theregister.co.uk/2014/03/15/windows_desktop_and_laptop_market_share_dips_below_90_per_cent/ http://www.theregister.co.uk/2014/03/15/windows_desktop_and_...
    - bratsche 13y ago
      > I personally like WP a lot, but this is (again) a winner-takes-it-all market. But iPhone had seemingly won initially, and Android ate up ground from it even back when Android was complete shit. I think there's less lock-in for average users than there was with PCs, so it seems like what is required to gain market share is to give bigger cuts of the sales to the carriers who are selling the phones. How long has it been since you went into an AT&T store and they tried to sell you an iPhone? They push Androids like it's crack they need to get rid of before the cops catch them. Because they make more money there.
      - quanticle 13y ago
        >But the iPhone had seemingly won initially, and Android ate up ground from it even back when Android was complete shit. Android gained its market share by being free. That's a strategy that only works once. Yes, Windows Phone is now free, but Android's market share lead (and corresponding advantage in network effects) is nigh insurmountable at this point. I've said it before and I'll say it again: Android : smartphones :: Windows : PCs. In both markets, Apple pursued a "high-end" integrated hardware/software strategy with a focus on premium devices and premium user experience. This opened up space for a secondary player to offer an inferior good - one that consumers could choose if they wanted similar capabilities and were willing to accept a certain level of degradation in fit and finish. The problem is that there's only room for one such player. In the PC space, that player is Windows. In the smartphone space, that player is Android. Windows Phone is like the BeOS of smartphone operating systems. It does a lot of interesting things, and it's better than Android in many ways, but network effects among software developers ensure that it'll never catch on. It's sad, but such is the market.
        bentcorner 13y ago
        Still, from the consumer side of things there's far less friction/lock-in. Switching between phone platforms brings pain only in app selection, most data (like pictures, calendars and email) is all online and doesn't need to be moved over[1]. The key here like you say are software developers. I think Microsoft is aware of this and their purchase of Xamarin is them taking steps to solve this problem. In the future you could see Microsoft showing developers how they could build their applications for all major smartphone OSs with their tools, allowing them to eat up ground in the app space. [1] Contrast this to PC vs Mac, where even switching from an old PC to a new PC can be a daunting task, and the risk of data-loss is high.
  - leaveyou 13y ago
    After I got burned with the Samsung Omnia 7 fiasco (WP7 low features, no updates after 7.5, useless without Windows and Zune trash) I will not touch a Microsoft phone again, not even for 20$ !
  - madeofpalk 13y ago
    Isnt 2014 supposed to be the year of Linux?
    - jenscow 13y ago
      For phones? it already is. For the desktop? it's always "next year"
  - badman_ting 13y ago
    Sure, why not. Desktop Linux too.
- umbsrd 13y ago
  I'm having a really hard time understanding all of the love for the email client - I've seen people praise it in various articles as well. It's completely awful at productivity. 1. You can't attach anything other than a photo unless you're forwarding an existing attachment. There's no easy way to attach saved documents from Downloads or Office. You have to go to Office, find the doc and click share. 2. You can't do inline edits on forwarded or replied emails - the keyboard disappears when you try to change an existing part of the message. This is so frustrating for business as I can't clean up anything when forwarding. 3. Search tends to be particularly bad at finding things - I can go to Gmail search and get it instantly, but it'll be omitted from results on the Windows phone. Win phone 8 mail is definitely simplistic and sleek - but not for a second would I call it productive.
  - dhruvmittal 13y ago
    Didn't Windows Phone's mail client break gmail threading for the longest time? I remember a huge hubbub over this a few months ago (or maybe a year or two?)
- bananas 13y ago
  Yes Exchange integration is the big thing I miss after moving to Android. Then again I'm more productive and more attentive if I ignore the constant stream of email on my phone and just periodically check it with OWA.
- prawks 13y ago
  My 928 still suffers from intermittent, device-warming phantom battery drain, hoping 8.1 fixes it. Luckily the "Battery Saver" feature seems to be a so-so stop-gap if you don't mind missing email notifications.
  - Joeri 13y ago
    I had this issue a few times, and each time it was due to an app being stuck on an initial setup screen. Going through the prompts solved it. Strangely I had the same issue on android a few times. My 920 gets two days of battery life.
    - prawks 13y ago
      Interesting, I'll take a look if it happens again.
- pistle 13y ago
  My battery experience was most often stellar. I have almost always been able to track it back to an app with a background process. I haven't seen the mysterious warm and die thing happen in a really long time (since GDR2 certainly).
  - kabdib 13y ago
    There were a couple of updates that were supposed to have fixed that problem. Of course AT&T sat on the updates for months, and the get-warm-and-die issue was never truly fixed. The feedback loop is on the order of six months, if not longer. The carrier is clueless about how to deal with firmware issues other than doing lots of up-front testing before releasing updates (and it's really unclear how effective that testing actually is). If you're in warranty they'll offer to replace the phone (gee, thanks) but of course they are powerless to truly fix anything. So my experience with a showstopper bug was (a) over a year to a non-fix, (b) utterly useless support from the carrier, and (c) no indication that MS even knew about the issue, other than rumors from my friends in the WinPhone division that the next patch would fix it (and it never worked). Is there a way to get support from MS on this? I have to admit that I never checked. (The issue is moot for me, but shortening the feedback loop would help WinPhone quality a lot).
    - pistle 13y ago
      I never waited for the carrier to update the phone. We've been able to get updates via the free "developers" program within short windows after announcements of said updates. e.g. Just installed the update yesterday that was announced at Build 2 weeks ago? I have a device on each platform and my Note 3 gets used for consumption, my iPhone collects dust, and my Lumia 920 does most of the daily business. Still my favorite.
tatqx 13y ago
Now if only they had a better way to design UIs than using clunky XAML. WinJS + CSS I think is a little better, but still not comparable to what iOS or even Android has.
- yulaow 13y ago
  Can you elaborate what you find ugly in xaml? I am using right now winJs but, in my opinion, xaml allow to be really fast in ui design and binding data. Used in combo with Blend (and I know too many people who totally ignore even the existence of that sw) is a win-win
  - tonyedgecombe 13y ago
    What does Blend offer over the tooling in Visual Studio?
    - pjmlp 13y ago
      Similar workflows and designer support as flash and director tooling to design the UIs, coupled with code editing support.
    - yulaow 13y ago
      It has a very polished UI studied to focus on the UI-UX design with some advanced tools specific for that. It is a fantastic experience for a designer compared to what you get using only visual studio
  - pistle 13y ago
    After building UI's for the two major platforms, I love using the layout and binding engine that MS brought to devices. I have background with ASP.net which is only so far removed from XAML, but it was a very small step to get up to speed and helps me be more productive than the model Android uses and, definitely, less annoying than the tooling available for iOS.
- romanovcode 13y ago
  And what iOS and even Android has?
kittxkat 13y ago
single-page version: http://www.anandtech.com/print/7940/windows-phone-81-review http://www.anandtech.com/print/7940/windows-phone-81-review
CmonDev 13y ago
"...bleeding edge feature/app set that Android offers..." - what are those features?
- untog 13y ago
  Android's intents system is yet to be rivaled. Though it's has also had it for years, so I'm not sure if it could be considered bleeding edge. Wireless payments, perhaps.
  - _random_ 13y ago
    Nokia has NFC for payments as well AFAIK.
h1fra 13y ago
I'm much of a fan. This update make windows phone, faster, looking way more modern. All main app have been refactored. + Vpn + Notification center + Calendar + Battery + Cortona... I don't see anything that was not improved. Anyone can troll windows for windows 8 on desktop, I first. But the phone version is really great now
- sz4kerto 13y ago
  > I don't see anything that was not improved. The destruction of the hubs is certainly painful. There are many people who're currently struggling with battery drain issues, that's probably going to be fixed though. There's no agenda view in the calendar.
  - kchoudhu 13y ago
    This has been driving me insane. I loved cross posting to Facebook and Twitter from the People hub. The application that brings that back will earn my money. The prospect of paying for something I used to get for free is kind of infuriating though.
    - cwyers 13y ago
      Remember, this is the developer preview release. The intent behind removing those from the People hub, IIRC, was that the Twitter and Facebook apps can integrate into the Hub themselves with new APIs. By the time Windows Phone 8.1 hits general availability, Facebook and Twitter app updates may restore the functionality.
      - MLR 13y ago
        I've not got a Windows Phone myself, but from all the reviews I've read the functionality is neutered somewhat, even after the applications have reintegrated themselves.
- bananas 13y ago
  I'm going to throw my opinion in here because I find a few real pain points that drove me to Android eventually: 1. If someone sends me a document or a file or something and I need to do something with it and send it back, it's hopeless. There isn't enough of a filesystem to do that sort of stuff with it. The whole WP isolated storage thing is painful and really ruins it for me. Not only that if someone sends me a media file or I download an mp3 for example I can only see it within scope of the app that received it and never can I add it to my music library without connecting it to a PC. I can't even play it without blocking the entire phone UI. 2. I really don't want to have to sign in at all and/or activate my phone as a developer device to deploy any apps or even a simple one shot custom app I've written for my own use. Occasionally, historically with WM6.5 and predecessors I've built the odd diagnostic tool that sits on the device. I can do the same in HTML on a web server somewhere but that relies on a network connection to be there, which even though I live in London isn't always the case. In fact it's pretty terrible in the suburbs. On basic GPRS WP is heading towards useless. 3. Android USB OTG is awesome. I can move stuff between USB sticks, plug keyboards in and all sorts. This has got me out of the crap a few times already and I've only had an Android handset for about a month now. The cable that enabled all this cost me (including delivery) £0.73. 4. Nokia made awesome hardware. Not joking it was the best stuff out there. Since the Lumia 820 though, it's turned to crap. I have repaired a number of handsets and they aren't designed with durability in mind any more and the parts are quite difficult to get hold of unless you're Nokia authorised service. Fortunately they still use standard screws (Torx TX4/5) but when you get inside, it's problematic.
DangerousPie 13y ago
I installed this update on Monday and so far I am very happy with it. It adds pretty much all the features that I was missing on Windows Phone so far, like separate volume controls, VPN, notifications, and native podcasts. And it does all of that while still running smoothly on my 1+ year old £100 (contract-free) phone. The one big thing that is still missing for me is Google Hangouts support, but this is obviously not something that Microsoft could easily add. And it is definitely not enough to sway me to iOS/Android.
- chiph 13y ago
  The separate volume controls makes it a must-have upgrade for me.
- manojlds 13y ago
  I don't know if it is faster, but 8.1 is feels much faster on my 925. Every update on my iPad just seems to slow it down.
  - laurentb 13y ago
    I kinda had the same with my old samsung omnia 7 running wp7, then 7.5 then 7.8, no lags. I currently sport the 520 (the cheapest of them all, and obviously lowest in terms of specs), and upgraded to 8.1 two days ago, incredible that every update doesn't slow things down, everything is snappy
  - 300bps 13y ago
    Every update on my iPad just seems to slow it down. I learned this the hard way with my iPhone 3G. By the time I upgraded it to iOS 4, the phone literally wouldn't work anymore. It would ring, I would touch the answer button repeatedly and nothing would happen. By the time the slow-as-molasses phone responded to the answer button, it would go to voicemail. It happened to a lesser degree with my iPhone 4 and I didn't have my 4s long enough to experience it. Basically I think Apple just assumes people are going to upgrade their Apple phone every 18 months, which is a stretch considering major US carriers have clamped down on subsidized 18 month upgrades.
biehl 13y ago
TLDR; Damning with faint praise.
ScottWhigham 13y ago
Here's one issue that Microsoft has to deal with - my Mom asked me, "What is Windows Phone 8.1 - is that the new Windows phone?" Stop and think about that question from a non-tech perspective. My mom (or yours) likely has no idea that there's a difference between "Windows Phone 8.1" and the "Nokia Lumia Icon with Windows Phone 8.1 installed". Now contrast that with Apple or even the Android world - they don't have such silly branding problems. No Apple user says "IOS 8? Is that the new iPhone?" Branding is important and to brand the OS with the word "Phone" in it implies, to non-tech/news people, that it is a phone (which it isn't - it's just the OS). My mom doesn't want a "phone with Windows 8.1 on it" but she might want a "Windows phone". She doesn't want a "phone with IOS 8 on it" but she would like an iPhone.
- smacktoward 13y ago
  > No Apple user says "IOS 8? Is that the new iPhone?" But lots of users say things like "Galaxy S5? Is that the new Droid?" (Which is annoying, but doesn't seem to be hurting Android sales.) > Branding is important and to brand the OS with the word "Phone" in it implies, to non-tech/news people, that it is a phone (which it isn't - it's just the OS). This distinction would matter more if people bought the phone and the OS separately, but they don't. To the average user the phone and the OS are mashed together into a single indistinguishable thing. You get a new OS when you get a new phone, and you upgrade the OS by buying a new phone. In that sense the "8.1" label is just a way to distinguish new phones from old ones. If your mom goes to a store and asks for a "Windows phone" they'll have no trouble understanding what she means; it's just a possibility she'll get one that isn't the Latest and Greatest.
  - ScottWhigham 13y ago
    But lots of users say things like "Galaxy S5? Is that the new Droid?" I have a hard time with that. The question itself implies that there are lots of users who know what "Droid" is but don't know what a Samsung Galaxy is - which I, frankly, find difficult to accept. I would think it's 100:1 the opposite way - most users know what a Samsung Galaxy is but few users (relative to user base) know what Android/KitKat/ICS/etc are. So I can't really see your point here. This distinction would matter more if people bought the phone and the OS separately, but they don't. To the average user the phone and the OS are mashed together into a single indistinguishable thing. Absolutely - that was sort of what I was saying (yours is much clearer though). Microsoft trying to make the OS version something that people care about is just short-term thinking. People care about a specific version in only a few situations that I've seen: (a) when there's a big marketing campaign around that version, (b) as a reaction against negative press around a specific version, or (c) because they want to upgrade from a very poor experience in their current OS. Those are all short-term (and expensive) customer acquisition methods. Apple's use of "IOS" - the name, the branding, release timing, backwards compat, etc - is so perfect for Microsoft that I guess I don't understand why they don't just copy it.
deleted 13y ago
[deleted]
icantthinkofone 13y ago
fwiw, I have two employees who got Windows phones and, recently, both quickly traded them in for Android phones first chance they had for at least some of the reasons mentioned in the article.
- wambotron 13y ago
  I got a windows phone a while back, never switched back. I really enjoy using it. My wife also switched after playing around with my phone. She doesn't want to switch either. So what's it worth? Nothing. Just 4 people with different personal preferences. ;)
  - icantthinkofone 13y ago
    On that note, I have ten clients I routinely monitor their web site logs (I run a web dev company). I have never seen a Windows phone visit any of those sites and they're pretty popular, especially among the under 30 crowd.
avenger123 13y ago
The main reason I would want to get a Windows Phone is for the camera. Nokia still seems to be the closest one gets to getting a reasonable point and shoot camera in a smartphone. I started with a blackberry, then moved to iPhone 4S. Bought a MacBook Air, Mac Mini, iPad and now I am using a Nexus 4 for my main phone. My main workstation is Windows 8.1. Note that I rooted both the iPhone 4S and Nexus. At this point, the camera is not enough of a reason to switch over. I'm over the app love I used to have with the iPhone ("wow, all the cool apps!!") so the lack of apps doesn't mean much. I'm just platformed out. The thought of switching to yet another platform and going through all the hassle isn't worth it anymore.
- pradocchia 13y ago
  I love the camera on my 920, it takes great pictures (for a phone), and I have been wholly satisfied with WP as an OS. I have missed the integration with Gmail etc on Android. That's been the worst of it, and it has been manageable.
- bananas 13y ago
  Given up on any phone cameras. Missed so many opportunities and moments due to camera lag and shitty software. I drag a proper DSLR around with me now most of the time.
  - gtirloni 13y ago
    I don't understand it. By the time you are done grabbing your DSLR, I've already pressed the camera button on my 925 and taken the picture.
    - bananas 13y ago
      If you apply thought and patience rather than treat it like a quick draw weapon, the results are better. For example, just a tree I walked past in London... http://i.imgur.com/BphXWFN.jpg http://i.imgur.com/BphXWFN.jpg The chunk of glass on the front is pretty important too.
madoublet 13y ago
I am really pleased with this upgrade. The OS feels very polished now. My favorite small upgrade is quiet hours. I like just flipping that one when I am sleeping or writing code. Very useful.
snarfy 13y ago
Hopefully this is better than WP7(.5), which I personally could not stand and ended up getting an android phone. My #1 major gripe is that it is a phone second. I could write games for it in C# with XNA, but I couldn't set a custom notification sound. It's dumb priorities like that which made me abandon it.
jareds 13y ago
Can anyone who's using the new update explain what Narrator can and can't do? Does it let you use the built in apps, apps from the Windows store, offer gestures to easily navigate etc? I am totally blind and use an iPhone as my main phone do to it's accessibility. I bought an old Nexus 7 to test Android accessibility and wonder if it is worth buying a Lumia 520.
- mikestew 13y ago
  Without a phone in hand, information seems kind of sparse. The Narrator in desktop Windows doesn't seem all that impressive (wouldn't want to kill the 3rd-pary screen reader market, I guess). From a development point of view, devs still need to add accessibility labels to their apps and use the other accessibility APIs available. I have no idea how easy or hard that is on Windows Phone. iOS is easy enough that a dev would have to be borderline negligent not to type a few descriptive labels while they're doing the UI. Android, not too bad but not as much infrastructure as iOS (I'll admit to being a much weaker Android than iOS dev, so maybe I've missed something) for gestures and the like. Point being, even if the WinPhone accessibility APIs are fully fleshed out, 3rd party apps still need to support it, and I haven't seen a big push from Microsoft to do so. Contrast to iOS where devs get the accessibility spiel at WWDC, and Apple seems to push it elsewhere. Android, meh, seems kind of tacked on IMO, though I guess it works well enough (fully-sighted user here, so I'm not the most qualified to say, and I'd be interested to know how the Nexus 7 works out for you). Sometime in the next week I should get a chance to play with a friend's phone that I'm sure he'll have upgraded to 8.1. Again, I'm fully-sighted but have been the "accessibility guy" across several companies (including an accessibility lead at MSFT), so I at least know what to look for. I'll ping you if I have anything to report.
  - jareds 13y ago
    Appreciate any info you get when you get a chance to play with their phone. The Nexus 7 is a bit below where the iPhone 3GS was when it was released. I’m not sure how much of that is me having a harder time with larger screen devices though, I find an iPad much more difficult to use then my iPhone. I’m probably going to get a used Nexus 4 dirt cheap and will actually try using it as my primary phone for a while. I should really see if the newest version of Android Studio is still completely inaccessible. One nice thing about Android is that it is quite easy to program for when blind using the Eclipse based tools.
bhauer 13y ago
I've been running 8.1 for the past couple days on my Lumia 920. Overall, I am impressed. Good stuff in 8.1: - The new calendar user interface, as Anand points out in his review, is more polished than it was in 8. This was needed since the Calendar in 8 was a bit amateurish in its appearance. If you looked really close, you could see that it used pseudo-Latin words on the days in the month view to indicate you had appointments on those days. But the words weren't the appointment names! - Six columns of live tiles (3 of medium size) makes the home screen information-dense. I have headlines, updates, the latest movie news, calendar items, weather, TSLA's price ($192?? Maybe time to buy more?), e-mails, and a bunch of other nonsense flipping around and dancing. It's a bit chaotic but overall I like this a whole lot more than what I remember from when I used Android and before that, iOS. - The signal strength, wifi, and battery life indicators are now always on the home screen. You no longer need to tap the top of the screen to see these. I liked the minimalism they were aiming for by making these slip away after a moment in 8. But I can see why they decided to bring them back as permanent fixtures. Luckily, they still hide in apps, giving maximal screen real-estate to productivity. - Finally, an official podcast application that accepts URLs. In 8, I wasn't able to subscribe to a podcast via URL, so if the podcast I wanted wasn't in Microsoft's library, a third-party app was needed. - Accessories such as Data Sense, which gives a breakdown of data utilization, and Storage Sense, which shows how storage space is used. These types of accessory are old news for Android and iOS, but were oddly lacking on WP. I had been using a horrible proprietary AT&T app to monitor data usage previously. - The notifications ("Action Center") user interface is nice. Very Android-ish. - Cortana is a cute addition. Finally having a voice assistant app confirms the suspicion I had when Siri arrived on iOS: I don't really have much of a use case for this. I suppose the next time I need directions somewhere, this will be nice. The sparkle of more promise is in Cortana's potential to interface with applications. If, for example, Cortana can use GroupMe (my messaging application of choice) to send messages in addition to SMS, I could find myself using that more frequently. But I don't use a lot of SMS, so Cortana's messaging feature is of limited value to me. Bad stuff: - I've had the Calendar application and the music player each crash once. And in both cases, it was a device-reboot style crash. This is a developer build, so I will give Microsoft the benefit of the doubt that the final version will not crash like this. - Cortana isn't quite living up to its potential. I've not actually used Siri, so I am not saying it's worse than Siri. But I want to see more applications support Cortana, and more smoothly than is done by the few that do integrate today ("Flixster, show latest movies"). For example, I'd like Cortana to just know that I use GroupMe to message my wife and SMS to message someone else. As another example, Twitter doesn't seem to be integrated into Cortana much yet. I think the only integration is Cortana pushing tweets out. Incoming just arrive to the Twitter app and notifications.
marko1985 13y ago
I'am a big fan of WP since release of WP7, but I'am thinking that microsoft should close the development of WP as it is too late to fight against ios and android. But as a user of WP8 (lumia 920) i can only say that it's a wonderful product with genius ux design and super-duper hardware, that doens't freeze... practically never. I restart it every month in case the battery drains to 0%. Hope that it can make it in the future, but doens't seems to. About WP8.1 i'am so excited, and in few months hope to get the update!!!!
IanDrake 13y ago
The biggest problem WP faces is retailers. I don't know why, but I've overheard reps at Best Buy, Radio Shack, and Verizon answer people's Windows Phone questions with "You don't want that, it's crap".
- Tyrannosaurs 13y ago
  Part of the reason might be that some manufacturers offer generous sales bonuses to store staff as part of their marketing effort. It's very likely they're doing what's right for them rather than for the customers.
  - bananas 13y ago
    That is why you should never trust someone on commission from estate agents, through financial advisers[1] to tech sales. [1] I work with these bastards and they'd sell their parents to make a dollar.
- sirkneeland 13y ago
  Lack of proper training aside, from their perspective this sadly is the most rational thing to do. Phone sales people are incentivized by management to minimize returns, because returns consume lots of time and money. If you are a sales person, you know Windows Phones have higher return rates (because there will be some app missing or some other feature hole in WP). Selling it is risky. An iPhone or a Samsung sells itself. And more importantly, it doesn't return itself nearly as often. I like Windows Phone, but if I worked in phone sales I'd push people towards iPhones and Androids as well.
eranation 13y ago
I was an Android user since it was first out, would you recommend considering the WP as my next phone? All I read around is great reviews, and I am not really impressed with my Galaxy (mostly durability and reliability issues) Any Android fans who switched to WP and wish to share?
- nivla 13y ago
  I switched from an Andriod but this was a few years back when it was still on Gingerbird with a noticeable lag. Android may have fixed most of its issues by now but at that time Windows phone OS felt butter smooth and so minimal I could teach my Grandparents to use it. It also crashed less compared to my previous phone and API was so tightly restricted that third party apps din't even access to your messages/contacts, almost providing an unintended privacy net. Offline radio, fully downloadable offline maps, group chats, better email integration and excellent camera were a big plus. I would recommend going down to your cellular provider's shop and trying out one. Nokia phones would be a be my choice of recommendation. If you just want to run with something, you could even try Nokia Lumia 520/521, its only ~$50 full price and no contract {1]. Atleast it will make a great backup phone for its specs. [1]http://www.walmart.com/ip/AT-T-GoPhone-Nokia-Lumia-520-Pre-paid-Phone/27449094 http://www.walmart.com/ip/AT-T-GoPhone-Nokia-Lumia-520-Pre-p...
- samekh 13y ago
  I switched about a year ago after owning Android phones for about 5 years before that. I was kind of a ROM junkie, and finally got tired of the whole thing. When I switched, I quickly learned that Google is not friendly with Windows Phone. You are better off just switching to MS versions of everything (Skype instead of Hangouts, Outlook instead of GMail, etc.) It was actually quite painless to do so. With the release of WP 8.1, I am really liking the OS. I was never a huge user of apps, so the app ecosystem didnt bother me. I've always found an app for pretty much everything and I love the design language compared to Android.
Zigurd 13y ago
The main problem standing between Windows Phone and market success is that Microsoft handled the transition to touch devices both badly, and differently, across a nominally "all-Windows" product line. To start with, calling WP7 "Windows" was a travesty. Microsoft thereby only reached the starting line of this race with WP8, in Ocetober 2012. Very late compared to rivals, and rough. "Modern" or "Market" apps can't do what legacy apps can do. It's hard for those two different types of apps to communicate. Even if apps are compiled to MSIL, legacy apps can't run on ARM devices. That only scratches the surface of how complex and needlessly restrictive the app development landscape is for something that is all called "Windows" and that has a large amount of code and technology in common. Microsoft makes developers bear the highest burden in figuring out "What is an optimal development approach for all these things called Windows?" and provides the lowest number of potential customers. On top of that uncertainty is uncertainty about devices: Does Microsoft want OEMs, or are they going to build their own devices? Are the devices they have built so far established a good track record? Are their OEMs enthusiastic or are they wary and looking for an exit strategy? The question all these other questions lead up to is "Does Windows Phone have a future?"

114 points by yread 13y ago

I really liked my Win8 phone. That said, battery life on the Nokia 920 was so poor (about half a day) because some low-level driver was spinning like mad, gobbling power and making the device physically warm. Microsoft took over a year to fix the problem (if they ever did). While WinPhone 8.1 sounds great, my experience with support would make me think twice. I switched to an iPhone. Kind of boring. But it's pretty easy to find accessories for it. The mail client on Win8Phone was much nicer than anything I've found on the iPhone. If there's one thing that Microsoft PMs understand, it's productivity via email :-)

diminish 13y ago
After many people mentioning they actually like Windows Phone, I can't help but think, will 2014 be the year of the Windows Phone?
- sz4kerto 13y ago
  No, it won't. I personally like WP a lot, but this is (again) a winner-takes-it-all market. I think most people would say they like OSX (even if they have never actually used it, but it's fashionable to like OSX anyway), still, OSX market share has been stagnating forever. What Microsoft can do with a good mobile OS is to stay in the game until the next big thing (as Apple stayed in the game with Mac until the iPod and the iPhone became a big hit). And again: I think WP is a great OS.
  - jawngee 13y ago
    > still, OSX market share has been stagnating forever. 28.5% growth last holiday season is not stagnating.
    - jusben1369 13y ago
      You're confusing overall growth and market share. To keep things really simple if the overall number of smartphone users goes from 1 million to 1.5 million that's 50% growth of the market. If my particular flavor of OS grows 30% during that same year I'm actually losing market share even though I am crowing from the rooftop "Hey we grew 30% last year!" Here OP is saying just because there's a lot of love for Windows what it really needs to do to be the year of the Windows phone is take share from iOS and/or Android.
      - symfoniq 13y ago
        Nevertheless, the statement that OS X's market share is stagnating is not true: http://www.theregister.co.uk/2014/03/15/windows_desktop_and_laptop_market_share_dips_below_90_per_cent/ http://www.theregister.co.uk/2014/03/15/windows_desktop_and_...
  - bratsche 13y ago
    > I personally like WP a lot, but this is (again) a winner-takes-it-all market. But iPhone had seemingly won initially, and Android ate up ground from it even back when Android was complete shit. I think there's less lock-in for average users than there was with PCs, so it seems like what is required to gain market share is to give bigger cuts of the sales to the carriers who are selling the phones. How long has it been since you went into an AT&T store and they tried to sell you an iPhone? They push Androids like it's crack they need to get rid of before the cops catch them. Because they make more money there.
    - quanticle 13y ago
      >But the iPhone had seemingly won initially, and Android ate up ground from it even back when Android was complete shit. Android gained its market share by being free. That's a strategy that only works once. Yes, Windows Phone is now free, but Android's market share lead (and corresponding advantage in network effects) is nigh insurmountable at this point. I've said it before and I'll say it again: Android : smartphones :: Windows : PCs. In both markets, Apple pursued a "high-end" integrated hardware/software strategy with a focus on premium devices and premium user experience. This opened up space for a secondary player to offer an inferior good - one that consumers could choose if they wanted similar capabilities and were willing to accept a certain level of degradation in fit and finish. The problem is that there's only room for one such player. In the PC space, that player is Windows. In the smartphone space, that player is Android. Windows Phone is like the BeOS of smartphone operating systems. It does a lot of interesting things, and it's better than Android in many ways, but network effects among software developers ensure that it'll never catch on. It's sad, but such is the market.
      - bentcorner 13y ago
        Still, from the consumer side of things there's far less friction/lock-in. Switching between phone platforms brings pain only in app selection, most data (like pictures, calendars and email) is all online and doesn't need to be moved over[1]. The key here like you say are software developers. I think Microsoft is aware of this and their purchase of Xamarin is them taking steps to solve this problem. In the future you could see Microsoft showing developers how they could build their applications for all major smartphone OSs with their tools, allowing them to eat up ground in the app space. [1] Contrast this to PC vs Mac, where even switching from an old PC to a new PC can be a daunting task, and the risk of data-loss is high.
- leaveyou 13y ago
  After I got burned with the Samsung Omnia 7 fiasco (WP7 low features, no updates after 7.5, useless without Windows and Zune trash) I will not touch a Microsoft phone again, not even for 20$ !
- madeofpalk 13y ago
  Isnt 2014 supposed to be the year of Linux?
  - jenscow 13y ago
    For phones? it already is. For the desktop? it's always "next year"
- badman_ting 13y ago
  Sure, why not. Desktop Linux too.
umbsrd 13y ago
I'm having a really hard time understanding all of the love for the email client - I've seen people praise it in various articles as well. It's completely awful at productivity. 1. You can't attach anything other than a photo unless you're forwarding an existing attachment. There's no easy way to attach saved documents from Downloads or Office. You have to go to Office, find the doc and click share. 2. You can't do inline edits on forwarded or replied emails - the keyboard disappears when you try to change an existing part of the message. This is so frustrating for business as I can't clean up anything when forwarding. 3. Search tends to be particularly bad at finding things - I can go to Gmail search and get it instantly, but it'll be omitted from results on the Windows phone. Win phone 8 mail is definitely simplistic and sleek - but not for a second would I call it productive.
- dhruvmittal 13y ago
  Didn't Windows Phone's mail client break gmail threading for the longest time? I remember a huge hubbub over this a few months ago (or maybe a year or two?)
bananas 13y ago
Yes Exchange integration is the big thing I miss after moving to Android. Then again I'm more productive and more attentive if I ignore the constant stream of email on my phone and just periodically check it with OWA.
prawks 13y ago
My 928 still suffers from intermittent, device-warming phantom battery drain, hoping 8.1 fixes it. Luckily the "Battery Saver" feature seems to be a so-so stop-gap if you don't mind missing email notifications.
- Joeri 13y ago
  I had this issue a few times, and each time it was due to an app being stuck on an initial setup screen. Going through the prompts solved it. Strangely I had the same issue on android a few times. My 920 gets two days of battery life.
  - prawks 13y ago
    Interesting, I'll take a look if it happens again.
pistle 13y ago
My battery experience was most often stellar. I have almost always been able to track it back to an app with a background process. I haven't seen the mysterious warm and die thing happen in a really long time (since GDR2 certainly).
- kabdib 13y ago
  There were a couple of updates that were supposed to have fixed that problem. Of course AT&T sat on the updates for months, and the get-warm-and-die issue was never truly fixed. The feedback loop is on the order of six months, if not longer. The carrier is clueless about how to deal with firmware issues other than doing lots of up-front testing before releasing updates (and it's really unclear how effective that testing actually is). If you're in warranty they'll offer to replace the phone (gee, thanks) but of course they are powerless to truly fix anything. So my experience with a showstopper bug was (a) over a year to a non-fix, (b) utterly useless support from the carrier, and (c) no indication that MS even knew about the issue, other than rumors from my friends in the WinPhone division that the next patch would fix it (and it never worked). Is there a way to get support from MS on this? I have to admit that I never checked. (The issue is moot for me, but shortening the feedback loop would help WinPhone quality a lot).
  - pistle 13y ago
    I never waited for the carrier to update the phone. We've been able to get updates via the free "developers" program within short windows after announcements of said updates. e.g. Just installed the update yesterday that was announced at Build 2 weeks ago? I have a device on each platform and my Note 3 gets used for consumption, my iPhone collects dust, and my Lumia 920 does most of the daily business. Still my favorite.

tatqx 13y ago

Now if only they had a better way to design UIs than using clunky XAML. WinJS + CSS I think is a little better, but still not comparable to what iOS or even Android has.

yulaow 13y ago
Can you elaborate what you find ugly in xaml? I am using right now winJs but, in my opinion, xaml allow to be really fast in ui design and binding data. Used in combo with Blend (and I know too many people who totally ignore even the existence of that sw) is a win-win
- tonyedgecombe 13y ago
  What does Blend offer over the tooling in Visual Studio?
  - pjmlp 13y ago
    Similar workflows and designer support as flash and director tooling to design the UIs, coupled with code editing support.
  - yulaow 13y ago
    It has a very polished UI studied to focus on the UI-UX design with some advanced tools specific for that. It is a fantastic experience for a designer compared to what you get using only visual studio
- pistle 13y ago
  After building UI's for the two major platforms, I love using the layout and binding engine that MS brought to devices. I have background with ASP.net which is only so far removed from XAML, but it was a very small step to get up to speed and helps me be more productive than the model Android uses and, definitely, less annoying than the tooling available for iOS.
romanovcode 13y ago
And what iOS and even Android has?

kittxkat 13y ago

single-page version: http://www.anandtech.com/print/7940/windows-phone-81-review http://www.anandtech.com/print/7940/windows-phone-81-review

CmonDev 13y ago

"...bleeding edge feature/app set that Android offers..." - what are those features?

untog 13y ago
Android's intents system is yet to be rivaled. Though it's has also had it for years, so I'm not sure if it could be considered bleeding edge. Wireless payments, perhaps.
- _random_ 13y ago
  Nokia has NFC for payments as well AFAIK.

h1fra 13y ago

I'm much of a fan. This update make windows phone, faster, looking way more modern. All main app have been refactored. + Vpn + Notification center + Calendar + Battery + Cortona... I don't see anything that was not improved. Anyone can troll windows for windows 8 on desktop, I first. But the phone version is really great now

sz4kerto 13y ago
> I don't see anything that was not improved. The destruction of the hubs is certainly painful. There are many people who're currently struggling with battery drain issues, that's probably going to be fixed though. There's no agenda view in the calendar.
- kchoudhu 13y ago
  This has been driving me insane. I loved cross posting to Facebook and Twitter from the People hub. The application that brings that back will earn my money. The prospect of paying for something I used to get for free is kind of infuriating though.
  - cwyers 13y ago
    Remember, this is the developer preview release. The intent behind removing those from the People hub, IIRC, was that the Twitter and Facebook apps can integrate into the Hub themselves with new APIs. By the time Windows Phone 8.1 hits general availability, Facebook and Twitter app updates may restore the functionality.
    - MLR 13y ago
      I've not got a Windows Phone myself, but from all the reviews I've read the functionality is neutered somewhat, even after the applications have reintegrated themselves.
bananas 13y ago
I'm going to throw my opinion in here because I find a few real pain points that drove me to Android eventually: 1. If someone sends me a document or a file or something and I need to do something with it and send it back, it's hopeless. There isn't enough of a filesystem to do that sort of stuff with it. The whole WP isolated storage thing is painful and really ruins it for me. Not only that if someone sends me a media file or I download an mp3 for example I can only see it within scope of the app that received it and never can I add it to my music library without connecting it to a PC. I can't even play it without blocking the entire phone UI. 2. I really don't want to have to sign in at all and/or activate my phone as a developer device to deploy any apps or even a simple one shot custom app I've written for my own use. Occasionally, historically with WM6.5 and predecessors I've built the odd diagnostic tool that sits on the device. I can do the same in HTML on a web server somewhere but that relies on a network connection to be there, which even though I live in London isn't always the case. In fact it's pretty terrible in the suburbs. On basic GPRS WP is heading towards useless. 3. Android USB OTG is awesome. I can move stuff between USB sticks, plug keyboards in and all sorts. This has got me out of the crap a few times already and I've only had an Android handset for about a month now. The cable that enabled all this cost me (including delivery) £0.73. 4. Nokia made awesome hardware. Not joking it was the best stuff out there. Since the Lumia 820 though, it's turned to crap. I have repaired a number of handsets and they aren't designed with durability in mind any more and the parts are quite difficult to get hold of unless you're Nokia authorised service. Fortunately they still use standard screws (Torx TX4/5) but when you get inside, it's problematic.

DangerousPie 13y ago

I installed this update on Monday and so far I am very happy with it. It adds pretty much all the features that I was missing on Windows Phone so far, like separate volume controls, VPN, notifications, and native podcasts. And it does all of that while still running smoothly on my 1+ year old £100 (contract-free) phone. The one big thing that is still missing for me is Google Hangouts support, but this is obviously not something that Microsoft could easily add. And it is definitely not enough to sway me to iOS/Android.

chiph 13y ago
The separate volume controls makes it a must-have upgrade for me.
manojlds 13y ago
I don't know if it is faster, but 8.1 is feels much faster on my 925. Every update on my iPad just seems to slow it down.
- laurentb 13y ago
  I kinda had the same with my old samsung omnia 7 running wp7, then 7.5 then 7.8, no lags. I currently sport the 520 (the cheapest of them all, and obviously lowest in terms of specs), and upgraded to 8.1 two days ago, incredible that every update doesn't slow things down, everything is snappy
- 300bps 13y ago
  Every update on my iPad just seems to slow it down. I learned this the hard way with my iPhone 3G. By the time I upgraded it to iOS 4, the phone literally wouldn't work anymore. It would ring, I would touch the answer button repeatedly and nothing would happen. By the time the slow-as-molasses phone responded to the answer button, it would go to voicemail. It happened to a lesser degree with my iPhone 4 and I didn't have my 4s long enough to experience it. Basically I think Apple just assumes people are going to upgrade their Apple phone every 18 months, which is a stretch considering major US carriers have clamped down on subsidized 18 month upgrades.

biehl 13y ago

TLDR; Damning with faint praise.

ScottWhigham 13y ago

Here's one issue that Microsoft has to deal with - my Mom asked me, "What is Windows Phone 8.1 - is that the new Windows phone?" Stop and think about that question from a non-tech perspective. My mom (or yours) likely has no idea that there's a difference between "Windows Phone 8.1" and the "Nokia Lumia Icon with Windows Phone 8.1 installed". Now contrast that with Apple or even the Android world - they don't have such silly branding problems. No Apple user says "IOS 8? Is that the new iPhone?" Branding is important and to brand the OS with the word "Phone" in it implies, to non-tech/news people, that it is a phone (which it isn't - it's just the OS). My mom doesn't want a "phone with Windows 8.1 on it" but she might want a "Windows phone". She doesn't want a "phone with IOS 8 on it" but she would like an iPhone.

smacktoward 13y ago
> No Apple user says "IOS 8? Is that the new iPhone?" But lots of users say things like "Galaxy S5? Is that the new Droid?" (Which is annoying, but doesn't seem to be hurting Android sales.) > Branding is important and to brand the OS with the word "Phone" in it implies, to non-tech/news people, that it is a phone (which it isn't - it's just the OS). This distinction would matter more if people bought the phone and the OS separately, but they don't. To the average user the phone and the OS are mashed together into a single indistinguishable thing. You get a new OS when you get a new phone, and you upgrade the OS by buying a new phone. In that sense the "8.1" label is just a way to distinguish new phones from old ones. If your mom goes to a store and asks for a "Windows phone" they'll have no trouble understanding what she means; it's just a possibility she'll get one that isn't the Latest and Greatest.
- ScottWhigham 13y ago
  But lots of users say things like "Galaxy S5? Is that the new Droid?" I have a hard time with that. The question itself implies that there are lots of users who know what "Droid" is but don't know what a Samsung Galaxy is - which I, frankly, find difficult to accept. I would think it's 100:1 the opposite way - most users know what a Samsung Galaxy is but few users (relative to user base) know what Android/KitKat/ICS/etc are. So I can't really see your point here. This distinction would matter more if people bought the phone and the OS separately, but they don't. To the average user the phone and the OS are mashed together into a single indistinguishable thing. Absolutely - that was sort of what I was saying (yours is much clearer though). Microsoft trying to make the OS version something that people care about is just short-term thinking. People care about a specific version in only a few situations that I've seen: (a) when there's a big marketing campaign around that version, (b) as a reaction against negative press around a specific version, or (c) because they want to upgrade from a very poor experience in their current OS. Those are all short-term (and expensive) customer acquisition methods. Apple's use of "IOS" - the name, the branding, release timing, backwards compat, etc - is so perfect for Microsoft that I guess I don't understand why they don't just copy it.

deleted 13y ago

[deleted]

icantthinkofone 13y ago

fwiw, I have two employees who got Windows phones and, recently, both quickly traded them in for Android phones first chance they had for at least some of the reasons mentioned in the article.

wambotron 13y ago
I got a windows phone a while back, never switched back. I really enjoy using it. My wife also switched after playing around with my phone. She doesn't want to switch either. So what's it worth? Nothing. Just 4 people with different personal preferences. ;)
- icantthinkofone 13y ago
  On that note, I have ten clients I routinely monitor their web site logs (I run a web dev company). I have never seen a Windows phone visit any of those sites and they're pretty popular, especially among the under 30 crowd.

avenger123 13y ago

The main reason I would want to get a Windows Phone is for the camera. Nokia still seems to be the closest one gets to getting a reasonable point and shoot camera in a smartphone. I started with a blackberry, then moved to iPhone 4S. Bought a MacBook Air, Mac Mini, iPad and now I am using a Nexus 4 for my main phone. My main workstation is Windows 8.1. Note that I rooted both the iPhone 4S and Nexus. At this point, the camera is not enough of a reason to switch over. I'm over the app love I used to have with the iPhone ("wow, all the cool apps!!") so the lack of apps doesn't mean much. I'm just platformed out. The thought of switching to yet another platform and going through all the hassle isn't worth it anymore.

pradocchia 13y ago
I love the camera on my 920, it takes great pictures (for a phone), and I have been wholly satisfied with WP as an OS. I have missed the integration with Gmail etc on Android. That's been the worst of it, and it has been manageable.
bananas 13y ago
Given up on any phone cameras. Missed so many opportunities and moments due to camera lag and shitty software. I drag a proper DSLR around with me now most of the time.
- gtirloni 13y ago
  I don't understand it. By the time you are done grabbing your DSLR, I've already pressed the camera button on my 925 and taken the picture.
  - bananas 13y ago
    If you apply thought and patience rather than treat it like a quick draw weapon, the results are better. For example, just a tree I walked past in London... http://i.imgur.com/BphXWFN.jpg http://i.imgur.com/BphXWFN.jpg The chunk of glass on the front is pretty important too.

madoublet 13y ago

I am really pleased with this upgrade. The OS feels very polished now. My favorite small upgrade is quiet hours. I like just flipping that one when I am sleeping or writing code. Very useful.

snarfy 13y ago

Hopefully this is better than WP7(.5), which I personally could not stand and ended up getting an android phone. My #1 major gripe is that it is a phone second. I could write games for it in C# with XNA, but I couldn't set a custom notification sound. It's dumb priorities like that which made me abandon it.

jareds 13y ago

Can anyone who's using the new update explain what Narrator can and can't do? Does it let you use the built in apps, apps from the Windows store, offer gestures to easily navigate etc? I am totally blind and use an iPhone as my main phone do to it's accessibility. I bought an old Nexus 7 to test Android accessibility and wonder if it is worth buying a Lumia 520.

mikestew 13y ago
Without a phone in hand, information seems kind of sparse. The Narrator in desktop Windows doesn't seem all that impressive (wouldn't want to kill the 3rd-pary screen reader market, I guess). From a development point of view, devs still need to add accessibility labels to their apps and use the other accessibility APIs available. I have no idea how easy or hard that is on Windows Phone. iOS is easy enough that a dev would have to be borderline negligent not to type a few descriptive labels while they're doing the UI. Android, not too bad but not as much infrastructure as iOS (I'll admit to being a much weaker Android than iOS dev, so maybe I've missed something) for gestures and the like. Point being, even if the WinPhone accessibility APIs are fully fleshed out, 3rd party apps still need to support it, and I haven't seen a big push from Microsoft to do so. Contrast to iOS where devs get the accessibility spiel at WWDC, and Apple seems to push it elsewhere. Android, meh, seems kind of tacked on IMO, though I guess it works well enough (fully-sighted user here, so I'm not the most qualified to say, and I'd be interested to know how the Nexus 7 works out for you). Sometime in the next week I should get a chance to play with a friend's phone that I'm sure he'll have upgraded to 8.1. Again, I'm fully-sighted but have been the "accessibility guy" across several companies (including an accessibility lead at MSFT), so I at least know what to look for. I'll ping you if I have anything to report.
- jareds 13y ago
  Appreciate any info you get when you get a chance to play with their phone. The Nexus 7 is a bit below where the iPhone 3GS was when it was released. I’m not sure how much of that is me having a harder time with larger screen devices though, I find an iPad much more difficult to use then my iPhone. I’m probably going to get a used Nexus 4 dirt cheap and will actually try using it as my primary phone for a while. I should really see if the newest version of Android Studio is still completely inaccessible. One nice thing about Android is that it is quite easy to program for when blind using the Eclipse based tools.

bhauer 13y ago

I've been running 8.1 for the past couple days on my Lumia 920. Overall, I am impressed. Good stuff in 8.1: - The new calendar user interface, as Anand points out in his review, is more polished than it was in 8. This was needed since the Calendar in 8 was a bit amateurish in its appearance. If you looked really close, you could see that it used pseudo-Latin words on the days in the month view to indicate you had appointments on those days. But the words weren't the appointment names! - Six columns of live tiles (3 of medium size) makes the home screen information-dense. I have headlines, updates, the latest movie news, calendar items, weather, TSLA's price ($192?? Maybe time to buy more?), e-mails, and a bunch of other nonsense flipping around and dancing. It's a bit chaotic but overall I like this a whole lot more than what I remember from when I used Android and before that, iOS. - The signal strength, wifi, and battery life indicators are now always on the home screen. You no longer need to tap the top of the screen to see these. I liked the minimalism they were aiming for by making these slip away after a moment in 8. But I can see why they decided to bring them back as permanent fixtures. Luckily, they still hide in apps, giving maximal screen real-estate to productivity. - Finally, an official podcast application that accepts URLs. In 8, I wasn't able to subscribe to a podcast via URL, so if the podcast I wanted wasn't in Microsoft's library, a third-party app was needed. - Accessories such as Data Sense, which gives a breakdown of data utilization, and Storage Sense, which shows how storage space is used. These types of accessory are old news for Android and iOS, but were oddly lacking on WP. I had been using a horrible proprietary AT&T app to monitor data usage previously. - The notifications ("Action Center") user interface is nice. Very Android-ish. - Cortana is a cute addition. Finally having a voice assistant app confirms the suspicion I had when Siri arrived on iOS: I don't really have much of a use case for this. I suppose the next time I need directions somewhere, this will be nice. The sparkle of more promise is in Cortana's potential to interface with applications. If, for example, Cortana can use GroupMe (my messaging application of choice) to send messages in addition to SMS, I could find myself using that more frequently. But I don't use a lot of SMS, so Cortana's messaging feature is of limited value to me. Bad stuff: - I've had the Calendar application and the music player each crash once. And in both cases, it was a device-reboot style crash. This is a developer build, so I will give Microsoft the benefit of the doubt that the final version will not crash like this. - Cortana isn't quite living up to its potential. I've not actually used Siri, so I am not saying it's worse than Siri. But I want to see more applications support Cortana, and more smoothly than is done by the few that do integrate today ("Flixster, show latest movies"). For example, I'd like Cortana to just know that I use GroupMe to message my wife and SMS to message someone else. As another example, Twitter doesn't seem to be integrated into Cortana much yet. I think the only integration is Cortana pushing tweets out. Incoming just arrive to the Twitter app and notifications.

marko1985 13y ago

I'am a big fan of WP since release of WP7, but I'am thinking that microsoft should close the development of WP as it is too late to fight against ios and android. But as a user of WP8 (lumia 920) i can only say that it's a wonderful product with genius ux design and super-duper hardware, that doens't freeze... practically never. I restart it every month in case the battery drains to 0%. Hope that it can make it in the future, but doens't seems to. About WP8.1 i'am so excited, and in few months hope to get the update!!!!

IanDrake 13y ago

The biggest problem WP faces is retailers. I don't know why, but I've overheard reps at Best Buy, Radio Shack, and Verizon answer people's Windows Phone questions with "You don't want that, it's crap".

Tyrannosaurs 13y ago
Part of the reason might be that some manufacturers offer generous sales bonuses to store staff as part of their marketing effort. It's very likely they're doing what's right for them rather than for the customers.
- bananas 13y ago
  That is why you should never trust someone on commission from estate agents, through financial advisers[1] to tech sales. [1] I work with these bastards and they'd sell their parents to make a dollar.
sirkneeland 13y ago
Lack of proper training aside, from their perspective this sadly is the most rational thing to do. Phone sales people are incentivized by management to minimize returns, because returns consume lots of time and money. If you are a sales person, you know Windows Phones have higher return rates (because there will be some app missing or some other feature hole in WP). Selling it is risky. An iPhone or a Samsung sells itself. And more importantly, it doesn't return itself nearly as often. I like Windows Phone, but if I worked in phone sales I'd push people towards iPhones and Androids as well.

eranation 13y ago

I was an Android user since it was first out, would you recommend considering the WP as my next phone? All I read around is great reviews, and I am not really impressed with my Galaxy (mostly durability and reliability issues) Any Android fans who switched to WP and wish to share?

nivla 13y ago
I switched from an Andriod but this was a few years back when it was still on Gingerbird with a noticeable lag. Android may have fixed most of its issues by now but at that time Windows phone OS felt butter smooth and so minimal I could teach my Grandparents to use it. It also crashed less compared to my previous phone and API was so tightly restricted that third party apps din't even access to your messages/contacts, almost providing an unintended privacy net. Offline radio, fully downloadable offline maps, group chats, better email integration and excellent camera were a big plus. I would recommend going down to your cellular provider's shop and trying out one. Nokia phones would be a be my choice of recommendation. If you just want to run with something, you could even try Nokia Lumia 520/521, its only ~$50 full price and no contract {1]. Atleast it will make a great backup phone for its specs. [1]http://www.walmart.com/ip/AT-T-GoPhone-Nokia-Lumia-520-Pre-paid-Phone/27449094 http://www.walmart.com/ip/AT-T-GoPhone-Nokia-Lumia-520-Pre-p...
samekh 13y ago
I switched about a year ago after owning Android phones for about 5 years before that. I was kind of a ROM junkie, and finally got tired of the whole thing. When I switched, I quickly learned that Google is not friendly with Windows Phone. You are better off just switching to MS versions of everything (Skype instead of Hangouts, Outlook instead of GMail, etc.) It was actually quite painless to do so. With the release of WP 8.1, I am really liking the OS. I was never a huge user of apps, so the app ecosystem didnt bother me. I've always found an app for pretty much everything and I love the design language compared to Android.

Zigurd 13y ago

The main problem standing between Windows Phone and market success is that Microsoft handled the transition to touch devices both badly, and differently, across a nominally "all-Windows" product line. To start with, calling WP7 "Windows" was a travesty. Microsoft thereby only reached the starting line of this race with WP8, in Ocetober 2012. Very late compared to rivals, and rough. "Modern" or "Market" apps can't do what legacy apps can do. It's hard for those two different types of apps to communicate. Even if apps are compiled to MSIL, legacy apps can't run on ARM devices. That only scratches the surface of how complex and needlessly restrictive the app development landscape is for something that is all called "Windows" and that has a large amount of code and technology in common. Microsoft makes developers bear the highest burden in figuring out "What is an optimal development approach for all these things called Windows?" and provides the lowest number of potential customers. On top of that uncertainty is uncertainty about devices: Does Microsoft want OEMs, or are they going to build their own devices? Are the devices they have built so far established a good track record? Are their OEMs enthusiastic or are they wary and looking for an exit strategy? The question all these other questions lead up to is "Does Windows Phone have a future?"