Windows 10 Mobile

[Chris MacDonald]

Mobile phones are something that rarely get discussed here but we all own phones.

 

I'm soon to be in the market for a new one and am very much torn between Android and Windows 10 Mobile, and I shall explain why...

 

My first forays into the smartphone world were with the first and second generation iPhones which were great because there was simply nothing else on the market like it, the engineering/quality was great and so was the way it connected to iTunes (albeit a bloated piece of software, but that's another story).

 

Eventually I grew tiresome of the OS lacking any kind of customisation, the lack of flash support and worst of all being completely tied in to the apple ecosystem so I jumped ship to android and had a mixed bag of experiences, but stuck with it and have had an HTC One m7 for a couple of years now and can safely say that it is without a doubt the best phone I've ever had.

 

Now windows phone X.x has been abandoned in favour of a unified OS across all devices (windows 10) I am very, very much considering jumping ship to windows phone. I imagine it integrates pretty seamlessly with your desktop PC - something that I've yet to see on an Android device.

 

I have heard the general lack of apps being an issue on Windows phones, but this should surely change soon given that they are making it easier to port android & ios apps over to windows... But even this doesn't put me off entirely as the only apps I really use are whatsapp, facebook, instagram, google play, etc.

 

I was just wondering what peoples thoughts are, how many of you have/use windows phones, etc? Has anyone used the Windows 10 mobile technical preview?

[branskyj]

Well, I had a Windows Phone (Lumia 800) before, I was on Android and WebOS before that. Never had the itch to try an iPhone simply because the way its OS looked, great hardware otherwise. I will be most likely getting the Lumia 950XL or 950 as soon as they come out, if for some reason don't like them then I'll get Lumia 1520.

Windows 10 mobile looks really nice on the many videos on YouTube. Notification Center, Continuum, rock solid hardware... I am pretty sure not the entire OS will be to my liking and as for the app support- I rarely use any apps anyway. If they are there when I need them- good, if not- meh.

Besides that we'll get wireless charging (still miss it since my Palm Pre) and microSD card support -yeaaaahhhhhhh baby.

[Chris MacDonald]

I'm keeping an eye out for the Lumia 950, but it looks like its going to be made of plastic. They really need to up their game and start using metal chassis.

[jensandersen]

I too grew tired of my iphones and iOS. Wanted a change and got the last Nokia phone (Lumia 930) last year. Took a while getting used to, not nearly as "intuative" as iOS, but that might just be of all my years with it. I also had thoughts of the nifty integration between my PC and the phone, but honestly, it is not really something I have really seen the need for / taken advantage of.

 

The lack of apps for windows phone is without a doubt my biggest frustration. Everywhere you go this "new app" is either for iOS or Android. The last couple of months I was sure of actually going back to iOS - where stuff just works and every app is available. Boring, but safe.

 

However, the win 10 mobile promise on a "1-click" app conversion tool, has put my return to iOS on hold to see what will happen. Still I was frustrated with win 8.1 mobile. Two days ago I took the chance and installed the win 10 insider tech build. Wow, subtle but great improvements. More customization, great new stuff to calender, mail etc. It is still buggy at times, but looks very very promising.

 

I'm no longer sure that I'll go back to iOS. It really depends on if the app devs starts to convert their apps to win 10 when its released.

 

+ the phones are dead cheap compared to Apple. So I say give it a try. Maybe no need to buy the flagship model if you are not totally sold on the idea.

[Francisco Penaloza]

I use Moto X with Android 5.x, it is almost un touched Android version and let me tell you it feel way better that any compared HTC or Samsugn Android modified version. the phone feels really fast and responsive.

Yes Windows has way less app compared to Android or Appl, we all hope this change with the new version of Windows, but Microsoft also is giving up in the Phone market, there is speculations that they will work more like Google with a single phone version, but I don't know how this will affect the whole App development for them.

 

Multi platform OS integration sounds good but honestly what that exactly means? I have G Mail and I use Google chrome as browser, everything is constantly connected with my phone. Drop box keep all my files in all my devices, and so does Google drive. You can use Google Photos now on Windows so all your Photos can be seen in your Phone tablet or computer.

I feel going windows phone would be good, but it feel like a weight and see, while using Android it is now, ready to go.

it is up to you of course.