The mobile platform I chose was put to bed last year, with no new hardware or software features planned. As such, when Microsoft’s Corporate Vice President of Windows 10, Joe Belfiore, confirmed that Windows 10 Mobile was no longer of “focus” to Microsoft, I threw in the towel. I’ve used both iOS and Android devices since then, and I can’t say I’ve found my new home yet. Nothing I’ve used has been a full-time replacement for my Windows phones.
So, after over a year of hunting for my next true mobile companion, I’ve temporarily given up the search to go back “home”. I jokingly called this Windows 10 Mobile’s last voyage, but in a funny way, it’s true. Outside of security updates, Windows 10 Mobile is no longer being maintained, meaning there are some issues that are starting to arise.
Windows Phone 7/8 was the only modern smartphone operating systems I’ve truly ever liked. The design, the applications, the fluidity – it felt like it was designed for me. I found it a joy to use, but it quickly became apparent that few developers were building applications for the platform, and the general public was never interested. This article is interesting, as it shows that using Windows 10 Mobile is like today.
I feel like I should snap up an HP Elite x3 for my collection of devices running dead platforms.
I finally managed to pick up a Lumia 950XL from Swappa for a reasonable price.
I have to say, I really like it and Windows 10 Mobile. For the most part.
There’s a lot to like about it. However I wouldn’t go as far as to call it smooth and fluid. There are still way too many places where you end up waiting for what feels like 1 to 2 seconds for apps to load or screens to refresh. This was the same thing that drove me nuts about Windows 7/8 on two other Nokia’s I played with over the years.
On the other side, the 950XL is a beautiful phone, wonderful screen, and the ability to project the phone screen on TVs and the use of the dock for keyboard/mouse/montior is really quite impressive. And of course the wonderful bluetooth hands/eye free interface for texts is still there and works pretty well.
I’m still tweaking it to get it just right for me, and I put up with the disruptive nature of the delays between screens/apps/etc., but beyond that, I love the information that can be conveyed quickly on the home screen with live tiles. And I might just be able to use this for some basic computer needs with external mouse/keyboard/monitor.
The down side for me, Instagram is a clunky on here, but at least it’s there. 1Password doesn’t work, the Dropbox API changed and now it crashes, and there’s no Line2 app at all. And the browser is some strange mix of wonderful and awful, depending on the site you visit.
It’s a pity they gave up on this. Windows 10 Mobile really is a nice improvement over 7/8, and it looks like it was just starting to hit its stride. Another iteration or two and it could have been a pretty good contender and might have actually started attracting developers. They gave up on it too soon.
And the camera on here is wonderful.
https://www.instagram.com/p/BpgDguRBAb9/
Edited 2018-11-10 02:37 UTC
And yes @Thom – you should pick up either the HP or the Lumia. From what i’ve seen, both are quite nice. With the HP probably a little nicer than the Lumia.
Those photos look great, but I wouldn’t go as far as to call them “wonderful”. Just my opinion though.
Been using mobile 10 for a while now. I’ve used a 910, 1020, 950. I am on a 950xl now and looking for an elite x3.
Waze finally stopped working, but other than that.
I don’t use much besides Instagram and browser. My experience with edge is really good, I always seem to run I to problem’s in android too. So the experience on the browser is actually better with edge because I don’t get no intrusive bs ads.
I am a lvl 7 google scout, pay for google one, use google voice, and google pay.
But I am really not missing out on much. Android is such a problem to use, and I am no longer stuck on my phone now.
I still use nfc payment with microsoft wallet. Microsoft maps works for the most part. I like how Microsoft maps dictates better an google maps and waze.
Cortana on Windows actually works!! It can understand me 99% and reads my messages. So I don’t have to really unlock the phone much. That’s really useful while driving.
Also windows mobile Bluetooth works better, it will interrupt radio and act as incoming call to tell me things from maps etc. On android if I listen to the radio, I won’t get nothing. I’ve had windows phone for a while and wont slow down over time.
I actually so see a future in Windows mobile, it’s just stuck right now
It’s funny, Windows Phone just works.
I cope with heaps of rubbish from my associates, particularly my iOS associates. They are continually telling me I have to upgrade, then in an attempt to persuade they show me the latest and greatest App, often taking two or three attempts to make it work. There is always an excuse, this network sucks, something interfered with my Bluetooth connection, some moron even suggested his problems were interference from being in the proximity of my virus infected Windows phone.
At the same time that they spend resetting, resyncing, fixing and relaunching I’ve synced my office docs seamlessly, uploaded to Camera Roll and just got on with work. I get back to my desk and it’s all there on OneDrive, no excuses, no resyncing.
Android is even worse, not sure how many times my associates come to me asking for the connection settings for this server or that service. I’ve lost count of the times I have to help them, it’s not reliable and it’s always the servers fault!
Of course, my daily work focus isn’t Tinder, Grindr, Instagram, Snapchat, FB or Twitter, I have work to do! Yet when I go out socializing, the same socially focussed techno-wizards who boost iOS and Android pend all evening futzing and phubbing their chances!
At the end of the day I turn my work phone off and actually talk to people!
Edited 2018-11-10 04:55 UTC
I don’t know what your associates use, but I rarely have any of the issues that you describe… same for my wife and my friends…
I’ve been using a Lumia 950 for a couple of years now. The only app that loads way too slow is Whatsapp. All others load within my limits of patience, but I had to ditch Facebook for an alternative (SlimSocial). It’s a really nice phone and I like W10 a lot. Camera is very, very good. Too bad Microsoft gave up on the platform, I’m going to miss it when the time comes to finally switch to another OS.
Windows Phone managed to combine the problematic upgrades of Android with the lack of sideloading found in iOS devices, aka the worst problems from Android and iOS. I don’t care if the interface was a bit better, good bye and good riddance Windows Phone!
BTW, I like how the author details major bugs with power management and the keyboard as if they are something you can live with. Oh how miserable the smartphone experience would ‘ve been without Google. We ‘d have to wait 15 years or so for Microsoft to get it right. And we ‘d have 3 kinds of apps to deal with (WP8, UWP, PWA)
Edited 2018-11-10 13:37 UTC
Maybe someone can skin a Linux Phone to match the W10 interface. It just worked.
You mean like the dozens of them for Android? Or are you talking about a different linux based mobile platform?
For me, that would be Meego. Still have my N9 in a drawer.
I liked Windows 10, unfortunately the lack of apps destroyed the platform. Though my favorite mobile OS is still Meego’s, it’s why I bought a Nokia N950, N9, N900 and Sailfish running on a Sony X.
Unfortunately Sailfish just simply cannot do what Android can. Assuch my main phone right now is a Samsung Note 9, running DEX. I love DEX, especially with my little Intel Nuk Canyon running Citrix Application Server. As I can run any Windows application from my phone, while connected to a 4K monitor, mouse, keyboard, ethernet printer, external HD, Wacom board and pen, even a 3D printer.
IOS, not a fan, it still feels like it was hacked together to get around a sandboxed prison.
What a shame, Windows Phone is-was a great mobile OS and I’m an iPhone die hard (despite my criticism of Apple) and right now I want and need a viable alternative to iOS and I don’t like Android, not even Google likes Android. Not sure from the developer point of view. Clearly iOS has the edge, Android development improved a lot these days but from my experience I would rather not to touch Android ever again. iOS is kinda “toyish” albeit cool but the “metro” UI is really wise and elegant. I believe that Microsoft should continue pushing it even if it means they are the only developers, they have the resources to do it.
I’m in the same boat; I have a love/hate relationship with iPhones and Apple products in general. I use an iPhone because I need either that or Android for work, and between the two it’s a clear choice; Android is simply unusable to me. For personal use I’d much rather have Windows 10 Mobile on a Lumia 940 or 950. True multitasking, voice assistant that actually understands me, Bluetooth connection that works right and every time. I’m no fan of Windows 10 on the desktop but it’s the best mobile OS I’ve ever used, and that includes classics like Palm OS and Maemo.
Maybe Microsoft will pull something together that keeps WM alive and well into the future, even if it means a Surface branded (i.e. expensive) phone, but I’m not holding my breath.
Edited 2018-11-10 20:19 UTC
What was great about it? There was the issue of months-old WP7 flagship phones being left behind and not able to run WP8 apps (meanwhile, even my fake flagship LG Optimus 2X received ICS and could run most Fragment apps even before that), there was the issue of WP8 phones not receiving 10 Mobile despite promises they will receive it, lack of sideloading, gaping holes in functionality like lack of an ability to set ringtones, significant delays in supporting common hardware (MicroSDs, HD screens, dual core CPUs for 1080p recording), there were issues with power management and then there was this idiotic decision by Microsoft to not support standard APIs like OpenGL ES and instead try to push their own deeply proprietary DirectX on the mobile games market.
Beyond the joy of reminiscing for the sake of reminiscing (a tempting thing, I won’t disagree) and the “Gee! Those tiles look cute” factor, what was in there I did not see? Having a “third ecosystem” doesn’t mean a damn thing if that ecosystem has the flaws of the other two combined and then goes in to add some of its own…
Edited 2018-11-11 18:14 UTC
Apple now also goes against Khronos Group with Metal / OpenGL gets sidelined …anyway, it matters little, only to engine devs.
I loved my Lumia 1520 with Windows Phone 8.1. As far as mobile OSes go I think Microsoft really perfected the concept. It had real true multi day battery, the OS was easy to operate, the photo quality blew everything else out of the water, but that app gap did it in. I was eager to try out Windows Mobile 10 when it arrived but it was little more than beta supported for my phone and I only pick up new models every 2 years or so, so I wasn’t about to go and buy a new device just for yet another brand new OS from MS.
The obviously untested state of Windows Mobile 10 on any device, I have no idea why anyone would meaningfully go back except for an exercise.
That era was the start of Microsoft’s 10 initiative where they just started failing hard at life at everything they laid their hands on that wasn’t cloud-related. What interesting stuff they did with Windows 8/8.1 but implemented poorly (trying to fool desktop users that they should be using the tablet environment in an attempt to jumpstart their failed tablet platform with existing Windows users) was swept away entirely with them trying to fool people into using flawed-by-design fake UWP apps on the desktop as though they might be somehow replacements for real desktop applications.
Hopefully MS cleans house and fires everyone who has ruined their Windows products. It’s obvious MS no longer cares about desktop based on the lackluster maintenance and fake feature updates they’ve been pushing for 3-4 years, and is putting all their money into their Azure basket. Which is a shame.
Windows Phone 8.1 could have been THE mobile OS but they let the interns run the firm into the ground and because they’re profitable because of Azure they’re seemingly not capable of taking a critical look at their complete failures regarding anything else.
Yes, I suspect you are correct.
Sure, Windows mobile had a lot of problems. Microsoft is a bunch if dumbasses for making soo many phone obsolete. They could have even pushed windows 7 on old hd touch or Samsung i910, but they didn’t.
But if you look at ios, and androids history. It’s all about the same. I would say android has regressed with all the security crap, and ios went android.
Ios didn’t even have an app store, no 3g, no video, and the list goes on 🙊.
Android was just horrible in the 1.6 éclair days! It was soo slow and a lot of the phones that could have been upgraded didn’t. One example was the behold.
Android was doing really good in the 3-4.0, then it just went to crap. For the end user, most of the changes were cosmetic, like trading the dialogs around. Cancel and ok switched places and the holo design! Oh wow! Now its material! Oh wow!!
Really that’s what android is about now. Now it is so painfully slow to get any kind of data out of any cellphone, thanks mtp mode!!
Lollipop 5.1.1 introduced AOT compilation by default, user experience has much improved since then, and there are constant improvements in battery life and speed.
For the 1000th time, the old system where the phone’s user storage was mounted as a USB drive worked only if you had a separate partition for apps and a separate partition for user storage. You see, several apps have to keep running when you plug your phone to your computer (for example the SMS app), which means you can’t unmount the apps partition from the Android OS, and you can’t have two OSes having write access to the same filesystem at the same time. MTP was necessary so Google could unify storage, because now only one OS (Android) has true write accesss to the filesystem.
I prefer having to deal with MTP and not having to deal with two free spaces in my internal memory, or having to wait for the media scanner to rescan the re-mounted partition. And now our phones don’t have FAT32 in them! Which means that you, the customer, don’t have to pay a patent license for the LFN kludge.
Edited 2018-11-12 22:24 UTC
I’m in the camp of those who liked Windows Phone.
It was instantly familiar for me, and for the limited hardware requirements, extremely fluid behaviour. (I’m looking sternly at you, Android!)
Sadly, Android offers more useful apps (none of my banks considered WinFone worth their time). So there wasn’t much of a choice.
Edited 2018-11-12 08:25 UTC
I am still on my Lumia 520 which runs WP8.1. It works perfectly and battery lasts 7 days. This is a feature phone area. However The bundled Internet Explorer starts to show its age as it really struggles to provide any decent surfing experience – moderately scripted web pages are very slow to load and run. But other than that, the phone is fast and responsive and I have no desire to switch to iOW or Android yet, although I believe that one day I have to.
Fortunately I am not dependant on any apps and for just calling and SMSing the WP8.1 is perfect choice.
Thom, the domain of your URL shortener is being cybersquatted. If you can’t regain control of the domain, at least remove the link. Your site is a link farm for cybersquatters now.
My venerable 535 runs Win 10 Mobile. Seems to have version 1607 (build 10.0.14393.2248) installed. It is pretty useless, but I keep it around to mess about with. It still has a crappy digitizer and it causes awful input glitches. They released it buggy and never fixed it. Terrible hardware, okay-ish OS.