A few weeks back, as I'm sure many of our patrons know, rumors started that Microsoft might allow Android apps to run in a virtual machine on Windows Phone. Some people were relieved at this news as it would offer some degree of closure on the ever-present app gap. I on the other hand, was distraught to say the least. I saw it as the same mistake Blackberry had made. Sure, they had a plethora of apps, not many of which was optimized for their smartphone. I mean, why build an app for 1 percent of the market (Or in this case 3-4%) when you could build it and have it run on over 70 percent of the market? Seems like a menial task at best. In a fit of annoyance, I left Windows Phone. I traded in my Nokia Lumia 1520 for an HTC One M8, the highest rated smart phone on our sister site and in terms of overall user reviews. I mean, that many smartphone geeks can't be wrong, right? So wrong. So very, very wrong.
I got the M8 and immediately after my initial set up learned that there was no possible way to send/receive MMS if I use the phone on anything that's not ATT without root... Well, that's a disappointment but there's several messaging services and all that jazz. Not a total deal breaker. My next issue came when Iwould try to type up lengthy statements. Hell, sometimes even in short sentences the auto-correct would absolutely butcher it. I tried the stock keyboard, swiftkey and flesky and was met with nothing but absolute displeasure. No phone, when I type the word 'Good' I don't mean gips. Maybe if I correct it a few times and am very careful not to touch I or P it will register it correctly? Nope! Still sucks.
Now, in terms of the app gap, I have to say that there is one. Android is severely lacking in quality apps. Windows Phone blows it away in that regard. Just try to find a decent full photo editing suite that doesn't break on Android like you can on Windows Phone with Fantasia Painter. No luck? Me either. There's a few big names that will allow you to throw a filter on or a bunch of individualistic apps that will let you handle individual features but not one that I found will allow you to do all you can in there. I searched Android Central and even asked. No one had any suggestions. The same could be said for video editors, navigation, word processing apps and several other choices. Not to mention that any time I tried to connect my hotmail app it simply didn't work citing a bad password. There are a few games that I would absolutely love to see on my Windows Phone but outside of those. I'd say we're pretty heavily in the lead in terms of apps worth downloading.
Oh, speaking of photo editing apps, they would've been mostly fruitless considering my Samsung Blackjack in 2006 could go toe to toe with the M8 in terms of camera performance. I'm a long time phone geek when it comes to cameras and how this passed through the first stage of testing is an absolute anomaly. I mean, perhaps I've been spoilt by the Lumia series and their phenomenal cameras but I've used most other high end phones and this thing is absolutely laughable. I have a three year old and last I checked, he didn't look like a cop show where they're trying to blur out someone's face on a day to day basis. It is awful.
Now, I know this sounds like a lot of complaining. I mean, it is. I felt like I was settling in nearly every aspect. The device has little outside of shortcomings but the few things it does well, I'd like to see improved on my end of the pool. The first point I liked was the display. I know it's not the best but the colors were vibrant and accurate and the auto-brightness setting absolutely destroyed my 1520s. I think the auto brightness being resolved might pretty well knock all that out though. Outside of that, while my 1520 is louder (Shockingly) the M8 does have better sound reproduction. It's very clear to a staggering extent.
There's also a ton of little gripes I had like no music control when hitting the volume button, no sort of glance screen without a special and incredibly cheap feeling case and awful button placement.
In terms of the UI itself, it still looks pretty ugly in comparison and even with their whole special glance feed or whatever it is, it's just left more cluttered as, if you have more than 15 people on Facebook you're going to be constantly informed of crap you don't care about.
Ultimately, as of Friday, this M8 is gone for good and to that I say good riddance. I truly can't wait to be back in the loving arms of a Nokia Lumia 1520 with wireless charging, a 128 gig SD card and most importantly, Windows Phone 8.1.
I won't be making that mistake again. I don't have to settle for less.
I got the M8 and immediately after my initial set up learned that there was no possible way to send/receive MMS if I use the phone on anything that's not ATT without root... Well, that's a disappointment but there's several messaging services and all that jazz. Not a total deal breaker. My next issue came when Iwould try to type up lengthy statements. Hell, sometimes even in short sentences the auto-correct would absolutely butcher it. I tried the stock keyboard, swiftkey and flesky and was met with nothing but absolute displeasure. No phone, when I type the word 'Good' I don't mean gips. Maybe if I correct it a few times and am very careful not to touch I or P it will register it correctly? Nope! Still sucks.
Now, in terms of the app gap, I have to say that there is one. Android is severely lacking in quality apps. Windows Phone blows it away in that regard. Just try to find a decent full photo editing suite that doesn't break on Android like you can on Windows Phone with Fantasia Painter. No luck? Me either. There's a few big names that will allow you to throw a filter on or a bunch of individualistic apps that will let you handle individual features but not one that I found will allow you to do all you can in there. I searched Android Central and even asked. No one had any suggestions. The same could be said for video editors, navigation, word processing apps and several other choices. Not to mention that any time I tried to connect my hotmail app it simply didn't work citing a bad password. There are a few games that I would absolutely love to see on my Windows Phone but outside of those. I'd say we're pretty heavily in the lead in terms of apps worth downloading.
Oh, speaking of photo editing apps, they would've been mostly fruitless considering my Samsung Blackjack in 2006 could go toe to toe with the M8 in terms of camera performance. I'm a long time phone geek when it comes to cameras and how this passed through the first stage of testing is an absolute anomaly. I mean, perhaps I've been spoilt by the Lumia series and their phenomenal cameras but I've used most other high end phones and this thing is absolutely laughable. I have a three year old and last I checked, he didn't look like a cop show where they're trying to blur out someone's face on a day to day basis. It is awful.
Now, I know this sounds like a lot of complaining. I mean, it is. I felt like I was settling in nearly every aspect. The device has little outside of shortcomings but the few things it does well, I'd like to see improved on my end of the pool. The first point I liked was the display. I know it's not the best but the colors were vibrant and accurate and the auto-brightness setting absolutely destroyed my 1520s. I think the auto brightness being resolved might pretty well knock all that out though. Outside of that, while my 1520 is louder (Shockingly) the M8 does have better sound reproduction. It's very clear to a staggering extent.
There's also a ton of little gripes I had like no music control when hitting the volume button, no sort of glance screen without a special and incredibly cheap feeling case and awful button placement.
In terms of the UI itself, it still looks pretty ugly in comparison and even with their whole special glance feed or whatever it is, it's just left more cluttered as, if you have more than 15 people on Facebook you're going to be constantly informed of crap you don't care about.
Ultimately, as of Friday, this M8 is gone for good and to that I say good riddance. I truly can't wait to be back in the loving arms of a Nokia Lumia 1520 with wireless charging, a 128 gig SD card and most importantly, Windows Phone 8.1.
I won't be making that mistake again. I don't have to settle for less.
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