I'm currently running developers preview on a lumia Icon (Verizon). I've gone back and forth between wp 8.0 and wp 8.1 at least 5 times and the overriding reason to downgrade has been that the phone would heat up and the battery life has been reduced about 30%. The wireless connection has been weak as well but I've lived with it. I've been pining away for Cyan just like every Icon owner. I'm really hoping for a fix for the battery and heating issue the most.
Three days ago I was troubleshooting things with my Surface Pro 3 and I changed the wireless channel setting on my router (cheapo unit from ATT) from "auto" to channel 11. It didn't fix my tablet issue, but I noticed that my phone would startup as soon as I pushed the power button. As the day progressed, I noticed that the battery drain was more like WP 8.0 and the phone didn't seem to get hot while surfing the web. I don't know if anyone else has tried this and it might totally be a fluke, but it's been 3 days and one more DP update since I fixed the wireless channel to 11 and the phone seems to be running so much better. It starts right up, doesn't get super hot and I'm getting much better battery life (took if off the charger at 7:30 this morning. I've made 3 calls, surfed the web about 30 minutes and I've been listening to audible for about 2 hours and the battery is at 68% at 3pm. That's more like what I would get with WP 8.0.
I'm still pining for Cyan, but at least the phone is more useable while I wait. This time of year always makes me look around at the latest greatest in phones and, while there are great options out there, I still really like this phone the best. The size is great. The camera is fantastic and I just really prefer the metro interface over any other. I even skinned Galaxy Note 3 with a launcher that looked like metro...right before I traded it in for the Icon
. Choosing a phone is really feels like it's coming down to aesthetics for me these days and windows phone simply looks the best.
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