- Lately I've been seeing sales of the Lumia 520 and it occurred to me why are they selling phones at break even or at a lost? I understand there are some key reasons to lowering the cost of the phone, as low as $50 dollars, but at the same time should they release such a low margin phone? I know they're trying to get developing countries and low budget minded people to buy into the system. But what I also don't understand is why not release full updates to people running Windows Phone 7. I have a few phone still running the dated OS and would love to give it to people as a gift to use. I wouldn't want to give them brand new Lumia 520s because they lack key hardware features, such as flash. The thing is these outdated WP7 have much better quality specs than the Lumia 520. If Microsoft wants to spread the ecosystem they could update the older phones and give people the opportunity to use/buy apps belonging to WP8. Thus adding a better experience for the users. Also Stocks of WP7 can be repackage to add now supporting WP8. I feel MS is trying very hard to broaden their ecosystem and I think they could do this and possible give old stock away as a purchase package.
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sd173 likes this.01-09-2014 07:27 PMLike 1 - Share
- WP7 and WP8 may look the same on the surface but they are different under the hood. WP7 is based on Windows CE kernel. Windows NT kernel is found on WP8, Windows RT, Windows workstation/server OS, and Xbox One. WP8 is made for dual core CPU and up, so there is that too. Microsoft doesn't think it would be a good idea to spend too much resources to upgrade to WP8.
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Gautam Kabiraj likes this.01-09-2014 08:30 PMLike 1 - Share
- WP7 and WP8 may look the same on the surface but they are different under the hood. WP7 is based on Windows CE kernel. Windows NT kernel is found on WP8, Windows RT, Windows workstation/server OS, and Xbox One. WP8 is made for dual core CPU and up, so there is that too. Microsoft doesn't think it would be a good idea to spend too much resources to upgrade to WP8.
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a5cent likes this.01-10-2014 02:44 PMLike 1 - Share
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- WP7 is based on the old WindowsCE kernel, WP8 is based on the WindowsNT kernel
The NT kernel won't run on hardware that was designed for the CE kernel without major changes which is costly and time consuming.
Those resources are far better spent on improving WP8 than trying to port the NT kernel to work on CE devices.01-14-2014 04:21 AMLike 0 - I expect WP8 could run on WP7 phones which have sufficiently good hardware (single core chips should not be a problem - Windows NT can run on a single core). There's very little incentive for them to do so, though. Giving old phones as gifts is a nice idea, but for Microsoft and the OEMs, the benefits of upgrading the old phones are minimal.
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a5cent likes this.01-14-2014 09:25 AMLike 1 - Share
- I expect WP8 could run on WP7 phones which have sufficiently good hardware (single core chips should not be a problem - Windows NT can run on a single core). There's very little incentive for them to do so, though. Giving old phones as gifts is a nice idea, but for Microsoft and the OEMs, the benefits of upgrading the old phones are minimal.01-14-2014 01:37 PMLike 0
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The kernel needs to be programmed to know how to talk to the CPU and MS had already spent a considerable amount of time and money just to get the NT kernel to work on ARM based CPU's and WP7 made up such a small market share that it wasn't worth it for them to spend more time and money to make it work with WP7 CPU's01-14-2014 02:48 PMLike 0 - It has to do with how the kernel communicates with the CPU, WP7 phones used a Qualcomm Scorpion CPU where as WP8 phones use Qualcomm Krait CPU's
The kernel needs to be programmed to know how to talk to the CPU and MS had already spent a considerable amount of time and money just to get the NT kernel to work on ARM based CPU's and WP7 made up such a small market share that it wasn't worth it for them to spend more time and money to make it work with WP7 CPU's
Is WP8 really limited to a single Qualcomm line of chips?!01-14-2014 02:51 PMLike 0 - Well, I agree it's not worth Microsoft's time and money to do it, but I don't believe that there is any fundamental reason why it can't be done. It would be a much simpler job than porting from x86 to ARM and the kernel should be written in such a way that it could be done fairly easily.
Is WP8 really limited to a single Qualcomm line of chips?!01-14-2014 11:10 PMLike 0 - PeteRetired Moderator1. It would be a huge effort to recode the OS to cope with two different chipsets
2. WP7 devices aren't really fast enough to use WP8 without lagging
3. App developers would have to code for differences in hardware
4. The OS would grow in size
5. Apps would also grow in size
6. The user base for WP7 devices is relatively small and decreasing steadily as people get handset upgrades or swap contracts.
As much as I understand the guys with WP7 devices locked to a contract wanting WP8, it's just not going to work out. WP8 is pretty mature these days, so why not simply get an unlocked WP8 device off eBay (pretty cheap these days) and slap your SIM into it.- Share
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xandros9 likes this.01-15-2014 03:03 AMLike 1 - Share
- I'm not arguing that Microsoft should update WP7 phones to WP8, but I think many people here overestimate the technical difficulty in doing so. I do have some experience of porting OSes between chipsets and processor types...
Manufacturers anyway will likely have to include different drivers as other parts of the phone will differ between models - touchscreen, buttons, etc. I've seen an experienced engineer get Linux up and running on a new device within a few hours!
Why? WP apps run within a Common Language Runtime (like a Java Virtual Machine, or Dalvik on Android) on WP8 - this makes them independent not only from the chipset but even the processor type!
I don't know if WP allows native code to run, but even this is highly unlikely to be dependent on a specific chipset. Differences between chipsets and other devices are abstracted by the OS.
I don't see why. A device only needs to include drivers (etc) for the hardware it actually contains. The architecture to support different drivers is already present in Windows NT.
I don't think so. See above. A fundamental function of an OS is to abstract the applications from the underlying hardware. WP does this.
I agree.01-15-2014 10:48 AMLike 0 - Remember that they would also need to code drivers for all the radios in the older phones, so that's Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, GSM/3G, GPS and the other hardware in the phones, cameras, display, graphics chipset etc.
That's a lot of work for a platform that had very few adopters.- Share
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TechAbstract and xandros9 like this.01-16-2014 01:30 AMLike 2 - Share
- Remember that they would also need to code drivers for all the radios in the older phones, so that's Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, GSM/3G, GPS and the other hardware in the phones, cameras, display, graphics chipset etc.
That's a lot of work for a platform that had very few adopters.
A more interesting question (but not really on topic for this thread) is whether Microsoft would be better to leave this kind of porting and driver development to manufacturers and chipset makers. It would save Microsoft effort and allow others to innovate and use Windows Phone in a wider range of products. It would also reduce the risk that Microsoft 'back the wrong horse' and choose uncompetitive chipsets.01-16-2014 11:37 AMLike 0 - Wow, talk about going back. When Windows Phone 8 was first announced every WP forum was COVERED with this exact subject. In fact I bet you could go back some times on this site or others like PPCgeeks or xda, and find plenty of topics on this subject.
In a nut shell.
1. As it MIGHT be possible to run WP8 on WP7 device, it would suffer major performance problems and Apps would also run into major problem (mainly games), as the WP experience is great, MS wanted to keep it this way, so there is NO upgrade path for WP8 (it is possible Look up the HTC HD2, it was a WM 6.5 device, it runs WM, WP7, WP8 and Android but, this was a known MS testing phone so drivers were there for it).
2. Hardware needed to be more advanced as people are looking at specs...
No question, It could of run but, even then, would you really of wanted to ? If your stuck in a contract, find a few a little older WP8 devices that will work on your network, go on ebay, find a used one for a fair price (a few days searching and you'll end up with a good deal), then swap sims...
It's just not possible and Microsoft WILL NOT make it possible to update a WP7.X device to WP8...01-22-2014 02:29 PMLike 0 -
The fact that you cant use WP8 apps on WP7 is terrible.- Share
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anon5644628 and aldridhl like this.01-23-2014 10:11 AMLike 2 - Share
- I upgraded my Nokia Lumia 800 to a nice Android phone and will probably see a number of WP8+ users crying over MS claiming WP9 needs octacore processors or something else to make sure they're forced to buy new hardware if they want to use a fully-supported MS OS. Windows RT will probably be slaughtered by MS within about a year. They forced people to buy new hardware if they want a new MS Office, a new MS IE - they are not very customer-friendly and will probably keep wondering why they were left behind with 3% of the world smartphone market.
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anon5644628 likes this.02-13-2014 09:40 AMLike 1 - Share
- Its not happening ever, lets move on. Microsoft is a company like any other company that is out to make money. The money and the future is in WP8 so that's where they're going. Even if you upgraded those old phones the hardware would probably give out soon anyway.02-13-2014 09:58 AMLike 0
- They can make money by building a customer base of loyal supporters or aggressively sell their stuff. Guess what brings better long-term results? They will probably be a niche software provider within about 5-10 years.
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anon5644628 likes this.02-13-2014 10:19 AMLike 1 - Share
- Even if the update existed, you would have so much lag that you would hate Microsoft even more. Please be a loyal customer by upgrading.02-13-2014 10:38 AMLike 0
- 6.5 --> 7.0, 7.5 --> 8.0 and you're saying they won't do it again?
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02-14-2014 02:21 PMLike 3 - Share
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