4 months after the switch....

[PabsTheGeek]

Thought I'd leave some feedback, not sure who will read it...

I switched from iOS to Windows Phone when the 930 came out, I've used Android too for a couple of years also so I can have a good comparison.

The good...

The Windows OS is good, not great. I love the live tiles. the operation of moving through menus, apps is quite fluid.
Cortana is really useful while driving, I really like the Driving Mode to stop un-necessary notifications coming through and the ability to read and reply to text messages hands free is awesome.
The customisation is perfect for my needs, random lockscreen pics and choosing my own home screen with different tile sizes and locations is what I've been missing from iOS, Android has a great way to customise items but I feel the tile system is perfect for me instead of widgets.

The bad.....

iOS is great at one thing imo, integration with social sites mainly Facebook and Twitter. Login once and all apps that use these social sites can hook in to the login details. Windows Phone fails at this, having to login separately is a pain, especially when some apps logout.

IE, why they changed the agent to Android is beyond me, pages render horribly and getting on page notifications to install their app opens the Play store.

"official" facebook app - absolutely the worst version I have ever used. missing a lot of features (code generator, timeline reviews etc..) and my timeline is so out of whack I end up using IE to view it.

APPS - Official big name apps are so far behind iOS and Android. Netflix, Audible and no Official YouTube app to mention a few. This isn't about the lack of apps, i nfact I find what I need 90% of the time (mainly 3rd party) but generally when I do find them they are nowhere as good as their iOS counterpart.

conclusion.....

Will I stick with Windows Phone? Not sure... I've been considering a Surface Pro 3 and having all my devices (PC, Surface, phone) work together would be pretty neat. The recent thought that the Surface Pro 3 may get a CPU update is putting me off a bit for now.

I can live with the bad just now as I have an iPad at home and that's when I ditch my phone for social browsing. I'm eager to see with Windows 10 will bring....

 

[N_LaRUE]

Nice review and nice to see someone with a balanced view of things. Too often on here people take one or two stances. Either do what's known in Australia as a 'dummy spit' where they basically throw a fit and state they're leaving, or they do the whole love in where it's the best OS they've ever used and nothing is better.

WP is doing well in 'growing economies' mostly based on Nokia's success in those countries. So developers have helped WP a lot. However in the rest of the world, most countries have simply avoided WP for the most part. An example of this is the complete lack of WP apps here in the UK. Very few banking. Very few organizations. Very few mainstream apps. No one really makes apps for WP. No a web wrapper or the mobile site simply isn't good enough. Sorry.

This is what's holding WP back in most of the EU and in North America. Lack of the top apps is by far the biggest downfall in my opinion and no, 3rd party don't cut it.