My WP8 review

[anon5997296]

I got my red Lumia 920 two weeks ago.. And I'm in love with not just WP8 but the phone itself. It looks so cool yet so premium.. Totally matches my attitude..

This is my quick review of WP8, after two weeks of usage. I was an Android user before for 1 year and my roommate had an iPhone, he still does btw.. So, I was familiar to all OS but still decided to give WP8 a try cause the beauty of the Modern UI. And I took the right decision I think. WP has so much potential, it's UI alone is enough to take down iOS and Android, but it still lacks some things.. Some very basic things. The things that bother to me and the things I'm utterly happy for, I'm gonna mention next.

What I dislike, rooms for improvement -

1. Facebook - The biggest gripe of WP8 is Facebook, be it the app or integration. The FB app of WP8 is just a piece of crap. No stickers yet, doesn't show if others have seen my message and whether they are typing or not.
Facebook chat in messaging hub, no matter what network I use, I get messages some seconds late.. like 6-10 seconds, I know this is short period of time, but it's a trouble, a big trouble while talking to my girlfriend. And again the chat hub doesn't sync the messages that I send from my PC. Life would have been so much better if it did, for someone who uses Facebook chat this much.
Notifications - Neither the FB nor the beta app gives me notifications, or if they did, just give me hours late, same with the me tile..

2. Push notifications - Much of this is covered above but same happens with twitter and sometimes to whatsapp also. However, I got my mails on outlook right on the time, when I tried testing it twice, but still Microsoft needs to fix this issue.

3. Microsoft account syncing problem - Whenever I boot my phone or my data connection gets lost, and again it is connected to the data, it just doesn't sync the Microsoft account automatically and so does the Facebook account as a result I have to keep checking from time to time whether it is syncing or not.. That's a trouble. Tried with 2 Microsoft accounts..

4. Windows store - I'm not gonna jump into the topic that WP8 doesn't have as many apps..
I know there are less apps but there are many quality apps too and I got all the apps I needed so lack of apps didn't bother me at all. But the store is real piece of ****..
It just doesn't give me the result I want, for example, when I search for facebook beta, it gives me infinite list of other apps but no facebook beta in it. I had to come here at WPCentral and had to get it from the link in the article in here. Same for glance background. I was visiting WPCENTRAL for last 6 months so I knew about all the apps but if I was a newbie I would'nt find any good apps in the store and I would then blame WP8 doesn't have apps etc etc. I think that's what happens with people..
Again, when I bought my phone it was not running amber out of the box. So, I updated it and it took 2 days for the store to show me the updates of all the apps ex, display, touch, audio apps etc.. I think this also points out to the push notifications issue, but I want a fix..

5. Pictures hub - It's a shame that I have to use HD photo viewer to see the pictures taken with my phone cause the native hub doesn't support high resolution photos.. And there is no way to organize photos. What if my PC is gone for repairing, say for one month, and I'm taking and downloading a lot of pictures how am I gonna organize them. I need this feature.

6. Notification LED and notification centre - Though live tiles are enough for me this would be a welcome addition.. I know notification centre is coming but there should be notification LED too, they should Integrate it with Start button.

7. Old profile pictures - In people's hub or Me tile, it shows older profile pictures. Some of my friends' profile pics and my own in Me tile is older profile pic. That also needs a fix.

 

[anon5997296]

8. Free games - C'mon Microsoft.. Even Angry Birds paid!! That's a trouble, especially for a student like me. Owning all the Angry Birds will cost me very much. I can get more data with that money in India, where 3G is so expensive.

9. No Opera Mini - I need Opera Mini. That saves me tons of data. I know there is Nokia Xpress, but it's slower even on 3G compared to 2G with Opera Mini on my Android. When it comes to speed and data savings, there is simply no better alternative to Opera Mini.


What I like -

1. Hubs - The interface is so cool and you get everything from your social networks at one place is simply beautiful.

2. Live tiles - Well this is what I wanted the most. On my Android I used to not put any widget on my main home except except for the Sony Walkman music player widget cause I didn't like to ruin it. But that way I had to scroll sideways for other widgets. A bit inconvenient.. But on WP8, I can keep all the widgets, I mean tiles and it looks beautiful too. I mean a big WOW!!! I can't just come up with a better home screen idea. Brilliant job Microsoft!!

3. Stock apps - Stock WP8 apps are so good that I don't need any third party apps and they are just too beautiful. On Android, for most of the stock apps I had to get third party ones because of performance or features issues and they looked ugly also. No such problem for WP8.

4. Smoothness and UI - There is no need to tell about this to you guys..
The UI is simply amazing, wins hands down compared to Android and iOS.. Just light years ahead.

5. Xbox Live - Well, that's a really cool feature, liked that.

That said, WP is one step ahead, towards a modern era as compared to other OS.. But there are some issues that need to be addressed. Push notifications, Facebook and Opera Mini are the biggest ones. Once the issues are resolved, there's no stopping for WP from getting success. It has the potential to trump other OS..

 

[JobSteves]

Some of what you dislike about WP8 is due to the fact that it seems like you're comparing it to Android instead of taking it for what it is -- A totally different take on the smartphone OS.

 

[anon5997296]

Well I don't dislike anything about WP8 at all. But I need better push notifications, Facebook app and Opera Mini. I'm enjoying WP8 a lot.

 

[omgitsnick]

1. I agree, it's the same with the Windows 8 app - delayed messages, but notifications come through. It's because FB integration and app is rerouted to MS servers on WP. Remember that by linking your facebook account with MS account, WP has no direct access to fb, it all goes through MS servers.

2. Realtime push notifications work with an always on connection.

3. There's an option under your main outlook email account in sync settings called "Download new content". Set this to "as item arrives" and it will give you realtime push notifications and sync.

4. App accessibility is controlled by the developer. Apps can be set to hidden, mark as beta, free on some countries, etc.

5. I don't know how to answer this.

6. It's possible, but controlled by OEM (eg. early HTC WP7's like HD7 and Trophy have LEDs and are programmed to blink green when there's a missed call).

7. This is number 1 and 2 and can be solved by 3. Pictures are also dependent on which account had the recent change - Outlook or Facebook.

8. This is 4.

9. Depends if Opera will offer support.

 

[Ido Gal]

The push notifications thing is a shame. Can't understand how Microsoft had allowed itself to release something in this state.

Opera mini will come, evantually, to WP8...

 

[JobSteves]

Well I don't dislike anything about WP8 at all. But I need better push notifications, Facebook app and Opera Mini. I'm enjoying WP8 a lot.

Oh okay. I agree 100%. Especially about Opera Mini.