Should I stick to WP? or switch to Android?

[k12000lt]

I have been using Nokia Lumia 925 since more than one and half year which now runs WP 8.1 (Lumia Cyan). Recently I purchased Lumia 730 too, which runs WP8.1 (Lumia Denim). Here are few thoughts I would like to share when I compare them both with my age old Nokia N8 (Symbian Belle) and latest Moto G2 (Android one), both I own and use.

Day by day I am being convinced that it isn?t worth a wait for MS to release updates for WP platform. I don?t see WP 8 going anywhere from the date I first used it. Of course there are certain welcome updates like action center, more customization and changes for VPN etc. But as a common user, what I and people around me use most are the exactly same as 18 months before. Even when I look at the upcoming updates and even rumors about them, I feel like most of the things are not going to change for general use, at least for another year or two.

1: Bluetooth:
Sending files between PC (Windows 7/8/8.1) and WP8/8.1 is not just right click-> send to Bluetooth device->select the discovered devices from the list->send. All other devices (android and old Symbian) are displayed just fine (even when not paired beforehand) and receive file easily with password confirmation (you can always pair them at the same time or later). WP devices need to be paired first from settings and then they receive file, even then connection is not stable.

Also I could manage Symbian Belle devices completely on Bluetooth connection from PC, like managing files, synchronizing music, videos, contacts, messages, notes, calendar and everything, listen songs from device to PC via Bluetooth, receive calls on PC via Bluetooth etc. WP devices have extremely limited Bluetooth protocols, just limited to file transferring. This is not called seamless integration. Shame, old Symbian devices did way better.

When receiving multiple files over Bluetooth, need to accept each file separately. If the last file fails to be received, all previously received files are lost too. I don?t understand why.

2: Photos:
Still user cannot create own albums. Photos are sorted by default choices. You can not create and name album and put only photos you want in it. ?Files? is too useless as it does not display thumbnails.

Videos are displayed under photos when there is another head as ?Videos?!! All videos-captured, received or downloaded are under photos. And you cannot sort them too as photos together and videos together or create album for videos and put all together.

3: Videos:
Useless head as not all videos are shown, only captured are shown which are already there under ?photos?. Also no videos are there under ?my videos? in my country. Only captured videos are shown under appropriate head.

4: Customization:
Still no way I can select song from my music and set as a ringtone. It was there since those Java based mobile phones with mono and polyphonic ring tone. WP is so advanced, it doesn?t support this feature!!!

5: Removable storage:
There are lot of compatibility issues with the SD cards of same class. N8 and Moto G2 never faced any. Music files which are transferred to SD card via PC are shown as Other files under Storage sense!!. Many times stuff stills keeps going to phone's memory despite default setting is SD card.

6: USB OTG:
Not a thing from MS despite so many pleads from users. And I don?t think it will ever land on WP. Surprisingly, all so called high end Lumia?s lack SD support. Then why are they high end? Just because of better camera, display? At least USB OTG support would have been good solution. Initially only Nokia had it. Now only Nokia/WP doesn?t have it. Irony.

7: Office:
No complete office support. Cannot create password protected documents not powerpoint presentation. Open office on Symbian and Android is way better and feature rich.

8: Apps:
I am not app savvy but apps realy suffer on WP. Even MS's own aps are way better on Android.
Whatspp: It still cannot share audio files. Received audio files are saved somewhere and can only be played via Whatsapp. If you what to replay or delete the file, you can?t as the file?s location is unknown, not even ?Files? will help.

3th party security apps to password protect photos/videos/documents/files: never will be there due to weird ?OS restrictions?. Also, no similar inbuilt OS security.

In general, why all apps suffer only on WP while their counterparts on android, iOS or even Symbian do great? Is the problem with WP or the developers? Of course MS will blame developers.

9: Calendar:
It still cannot be managed fully from within the device. I cannot add birth date to calendar directly. I have to add it to a contact which is then displayed on calendar. Even manage the added birth dates, set alarms for them etc. And whatever I can manage, is very complicated.

10: Action center:
It?s so primitive, N8?s was so much better. And it stands nowhere if compared to Moto G2. After launch, it has not received a single change. At least clearing single notification should have been added.

11: Cortana:
Why is it so hyped and talked about when it isn?t available for over three forth of the world? It may be good or bad but if it isn?t for me why should I even bother about the feature at all? So about quiet hours and all those features dependent on cortana. They are just there to talk and read about nothing more. Android already has "say google" and works everywhere and works great. N8's basic voice commands also worked well. They do/did not have country restrictions.

I really think MS should have at least kept the basic stuff which Nokia offered in Symbian. Because most of the users for WP would obviously all Nokia users. It feels like MS has taken away all the best we had and hopelessly trying to bang stuff on our head in the way they think is best. It?s not an evolution when you stubbornly ignore all basic stuff which is there everywhere and then keep releasing patches fixing them.

How can they even forget to separate volume controls? It?s so damn basic. Similarly many other things they still are implementing. It?s like they have hired kids to develop WP. Even after so many patches, settings are extremely unorganized, nothing towards smart dialing. WP doesn't even silence Alarm when you flip the phone!!! So many things, may look small but really matter every day.

Cortana and all advanced features are great but how much are you going to use them in a day? But you do type, dial, listen to music,use calender, share, browse, organize literally thousands of times every day. What about that?Those should be attended to and improved first.

Fortunately, they greatly improved IE on Lumia Denim, and took 3 years to do so after the release of WP8.

I think I will eventually shift to android one. There are flaws but at least all basics are handled fine. And the here maps will be there someday, free. Also now there are lot many great camera phones on Android too. These were my important reasons to stay on WP.

I do not want everyone to agree with me. These are just my thoughts which I would like to share. And I?m pretty sure MS also ain?t going to anything about it as usual.

 

[realwarder]

I think you're being harsh saying its going nowhere in the last year and half. Before then, no Cortana, no VPN, no notification center, no Universal Apps, no hundreds of major apps like Instagram, a lot less cross platform tool support like Unity, etc.

A lot has improved. A lot more OEMs are building phones. If this pace continues then some of your items will come soon.

But if you want to go to Android or Apple then enjoy. The grass isn't always greener, but sometimes change is good for people. We are not forced to use any OS. For me, I'm enjoying the ride on WP.

 

[Athull]

I wld just like to correct u into 2 places.
4- I am surprised u don't know about an app called Ringtone maker from Nokia. It allows u to set any song from my music as ringtone and can select parts from within the songs so its much better than what u find in old phones...
11: If u wanted cortana then all it took was to change ur region to US then why complain about it being not available?

 

[tortex73]

I own phones with all 3 OS's- iPhone 6, 2014 Moto X and Nexus 5, and a Lumia 830. While I think that WP8.1 is probably the best looking of the bunch, I think Android is easily the best all-around mobile OS. It's incredibly versatile and customizable, has the most hardware options, and you can do just about anything with Android than you can do with the other OSes, and a heckuva lot more. There are a multitude of "flavors" to choose from, like Samsung's TouchWiz and HTC's Sense, and you can truly tailor your Android experience to fit your needs. Heck, you can even make it look like WP8.1 if that floats your boat. Going from WP8.1 to Android will have a fairly steep learning curve, but once you get the hang of it, I think you'll love it.

 

[dameon_03]

It seems as if you already made up your mind and there's no need to convince you to stay. At least you tried it. WP isn't for everyone same with Android and IOS. Android send to have what you are looking for so I would go with that. Not sure if you are keeping you WP device, but if you do, I would check out WP 10 when it drops just to see if you like it then

 

[untitled007]

Go try other platform, maybe you can try wp again when wp10 have already launch, lets not make our self a fan stick to one OS, lets try every OS and support them.

 

[Guytronic]

With 11 well explained dislikes such as you have mentioned I'd go to Android.
No harm in going to another platform if so desired.

Everyone needs change occasionally.

 

[D M C]

OP missed one more thing
"Downloading"

It is a pain since WP was born.
No major improvement was made till date.
I don't know how iOS handles download but in Android everything you download goes in notification(which i think is best).
If you downloading anything from Chrome(or any other app) then download will go in notification center and you close the app and download will still go on.

But in WP app need to be remain open until the download finished. If by any chance you closed the app download will also close. i think WP team should build a proper download manager which is independent from browser or any other app.


Anyway
every OS has it's advantages and disadvantages.nothing is perfect

as untitled007 said "lets not make our self a fan stick to one OS, lets try every OS and support them."

 

[a5cent]

But in WP app need to be remain open until the download finished. If by any chance you closed the app download will also close. i think WP team should build a proper download manager which is independent from browser or any other app.

I agree with you that WP needs a better way for users to interact with background file downloads. The above is incorrect however. WP has always supported downloading files in the background, even when the app is not in the foreground. Downloads from the store use the same mechanism. Any developer could do the same, if they wanted to...

http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/windows/apps/hh202955(v=vs.105).aspx

 

[dicks-webos]

I have several WP devices and also have users with Android and BlackBerry devices in my vicinity. The WP devices do not show any issues when used over time, but the Android ones all start to have issues after a few months of usage. Most are 4.2.x and higher. I've had to install Clean Master on three devices to get them working again as they were totally sluggish and nearly unusable, outputting strange error messages, etc.. The BlackBerry device has no issues and just works. Same for the WP devices.

 

[D M C]

I agree with you that WP needs a better way for users to interact with background file downloads. The above is incorrect however. WP has always supported downloading files in the background, even when the app is not in the foreground. Downloads from the store use the same mechanism. Any developer could do the same, if they wanted to...

Background file transfers for Windows Phone 8

But even in background downloading app need to be remained open.(I know I can switch apps but still app is remained open in background)
In Android you can close the app

 

[adkrish22290]

I have been using Nokia Lumia 925 since more than one and half year which now runs WP 8.1 (Lumia Cyan). Recently I purchased Lumia 730 too, which runs WP8.1 (Lumia Denim). Here are few thoughts I would like to share when I compare them both with my age old Nokia N8 (Symbian Belle) and latest Moto G2 (Android one), both I own and use.

Day by day I am being convinced that it isn’t worth a wait for MS to release updates for WP platform. I don’t see WP 8 going anywhere from the date I first used it. Of course there are certain welcome updates like action center, more customization and changes for VPN etc. But as a common user, what I and people around me use most are the exactly same as 18 months before. Even when I look at the upcoming updates and even rumors about them, I feel like most of the things are not going to change for general use, at least for another year or two.

1: Bluetooth:
Sending files between PC (Windows 7/8/8.1) and WP8/8.1 is not just right click-> send to Bluetooth device->select the discovered devices from the list->send. All other devices (android and old Symbian) are displayed just fine (even when not paired beforehand) and receive file easily with password confirmation (you can always pair them at the same time or later). WP devices need to be paired first from settings and then they receive file, even then connection is not stable.

Also I could manage Symbian Belle devices completely on Bluetooth connection from PC, like managing files, synchronizing music, videos, contacts, messages, notes, calendar and everything, listen songs from device to PC via Bluetooth, receive calls on PC via Bluetooth etc. WP devices have extremely limited Bluetooth protocols, just limited to file transferring. This is not called seamless integration. Shame, old Symbian devices did way better.

When receiving multiple files over Bluetooth, need to accept each file separately. If the last file fails to be received, all previously received files are lost too. I don’t understand why.

2: Photos:
Still user cannot create own albums. Photos are sorted by default choices. You can not create and name album and put only photos you want in it. “Files” is too useless as it does not display thumbnails.

Videos are displayed under photos when there is another head as “Videos”!! All videos-captured, received or downloaded are under photos. And you cannot sort them too as photos together and videos together or create album for videos and put all together.

3: Videos:
Useless head as not all videos are shown, only captured are shown which are already there under “photos”. Also no videos are there under “my videos” in my country. Only captured videos are shown under appropriate head.

4: Customization:
Still no way I can select song from my music and set as a ringtone. It was there since those Java based mobile phones with mono and polyphonic ring tone. WP is so advanced, it doesn’t support this feature!!!

5: Removable storage:
There are lot of compatibility issues with the SD cards of same class. N8 and Moto G2 never faced any. Music files which are transferred to SD card via PC are shown as Other files under Storage sense!!. Many times stuff stills keeps going to phone's memory despite default setting is SD card.

6: USB OTG:
Not a thing from MS despite so many pleads from users. And I don’t think it will ever land on WP. Surprisingly, all so called high end Lumia’s lack SD support. Then why are they high end? Just because of better camera, display? At least USB OTG support would have been good solution. Initially only Nokia had it. Now only Nokia/WP doesn’t have it. Irony.

7: Office:
No complete office support. Cannot create password protected documents not powerpoint presentation. Open office on Symbian and Android is way better and feature rich.

8: Apps:
I am not app savvy but apps realy suffer on WP. Even MS's own aps are way better on Android.
Whatspp: It still cannot share audio files. Received audio files are saved somewhere and can only be played via Whatsapp. If you what to replay or delete the file, you can’t as the file’s location is unknown, not even “Files” will help.

3th party security apps to password protect photos/videos/documents/files: never will be there due to weird “OS restrictions”. Also, no similar inbuilt OS security.

In general, why all apps suffer only on WP while their counterparts on android, iOS or even Symbian do great? Is the problem with WP or the developers? Of course MS will blame developers.

9: Calendar:
It still cannot be managed fully from within the device. I cannot add birth date to calendar directly. I have to add it to a contact which is then displayed on calendar. Even manage the added birth dates, set alarms for them etc. And whatever I can manage, is very complicated.

10: Action center:
It’s so primitive, N8’s was so much better. And it stands nowhere if compared to Moto G2. After launch, it has not received a single change. At least clearing single notification should have been added.

11: Cortana:
Why is it so hyped and talked about when it isn’t available for over three forth of the world? It may be good or bad but if it isn’t for me why should I even bother about the feature at all? So about quiet hours and all those features dependent on cortana. They are just there to talk and read about nothing more. Android already has "say google" and works everywhere and works great. N8's basic voice commands also worked well. They do/did not have country restrictions.

I really think MS should have at least kept the basic stuff which Nokia offered in Symbian. Because most of the users for WP would obviously all Nokia users. It feels like MS has taken away all the best we had and hopelessly trying to bang stuff on our head in the way they think is best. It’s not an evolution when you stubbornly ignore all basic stuff which is there everywhere and then keep releasing patches fixing them.

How can they even forget to separate volume controls? It’s so damn basic. Similarly many other things they still are implementing. It’s like they have hired kids to develop WP. Even after so many patches, settings are extremely unorganized, nothing towards smart dialing. WP doesn't even silence Alarm when you flip the phone!!! So many things, may look small but really matter every day.

Cortana and all advanced features are great but how much are you going to use them in a day? But you do type, dial, listen to music,use calender, share, browse, organize literally thousands of times every day. What about that?Those should be attended to and improved first.

Fortunately, they greatly improved IE on Lumia Denim, and took 3 years to do so after the release of WP8.

I think I will eventually shift to android one. There are flaws but at least all basics are handled fine. And the here maps will be there someday, free. Also now there are lot many great camera phones on Android too. These were my important reasons to stay on WP.

I do not want everyone to agree with me. These are just my thoughts which I would like to share. And I’m pretty sure MS also ain’t going to anything about it as usual.

I agree with you that handling Bluetooth files is a pain in Windows Phone. It is so difficult to locate the files once they are received via Bluetooth, there is no dedicated Bluetooth folder to store these files. Bluetooth is an area which Microsoft should seriously improve for Windows Phone. I also agree with you on your arguments on Photos, Videos, USB/OTG and Calendar. These also are areas of improvement for WP. In Windows Phone 8.1, there is also no option to directly switch the phone between silent and general modes, you have to set the volume to 0 as an alternative to silent mode.

Having said that, I don't agree with your other arguments against WP. The app gap between WP and Android/iOS is now closing, with popular Android apps previously not on WP like Candy Crush coming to WP. The lack of quality of WP apps over its Android/iOS counterparts is not because of the OS, but because of the lack of interest developers show to WP. If the WhatsApp developers have the will, they can develop WhatsApp for WP with features at par with Android/iOS. Don't blame Microsoft for the poor quality of WP apps.

As far as security apps are concerned, WP is a closed-source OS with heavy emphasis on security. These security apps require some permissions to have access to the phone for them to work correctly, but WP never allows this due to the emphasis on security. If you are so concerned about security, why don't you set a password for your lock screen?

The Action Center could be better, but it's improving. Unlike in Android, you can decide what toggles you want in your Action Center and in the latest 8.1.1 update, you can have more than 4 toggles with more choices on the toggles.

In the case of Cortana, why don't you just set your phone language to English (US) and use it? And do you directly transfer the music files to your microSD card from your PC? You have to transfer them to the specific folder directly (in this case, the Music folder in the microSD card).

Can't set the music on your phone as your ringtone? Since you have a Lumia, are you aware that your phone has a Ringtone Maker originally developed by Nokia where you can make ringtones out of the songs in your phone?

Again, I agree with you on MS Office, but OpenOffice is not better than MS Office. It's a cheap open-source clone of Office for MS haters. It's not user-friendly either.

You are free to shift to Android, no one is stopping you from doing that. But once you are there, you will understand that Windows Phone is far far better than Android. Unlike Android, WP never lags, has a beautiful UI, consumes less resources and battery, basic things like calling, messaging and handling contacts are very easy-to-use (Picking up calls and managing contacts in Samsung Galaxy phones, believe me, is a nightmare, I used to own a Samsung Galaxy Star), is very secure and what you do on your phone will never be intercepted by Microsoft. Also, more than half the apps in the Google Play store are nothing but malware, flashlight and fart apps.

And Android One is a joke. All those phones have rubbish specs. No wonder, despite the overhype by the Android-loving media, their cheap price of INR 6.5k and the "stock" Android, those phones haven't sold well.

 

[fizze17]

Well android platform is basically everything to do with loads of apps which are free compared to other platforms, but quality of the parts differs from brand and phone, although a user friendly system it does have a large market share, If your going for apps its android but if u want to go for good specs, fast and better user interface its windows

 

[tortex73]

I have several WP devices and also have users with Android and BlackBerry devices in my vicinity. The WP devices do not show any issues when used over time, but the Android ones all start to have issues after a few months of usage. Most are 4.2.x and higher. I've had to install Clean Master on three devices to get them working again as they were totally sluggish and nearly unusable, outputting strange error messages, etc.. The BlackBerry device has no issues and just works. Same for the WP devices.

I've been an Android user since 2009, and have had upwards of 20 Android phones, all of them flagship devices. Every phone has been rooted, ROM'd, modified, etc... Needless to say I know Android like the back of my hand. Android has come a long way the past couple of years, and is highly stable and generally blazing fast. Problems like yours are generally caused by the usage patterns of the user, and not the OS itself. The fact that you say an app like Clean Master had that profound an effect can only mean that the problems were caused by usage patterns, because all that app does is clean up after the user. And just like desktop PC's, smartphones can require maintenance from time to time. And I'm not just talking about Android, no mobile OS is exempt. Your experience is certainly not the norm, and is not indicative of the quality of Android. I have less problems with either of my Android phones than I do with my iPhone 6, and after owning a WP8.1 phone for a day I can already tell you that Android is more stable and performs a LOT better than WP8.1 on comparable hardware. I have the Lumia 830 which is supposed to be a great device but it's one of the laggiest phones I've used in years. The Moto G which has identical specs, is blazing fast, and it runs Android. It's also half the price. Android is also FAR more versatile than every other OS out there, you can just do so much more with it than anything else. All that said, I'm really enjoying WP so far, but there is just no way I'd give up Android for it.

 

[Vaibhav S]

I have a moto g and it lags a lot unlike my Lumia 620 which is running butter smooth since day 1.

 

[tortex73]

I agree with you that handling Bluetooth files is a pain in Windows Phone. It is so difficult to locate the files once they are received via Bluetooth, there is no dedicated Bluetooth folder to store these files. Bluetooth is an area which Microsoft should seriously improve for Windows Phone. I also agree with you on your arguments on Photos, Videos, USB/OTG and Calendar. These also are areas of improvement for WP. In Windows Phone 8.1, there is also no option to directly switch the phone between silent and general modes, you have to set the volume to 0 as an alternative to silent mode.

Having said that, I don't agree with your other arguments against WP. The app gap between WP and Android/iOS is now closing, with popular Android apps previously not on WP like Candy Crush coming to WP. The lack of quality of WP apps over its Android/iOS counterparts is not because of the OS, but because of the lack of interest developers show to WP. If the WhatsApp developers have the will, they can develop WhatsApp for WP with features at par with Android/iOS. Don't blame Microsoft for the poor quality of WP apps.

As far as security apps are concerned, WP is a closed-source OS with heavy emphasis on security. These security apps require some permissions to have access to the phone for them to work correctly, but WP never allows this due to the emphasis on security. If you are so concerned about security, why don't you set a password for your lock screen?

The Action Center could be better, but it's improving. Unlike in Android, you can decide what toggles you want in your Action Center and in the latest 8.1.1 update, you can have more than 4 toggles with more choices on the toggles.

In the case of Cortana, why don't you just set your phone language to English (US) and use it? And do you directly transfer the music files to your microSD card from your PC? You have to transfer them to the specific folder directly (in this case, the Music folder in the microSD card).

Can't set the music on your phone as your ringtone? Since you have a Lumia, are you aware that your phone has a Ringtone Maker originally developed by Nokia where you can make ringtones out of the songs in your phone?

Again, I agree with you on MS Office, but OpenOffice is not better than MS Office. It's a cheap open-source clone of Office for MS haters. It's not user-friendly either.

You are free to shift to Android, no one is stopping you from doing that. But once you are there, you will understand that Windows Phone is far far better than Android. Unlike Android, WP never lags, has a beautiful UI, consumes less resources and battery, basic things like calling, messaging and handling contacts are very easy-to-use (Picking up calls and managing contacts in Samsung Galaxy phones, believe me, is a nightmare, I used to own a Samsung Galaxy Star), is very secure and what you do on your phone will never be intercepted by Microsoft. Also, more than half the apps in the Google Play store are nothing but malware, flashlight and fart apps.

And Android One is a joke. All those phones have rubbish specs. No wonder, despite the overhype by the Android-loving media, their cheap price of INR 6.5k and the "stock" Android, those phones haven't sold well.

You cant judge Android as a whole based on your experiences with an EXTREMELY low end Samsung phone. Just because it has "Galaxy" in the name doesn't mean it's anywhere close to the experience of the Galaxy S line. They just call it a Galaxy because of brand recognition. It's not even close to being in the same league as the flagships, or even the mid-range. That said, even Samsung's higher end phones have issues, but it's not because of Android itself, it's because of TouchWiz, Samsung's butchered version of Android. If you want to experience the best of Android, get a Nexus 5 or a Moto X, or an HTC One M8. Heck, I'd even say the Note 4 is decent. But a Galaxy Star? Not a chance in hell.

 

[tortex73]

I have a moto g and it lags a lot unlike my Lumia 620 which is running butter smooth since day 1.

The only way that is humanly possible is if it's user error. The Moto G is renowned for its performance, and it runs bare bones Android so there is nothing bogging it down. I have a Lumia 830 which is FAR more powerful than the 620 and it is insanely laggy compared to the Moto G. My 2013 Moto X with a dual core chip (just slightly more powerful than the one in the 620) blows the 830 out of the water when it comes to speed. There's just no comparison.

 

[Athull]

Actually as I had stated in another thread 830 is rather under powered for its price.
And the Moto X is 70% higher clocked than 620 and uses the much more powerful adreno 320 GPU.
Even compared to 830 Moto X is a lot more powerful especially considering 830 is a high end phone running on the low end cortex a7 architecture and the 305gpu meaning it can't even matchb up to the old 820 in terms of performance.

 

[tortex73]

Actually as I had stated in another thread 830 is rather under powered for its price.
And the Moto X is 70% higher clocked than 620 and uses the much more powerful adreno 320 GPU.
Even compared to 830 Moto X is a lot more powerful especially considering 830 is a high end phone running on the low end cortex a7 architecture and the 305gpu meaning it can't even matchb up to the old 820 in terms of performance.

Well you got me there, but the Moto G has near identical specs and it outperforms the 830 by a landslide.

 

[Athull]

I haven't seen the 830 perform but I agree Moto G is one of the smoothest Android devices in the market. I just want to see how good it performs after Lollipop since a lot of the Nexus users are reporting drop in performance.
I am personally holding my Nexus 7 on 4.4.4 until 5.0.2 is available on ota.