Windows 10 Mobile vs. Windows Phone 8.1

[Ten Four]

I always wait for new software to mature before bothering with it. Let someone else be the guinea pig for the bugs. The only comment I can make is that the screenshots I see of W10 on mobile indicate it is ugly, and everywhere that I have used hamburger menus has done it badly. There appears to be some rule that in addition to utilizing the hamburger you have to use it to obscure the navigation.

 

[worldspy99]

On my daily phone which is a Lumia 640, I use WP8.1 Update 2. Really like how it performs and the awesome battery life.
I have a spare Lumia 635 and on it I use WM10 Build 10536. There are a few quirks but overall I am happy with it. I have a Iconia W4 running Win10 and my Acer Aspire running Win10 so I do like the fact that all the settings, notifications etc are same. I also have the same layout configured for the tile apps on the laptop and the tablet and that is quite a big benefit as well. I think MSFT will iron out the bugs later than sooner for some devices but it should run smooth once it is released. There might be device specific firmware things that might be holding WM10 back right now for certain/majority of users.

 

[zapppa83]

Win 10 isn't already optimized for x2x phones, especially with 512mb RAM.

 

[theefman]

Windows Phone from the onset was designed to make it easy to use, with thought given to where controls should be for easy access, content taking precedence over everything else. W10 discards all that and goes for a mish mash of UI styles, control elements with no thought given to making it easy to use. It will obviously have more features as that is where development is focused now but otherwise its a poor upgrade from a WP8.1 device.

 

[Richard Culverhouse]

Windows Phone from the onset was designed to make it easy to use, with thought given to where controls should be for easy access, content taking precedence over everything else. W10 discards all that and goes for a mish mash of UI styles, control elements with no thought given to making it easy to use. It will obviously have more features as that is where development is focused now but otherwise its a poor upgrade from a WP8.1 device.

I whole heartedly disagree.

 

[alexander0311]

i love w10m and i cant see myself going back to the boring design language of wp8/8.1. sure, it was nice in the past, but im so bored of it that now i prefer w10m. and btw, i personally think that w10m is the sweet spot between android, wp, and ios. it will only get better, now that they found this sweet spot. BUT, i have only one disappointment. microsoft is moving WAY TOO SLOW in terms of improving, listening feedback, delivering user-requested features and so on. if i didnt know its true, i wouldnt believe microsoft is the biggest software company -_-

 

[pankaj981]

I actually like the way WM10 behaves on my 1520, smoother than 8.1. Albeit there are software crashes and some 3rd party apps take longer to load (WC app) everything else is smoother than or at least comparable to 8.1 Update 2. On my 920 and 830, the OS is slower although on the 920 it's not recommendable as a daily driver OS just yet. On feature parity, overall I like the WM10 features better, especially the file picker integration. On the other hand I miss the Linked Inbox feature a lot

 

[signal-2-noise]

Windows 8.1 is a nice OS, way better than WP7 was. However, even as a preview goes I find W10M much nicer in form & function. It's a cleaner interface and loads of customizability (sp.?) once everything is working as intended.

 

[Zachary Boddy]

I only read like the top half of the first page. The results seems to be 60% for and 40% against correct me if I'm wrong.
I have one phone on Windows 10 Mobile, one running Windows Phone 8.1 (current daily driver) and another running Android 4.4. I'm really enjoying Windows 10 Mobile but it needs a lot of work. It looks very nice and it's much more colorful (I wish Dark Theme was darker and then they could add an in-between Grey Theme) and it's way more consistent UI wise between desktop and mobile (I have noticed dozens of tiny difference between applications that shouldn't be differences). There are some things I miss from Windows Phone 8.1 like fluidity and a lot of animations have been lost. Windows 10 Mobile is catching up but it still has a ways to go. Also, Microsoft quite hasn't made the leap to make Windows 10 Mobile "better" and at this point it's just a design change with a couple of neat features. I'm still waiting for a few more shoves to make it amazing. I'm definitely going to install it on my daily driver when the time comes but I'm not waiting with baited breath to do it.

 

[anon(3463402)]

Windows 10 Mobile FTW. Better in every way for me.

Can't see myself going back to WP8.1 now.

Same here.

 

[Daniel Gilbert M]

on my L640Xl the fonts look so tiny.

I can totally agree with this (knowing the fact that font size can be increased via accessibility settings) .
What I am trying to say is that the UI + Font scaling is not proportionate to the display resolution of the phone.

I've had the same experience on my 630.

 

[Aurelink]

Well I'd say W10M.
But I really can't use it at the moment for a few differents reasons :

Battery life : I'm using my phone a lot. And the camera too. With 8.1 I can actually take a lotta pictures in a day and will be able to get back home with some battery left. Not that lucky with 10

Responsiveness : I'm always busy, I need to answer quickly to my messages (mostly Sms/Messenger), and with 10 I was having real troubles sending anything from these apps. (And here again, taking pictures is REALLY and that gives a point)

Pictures : I know that the app isn't done yet. But it's a mess right now; when I take a picture/screenshot I wanna share it right-away. With W10M you'd have to open the Photos app to be sure the photo has been indexed and will be found when you will have to share it. With 8.1, you can take a photo/screenshot, directly open the app (WhatsApp for example) and browse to your picture.

Cortana : I don't know why but the Cortana on 8.1 is (or feels, idk) faster than the W10M version so far.

And finally...

Notifications : Multiple points here.
W10M is (often) struggling to detect that I have SEEN a notification. And it will still show in the glance for a few minutes.
And ofc... Custom notifications tones

 

[DMCarver]

I'm not on the 10 preview but have a question about the UI. Can you set the transparency level of the tiles? I see these image screen shots of other users phones and the tiles have a blue hue or some other color - like the accent color.
I prefer clear tiles. This will be a big disappointment if I can't make these tiles totally transparent.
Can anyone answer this question for me?

 

[skt_diaz]

I'm not on the 10 preview but have a question about the UI. Can you set the transparency level of the tiles? I see these image screen shots of other users phones and the tiles have a blue hue or some other color - like the accent color.
I prefer clear tiles. This will be a big disappointment if I can't make these tiles totally transparent.
Can anyone answer this question for me?

They can be made totally transparent.

 

[SonOfDad]

Personally speaking 8.1 looked much better than Win 10 with bold colors and thick gap in-between tiles and big fonts.

The smaller grid is one of the few things I like about W10m. I also don't like the small fonts it doesn't make the interface appear touch friendly. Colour is also underplayed or in the case of viewing a contact garish.

Its hard to fairly compare the two when windows 10 mobile isnt finished.

It's bug fixes only so lets not think the final product won't look like what is seen now. People were saying the same thing a month out from Windows 10 launch.

WP 8.1 was ugly, boring and had huge usability problems.

Can you provide more detail on this especially "huge usability problems" ?

 

[Stun3i]

After about 5 days using W10M (build 10540) as a daily driver for the first time (was only testing before sparingly), I really can't say the difference is really that big - just tweaks and refinement, and I have no particular preference either.

Build 10540? Are you in internal ring?
For me 10512 was an ok build with some common bugs. 10536 tried hard to fix the issues of 10512 but only resulted in a highly unstable build with lots of hang up on my 520.
3 weeks of 10512 and 2 weeks of 10536, I'm done with w10m tp for now. Rolled back to 8.1 yesterday, realized how I missed the smoothness and the super durable battery of wp.
I'm gonna stay with 8.1 for awhile until the next build is up in the air.

 

[netmann]

All I can say is I most likely buy a flagship phone and flash it back to 8.1 update 2, or keep using my L640 until MS stop updating 8.1.

W10M is still immature and is focused on corporate and enterprise use.

 

[seb_r]

W10M even lacks some features that 8.1 had like glance screen background app for example. Seems like the whole glance screen thing becomes abandoned. :devil:

 

[EspHack]

whatever, what I hate about windows is how it always loses something and improves something, its NEVER a full step forward

 

[murtaza_p]

Bring back lumia camera app for the Lumia 1020 i am a happy man
if not i am sticking with 8.1
The stock camera app is horrible! makes the photos washed out and soft and lack the sharpness of the Lumia camera app