What Are Your Thoughts On Windows 10 Mobile VS 8.1?

[neutropia]

I've loved my Windows phones ever since they were just a windows 7.5 phone. I absolutely adored the 8.1 update and it made me fall much more in love with the brand. Now that Windows 10 is out (Lumia 1520), I find myself faltering and wondering if I should leave the brand. For every great feature they added it seems to have introduced a new glitch or "feature" that doesn't make sense. I love that you can reply to texts from the notification banner and the ability to quick-switch messaging threads when in landscape orientation are great. Even the general look and feel of the OS and the fact you can search for settings instead of rummaging through menus is great. But these are immediately washed by a camera app that will crash if I try to take pictures too quickly or Cortana consistently asking over blue tooth if I want to read a text even after I open up the thread. A third of the time she won't even start my groove music back up and I have to do it manually.

Now, after coming here I found the answer to my question which again leads to a pointless feature: Why are Cortana's setting in a subfolder called Notebook accessible only through her menus?? Why do these setting not appear as searchable when I search under the phone's settings? I also won't get into apps crashing or failing to reload after I come back from the lock screen which then causes every app I attempt to load to crash, thus requiring a power cycle.

I've had some wonderful experiences with this update but I've just had so many frustrations to offset those experiences that my love for windows phone is fading. My wife and I have our upgrades coming up soon, and she's considering returning to WP but unless anniversary makes some improvements, I may be leaving my fellow 1%-ers.

All that aside; am I the only one that feels this way or is anyone else just as happy & simultaneously disappointing with WP10 mobile?

 

[Dreznik Xerakof]

While WM10 definitely made improvements over WP8.1, a huge loss in transition. is the magnificent gestures beta app, which no longer functions in 10. "Pick up the phone to answer a call" feature, which was part of gestures, was an extremely innovative and truly unique feature of windows phones.

 

[abhishek singh21]

i assume everyone are over this discussion now, windows 8.1 is a thing of past and will be forgotten sooner or later. Windows 10 is a big big vessel to be uncovered through continuous development and research. with regular patches and yearly feature rich updates, you will not complaint again

 

[libra89]

8.1 had the better battery life for sure. W10M is catching up, yes but 8.1 wins that for me. I miss the battery life and the Lumia Camera on 8.1 but not enough to consider downgrading for those two things. The camera on Windows 10 Mobile really bummed me out on my 640 because to me, it felt like the quality went down. On a 950 though, the camera software seems to be decent, when it comes to output.

 

[Nokia_Lumia]

When 10 first surfaced on Lumia 950/950XL, it was nowhere near ready for a production release. It is better after a few months, but 8.1 is buttery smooth and polished compared to it. 10 feels like a mess, and the fact that the OS is in constant "rings" and "betas" doesn't help its reputation. 8.1 feels like a finished product, 10 does not.

 

[EspHack]

its because its windows 10 mobile, not windows phone 10, that name change is really important, think of it as a new OS based on windows phone 8.1, not a sequential upgrade, thats why it doesnt make sense to you that it misses just as many features as it introduced and overall doesnt feel the same

what made you like wp8.1 is probably nowhere to be found on w10m, and shows no sign of coming back either

 

[Ma Rio]

^ While that is somewhat true, you're making it sound really bad. W10M is a fresh start, but it's not that bad. I personally have no big problems, only a few slight annoyances (like the camera app feeling really outdated and featureless, and just plain bad, etc.) I am sorry to hear that people are having issues with their devices.
Generally, the OS feels quite good to me, all we need are some app updates.

 

[kaktus1389]

I personally prefer Windows 10 Mobile over Windows Phone 8.1 because in my opinion UI is much better, UWP apps look great and for me battery life hasn't really changed much. The only app that unfortunately crashes for me (and I really have to be lucky to get it working) is Windows Central app

 

[TechFreak1]

I have seen both the good and bad side of Windows 10 Mobile.

The latter has completely reinforced my views on WaaS on consumer phones <- when it works it's amazing but when it does not just make sure you have a back up phone running Wp 8.1.x handy.

 

[kristalsoldier]

I much prefer W10M myself though my preference is dictated by aesthetics. I think W10M looks much better as compared to W8.1 and this is especially true on devices like the 1520 (though W10M does not seem to run very well on it). Of course, W10M looks absolutely brilliant on the 950 XL (and the 640XL which I can see everyday).

Yes, battery-life was better in 8.1, but having been an Insider for a bit, I have seen how MS has worked on battery optimization in W10. It is much better now than what it was in earlier builds and I am sure MS will continue to fine-tune this.

Yes, some features are missing and some have been morphed beyond recognition. But I take that in the spirit of finding new ways to do things, which may or may not work. I think W10M is still very much a work-in-progress. As of now it has achieved a reasonably stable state and features are being added (and subtracted). I expect this process to take some more time and the OS matures. So, I am more forgiving of some of the current and glaring deficiencies of W10M.

At the end of the day, W10M is the future - both in terms of an offering from MS, but also one - of many - indications of how we are adapting and using technology to make our lives a little better/ easier (or in some cases worse/ more difficult!). So, while I do reminisce about past products and services that I may have used (like my Palm devices, which I loved, my Nokia E series!!, Bing Vision, the Metro Interface (sorry! Modern UI!!!!) etc. etc.), for me - personally - its what lies ahead that counts - that is what will give me my "new experiences" (for the better AND for the worse)!!!

:smile:

 

[Kevin Rush]

I have been looking for a detailed comparison of features of WP 8.1 and WM 10. These comments are a good start.

 

[Kram Sacul]

Whatever improvements there are in W10M are negated by the obvious attempt to make the UI more friendly to Android and iOS users (watered down). That alone makes W10M undesirable to me. I switched from Android to Windows Phone because of the beautiful, elegant and user friendly UI and for MS to throw that away for copycat wannabe garbage is disheartening to say the least. "People are not circles". Yeah, whatever.

I recommended 8/8.1 to my friends and my family. That was when there was still a Nokia making beautiful devices and the platform's future still had a sliver of hope. In comparison I wouldn't recommend W10M to anyone. Just an embarrassing and poorly thought out train wreck.

 

[SpO BoB]

While WM10 definitely made improvements over WP8.1, a huge loss in transition. is the magnificent gestures beta app, which no longer functions in 10. "Pick up the phone to answer a call" feature, which was part of gestures, was an extremely innovative and truly unique feature of windows phones.

WTF ;( why ;(

 

[vezycash]

I never had to reset my windows 8.1 phones (have two) - not even once. With Windows 10 mobile? At least 8 hard resets since I jumped on to it. My phone gets very hot for no damned reason.

/A hard reset makes battery life and performance great. However, peromance and battery life deteriorate with time as if I'm using a virus ridden Windows PC.

In windows 8.1, apps could crash but they crashed alone. Windows 10? Apps can crash hardware. Example: opening the Skype Video app crashed the camera and could only be fixed with a restart. And it wasn't only on my phone.

I like the expaneded notification bar in windows 10. I also like the promise of one app that works everywhere but so far, it remains largely a promise especially since developers can arbitrarily prevent universal apps from running on phone or pc.

What pisses me off the most with Windows 10 mobile are the phone apps and spam blocker apps.

With the phone app, dismissing a call from the notification bar doesn't clear the notification log. Even if you open the phone app, it still doesn't clear missed calls. You must swipe to the call list.

The spam blocker app simply doesn't work. They took a perfectly good app, threw out everything that worked and gave us a mangled piece of crap. Now, my SMS app is filled up with spam. I must see every spam sms because some decided that good looks was better than functionality. Now, my only recourse is to mute them. Else, I'll get a thankless job of deleting spam sms.

Conclusion

I brought 5 people to windows phone prior to the Windows 10 mobile era. Right now, I can only reccomend win mobile to my enemy or someone who I want to punish.

 

[a5cent]

W10M has become as inefficient as Android used to be two or three years back. On the newest high-end hardware W10M is fine, but if you're the owner of a mid- or low range Lx30 device (or earlier), the experience is really not that enjoyable. I'd say even WP7 on a single core 1GHz device felt smoother and snappier then W10M does on my current device. WP7 even boot twice as fast. Only the speed at which apps are launched has remained the same... meaning it's been mediocre throughout... on any hardware.

In terms of UI I share Kram Sacul's opinion. MS removed everything that might seem foreign to iOS and Android users, irrespective of whether the fundamental UI concepts were good or bad. In comparison to Android or iOS, the UI concepts now differ only in terms of visual design (i.e. the coloring), which is the least important part of any UI. I consider the W10M UI a side-step at best, or a huge step backwards at worst. The UI now involves far more eye and finger movement, more tapping, and lacks consistency. On the plus side, information density has been raised dramatically, and thanks to all mobile OSes now supporting the same basic UI concepts, porting mobile apps between OSes is cheaper for developers.

In a perfect world, where porting costs and mass marketability didn't matter, MS would have preserved the original metro design principles, and rather than throwing the baby out with the bath water, improved upon and added to those principles, while also raising information density in the process. Alas, that is not to be.

I also experience weekly app and monthly OS crashes, and regular display flicker (looks like a display driver crash which the OS is able to recover from). On WP7 I experienced none of that, and on WP8 I only ever encountered the extremely infrequent app crash (never an OS crash), which IMHO is absolutely fine and tolerable.

I'm ambivalent about W10M. I really want to like it. I just can't. It's not just the performance and reliability issues I can't look past, but also that I no longer see enough originality and innovation in W10M to justify using it over one of the other two options (Cortana and everything linked to it is officially unavailable in my country and I have no use for Continuum).

 

[libra89]

W10M has become as inefficient as Android used to be two or three years back. On the newest high-end hardware W10M is fine, but if you're the owner of a mid- or low range Lx30 device (or earlier), the experience is really not that enjoyable. I'd say even WP7 on a single core 1GHz device felt smoother and snappier then W10M does on my current device. WP7 even boot twice as fast. Only the speed at which apps are launched has remained the same... meaning it's been mediocre throughout... on any hardware.

In terms of UI I share Kram Sacul's opinion. MS removed everything that might seem foreign to iOS and Android users, irrespective of whether the fundamental UI concepts were good or bad. In comparison to Android or iOS, the UI concepts now differ only in terms of visual design (i.e. the coloring), which is the least important part of any UI. I consider the W10M UI a side-step at best, or a huge step backwards at worst. The UI now involves far more eye and finger movement, more tapping, and lacks consistency. On the plus side, information density has been raised dramatically, and thanks to all mobile OSes now supporting the same basic UI concepts, porting mobile apps between OSes is cheaper for developers.

In a perfect world, where porting costs and mass marketability didn't matter, MS would have preserved the original metro design principles, and rather than throwing the baby out with the bath water, improved upon and added to those principles, while also raising information density in the process. Alas, that is not to be.

I also experience weekly app and monthly OS crashes, and regular display flicker (looks like a display driver crash which the OS is able to recover from). On WP7 I experienced none of that, and on WP8 I only ever encountered the extremely infrequent app crash (never an OS crash), which IMHO is absolutely fine and tolerable.

I'm ambivalent about W10M. I really want to like it. I just can't. It's not just the performance and reliability issues I can't look past, but also that I no longer see enough originality and innovation in W10M to justify using it over one of the other two options (Cortana and everything linked to it is officially unavailable in my country and I have no use for Continuum).

Yeah, you are only speaking truth.

I do agree about the hardware thing a lot and the difference between the two experiences. On my 640, the keyboard is laggy when I last tried it. On 8.1, it never felt that way. I thought that, and other things are just the way it is. Then I tried a 950, and the difference is major. Why should the difference be major though?

I think it's a hard place to be if you really like the platform, or should I say, the idea of the platform.

 

[Ma Rio]

I don't know guys, for me it's quite simple. Windows 10 is newer, thus is better. I mean, this is the age of progress, isn't it?
Everything in W10M is an upgraded version of what we had in 8.1, and only a few features were cut (some of which are comming back). I really can't believe so many of you are stil wanting 8.1 back. Yes, 10 is not perfect (though it's 95% there for me), but the advantages outweight the disadvantages without a doubt.
The same goes if you compare Win7 with Win10, yeah Win7 was good at it's time but it just doesn't stack up to Win10. What's even worse is that WP 8.1 wasn't good even at it's time. I mean think about it - how well could 8.1 compare to Android 4.x & iOS (whatever version was out at that time), and how well does W10M compare to the current versions of Android and iOS (let's say Android 5.0 and iOS 9)?
For me it's just a silly question.

 

[AJohnJexy]

Yeah I see what you're saying maybe you could this issue with updating windows 10 anniversary update.

 

[Nokia_Lumia]

I don't know guys, for me it's quite simple. Windows 10 is newer, thus is better. I mean, this is the age of progress, isn't it?
Everything in W10M is an upgraded version of what we had in 8.1, and only a few features were cut (some of which are comming back). I really can't believe so many of you are stil wanting 8.1 back. Yes, 10 is not perfect (though it's 95% there for me), but the advantages outweight the disadvantages without a doubt.
The same goes if you compare Win7 with Win10, yeah Win7 was good at it's time but it just doesn't stack up to Win10. What's even worse is that WP 8.1 wasn't good even at it's time. I mean think about it - how well could 8.1 compare to Android 4.x & iOS (whatever version was out at that time), and how well does W10M compare to the current versions of Android and iOS (let's say Android 5.0 and iOS 9)?
For me it's just a silly question.

8.1 compared quite well, actually. The excellent UI and smoothness/stability, on a choice of hardware, some of which was also differentiating (camera, glance, design+colors).

Newest is best? Tell that to the vast majority who never adopted Windows ME or Vista, and stayed on 2000/XP. You can see some of the features discussed above. As someone mentioned above - 10 is at most a side step, aimed to please potential iOS and Android users with a now worse, non-differentiating UI, decreased stability and smoothness. To top that off, Microsoft offerings for hardware to run Windows 10 are 950/950XL vs. previous 920/930/1520 - I think most will agree that the designs are...uninspiring to say the least. And now everyone has nearly caught up with cameras, glance, etc.

To sum that up? A buggy OS missing apps, on cheap looking hardware? Why would I ever sign up for this to become a beta tester, or recommend it to anyone else?

 

[Keith Wallace]

Day-to-day, it's whatever. I can't say there's a major improvement in W10M, but it's mostly similar, if you're not a heavy app user (which I'm not). The one major thing that I notice from 8.1 to 10 is that the new keyboard is a total turd. With 8.1 I struggled to get the words "definitely" and "probably" to work when swiping. Now, it seems like it struggles on every word shorter than 5 letters. It's infuriating to send messages with the swipe-based input now, to the point, I often find that my longer texts involve swiping 2-3 words, then tap-texting the rest as the keyboard throws a fit and refuses to properly enter a word like "could."