Cortana alpha(india) vs cortana beta (us): What are the differences?

[Abhishek Gupta1689]

My Question is fairly simple..
What are the differences between Cortana Alpha(india) vs cortana beta (US) ???

What is not working in cortana alpha? please give detail about the features. I know alpha version has difficulty in discerning voice, but where does it lack in features? Can it still answer funny questions ? does the remind thing work? If all this works, what does it lack in ??

I am going to buy the ALL NEW LUMIA 730. So I was confused to use cortana alpha(already there) or the cortana beta US (have to tweak it) ??
Please help

 

[Ashish Gupta888]

Alpha can't sing songs for you..

Alpha can't let you make decisions by flipping/tossing virtual coins.

Alpha can't provide you nearby hotels/cuisine.

Alpha does not have more number of interests as compared to Beta.



Now I observed following Pros:

Alpha offers all basic Cortana features like Quiet Hours, Reminders, Interests.

Alpha offers news/temperature details based on your locale.



Summary: Its in Alpha so we can expect some features not to be there but it almost performs like Beta. I am using Alpha for past few weeks.



And, yeah..it responds with witty answers too

 

[Abhishek Gupta1689]

1)Is the alpha cortana for india anything specific to india, or is this alpha version same for australia and other countries which are allowed to use alpha??

becoz if it is specific to india, and it cannot give hotels/cuisine, then whats the specific indian use ?

2) if I use the US beta cortana, what are the demerits of it for an indian user ?? pls give details ( and i appreciate ur detailed answer above)

 

[Ashish Gupta888]

Reason for not providing details related to nearby hotels is foursquare. Cortana beta provides this because it uses foursquare in its beta version. We may get beta version in GDR-2 but that's only reason I can figure out for not showing nearby hotels.
You can get news related to India for now.

One demerit of US beta I noticed is number format changes when you make calls (US specific) and do not make any call using toll free number specific to US because it will cost you
US beta wont provide you local news.
US beta will provide you local temp in Fahrenheit by default

 

[Abhishek Gupta1689]

ThankYou for your answer..
one more thing, i wil buy a memory card for lumia 730..
DO the Micro SDHC cards work in its MicroSD slot ??

 

[astondg]

I was on the US Beta originally, then switched to the Australian Alpha (not sure how it compares to the version in India) and finally I have moved back to the US Beta. The Australian Alpha was a waste of time in my opinion. Yes it had quiet hours, reminders & drive info to work, those are definitely useful, and temperature was in Celsius which was great, but everything else was almost non-existent. Most requests were sent directly to a Bing search and Interests were limited to a small selection of news headlines and the current weather.

Now that I'm back on the US Beta I have nearby places to check out (from Foursquare), weekend meal recommendations (lunch, dinner, etc.), Many more news types to subscribe to, sports updates, stock tracking, public transport directions & reminders to & from work (Alpha only has driving), many more requests return with info 'cards' rather than Bing searches, etc. And all of this seems to work perfectly in Australia right now.

I don't know if it's the same situation in India but I would definitely try out the US beta version.

 

[Abhishek Gupta1689]

Thank You for your reply
Wow all these features work specific to your region, thats good to know... Will definitely try

 

[SumairB]

Thank You for your reply
Wow all these features work specific to your region, thats good to know... Will definitely try

Actually, these features work for me in India as well, so I guess Alpha is the same for India, Australia and Canada, as well as other regions which have alpha.