Is WM10 Insider Preview ok for daily use?

[Roni Hanninen]

I've been thinking about joining the Insider Program for Windows 10 Mobile to get my hands on W10M as soon as possible, but I'm worried about whether or not the Insider Preview is safe to use on my main device. I'm talking about data loss, stability issues, damage to my phone or such. So, is it a smart thing to do to install the Insider Preview on my main phone? It's a Lumia 930 if that makes any difference. Thanks!

 

[trivishal]

Nope. Insider preview builds are not stable, voids your phone warranty, may result in permanent damage of your phone, it's upto you to take risk. Not always there to result your phone damaged, data loss and unstable, but not intended for daily driver Phone. Anyway, Lumia 930 is going to get Windows 10 Mobile in Windows 10 mobile 1st wave update( Around Late January-Early February)

 

[Pete]

Yes, it is.

Many people have been using the preview on their primary device for many months now.

However, this is preview software and it's possible that some functionality doesn't work as expected. Having said that, peoples perception of small issues differ greatly (some people don't mind the odd glitch, some people find them inacceptable).

It's really up to you to see if it's good enough for you or not - it's a pretty painless matter to go back to Windows Phone 8.1 if you want to.

 

[Pete]

Nope. Insider preview builds are not stable, voids your phone warranty, may result in permanent damage of your phone

It doesn't void your warranty
It won't cause permanent damage to your phone.

 

[Roni Hanninen]

Is there any risk of losing data when rolling back to Windows Phone 8.1 if I were to encounter some issues with W10M?

 

[speccy]

I run it on my L930, and it's fine. There are a couple of niggles still (nothing show stopping), but it works and overall is an improvement over 8.1 You are very unlikely to do any damage that can't be undone (by reverting back to 8.1) which is pretty easy to do (but it's unlikely you would need to anyway). I would suggest you go for it, but after installing, do a hard reset, this will ensure that you have a clean slate to start with and will provide the best experience. Be prepared for it to download a lot of updates after it's first installed and so it will get warm and run the battery down quite quickly for a couple of hours, but once the updates are done it will settle down and should give similar battery life to 8.1 (at least that has been my observation).

The hard reset is critical for it to function properly, so don't skip this step.

What data are you concerned about specifically? There are ways to back up various things, but obviously a hard reset will wipe the phone, so if you have anything critical, you should ensure and double-check you have it backed up before proceeding. The things that spring to mind are text messages, emails, photos etc. If you have a Microsoft account, you should enable backups to your OneDrive account if you haven't already.

 

[Roni Hanninen]

I do have a Microsoft account, and backing up to OneDrive is enabled, but I can't back up larger files such as videos this way, since they can only be backed up through Wi-Fi, if I'm not mistaken, and I don't have access to Wi-Fi. Of course, I can just move them to my computer with a USB cable, but what about things like settings and games? How do I back up those?

 

[Roni Hanninen]

Never mind, I didn't remember that settings and apps are also backed up automatically, but how do I bring my data back after the W10M installation?

 

[speccy]

I would install everything from scratch, but some games may well not remember your progress, if this is important to you, then may be you should hold off until it's officially released (but even then a hard reset may still be necessary, and you may not be any better off). Things like Alphajax are fine, it picks up any games in progress and syncs them just fine on a fresh installation, but others may not. You may be able to restore a Win8.1 backup to Win10M (I think I did do this on an early build of W10M), but you should ask someone more knowledgeable than I on this point.

 

[Roni Hanninen]

The games and whatnot aren't that important, I was just wondering, but I want to make sure I understood you right. So, after the installation, should l wait until the updates are installed or just do a hard reset right after the phone boots up?

 

[speccy]

I would do it straight away, otherwise you'll have to download all the updates twice which is pointless and very time consuming. So, basically don't even bother setting up your account on the phone, just do a hard reset as soon as it lets you in, then when that's complete (will take a little while), carry on from there.

Good luck, though I'm sure you'll be fine. The things that bug me most about Win10M is that the keyboard seems to pop up sometimes when it ought not to, and the Outlook Mail app is quite a bit slower when sending/receiving attachments. Aside from that, it's pretty solid, doesn't crash or reboot spontaneously, and so is totally usable as your daily driver. Have fun.

 

[Roni Hanninen]

Okay, I think I'll give it a go. Thanks for all the info, it was really helpful!

 

[speccy]

Let us know how you get on.

 

[Captain_Eric]

I'd wait for "production build" of W10M. It should be out "soon." Yes, the "Insider" builds are stable, but some users, including me on my 1520.3, gained a firmware update when they rolled back to 8.1. Why rush it? "Soon."

 

[purefire21]

Just do it, I used every build and 1520

 

[alejandro plata]

When is the official release for the old lumias?

 

[speccy]

The way I see it currently is that the Insider build is 99.9% the same as what's being sold on retail units, with the added bonus that as new features or improvements are made, Insiders get it before everyone else. It's definitely stable and works fine.

 

[Roni Hanninen]

Alright! I've got it up and running, and there were no issues with the installation. Even the minor problems I had initially (such as not being able to connect to a PC via USB) were fixed after the remaining updates had finished downloading. I'm loving it so far, but unfortunately, the game data is gone. Although, just like I said before, it's not really that big of a deal. Thanks again for all the assistance!

 

[speccy]

Glad you got it done, the process is not all that scary really is it, and of course you can still go back to 8.1 later if you need to.

 

[anon(3463402)]

It IS perfectly safe to use. I like it and I would never go back to 8.1.