We need a Windows Phone Experience Index!

[Kevin N Smith]

Instead of having customers guessing about how powerful their new Windows Phone is, or how it compares to their friends, or even why their phone is running slow, Microsoft should release a Windows Phone experience index, similar to the one in W7 and W8.

It would work like this:
The user goes into settings, and opens the Experience Index setting. Then, a number from 1-10 is generated by calculating the amount of space remaining on the phone, apps installed, RAM, phone brand (If Nokia exclusives aren't available, for example, the experience index might be lowered), processor, among other things. Then, there are options for the user to take action on detected issues and have the phone fix them for you, or if it's something that the user needs to fix (Such as the phone being out of date), it directs the user to where the phone update screen is.

I have already created some UI mockups in Visual Studio (I might turn this into an app if MS never does this, or there is enough interest generated in this post)

 

[Laura Knotek]

That looks like it might be useful for someone who is purchasing a new Windows Phone but isn't sure which model to get. I could see it being good for people who are shopping.

I wonder how many people ever used the Windows experience in desktop Win7/Win8, though.

 

[Kevin N Smith]

I always have while buying a new PC, after looking at ram/hdd/etc its a good way to rate the overall PC's performance.

 

[Laura Knotek]

I always have while buying a new PC, after looking at ram/hdd/etc its a good way to rate the overall PC's performance.

I think it would be even more useful if OEMs included this on their websites, so people could compare various Windows experiences when configuring hardware options online. It's pretty useless once the PC arrives at the door when ordered online, but it would be very helpful if it could be seen online prior to configuring/ordering/purchasing the PC.

 

[Kevin N Smith]

I never buy PCs online, I feel like for any 400 or over purchase I like to see what I'm buying.

 

[ttsoldier]

Experience index is not something I will be interested in. This just turns into a specs war and everyone will want the phone with the higher score, yet the performance is the same. Specs/stats are irrelevant to me with Windows phone 8. The beauty about it is that it works.

The WEI on the desktop is also irrelevant to make and does not make sense. Again, this is for people who want bragging rights . Real life performance is not based on the score.

 

[xandros9]

since it's EXPERIENCE index - we're going to just see 10/10's and 9/10's for the 512 MB'ers I would think.

 

[eric12341]

Well considering that this is going away in W8.1 I highly doubt it will be implemented in WP.

 

[inteller]

how would you detect all of these features though? These are subjective things that require constant app updates to be relevant. It isn't like you can just detect the specs and generate a score.

 

[TheJoester09]

That looks like it might be useful for someone who is purchasing a new Windows Phone but isn't sure which model to get. I could see it being good for people who are shopping.

I wonder how many people ever used the Windows experience in desktop Win7/Win8, though.

I tried checking out the Windows Experience Index on a few PCs at Best Buy that I was considering, but it requires Administrator priveleges so I was locked out of it! How useless!

Also, like someone else already said, this WEI is going away in 8.1, so I doubt they'll be bringing it to WP. Interesting idea though.

 

[Kevin N Smith]

Since it's going away in 8.1, I did a little work on an app, should be out in 1-2 weeks once I add support for Nokia hardware (Supports HTC/Samsung as of now)
UI:

 

[MikeSo]

Well considering that this is going away in W8.1 I highly doubt it will be implemented in WP.

Beat me to it.

 

[qudahamohammad]

this kind of index would significantly decrease sales in HTC, Samsung and Huawei Windows Phone devices due to the lack of Nokia exclusive applications on other devices. It would be really stop for Microsoft to do this move.

 

[ShocWave]

I don't believe you should mention any carriers, brands, brand exclusive applications, or features in your experience index. There is far too much room for bias.

The red dots you have in your first screenshots are clearly biased towards Nokia.
If you're going to be throwing those in there, you might as well give all Nokia flagship devices red dots for not having a removable battery.

The index should be 100% specs, like the Windows Experience Index.

Processor clock speed, gpu speed, RAM speed, flash memory read/write speed, etc...

 

[Kevin N Smith]

I don't believe you should mention any carriers, brands, brand exclusive applications, or features in your experience index. There is far too much room for bias.

The red dots you have in your first screenshots are clearly biased towards Nokia.
If you're going to be throwing those in there, you might as well give all Nokia flagship devices red dots for not having a removable battery.

The index should be 100% specs, like the Windows Experience Index.

Processor clock speed, gpu speed, RAM speed, flash memory read/write speed, etc...

That's true, I could basically make an app like WPBench (For testing graphics, it just overloads the screen with polygons) so I am just testing the specs, nothing else.