[Nokia_Lumia]

Former 928 user and 735 user on 8.1. Both phones shattered, unfortunately, and I picked up a used Icon for cheap.

I have been running the official Windows 10 Mobile Verizon release for the Icon. Even starting from a hard reset, everything just seems...slower. Miss WhatsApp notifications and the app takes a solid 10 seconds to open, photos randomly appear and disappear, phone gets hot and battery life is not great to say the least. WinMobile 10 is clunky. I miss Here Maps and Here Transit apps. I miss having AmazingWeather on my lockscreen, and I miss the fluid navigation.

I could probably go back to 8.1 on the Icon, but am considering picking up a 928 because I miss glance, and excellent low-light photos. Any users still rocking the beloved 928 on 8.1 out there?

[anthonyng]

@Nokia_Lumia are you able to get onto the insider windows 10? What version of windows 10 are you on?

Verizon windows 10 sounds probably old and I would try to get it onto insider slow ring if it can get to the creators update.

[Nokia_Lumia]

@Nokia_Lumia are you able to get onto the insider windows 10? What version of windows 10 are you on?

Verizon windows 10 sounds probably old and I would try to get it onto insider slow ring if it can get to the creators update.

I won't go back to a half baked beta OS Win10 Mobile, especially on the "insider" route. I tried the Win10 production and insider builds for a few months, and was completely disappointed. Slower, clunky, inconsistent, half baked compared to 8.1. I flashed the Icon with 8.1, and am so much happier now. It's great - stable, fast, fluid, beautiful, consistent UI, better quality camera performance. I just put a skinomi tech skin on it, and an orange back. I will be rocking this thing for a while longer, and am completely happy. The only things I miss from 928 are glance and superb low light photos.

[anthonyng]

@Nokia_Lumia at what point were you on? TH1 & TH2 were definitely meh, Anniversary was much better and creators is now quite snappy. That's just my opinion.

[Nokia_Lumia]

Latest production version available officially, and then tried 15063.2 on slow ring. I understand that as far as Win10 Mobile goes, things got better. Compared to 8.1 though, there is no contest. Apps open faster, there are less "resuming" and "loading" screens, animation transition to the start screen is fast and fluid, photo and video quality is better - I was disappointed with both on 10, in addition to the "enhancements" the photo app was making before saving. Messaging app doesn't "resume" - it opens quickly, WhatsApp notifications actually come through. I can reliably have weather on my lock screen again, I have my HERE Maps and Transit (15063.2, don't know what happened to the maps there, but the low resolution and bing-2010 style rendering was really ******* me off).

I did a clean install of Win10 too, and have given it a fair shot, for a few months. Overall, lags here and there, inconsistent UI with hamburger menus, lagging WCentral App, smaller fonts, no gaps on start screen tiles. What did I get for a benefit on WinMobile 10? More advanced mail client, maybe my banking app, and that I can access from the website - yes, clunkier, but not a major issue. UWP apps nowhere to be seen, but I have all I need with Appy Weather, HERE suite, Audible, Pandora, Skype, WhatsApp, MyTube, and excellent camera quality again. I'm happy!

[anthonyng]

I said bye to 8.1 pretty quick with pretty much the first version of Edge. It was a much better browsing experience that any trouble I had on w10m was worth it. Camera I think is pretty ok now. My 930 looks pretty vibrant and nice I think. I never felt that great about my 930 camera from my 920. I know it was more vibrant a camera but low light ability disappointed me.

Whatsapp notifications are reliable for a long time now for me, though I did get unexplained trouble for a few days (a few instances over the past year) where non uwp notifications were not working. Needed a battery pull to really fix it.

Windows Maps, transit actually works well for me in Vancouver BC, I'm not a transit user so having it actually give me the right bus is good :) I find I can rely on windows maps for navigation too.

Smaller fonts can be adjusted you know right? I do like 200% for my mom and mom in law lol.

Yea even for w10m annoyances, I can't go back to 8/8.1

For fun I have a (from top to bottom) 950, 930 & 920 all on CU update using camera app taking a pic of my 950XL displaying a flower and some random junk.



here's the flower pic taken from the 950XL

[Nokia_Lumia]

Thank you for your thorough response.

1) edge is more capable, for the most part (though there are instances where IE is better). IE is capable enough for me - the main issue I was having on my Lumia 928 and 735 was crashing of the browser. Appears to not be an issue on the Icon - processor and 2GB RAM may be helpful?

2) Camera quality is significantly better on 8.1, I'm not sure if it is the app, the algorithms, or the photos app applying "enhancements" while saving, always making the image worse on Win10. I'm actually very happy with the Icon camera now. I do think the 928 is better for low light, but the Icon does not do poorly on 8.1

3) Again, not sure what happened to the Windows maps on the latest build, and the crappy rendering. But the HERE suite is far superior for transit.

4) WhatsApp was still not as reliable. Again, not sure what the issue was, it was a clean install.

5) agreed about the fonts. Is it an 8.1 "bold" font that I like - just a personal preference.

6) there is one more huge improvement on 8.1 - the phone gets less hot during operation, charges much faster on the Nokia wireless charger, and the battery life is much improved. All are fairly noticeable.