• Hey, guest user. Hope you're enjoying NeoGAF! Have you considered registering for an account? Come join us and add your take to the daily discourse.

Windows Phone 8.1 |OT| Update 1

hankster

Member
While I've been enjoying my iPhone 6S, I really miss the Windows Phone UI.

If only the apps were there.

Word. Been on 7+ for last few months and it has been fine. Apps glorious apps but the OS is so very so so. Contact management really terrible, something I took for granted on WP.

Have my brother on a 640 which he still loves and attempted to get him on 10 but could not get MMS working on Straight Talk so had to roll him back to 8. He liked what he saw and is thinking about switching to Cricket which I used with 10 with no issues on a 640 and a 950 so I'll get him back on there... 640 still an excellent little phone esp. for the money and still runs great with latest 10 build (I keep mine up to date to keep tabs).
 
As an Italian, I don't think the "HoloLens pose" will ever stop being funny to me.

C_hLUkSVYAAJJFX.jpg
 
A family member that isn't good with technology is in a tricky situation. They have a Lumia 830 that they have enjoyed using, like the layout, but it's become unbearably slow of late.

I'm not sure if I can recommend a Lumia 950. It's cheap enough, that's not the issue. The issues are whether WhatsApp will stick around, and whether Microsoft apps / the OS will continue to be developed. Of course no-one will have any inside track here, but from what you understand of the situation, are either at risk of ending any time soon?

It's this or an Alcatel Idol 4, most likely. This person only really uses a phone for browsing, texting, calling, email, WhatsApp, checking the weather and taking photos.
 

SCHUEY F1

Unconfirmed Member
Watching Google I/O, I continuously said the same thing to myself.

Microsoft fucking blows man

There was a lot of garbage in Google IO as well. Outside of the Google Assistant stuff and Google lens it was pretty boring/lame. Some of the YouTube stuff, yeeeeeshh
 

VanMardigan

has calmed down a bit.
I downloaded the Google assistant in iOS and...... Nothing. Doesn't seem materially different from the other personal assistants. I don't live in Google land, maybe that's why. I use Google for search and YouTube and that's it.
 
I downloaded the Google assistant in iOS and...... Nothing. Doesn't seem materially different from the other personal assistants. I don't live in Google land, maybe that's why. I use Google for search and YouTube and that's it.

Both Google Assistant and Cortana better on their own OS's and aren't as good as just apps on other OS's.
 

SCHUEY F1

Unconfirmed Member
The improvements to conversation and the Google Lens seemed pretty cool. I just wish these companies could roll out features more broadly.
 

BlackJace

Member
For WP10, has anyone noticed that scrolling and stuff on the Edge browser lags a lot as of late? Like, I'll do a quick scroll down and it's choppy as shit, but then it'll be smooth after a sec.

I'm using a Lumia 950.
 

BlackJace

Member
Yeah, I noticed that it happens if I have a lot of apps open. It's strange, cuz its never happened before. Maybe the 3GBs of RAM is started to show its age after all these updates, I dunno.
 

NeOak

Member
For WP10, has anyone noticed that scrolling and stuff on the Edge browser lags a lot as of late? Like, I'll do a quick scroll down and it's choppy as shit, but then it'll be smooth after a sec.

I'm using a Lumia 950.
Used to happen when certain ads came up on the screen
 

SCHUEY F1

Unconfirmed Member
Off topic a bit, but I started using Duolingo and its definitely a fun way to learn a language. Should be interesting to see how I progress over time.
 
Damn, my wife's 950 is going through frequent random reboots. I wonder if getting a new battery will help? Seems to not reboot when charging. I had to switch her to my spare 950xl. I really wanted her phone as a point and shoot. Hope I can fix it.
 
Sams report was really interesting this week regarding WP.

Did anyone catch it?

Yes, it's the same thing we've been hearing for a long time now.

MS and OEMs might build small tablets. Thanks to eSIM you might use any carrier you want.

Also, progressive web apps are going to save Windows from being obsolete in the mobile space.
 

hadareud

The Translator
It's the exact same phone but with pen support. I don't even see any software to take real advantage of the pen - what she did I can do with my finger. The phone itself is no better or worse than the one they released (I still think it was a perfectly fine phone if a bit boring).

If that's their vision for the Surface Phone they might as well not bother.

I strongly suspect it is not. Well, strongly hope. I don't need a pen with my phone. The only thing I use the pen on my surface for is as a mouse replacement when I can't be arsed to attach the keyboard - not really needed on a phone.
 

Paganmoon

Member
yeah, if that was the "surface phone", it's completely underwhelming. The video didn't show anything of the bezel touch feature either so.
 

dLMN8R

Member
Yeah that whole leaked "THIS IS WHAT THE 950 WAS SUPPOSED TO BE" video from Windows Central was confusing as all hell to me.

I mean, like, yeah? That video is nearly identical to what my wife has been using for the last 18 months, and she's pretty happy with the phone. Stylus support wouldn't have changed anything for it.

Seems like Windows Central and others are fawning over that 950 video because of the fancy advertisement production quality sheen they added on top of what the phone already does today and has done for the last 18 months.
 

Zeknurn

Member

Neowin has a bit more information
My understanding, from three separate sources, is that this new 'mobile experience' being tested isn't a new Windows 10 Mobile branch, but rather the 'full' Windows 10 OS with a UX scaled for mobile devices. These efforts are part of CSHELL, an 'adaptive shell' that can scale the entire Windows 10 OS for the type of device or display size on which they're running. CSHELL (an abbreviation of 'composable shell') will eliminate the need for the separate Windows 10 Mobile shell that is currently used on smartphones.


I'm in for another run too. This Lumia 920 is finally starting to show its age.
 
Neowin has a bit more information



I'm in for another run too. This Lumia 920 is finally starting to show its age.

That isn't exactly new either, the moment things started leaking for cshell and windows on arm it became clear that the goal was to have full windows on all devices with an adaptive UI.

I remember even talking about it, that this at least would be a reboot in hardware only, as the development platform and apps would all continue to work as is.
 
It's the exact same phone but with pen support. I don't even see any software to take real advantage of the pen - what she did I can do with my finger. The phone itself is no better or worse than the one they released (I still think it was a perfectly fine phone if a bit boring).

If that's their vision for the Surface Phone they might as well not bother.

I strongly suspect it is not. Well, strongly hope. I don't need a pen with my phone. The only thing I use the pen on my surface for is as a mouse replacement when I can't be arsed to attach the keyboard - not really needed on a phone.

Everything is pointing out to the Surface Phone being a complete 2:1 or even 3:1.

A phone that you can dock and become a desktop, and instead of just having a XL large phone another phone that you can unfold into a tablet and also dock into a desktop (with complete win32 support due to windows on arm).

BTW, I watched the Build session about windows in arm. Very impressive work they have done, despite being "emulator" win32 apps should run as if they were native or extremely close regarding performance. Essentially they use the same compatibility layer that allows win64 to run win32 apps, with a few extra tricks for performance.
 

Milchjon

Member
After about 4 months one the OnePlus 3T:

-Still missing the WP keyboard (used my mom's 640 a few days ago, the autocorrect, prediction and general layout still work much better for me).
-I still don't have a "Do Not Disturb" setting that works as well as the one on WP8.1 did.
-Battery seems to have taken a nosedive after only a few months.
-Contacts, OneNote and Calendar seem to have sync problems with my MS account (I guess that's not Android's fault per se), and I miss the FB calendar sync.

I guess a lot of that could possibly be fixed with some more fiddling, but meeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeh. It feels like my Lumias did a better job of not getting in my way at the basic task of managing my life.
 
Top Bottom