Is it time to start using a Windows Phone?

I currently use a Nokia Lumia 930 (Hong Kong version, imported to India, as seen
in the



picture above) and also an HTC One M8. I've used a Lumia 520 and a Sony Xperia C3 before.

I'll try not to be biased and will be honest on my opinion on Windows Phone experience I had ever since I got one.

PART 1: WHAT I LOVE ABOUT WINDOWS PHONE?

LIVE TILES!

Yes, this is one big of a reason for one to make a switch. It got me buy my first WP, a white Lumia 520. I was bored of icons. Widgets? They ain't really my things. It makes the overall UI clumsy and inconsistent to me (I hate the resource hungriness of widgets too). 

On Live Tiles, you get information like Texts, Mails, News, Weather, Sports info, Games scores, and about everything that a rectangular/square box can provide you on your start screen with updated pictures and texts. 

And, there's a bonus: Almost 80% of all the apps support live tiles. This is something you can't find on Android or iOS, obviously.

With Windows 10 Mobile launching somewhere in late November/December, Live Tiles are rumored to have "Interaction" and they'll be called "Interactive Live Tiles" or "Exploding Live Tiles", meaning, you can control specific tasks of the apps without opening them. 

CORTANA AND "HEY CORTANA!"

Microsoft's digital voice assistant who's also available on Windows 10 PC and Android. It's a well known fact that Cortana excels herself in many key areas over Siri on iOS and Google Now on Android. 

Starting from weather to news updates, she can sing for you, tell you a joke, give you an "impression", email someone on your request, call someone, make you time / location based reminders. Well, it has both the qualities of Google Now and Siri combined with her own uniqueness. 

And.... the best part is, many developers have integrated Cortana with their apps! For example, say there's a music player named music X match. With "Hey Cortana" enabled on your phone, you can have your phone placed on a table and say "Hey Cortana, open music X match and play song "All Of Me" or "play my favorite playlist" or "play songs by Coldplay". Gues what happens next? You're right, your phone is playing the song the next second for you. While Cortana is SOON coming to Android and iOS, Hey Cortana is a Windows Phone exclusive feature and is expected to remain so in the future. Besides, Android/iOS won't have deeper Cortana integration with apps. Cortana also has a "Notebook" where she can learn more and more about you (from your activities on all Windows devices) to give you the best experience across all your devices.


ARE YOU AN XBOX GAMER? WELCOME TO THE PARTY!

While Windows phone is still struggling to get big name games like Clash of Clans and Candy Crush Soda Saga (Update: Now available!), Microsoft has got some cool stuff for the gamers to stick around with.  Windows Store got a big lot of Xbox games with achievements to compete with your friends, and it's even more fun if you happen to own an Xbox console where it can help you add up to your "Achievements".

BEAUTIFUL AND FLUID UI: IS WINDOWS PHONE REALLY THAT DIFFICULT TO LEARN AS PEOPLE SAY IT IS?

It's a fact that many new Windows phone users find the UI "confusing" in the beginning. But soon within a week or so, they fall in love with it's simplicity. It's pretty much straightforward. In fact, I find it much simpler than Android and more on par with iOS. Multi tasking manager has a same UI as iOS, same for notifications.

There's a guy in my college who earlier had a Micromax Canvas Doodle 3 and then bought a MS Lumia 640 a few days back (An impression of it's camera made him do so). Unfortunately, after a month of using it, he lost it in Delhi Metro while traveling. He loved the phone so much that he sold his Doodle 3 to get some money back and bought up another one!

WINDOWS PHONE IS FAST AND FLUID

Windows phone is really fluid to operate. It's hard to notice a lag or app crash no matter what you're doing. 

I currently have about 60 apps installed on my Lumia 930 (with 6-7 heavy gaames) and about 150 apps on my Lumia 520 (reason for this higher number being that my sister uses a lot of photo editors and tools on my 520 whenever she has a chance) and I'm yet to see any performance issue on either of them. If you're running a lot of apps in the background, you can permanently disable some of them from running at all through the phone settings. And no, unlike Android, it won't auto run on phone restart. Forget Greenify! :P

What about gaming performance? I was pleasantly surprised when I got my old Lumia 520 (512mb ram, dual core) run Asphalt 8 without a single lag. Same is not true for Android. On Android, you need a GB of ram phone or maybe higher to achieve that performance. You can Google to know how RAM is allocated differently on Android and WP which makes for efficient memory management on WP.

CAMERA: BEST FOR PHOTOGRAPHY FREAKS

Lumia 1020 is currently the best camera phone available in the market that you can buy, with Nokia's 41 MP Carl Zeiss PureView technology, nothing comes even closer. When it comes to photography, my Lumia 930's 20 MP camera is still a beast for me, both in low-light photography and in daylight. 
.....
There are many more aspects where Windows phone excels itself like Universal Store, upcoming Continuum feature, Windows Hello (using Iris Scanner), real-time integration with your Windows PC etc, but I think I've done the main points already :)

PART 2: WHAT I HATE ABOUT WINDOWS PHONE?

LIMITED APPS

Yes, you heard it. Many official apps are making it's way to WP almost everyday but it's a big downer for those who completely rely on official apps for Google services. There are no official Google apps except "Google search". For YouTube, there are plenty of third party choices like MetroTube, Tubecast and myTube. Some of which work way better than YouTube on my M8! But I can't say the same for other Google apps.

Secondly, there are still plenty of popular apps missing, like Snapchat and two popular American bank apps recently got delisted from the store. Chase Mobile and Bank of America, if I recall correctly. I'm not sure of the reason of pulling them off, though. 

Make sure to do a quick search of all your favorite apps in the store (@https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/...) before making a switch. You don't want to miss on the apps that keeps you updated!

WINDOWS PHONE IS NOT FOR CUSTOMIZATION

Now this is something I don't really hate but many of you may do. Windows phone is barely customizable when compared to Android. 

While I can decorate my One M8 home screen the way I want, this isn't entirely true for Windows phone. On Windows Phone, you can only change your background image behind the live tiles, re-size tiles and choose theme colors, named "Accents", that is. 
If you like to use your device pretty straightforward, then you don't need to bother this at all.

WINDOWS PHONE IS NOT 'OPEN'

It's a rather closed-system. If you happen to switch from Android to WP, you may find WP very strict. It's as strict as you can't even choose your favorite song as ringtone without downloading a third party app. It's worth mentioning that native MKV file support came 2-3 months ago that's been there on Android for a long time. Microsoft says they maintain the limitation to secure the system (Fun fact: there's no need of Anti-viruses for WP and there ain't any in the store either!)

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Despite having all it's downsides, I really love Windows phone for what it offers over the other platforms. The hardware, fluid OS, amazing camera, legendary build quality just outweighs all the negatives. 

Yes, people did oppose me from getting a WP instead of the most popular Android. But hey, sometimes you really need to try something new to know if it really suits you. I tried Windows phone just to satisfy my curiosity and surprisingly, it served me really well and I love it!

And if you're wondering whether this is the right time to get one or not, I don't think there is any better time.

Official Windows 10 Mobile update is due in December. But, if you happen to be one impatient geek like me, you can go ahead and sign up for Windows 10 Mobile Insider Preview (meant for testers/developers) and get an early taste of the OS!