Windows 10 Mobile thoughts
I've been using the preview build of Windows 10 for phones off and on for a while now on my Lumia 1020. Recently came into possession of an HTC One M8 for Windows and the effect has been one of causing me to re-evaluate a number of things.
Firstly, the major difference between these two phones is the power of the GPU and the M8 is both faster and has more cores than the 1020. Otherwise, they both sport the same amount of RAM and I don't believe the internal storage speed really factors into the equation.
The experience difference on Windows 10 between the two is night and day. On the Lumia, with the latest build, things are tolerable. More often than not (by just a thin margin) things aren't lagging, load times are slow and apps frequently crash. The HTC on the other hand has a few places where there is consistently an almost imperceptible stutter (could actually be by design) and otherwise runs buttery smooth almost everywhere and apps almost never crash.
Basically, while it may look a lot like Windows Phone 8 on the surface, with some aging hardware it quickly becomes apparent that this isn't the same OS under the hoods at all. This is somewhat bad news for Microsoft I imagine. In my mind it feels like Windows 10 Mobile is, performance-wise, near or perhaps even behind where Android is/was.
Android wasn't originally built to be a touch based OS, and so it suffered greatly from poor design decisions and didn't really reach a point where the system ran consistently smoothly until quad-cores in the 1.6GHz+ range hit the scene. And, whether the reasons are the same or not, it looks like Windows 10 on phones has similar issues. By contrast, the chipset in the 1020 was overkill for day to day use in WP8.
This might not be a huge deal, but most of their phone sales are budget devices and I'm not sure if many of even their most recent offerings could even run the OS at an acceptable level (as it is today [accepting major improvements could still be in the pipeline]).
Another intriguing fact is: if someone were to ask me which Windows Phone to buy if they couldn't wait until Windows 10... there are VERY few options, as I would want to recommend one I would be reasonably sure would be able to run Windows 10 well (even if you can't wait it out, no reason to get a phone that will be truly obsolete in short order). I only see 3 viable options and all of them are now "older models". The HTC One M8 and from the Lumia lineup the 1520 and the Icon/930. On ebay all seem to be going for about the same $275-400CAD. It's just weird though, on specs alone I can't recommend a single phone released in the last year or so. The closest would be the 830, but they cheaped out on the one component that seems to matter most; the SoC... in other words, it has both a weak GPU and CPU.
The other thing it makes me want to say that is unusual for me is; I think they seriously need to trim down the list of supported devices. Probably not super pertinent. Many of these phones are already old enough that carriers won't be passing on updates anyway, and if the state of things doesn't improve I don't see Microsoft making any attempt to force them to update. But, there will definitely be a contingent of 640 and 640XL users for example along with a number of other more recent models that might be ticked to be left out. But I honestly think it would be for the best. Or perhaps allow the upgrade but with a ton of warnings.
The last thing I want to bring up is, using this new phone, I now have serious bias against a number of the moves Microsoft made to make the platform more accessible. And I really have to say that iPhone and Android users who disagree with this are flat out wrong.
Dedicated buttons are good. In moderation. If I had to point out 2 drawbacks to the M8 vs. the 1020, the first would be the camera (obviously) and the second would be the buttons. I've thrown the camera button on my quick actions so I can access it from the lock screen, but not being able to start by pressing the camera button while it is in my pocket or while the screen is off has seriously hampered its usefulness. Even having that feature didn't always stop you from missing that quick shot you wanted. Taking away the physical button just takes from less than ideal to utterly terrible.
Similarly, missing dedicated touch buttons for back, home and search. I'm much happier to give up an inch of my display to have those buttons consistently there then I am to allow developers to decide when I need go out of my way to get access to them.
Odd eh? Outside of the camera, my only two gripes regarding the new phone would exist no matter which of the big 2 platforms I went to if I chose to switch. And I have never switched. Also odd... Apple is basically going out of its way to re-invent buttons without actually adding hardware buttons back. That is effectively what 3D touch and force touch are. And while I think they are interesting concepts, they still aren't a replacement or even in most a ways, an improvement over hardware buttons. Hardware buttons, used sparingly and appropriately offer benefits context sensitive actions on a uniform surface can never hope to achieve.
And what drives this point home is the fact that NO successful phone has EVER successfully eradicated all hardware buttons. Even the iPhone has a volume rocker (not sure why this deserves a special exception while the camera doesn't), a power button and a home button of sorts. If there was anything conceptually "wrong" with hardware buttons, we would have had devices without them ages ago. We don't have such phones because we don't have a technology capable of replacing them yet. BUT, we seem hell bent on trying anyway, to the detriment of user experience.
Go read any review by a person switching from a phone with a dedicated camera button to one without. You won't find a single person who agrees it is an improvement. Or you'll at least be hard pressed to find such a person.
And... I'll end there, the last few paragraphs have little to do with Windows 10 specifically. Mobile or otherwise, which says it is time to move on and end this.
Firstly, the major difference between these two phones is the power of the GPU and the M8 is both faster and has more cores than the 1020. Otherwise, they both sport the same amount of RAM and I don't believe the internal storage speed really factors into the equation.
The experience difference on Windows 10 between the two is night and day. On the Lumia, with the latest build, things are tolerable. More often than not (by just a thin margin) things aren't lagging, load times are slow and apps frequently crash. The HTC on the other hand has a few places where there is consistently an almost imperceptible stutter (could actually be by design) and otherwise runs buttery smooth almost everywhere and apps almost never crash.
Basically, while it may look a lot like Windows Phone 8 on the surface, with some aging hardware it quickly becomes apparent that this isn't the same OS under the hoods at all. This is somewhat bad news for Microsoft I imagine. In my mind it feels like Windows 10 Mobile is, performance-wise, near or perhaps even behind where Android is/was.
Android wasn't originally built to be a touch based OS, and so it suffered greatly from poor design decisions and didn't really reach a point where the system ran consistently smoothly until quad-cores in the 1.6GHz+ range hit the scene. And, whether the reasons are the same or not, it looks like Windows 10 on phones has similar issues. By contrast, the chipset in the 1020 was overkill for day to day use in WP8.
This might not be a huge deal, but most of their phone sales are budget devices and I'm not sure if many of even their most recent offerings could even run the OS at an acceptable level (as it is today [accepting major improvements could still be in the pipeline]).
Another intriguing fact is: if someone were to ask me which Windows Phone to buy if they couldn't wait until Windows 10... there are VERY few options, as I would want to recommend one I would be reasonably sure would be able to run Windows 10 well (even if you can't wait it out, no reason to get a phone that will be truly obsolete in short order). I only see 3 viable options and all of them are now "older models". The HTC One M8 and from the Lumia lineup the 1520 and the Icon/930. On ebay all seem to be going for about the same $275-400CAD. It's just weird though, on specs alone I can't recommend a single phone released in the last year or so. The closest would be the 830, but they cheaped out on the one component that seems to matter most; the SoC... in other words, it has both a weak GPU and CPU.
The other thing it makes me want to say that is unusual for me is; I think they seriously need to trim down the list of supported devices. Probably not super pertinent. Many of these phones are already old enough that carriers won't be passing on updates anyway, and if the state of things doesn't improve I don't see Microsoft making any attempt to force them to update. But, there will definitely be a contingent of 640 and 640XL users for example along with a number of other more recent models that might be ticked to be left out. But I honestly think it would be for the best. Or perhaps allow the upgrade but with a ton of warnings.
The last thing I want to bring up is, using this new phone, I now have serious bias against a number of the moves Microsoft made to make the platform more accessible. And I really have to say that iPhone and Android users who disagree with this are flat out wrong.
Dedicated buttons are good. In moderation. If I had to point out 2 drawbacks to the M8 vs. the 1020, the first would be the camera (obviously) and the second would be the buttons. I've thrown the camera button on my quick actions so I can access it from the lock screen, but not being able to start by pressing the camera button while it is in my pocket or while the screen is off has seriously hampered its usefulness. Even having that feature didn't always stop you from missing that quick shot you wanted. Taking away the physical button just takes from less than ideal to utterly terrible.
Similarly, missing dedicated touch buttons for back, home and search. I'm much happier to give up an inch of my display to have those buttons consistently there then I am to allow developers to decide when I need go out of my way to get access to them.
Odd eh? Outside of the camera, my only two gripes regarding the new phone would exist no matter which of the big 2 platforms I went to if I chose to switch. And I have never switched. Also odd... Apple is basically going out of its way to re-invent buttons without actually adding hardware buttons back. That is effectively what 3D touch and force touch are. And while I think they are interesting concepts, they still aren't a replacement or even in most a ways, an improvement over hardware buttons. Hardware buttons, used sparingly and appropriately offer benefits context sensitive actions on a uniform surface can never hope to achieve.
And what drives this point home is the fact that NO successful phone has EVER successfully eradicated all hardware buttons. Even the iPhone has a volume rocker (not sure why this deserves a special exception while the camera doesn't), a power button and a home button of sorts. If there was anything conceptually "wrong" with hardware buttons, we would have had devices without them ages ago. We don't have such phones because we don't have a technology capable of replacing them yet. BUT, we seem hell bent on trying anyway, to the detriment of user experience.
Go read any review by a person switching from a phone with a dedicated camera button to one without. You won't find a single person who agrees it is an improvement. Or you'll at least be hard pressed to find such a person.
And... I'll end there, the last few paragraphs have little to do with Windows 10 specifically. Mobile or otherwise, which says it is time to move on and end this.
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