Reg writer Richard went to the cupboard, seeking a Windows Phone... Microsoft's US store appeared to have finally sold out of the Seattle software maker's relatively unloved mobile phone last week, but Redmond may yet find a few more hidden behind the sofa. The remaining two devices, an HP Elite x3 and Alcatel IDOL 4S, had been on sale for prices that would have set the teeth grinding of users …
I still have a windows phone (my 6th, currently on a lumia 640 after an 820, an HTC mozart7 and a bunch of Orange SPVs. I even tried a samsung ativ S but the RAM...) and I'm genuinely concerned about only having two choices of phone (iOS and Android), and the massive cost of ownership, in the near future.
My plan is to buy up a bunch of 640XLs (or 950 XLs) cheap and then run them into the ground, and yes, the price of the Elite X3 put me right off.
I'm using a 625 as a mini tablet/email/camera, no sim card, just on the Wifi whenever I can pick up a connection, no interest in owning an actual phone. Like you concerned about going to iOS or Android, I am starting to see a few of the apps I use stop working, notably IMDB, but Twitter, the browser and Cortana still work fine, I would like a 950 for the better camera and something that doesn't crash back to the desktop when I go to a media heavy website, but I got the device for nothing, only bought a case, screen protector and a copy of Monument Valley, its done me very well.
> I would like a 950 for the better camera and something that doesn't crash back to the desktop when I go to a media heavy website
I picked up a second-hand 950 on eBay for £70 to replace my son's Lumia 920 (still working but Win8).
It works well, still in super condition - must have gotten a new back or had a case because it was spotless.
Tempted to buy another but mine still works perfectly after nearly 3 years - and co-incidentally has a nice new back - so I will probably just keep it until it has zero support and zero Apps.
And Edge works juts fine on the Lumia, the Office Apps manage to have all the menus albeit pushed into flyouts etc. It is amazing to be able to have 'full function' Office Apps, especially for free.
My last phone was a 950Xl till I lost it somewhere, loved it, especially the camera.
The insurance was fun. The told me, (verbatim) "You get an S7 Edge"
Me: "But that's a different operation system."
Insurance: "...it's a Samsung?"
At which point I shrugged, accepted that my fate had apps in it now, and went with it.
I use a Lumia 950, ni issues, everything runs well, got it on a £20 pcm contract, only had windows phones since I got to smart units,
why ?
because no one wants to steal them apparently :o)
but no idea what I will get if there is no more MS choice, will not get apple, cost alone is just a pain, and android will mean I have to learn stuff, that I already learned once to get this beastie working LOL
640XL's are getting hard to find. I checked last month as I'm concerned that if I were to drop mine (which I do all the time) and it breaks, replacing it might be hard. The advantage of a 950 XL is six months extra (at least) security patching. Patches for 640XL will stop in July 2019.
@BillG
No, Windows on your phone isn't being a rebel... it's just the user being an idiot.
Even rudimentary apps such as those from banks and newspapers are unavailable on Windows mobile... which kind of defeats the purpose of having a SMARTphone.
There's also the matter of resale value, or rather, the lack of it when it comes to Windows phones.
Even rudimentary apps such as those from banks and newspapers are unavailable on Windows mobile... which kind of defeats the purpose of having a SMARTphone
But then, there's many of us who don't give a crap about apps. We just want a mobile phone to use as a phone, not some dinky, overpriced, portable computer.
Icon: Because it's not always about going with the flow in tech.
But then, there's many of us who don't give a crap about apps. We just want a mobile phone to use as a phone, not some dinky, overpriced, portable computer.
That doesn't counter the previous user's comments though. He specifically mentioned a Smartphone, not a regular phone. If you want just the phone part of the thing, that's what feature phones, or even dumb cellphones are for. They're even coming back, through the revived not-quite-Nokia resurrection which is now free from Microsoft's claws.
I don't know about anyone else, but I don't buy a piece of tech and think of the resale value, I use it till it needs a repair or upgrade, then until it falls apart. My Dual Core Dell laptop runs Windows 10 fine after a RAM upgrade, my aging HP Compaq tower although noisy runs fine and I'll use my 625 until I can get a cheap replacement or the battery dies. I'd say the people being the idiot are the ones who get tied into the rolling phone contract every year because they must have the new iOS or Android device because wow Facebook feels soo laggy now and I'm only getting 12 hours out of that battery, this new one promises me 16.
But hey, each to their own.
No, Windows on your phone isn't being a rebel... it's just the user being an idiot.
Even rudimentary apps such as those from banks and newspapers are unavailable on Windows mobile... which kind of defeats the purpose of having a SMARTphone.
There's also the matter of resale value, or rather, the lack of it when it comes to Windows phones.
====
I am no fool, phone is cheap and very good, NatWest has an app, I dont use papers, it does everything I need, and as for resale, I personally, do not resell anything, all tech will be destroyed once I no longer use it, just paranoia maybe, but it is the world I frequent
"Even rudimentary apps such as those from banks and newspapers are unavailable on Windows mobile... which kind of defeats the purpose of having a SMARTphone."
Two things here, first not everyone needs a phone for the 10 billion Apps because they may be one or two worth having.
Second what muppet does all their finacial stuff on their phone? Especially one that never or rarely gets patched and probably runs an out date OS and whose patching model relies of third parties whose that only interest is selling you more hardware?
Your phone would be gold dust to a small section of society.
I have always had Windows phone, not so much because I'm a rebel but because I really don't want an Apple or Google device following me around. I don't need or want a bunch of apps; all I want is a phone, text, a camera. I occasionally use IE to get a score and once in a blue moon use a map app. I have no illusions that MS is a paragon of virtue; I just distrust the other two clowns much more. I would love an OS not related to any of them. I'm looking into a Blackberry, I miss my old BB.
It was the apps.
I liked the look of Windows phones, I really did. But my bank didn't have an app. Nor did my car, or my heating system, or my accountancy software, or my work's VPN token provider, or any number of other suppliers of useful services.
Much as I'd have liked to play around with a Windows phone, I've come to find those apps far too useful to lose.
It was the apps..
..and being years and years behind the competition feature wise, and leading their customers up multiple dead ends with incompatible software versions, and un-upgradeable phones, and un-upgradable apps, and screwing their developers over multiple times, and the horrendous UI, and the clunky animations that slowed everything down, and burning their bridges with the phone manufacturers and ISPs, and the useless solution in search of a problem Continuum, and the un-navigable Store, and lack of search features in the Store, and the huge amount of crapps. And the epic lack of apps.
WP was probably Microsofts biggest ever cock up, 8 years of ineptitude.
Honestly, the main considerations for me in a phone: are (in order) is a smartphone, good battery life, and good camera. My past WinPhones all did well on all three, though I've known for a while that the platform was basically dead and I'd need to jump to android eventually.
So now I have Neko Atsume (three years behind all my friends, but still). All the little cartoon kitties I can find! Also there are other apps apparently.
But my bank didn't have an app. Nor did my car, or my heating system, or my accountancy software...
Welcome to my world! (Says every BlackBerry OS user, ever.)
As much as I try to avoid apps in favour of mobile sites, sometimes you need a specific tool and an app is the only way to get it.
Yes, BlackBerry did eventually support Android apps, but it was too little, too late.
The sad thing is that most of what's in the Play store is pretty pathetic, and finding the one tool that actually works in the flood of crapware can be nearly impossible. I would (and do) happily pay for apps if there was some guarantee that they worked, but Google prefers to bury the truly good apps under a stinking pile of useless, malware ridden, half-baked offal.
Well, the old school Blackberry OS did have quite a number of apps, and at some point they were very useful for everyone. But they fumbled because the Blackberries were horribly underspecced and the "classic" OS was slow as hell. By the time they pushed out BlackBerry 10 it was too late, and their "clean slate" approach to apps (instead of offering a migration path) pretty much doomed them at a time when iOS and Android were taking the top spots for devs. Had they released BB10 back in 2009, when they were still one of the top players, they might've survived.
Hell, Nokia was on the right track on this; they were improving Symbian and cooking up a Plan B OS (Maemo, Harmattan) in case Symbian didn't survive. They were even looking into a migration path from Symbian to Maemo/Meego/Harmattan. It wasn't until Elop came in and set everything on fire that Nokia went down hard. All because Elop had to Borg Nokia for his Microsoft masters. Fortunately Nokia was able to jettison the diseased arm before it took them down.
I got the Alcatel A3 XL reduced in Tesco to €99. It's back up to €149 inc Irish VAT. No contract needed and free to unlock from Tesco after 9 months.
Seems fine (after I replaced stock camera app with Open Camera). It's just 8MP, but higher counts often poorer in low light. I have my old 12M camera with real 4:1 zoom for slightly more serious photography.
Easy to swap SIM or micro SD card. Though a 6" screen it fits in hand and pockets.
Real headphone socket. FM Radio not quite as sensitive as my ancient Sony Ericsson.
Firefox works far better than on my tablet. First phone I've had where browser fast enough.
I can't see why people pay more for a Mobile than decent HD laptop or a decent 4K HDTV. Certainly x2 to x3 as much is bonkers.
I almost entirely use WiFi as I only use SMS or voice calls if not actually sat somewhere.
Continuum was quite possibly the worst idea ever over at Microsoft. Instead of making an x86 phone that could take calls and run a full version of Windows with full x86 support for all of your full applications, making a laptop or tablet completely unnecessary for frequent travelers, you have Craptinuum, the exact opposite of useful. Use your phone to replace a desktop PC ... limited to crappy little "apps" the Windows store, and no serious software anywhere in sight. You can do email, and Word. Umm ... Yay? It's just like Windows RT all over again. Surely you want more of that, right? It was exactly this kind of thinking that destroyed Windows phone. Microsoft has only themselves to blame.
I think there's a limited selection of people for whom Continuum would have been a fantastic thing. I'd quite happily pay for a dongle that could connect my iPad to a monitor and keyboard, as odd as that sounds, simply because there are some really nice apps on the iPad that would benefit from that.
That said, the issue of monitor resolution vs iPad resolution is one thing, and the fact that I can AirPlay the thing and attach a BlueTooth keyboard in any event renders the whole idea moot anyway.
Use your phone to replace a desktop PC ... limited to crappy little "apps" the Windows store, and no serious software anywhere in sight.
But call it "DeX" and everybody's wetting themselves over how amazing it's going to be. Soon. Well, at some point.
Ex user and liked the phone but the lack of Apps killed it.
Was getting a Samsung and a work colleague was interested in having my old 950XL to give to his 12 yr old. Asked him why and he said his kid was pi**ing him off and wanted to teach him a lesson!
What's the deal with all the TV shows that use Windows phone.
Just seen the latest Bosch on Amazon Prime and they all were using Windows Phone.
A Microsoft spokesperson told The Register: "The HP Elite x3 and Alcatel Idol 4S are temporarily unavailable, but will be restocked and sold while supplies last. We remain deeply committed to helping customers discover, buy, use and love Windows 10 devices."
Well you were hardly going to say please buy all the old stock so that we can finally axe the entire platform.
I had to switch from my trusted Lumia 950XL because my "work" switch off "GOOD Enterprise" in favor of "Blackberry work" (which has not been ported to Windows Phone). Given the choice of firing up the VPN on the laptop, I bit the bullet and switched to my daughters cast-off Apple 5s.
I quite liked the retro simplicity of the iPhone because it reminded me of Symbian and the days when a "phone" would do one thing at a time and shutdown without a recharge regularly. but was not to last because the pristine phone developed a fault (wouldn’t recognize the SIM). Apples offer of a “complimentary replacement, for just £250” was not very complimentary.
So now I have a 1+5t Android that beeps for no obvious reason (email “tile” never highlights messages), and LIES to me about the weather (the weather “tile” suggests the sun is always shining in London).. but at least I can turn down the heating on my Nest thermostat.
Apple's iPhone 5s appear to have been pants. They got the usual rave reviews at the time, but in retrospect they were already too small and the batch we had at work pretty much all broke (either the charging socket or the battery control circuitry). And others I know who had them also seem to have had more problems than other models.
The great thing about my 2 Lumias (Nokia 720 and MS 735) is that they were each under £150. And so massively exceeded my low expectations.
I miss my Lumia, basic things just worked better. I've recently had to abandon it and got an iphone x. FaceId is impressive but basic things just annoy me. silly things. Maps do not compare to here maps. The camera is just not as good, nor the pictures taken -- my 4yo lumia still takes better photos, although live photos are a good addition. Spell checking is just wrong on iOS. How have they got to v11 and still have this issue. Other silly things, data sense in WinPho kept a count of the data I used and reset it on the same day each month. Not available in iOS. Honestly MS did a good job, the basic features of the OS were excellent -- Family Room worked, it just did. Groups worked better than iOS style equivalents. Tiles worked. I could go on. Its just a shame. Paying the AppleTax and hoping 1 day a true saviour will arrive.
For what it's worth, I went Android rather than iPhone, and while I've had a few disappointments (like the camera, and oddly enough also the spell checker) it's nowhere near as bad a time as you seem to be having.
Also remember that your winphone probably had a decent chunk of time to learn your spelling/typing preferences, and your new phone is starting from scratch. I know Swype on my old Lumia 1020 took a while to accept that I swear a lot and to maybe not suggest that I "duck that shut" so often...
Spellcheck on my Lumia is now punishing me for being too sweary. I've taught it all the naughty words, and that's fine when I want to use them.
But when I'm in a hurry and trust predictive text without my reading glasses on, then it gets its revenge. My phone seems determined to swear at my mother, for some reason.
I am sure anyone who has used Android for more than 5 minutes - especially with a techie bent - will have discovered PDQ that there is no such thing as "Android". There's Sony "Android", Samsung "Android", LG "Android" etc etc.
If the only differences were color schemes and fonts, that'd be OK. but it's not.
It's entire swathes of functionality that may - or may not - be available. And settings that aren't in the same place (if available at all).
One thing about Windows Phone and (people have no idea how much this hurts me to admit) iOS is that you only need one manual to support them, Not the plethora of (usually incorrect and outdated) Android ones.
When I got my first Droid - it was an HTC Wildfire on Android 2.2. 2.3 was already out when I bought it, but not only was there no upgrade, they carried on selling the model for another 18 months on 2.2.
Anyway, there was no manual. Google at the time didn't do an Android manual online, there was just a few marketing blurb and "getting started" pages, and then it said to refer to your manufaturer. HTC also didn't bother doing a manual.
I did find the Android developer kit manual - but that wasn't much help in trying to get the bloody thing to cope with a VPN.
I assume (hope) things have improved since.
Nope. 10x worse. Trying to google "how do I [x]" or "where is the [y]" returns pages of results which are guaranteed to be for a completely different phone and version of Android than you have.
And never post on a general Android forum ... you'll get loads of replies from people telling you how they do it. On their phone.
So, having used an Android device for more than 5 minutes, everyone will go nuts because things aren't the same as on other Android devices which they don't own? Funny, but it hasn't happened to me (and I'm "a bit" of a techie) and I haven't noticed it happening to people around me.
Also, I use a Xiaomi device, and their OS is one of the most customized, yet Settings have most things where they "should" be.
And finally, for actual device/manufacturer specific stuff (that one doesn't figure out by oneself), everyone with a smidgen of technical skills (or even some basic computer literacy) will google something like "how to do x on manufacturer_name model_name" and get the right answer, for example, you can't change the lock screen clock back to normal (it has to have hours above minutes) on Samsung Galaxy A5 2017 after updating to Nougat and you can't turn off Ramadan reminder in the built in calendar if you went for the dual SIM variant of the device because that one was meant for the middle-east. :D
Contrary to that, when I googled some of the things I needed on WP8.1, for example how to import contacts or how to export them in order to move them to an Android device, the first page of the results was full of stuff such as "you can't do that, you have to sync your WP device with some online service (Gmail) and then import from there" which is wrong, it's just that, apparently, due to the hideous design of WP Settings app, 99% of people who needed the option never found it (probably because even if you did find the right settings page, the option was off-screen, without a scroll bar or any other indicator that there was more than what was initially displayed).
If the Elite x3 had a proper OS installed, I'd buy it in a heartbeat. I do find it good-looking (Not fantastic-looking, just plain good-looking).
Disclaimer: User of a laptop that looks immensely similar to the Elite x3 (HP EliteBook Revolve 810 G2)
Wileyfox have resurrected their mythical Windows Phone - https://wileyfox.com/collections/full-range/products/wileyfox-pro am guessing there were enough MS $ in the post administration pot to justify pulling them out of the skip. Love my Windows Phones, but the usual app drought was the nail in the coffin for me :(
Laziness? More like "5% of the market is not worth the effort". I can't blame them at all - the market's not there, MS are clearly not giving it any focus.
Seriously, you make a nice shiny Sudoku app that you can sell for 79p a shot, and well, you're a software developer. You need to sell something like 15-20 of those for every hour you put in, or you may as well have done an English degree like your mother wanted you to. Who wants to spend extra time converting that work over to WinPhone (and the extra testing/support) for a tenth of the market you can get on the Play store?
I know a few companies have done alright because of the lack of competition, but it's been noticeable to me over the last year that the Microsoft store has fewer and fewer new apps worth looking at, especially from the companies big enough to have solid cross-platform sales data. There's probably better money in Sony's PSVita store than the MS phone store.
Nearly destroyed my current work Android a few times, as the POS will not unlock unless you do it very carefully, but of course I get rattier and rattier.
Camera is annoying, trying to zoom it out after zooming in and suddenly my face appears on the screen. Why the fuck do I want to see my ugly mug unless shaving?
Previous two are with sons, one is wrecked through being washed, the later one is OK as he doesn't wash it under the tap.
I really really miss my old Nokia Symbian phone, easy to use and a decent camera with decent lens.
I wonder what we will get next contract, lets just say I really hope it isn't Koreas biggest phone maker again.
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