Windows Phone - Dead man walking

[matt3k]

As someone who has owned an iPhone and an Android phone, please leave me alone with my Nokia Windows phone!  It hasn't crashed yet, which is a lot more than I can say about the ****ing Motorola droid phone I had before it, it integrates well with my personal and company emails, I have all the office tools I need, it syncs with my car (and every rental car I've used) and the battery life is good.  I even like the main display with the big, square icons (although my Windows 8 PC looks and feels like Windows 7 thanks to Classic Shell).

I agree, about a month ago I destroyed my galaxy and decided to try the Nokia Icon and I have been very impressed.  It is a very stable OS and for work applications is it a great fit for what I use it for.  I hacked away at droid with tons of tweaks and hacks and had great fun with it, with WP8 I use it for work and don't touch it.

Interestingly launcher 7 for droid was a better windows launcher experience then windows phone itself.  WP tiles isn't bad mind you but launcher 7 has tons of options to configure making it fun.  If you factor in the whole OS experience including the launcher, WP 8 wins for me.

I like that I can uninstall every Verizon application if I want to, unlike the droid which wouldn't let me.

Windows phone has better navigation and battery control/life imho.

The only issue I don't care for in WP is that the way they currently have their apps sandboxed, it makes it crazy hard to access files directly from the OS.  Say you copy your book to a book folder you create, it is impossible to access it.  You either have to have a sd card (not an option on the icon) or use one drive.  File management via third party on android was very sweet and is very limited on WP.  Apparently Microsoft is releasing a file manager for 8.1 that will fix these limitations.

[matt3k]

I think it is way to premature to write off WP.  Microsoft has billions of free dollars sitting in the bank and I would predict they will outlive BB.  They have made strategic actions in the market place to give them a real shot at being a contender with market share.  Europe will play a role in the market share, as WP seems to be expanding faster there.

Time will tell, but Windows Phone 8.1 certainly added needed features and it looks like they are heading in the right direction.

[matt3k]

Glad to hear BB is giving it a go.  Never used one of those or an Iphone.

I was a huge palm user back in the day.  My favorite smartphone was my 700p, it was the last real smartphone where I didn't need a data contract.  I synced all my work directly to the device and it was none of anyones business what apps I installed on it.  I only updated to the Galaxy s3 when IT couldn't support it any longer.

To this day it had the best crm application by a longshot that I have ever used and a phone.

The Nokia Icon running wp8 is a nice break, and seems cohesive and stable to me.  I have seen 8.1 demoed at ms store and it is pretty slick.  I will wait until it is an official release on the phone even though it is easy to install a developer 8.1.  My revelation is that I need to use it as a tool for work and not for games and hacking.  I had so many games and fun tweaks on my 700p and SG3 it sucked a lot of time.  The Icon is my first business tool/camera only and so far I'm enjoying spending time on other things...