Any good?

Yep.

If you LOVE windows phones, yes.

If you’re OS-agnostic, probably not.

I’m OS agnostic. Windows Phone 8 is pretty good – as are the others. There are a few advantages to WP8 – better OS upgrades than Android; family room sharing stuff is great; office support is great; hardware is decent and very good value for money; Cortana is supposedly great; OS looks great and is slick

Disadvantages are the apps – most majors are there, so I’m not bothered, but still – if there’s an app available for something specific, it’s often only on iOS or Android. e.g. the Olympus one for controlling your camera.

Do they still put I in every word where you need an O?
Windows fan here but that and them turning off my words with friends was the final straw. Would like to get another one when they’ve got them sorted.

If you’re OS-agnostic, probably not.

I suspect that it will be these people who get on best with them as they’re not tied into one particular way of doing things.

Big fan of the new windows phones. More popular apps coming into the app store (Instagram being a big one that was missing), easy to use interface, great cameras. Cheaper than an iPhone.

Had a nokia win 7.8 and quite liked it, but then got an iPhone and im not that impressed really.

I have the new Lumia 930, love using it. Extremely intuitive and Cortana is great – especially now ive realised I can use it to send texts by verbal command whilst using Bluetooth headphones, hands free texting!
Good battery life, excellent HD amoled screen, great camera with loads of useful apps if taking/editing pics is your thing.

I have a friend who works for microsoft and obviously has to have a windows phone. The latest windows phone.
I enjoy listening to him talk about his phone.

He talks about his phone….a lot!

[/quote] have a friend who works for microsoft and obviously has to have a windows phone. The latest windows phone.
I enjoy listening to him talk about his phone.

He talks about his phone….a lot! [/quote]
good or bad though?

I’ve got a Lumia 1020 and as a phone and OS compared to iphones which I’ve had for work and android phones which I’ve had as personal phones for years previously it’s loads better. The tiles layout works really well on the small screen and the whole thing “just works” without any niggles. It’s solid construction and whilst not a looker as such it’s got great build quality,

Unfortunately there’s been quite a few apps I’ve looked for recently which don’t have Windows phone equivalents, you can get the big ones but some of the more specific apps just don’t exist. As a result I’ve been considering a change back to an iphone just to be able to connect everything again but tbh I hated iphones/ipads so this probably isn’t a great plan.

I thought there was a bit of a hole in the range around the £200 mark – nothing really worth buying right now.

Shame – I wanted to stay with WP8, but I got a chance for a Moto X 2014 for £280 unlocked with Lolipop.

The hardware is ace but I still miss the tiles 🙁

I’d be very interested to hear what apps people find missing from windows phone.

I’m generally happy. Strava replacements don’t seem to be as good (I think baika needed a network connection to log in or something when I tried it recently, which I didn’t have at the time), but otherwise the only thing is the lack of an OS map app.

It’s just that I now notice when things say ‘app avaialble from iOS app store or Google Play’ and it’s quite a lot.

Citymapper. Strava. A workable podcast app. Youview. YNAB. Echofon. Amazon Music.

There are scores where there is an official app on WP, but it’s garbage compared to the iOS and Android ones.

I think you can get Words with friends on later phones but to just be dropped on the app front because my phone was 2 years old pissed me off.

http://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2015/01/windows-phone-getting-even-cheaper-with-two-new-sub-100-smartphones/

The comments are worth a read, for once.

Strava replacements don’t seem to be as good

I use Run the Map which I’ve been very pleased with. You can see your route over layred on a Google map if you’ve got data and then can email your gpx/txc file home to upload to Strava later.

@molgrips. Check out maaloo Outdoors for an OS map app. Looks very good.

To the op. I have used Windows Phone since the early days and love it. Simple, fast even on lower spec handsets asked Cortana is excellent.

Note rumour has it WP10 tech preview is due to be launched later this month so will feedback on what it’s like.

I do miss the dedicated camera button since I’ve left Windows.

Interesting, our work blackberries are about to be changed to windows phone. For all their woes, at least i can install android apps on it inc. Mmtracker.

Quite looking forward to trying windows phone…

Zk… They’ve removed the button from many of the handsets.

I’d also like to say that while the OS might feel fluid on 512MB, as soon as you load a decent webpage it comes to a grinding halt. Or just quits.

EDIT: Android’s autocorrect is quite different and keeps screwing things up for me!

Just got rid of my windows phone. Lots of apps for stores and websites that I use are only available from Apple store and Google play, not available for windows. So I had to choose between £13 pm for an android phone or £43 pm for an iPhone.

I’m loving android!

I like my Windows Phone (Lumia 930). The missing apps are irritating – sometimes – but the advantage is that apps that are in the store generally tend to be of higher quality in my opinion.

One of the reasons for missing apps is that Windows Phone segregates personal information, which means that apps designed to communicate with something via SMS, for example, will never work. I’m not convinced that’s a bad thing.

It’s infinitely easier to develop for than iPhone, and about the same as Android. It was missing an app for the Honeywell Evohome system, so I wrote one. 🙂

Camera better than iPhones and any Android, if that’s important to you, especially with the Denim firmware.

The apps which I’ve found to be missing are usually fairly specific, there’s no Trainerroad, Garmin Connect/Virb nor is there any obvious alternative.

For things like Strava or other popular apps there are usually clients which work well enough.

I just got a Lumia 735.
£150 on EE, no contract plus a free Fitbit Flex that I can flog for about £50 on eBay.

HD screen, 4G, NFC, wireless charging, decent front and back cameras, screen works while wearing gloves.

I find they give really good specs for the money.

I have a Surface RT tablet I use for work, so they way it all ties together through OneDrive etc works well for me. My work uses Office 365, and I have a couple of Windows 8.1 desktops I use too.
Similar to Apple or Google – good to jump in to the whole ecosystem.
I like the interface design across outlook.com, Windows Phone and even Windows 8!

The lack of some proprietary apps is a pain (like the Olympus camera app mentioned earlier), but I’m ok with it – not worth spending the extra to get into an Apple system, and I don’t really like Android/Gmail.

I use Runsat Free as a cycle tracker. Uploads the GPX to a website that I then download and stick on Strata manually.

TBH, I’m just going to get one of those Motorola Defy’s as a cycling GPS/tracker/maps machine.

[begging]
Please don’t buy them. If they become popular I’ll have to design apps/websites to run on even more platforms that each have their peculiarities. It’s tedious enough with all the flavours of iOS and Android.
[/begging]

They are ok. App market isnt mature enough.

If you like apps (like Ski Tracks etc.) then avoid.

I guess there will be a tipping point soon, once they get adopted widely enough then it becomes worth it for companies to develop the apps too.

Be interesting to see how Windows 10 affects it – believe try are making it easier to create a universal app that will work on desktop, tablet and phones.

I’ve got a Nokia Lumia 925 (I think) and rate it very highly. Easy to use, the camera is ace, plenty of storage, free good quality Sat Nav, plenty of free apps etc.

My fiance liked mine so much she swapped her Iphone for a 1020.

So rather than spending millions launching upteen models that are very similar, would Microsoft’s cash be better spent by paying App developera to port their Apps to work Windows phones?

I’m OS agnostic but in practice that means I’m an Android guy. At the sort of prices I’d be prepared to pay iPhones are right out, leaving Windows and Android. And then when I find that even the few apps I use halfway regularly (e.g. Strava) aren’t on Windows then there needs to be a compelling reason to go for Windows. And IMO if you’re OS agnostic then there aren’t really any, so Android it is.

but otherwise the only thing is the lack of an OS map app.

You can, I just moved to ipone6, but my Windows phone I downloaded a free OS map app.

Android comes bottom of the pile for me. I’ve just gone from Windows to Iphone 6. To be honest I cant at this stage decide which is best. The iphone 6 is way better made than any current Windows Phone. Sharing of photos/calendars/data is much easier now that family FD is all on Apple.

I miss the customisation of screens on Windows.

Windows Phones are too bulky compared to Iphone 6

The only app that the iphone has is Strava, but I dont tend to use it anyhow as I have a Garmin.

No more Nokia windows phones will now be produced, they will be branded Microsoft.

Iphone OS is not as slick as it should be and does have glitches. ie it wont let me play music through my car, which is crap for a premium product.

At the moment I think I would stay with the Iphone 6 though.

Just about to move from my Galaxy S3 to a Nokia 920. The Nokia is a work one which is no longer required. It is a better phone than the Galaxy and gets better reception. The apps are nowhere near as good.

Microsoft recently announced there was something in the region of 560,000 apps available now.

I know that’s someway off what’s available in the Apple and Android app stores but plenty enough.

Used to hear all the same complaints about lack of apps several years ago when Android was just catching on.

Having owned and used all 3 varieties of OS I still rate Windows as the best for me and IOS as the worst on a phone although I like it more on a tablet.

…something in the region of 560,000 apps available … plenty enough.

but still useless if the app you want isn’t there.

560,000 apps is a meaningless number. Do you think humanity could come up with half a million different things to do with your phone?

It’s about 100 decent apps and an incredible amount of shite.

Iphone OS is not as slick as it should be and does have glitches. ie it wont let me play music through my car, which is crap for a premium product.

Surely that’s more to do with the car manufacturer? They tend to be woefully behind the times when it comes to speccing car infotainment equipment. Even Bentley fitted a whizzy Naim system with no Apple interface; that’s hardly Apple’s fault, is it?
Ford in America specced a system that wouldn’t work with iPhones, and which came in for a considerable amount of criticism, but more are starting to introduce systems that will connect via Apple CarPlay, and Google’s Android system, but Windows is such a small part of the market, around 6%, IIRC, it’s not going to be considered by manufacturers.

Windows phones work with modern Fords, or at least mine does.