The Windows Phone 8.1. Review on Windows 8.1

I don't want to call myself an early adopter but my experience with the Windows Phone OS started with the Nokia Lumia 800. Back then, it had the Windows 7.5 on it and was later after a lot of out cry from the millions of users was reluctantly given an upgrade to 7.8 which was mostly cosmetic. But no matter how good or bad the Windows 7.8 was, the Lumia 800 with its brilliant screen, bullet proof build quality and a pathetic battery made up for it. I used the Lumia 800 for a good amount of time. So long that I was still using it even after Microsoft came up with the Windows Phone 8.0.

Mind you, the Windows Phone OS irrespective of the version is no where near Android in the usability, functionality and apps department. I am not mentioning the iOS here purely because I have not used iOS like I did with my Android phone or the Windows phones.

Windows Phone and the bad stuff that comes with it

In a world that is seamlessly connected, people look for when they spend their hard earned money on a smart phone is that they crave for some amount of exclusivity. You simply don't have any room for that on the Windows Phone ecosystem. For example, the user interface of the OS and the look and feel for the cheapest Nokia Lumia and the most expensive can look exactly the same. The only differences to the naked eye are obviously the screen, form factor and the camera of the device. In an effort to make the user interface more straight forward, Microsoft somehow lost its way and everything looks the same inside a square or a rectangle which after a while becomes so boring considering the fact that all you can do is change the colour or put a background image. The only difference that you would probably get to see after you put a background image will be nothing to write home about. What was colourful rectangles or squares now become transparent and take the background image. Great to look at but if the icon or the tile and the background has the same colour, you have no idea what you are looking at. I still cannot understand the concept of the design and how downright dumb and stupid it is.

The windows store (previously windows marketplace) as you might already have assumed I am not going to talk about the lack of apps on Windows store. It is somewhat neck and neck with the most popular apps that the world uses. So with Windows 8.1, there is no lack of apps like it used to be in the days of the Windows 7.5 and 7.8. What is wrong about the Windows apps is that by the time the rest of the world on Android and iOS platforms are done with an app, that will probably when the app gets released and because of this all you can probably do is to wish someday, I would get to see this on my Windows Phone. That wait is agonising and it is a pity Microsoft is not making the right moves here. And I have very little belief whether this will improve with Windows Phone 10 either.

Microsoft can never be Nokia just because they had all the money and the Microsoft re-branding on the phones will take a toll plainly because, in a market like India, a Nokia is always a Nokia and I am not sure why Microsoft has a hard time realizing the same.

And finally one of the worst piece of software that accompanies your Windows Phone OS 7.5, 7.8, 8.0 and 8.1 irrespective of the device manufacturer is, Internet Explorer. Working with that is such a horrid experience. Let me explain why with a simple example. On the Android phones, you get to experience a site like YouTube in a way that you never experienced before. It lets you play the video that you are watching like a PIP (Picture in Picture) feature and lets you browse videos. Try that on IE that comes with your Windows phone and you would feel that you are trying to browse Youtube with a IE 4.0 and the worst thing to pile up on what's already worse is that you don't have a decent alternative either.

And now the good stuff

The legendary build quality of the Nokia hardware, except the Nokia Lumia 720. I have seen a lot of people with cracked screens, phones that stopped working just like that within a short span of time. But otherwise most of the phones that are between INR 5000 and INR 20000 are absolute bang for the buck, if you are looking for in your face simplicity.




If you have had enough of Android or iOS and you are looking for a difference, the Windows Phone OS will not disappoint for giving you something new.




Unlike Android or iOS, the windows OS is so light it would even run on a calculator and still give its expensive competitors a run for their money. With just 512MB of RAM most windows phone will give you a stutter free performance for normal or heavy usage. You could play Asphalt on a device with as littile as the RAM mentioned above without any hiccups in its performance or graphics




You don't have to clear the cache or junk like you do on Android all the time as quite simple the phone barely runs anything in the background and this can be a disadvantage sometimes.




Some of the apps, specially the Here drive (previously Nokia Drive) just beats any other navigation app hand down as it lets you store maps locally on your phone and use them offline.




And then there's Cortana. One of the best voice assistant apps out there and does its job really well if you tell it what you want to do.




The Windows Phone OS believes in the concept that less is more. So when the phone's idle there is very little going on in it and this helps you to have an almost endless battery back up.




The camera apps. The default app that comes with the Windows 8.1 offers a lot of options for you to play with and that sometimes is missing with some of the flagship android phones. I don't mean to say they are all bad but, the windows app just let it all hang out so that you can manipulate what you want to capture on the camera the way you want it. Take the Nokia Lumia 920 for instance. It had probably the best camera on a mobile phone at its time. Then there is the Nokia Lumia 1020 with its monster 41MP camera.




I don't want to term whatever you read till now as a criticism against the Windows Phone OS but this is my experience since 2013 with the Windows Phone ecosystem and I got bored of it and moved on to Android. I feel good but sometimes, I miss my tiles.