Opinion about Windows Phone

[Darrian]

<oops>

[Darrian]

the most frustarting part of my windows phone experience was that i could not simply plug into my pc and drag and drop files into the phone like  i can do with android

everything has to go through skydrive or zune software etc

 

especily with word documents, i had to upload them to sky drive from my pc and then download them from the phone, how about transferring directly via usb!!!!

 

 

i find it hard to believe that like minded people (this ii a  tech forum after all, and most of us are windows fans who enjoy tinkering and tweaking all aspects of our computers) would honestly find windows phone adequate when the like of android exist. 

Yeah... you must still be using WP7.

[HighwayGlider]

My Asha or even my super old X6 have audible caller ID. But this feature is not to be found on the super fast dual core 520. Shame really.

[George P Global Moderator]

the homescreen is supposed to be the notifications center. unfortunately it seems like MS never fully matured that concept and instead are going to add a more traditional notifications center.

 

I think they're going to add one just because a group of people want one and it's one less thing the competition can point to and say "we have this and you still don't".   I still expect advancements in the start screen and tiles though, so we'll see.

[George P Global Moderator]

Microsoft has 90,000 employees and recently took on a bunch more from Nokia. So what are all these folks doing? Surely some are developers working on improvements to the experience of Windows Phone?

 

I wonder how many of them use Android or iPhones as their main phone, haha.

 

I agree about gestures and notification centre. But I find volume controls are pretty lacking on all smartphones... my S3 clicks at full volume when taking a picture and I dont seem to have any volume control for it at all.

 

Agree about skype too... it's great for video calling but there is so much more they could be doing with it. Their enterprise version of it Lync has loads more features - but you need an Office365 subscription or a workplace with a Lync server to use that.

 

 

People have it wrong, the Nokia and MS deal isn't even final yet, it won't be till early 2014, think around February probably.   And even though MS has that many employees I'm sure you're aware of the fact that they are working on way more things than just Windows or Windows Phone, right?

 

There's also another factor in all of this that people for some reason or another like to overlook.  The carriers, correct me if I'm wrong but hasn't Android development slowed down as well?  Apples on it's one year thing and MS is in the 8-12month cycle as well, though they've managed to release 2 updates to WP in 2013 so far with a 3rd before the year is over.   The only real reason why they're not faster, though they can be for sure, is the carriers.  The carriers don't want to test and deploy new updates, they'll tell you it's because of the costs or w/e but they'd much rather sell you a new phone.

 

Thing is, GDR2 was done from MS's side back around April or May and handed over to OEMs and Carriers to test, not only do the OEMs have to test and tweak and push out firmware but then the carriers have to test those out as well since they're the ones who actually have to support your phone if something goes bonkers.    This all adds to delays, it's the sad truth and it's why we don't get new versions of phone OSs as soon as you'd like, or why some phones never get updates period.

 

MS knows this, Apple and Google know this as well, the best thing to do is have a bigger update once or at best twice a year so the carriers can't moan about things and try to block updates.   Hell AT&T is just now getting ready to push out GDR2 and GDR3 is already done it sounds like.   So unless something changes, and I think the best thing MS can do is to change WP a bit more so that the core apps and hubs are still deeply linked like now but can be updated without the need for an OS update.  Like IE for example should be updated without needing a big OS update, but who knows if they'll ever do that, we'll see.

[DeadEndAccount]

Well I took your advice. I went into setting, then reset your phone option. The gears have been spinning close to 20 mins now without any progress. This can't be normal?

 

A clean recovery can only be done by 'Nokia Care Suite' which pulls down the latest image from Nokia servers, the phone itself is placed in a special recovery mode and the OS is restored cleanly to the phone. It used to be possible to do it at home but Nokia has since locked down their server so the only ones who can do it now are authorised repairers and carriers.

[DarkyDan]

A friend of mine just purchased a 925, after loving it initially he did miss having separate volume controls for ringtones and music, and obviously coming from Android, the lack of "notification centre"

 

Neither have caused me much hassle but both being addressed in 8.1 would be nice.

[ichi]

There's also another factor in all of this that people for some reason or another like to overlook.  The carriers, correct me if I'm wrong but hasn't Android development slowed down as well?  

 

That's why Google is moving most of their new stuff away from the usual update model and deploying it through Google Play Services for every device, sidestepping OEMs and carriers.

 

Unless the issues with updates and carriers get sorted out (which I doubt) I guess MS should also go down that road eventually.

[George P Global Moderator]

That's why Google is moving most of their new stuff away from the usual update model and deploying it through Google Play Services for every device, sidestepping OEMs and carriers.

 

Unless the issues with updates and carriers get sorted out (which I doubt) I guess MS should also go down that road eventually.

 

Yeah, they should, no reason they can't update individual apps/hubs without needing a full OS update.  I brought up updating IE for example, or one of the other core apps.    At that point you can have a big OS rollout once a year and most people wouldn't mind.

[hagjohn]

No I have not. Do the standard map application work for you? I don't mean HERE maps; the standard Windows Phone map.

 

I've had my phone for 2 weeks. Not one crash.

[Nilus]

I agree with your points. I spent almost a year as a Windows Phone user, and in that time I used a HTC 8X and Lumia 925.  Whilst the hardware is nice, the OS is so far behind the competition it is laughable.

 

It seems like they wasted a lot of time developing WP7 on WinCE or whatever it was only to spend all their time focussing on redeveloping the whole thing into WP8 on NT, whereby they aimed for the SAME user experience only with NT as a backend. So they wasted all that time only to end up from a user perspective where they were to begin with. Why didn't they save time and develop WP on NT from the start?  So essentially WP8 is pretty much as the original version which was released.

 

The other thing which was annoying was the lack of interest from developers in Windows Phone.  Either missing apps or the apps which are there are really poor quality. Compare eBay on WP8 and iOS for example. Flickr is another one. The WP versions are an unusable mess in comparison.

 

I've now dropped WP completely and gone for an iPhone 5s and the difference using iOS 7 is night and day.  The only things that I really miss from Windows Phone are:

 

- Deep office integration & skydrive. Taking a picture and having it automatically upload to Skydrive where I could access it from a browser was a great plus. Why Apple doesn't have a gallery or even file manager in iCloud i'll never know, they've really not cracked 'cloud' yet.

 

- Hardware camera button.  The hardware camera button where you could half press for focus was great, and really really missing on the iPhone. Having the volume button to take a picture is all well and good but next to useless if you can't half-press for focus as you still have to tap the screen.

[AWilliams87]

I agree with your points. I spent almost a year as a Windows Phone user, and in that time I used a HTC 8X and Lumia 925.  Whilst the hardware is nice, the OS is so far behind the competition it is laughable.

 

It seems like they wasted a lot of time developing WP7 on WinCE or whatever it was only to spend all their time focussing on redeveloping the whole thing into WP8 on NT, whereby they aimed for the SAME user experience only with NT as a backend. So they wasted all that time only to end up from a user perspective where they were to begin with. Why didn't they save time and develop WP on NT from the start?  So essentially WP8 is pretty much as the original version which was released.

 

The other thing which was annoying was the lack of interest from developers in Windows Phone.  Either missing apps or the apps which are there are really poor quality. Compare eBay on WP8 and iOS for example. Flickr is another one. The WP versions are an unusable mess in comparison.

 

I've now dropped WP completely and gone for an iPhone 5s and the difference using iOS 7 is night and day.  The only things that I really miss from Windows Phone are:

 

- Deep office integration & skydrive. Taking a picture and having it automatically upload to Skydrive where I could access it from a browser was a great plus. Why Apple doesn't have a gallery or even file manager in iCloud i'll never know, they've really not cracked 'cloud' yet.

 

- Hardware camera button.  The hardware camera button where you could half press for focus was great, and really really missing on the iPhone. Having the volume button to take a picture is all well and good but next to useless if you can't half-press for focus as you still have to tap the screen.

I didn't mention the lack of apps because that's an obvious one and something you're aware of before you buy into Windows Phone. But I agree nonetheless.

[DConnell Member]

I use an HTC Titan Running WP7, and I couldn't be happier with it. It's much more stable than my old Android phone. The only time it's ever restarted is if it drops the phone connection - I live in a poor signal area. I've never had a crash in the 1 1/2 years I've used this device, and the only things I miss from Android are Swype and Ingress.

 

I can't speak about WP8, but 7 is excellent IMO.

[Darrian]

WP8 is just WP7 with a bunch of improvements.  I'm sure there are tons of changes in the backend, but from a UI perspective you won't notice much difference.  The biggest reasons I upgraded my phone were hardware (better camera and bigger screen), app compatibility (not all apps are available on both WP7 and WP8, I wanted to make sure I could use newer WP8-exclusive apps), and the ability to just plug my phone in and copy music and videos over using the file manager.  From day to day usage you can't detect a huge difference (except that my new phone is faster, but it should be with a significantly better CPU).  And I agree, I think WP7 was excellent, too.

 

I think Android is great, too, but I use it on my tablet.  I love it to death for many reasons, but stability isn't one of them, and I can't imagine using it on my phone.  My wife uses an Android phone and she hates it because apps randomly stop working for no apparent reason and often even a reset isn't enough to fix it.  But she doesn't want to move away from Android just yet so she's stuck in this love/hate relationship with a phone that she's liable to curse at and throw across the room at any given moment.  Windows Phone makes for a rock solid phone with a great instant messaging service and camera with skydrive upload built in.  Facebook integration is great, too.  It does communication very well, which it should, because it's on a device whose primary purpose is communication.  Apps are a nice perk, but 99% of what you need in a phone is built in.  90% of the apps I install on both my phone and my tablet are games.  Android has a larger selection of games, so it works better on my tablet since I'd rather play those games on a 9" screen than a 4" screen anyway.

[articuno1au]

Over two year ago, I upgraded from a Motorola featured phone, to a Windows Phone: HTC HD7. At the time, I loved it. Since then, I have owned a Galaxy Nexus and played around a little with an iPhone 5. Recently, however, I decided to go back to Windows Phone, so I bought the Lumia 928 for Verizon. I can safely say that Windows Phone sucks and I don't even believe Microsoft is serious about this thing.

 

1. NOTIFICATIONS: Windows Phone needs a central repository for notifications. To many times I've received a notification, and had no idea where it came from. If you don't have to app pinned, good luck. Using Windows Phone now is like using iOS 4, before the notification center was released. Sure you can get a quick glance of which app needs attention by looking at the home screen. But what if the app is too far down on the screen? What if it's not even pinned at all? When Windows Phone first launched, the tag line I believed had something to do with making life easier by getting things done quicker on the phone. Without a central notification repository, you're forced to search for the location of alerts. That isn't fast nor easy.

 

2. CRASHES: My Galaxy Nexus was slow as dirt. The 928 is much faster. However, one thing the Nexus didn't have was apps crashing all the time. The Windows Phone default map doesn't work at all. Once you zoom in, the app crashes.  I don't like to use the Nokia maps application because it feels very disintegrated. Why are there separate apps for maps, navigations, public transportation and city lens? Even apps like Skype, Fandango and Yelp crashes on me a lot.

 

3. VOICE COMMANDS: The dictation in Windows Phone flat out suck. The one thing it has going for it is that it is FAST; much faster than Siri or Google now. However, it has a much lower accuracy rate, especially if background noise is present. If the TV is on, good luck getting it to interpret what you want. I admire the effort to interpolate whether or not a statement is in fact a question. If so, it adds a question mark(?). It doesn't work to well, however. What to us may be an obvious question, to it is not. Also, I was shocked to see speech wasn't a universal feature as it is on Android. I can't use it in Skype or any other application for that matter.

 

4. GESTURES: I was surprised to see many apps don't take much advantage of gestures. With many Android apps, you are able to pull down to refresh information, for example, or swipe left and right to get through different views. When I first opened IE, I immediately swiped left to try and move between tabs, then found out that wasn't possible. Why would I have to click through menus to make certain things possible? Seems very backwards to me. Another thing I noticed is while moving through open apps in the multitasking menu, I cannot click to switch to the app I want unless the scrolling has come to a complete stop, and the app is in the middle view. That is very frustrating. iOS 7's implementation of the same feature is much better.

 

5. WALLET AND NFC: The wallet experience in Windows Phone, at least when compared to Google wallet, is a complete fraud. It's incredibly half-baked. It's as if Microsoft gave it to an intern to do as a summer project. Also, why does bluetooth have to be on for NFC payments/transfers to work? Can someone explain to me the complexity behind that? On my Nexus, I simply needed to bring my phone close to another to activate transfers. In Window Phone, however, why do I have to click through menus to do the same? That absolutely makes no sense to me.

 

6. SKYPE: Why did Microsoft purchase Skype? After playing a game, I tried to share results with friends. Guess what? Skype was not an option to share results too. As a matter of fact, I could barely share to Skype from anywhere on Windows Phone. What's the point of it not being an option? Prior to buying the Lumia, my friends and I used Google Hangouts exclusively. There's so much we could do in it. Skype, on the other hand, seems like 2006 technology. No improvement whatsoever. You can't group video call without paying money. There are 1/5 the amount of emojis on it. You can't see who's typing or who is currently viewing the chat. Why even have Skype?

 

7. MISCELLANEOUS: Local deals should have pictures of the deals and a map view to make it easier to see the distance them.

 

Honestly, Windows Phone is good in some areas. But all in all, I regret the purchase of the Lumia. It's as if Microsoft gave up on Windows Phone or something. I can't see how these basic things can be overlooked.

 

This post is subject to updates and changes...

1. Pin more things, you can make tiny little tiles, pin stuff at the bottom.

2. Apps that crash in regular usage get bounced from the store. I've not had a crash outside of Baconit in ages. It sounds like something funky is going on with your phone.

3. Kind of agree with this. Sometimes it works perfectly, then other times it goes full ######ing potato.

4. The gestures thing is a bit meh. You can activate tabs instead of the refresh button, which makes switching tabs a 2 click deal, but yeah >.>

5. Bluetooth needs to be enabled because NFC transfer merely pairs the two bluetooth enabled devices to do a transfer. This is the same on all OS's. Regarding wallet, I can't comment as it's not really supported in Australia.

6. This part is just moronic.. I don't suggest skype is a great app atm, but your points here are potato.

7. Ok. I'd rather not use the data, but sure.

 

I think you'll see with 8.1 the unification of some things that will make app support a lot more ubiquitous. I agree that 8 isn't enough of an improvement over 7. I'm close to skipping to Android, but at least pick your reasons properly when ranting.

 

Yeah although I still like WP I do have some of the same gripes with it to where I would think twice before buying my next phone. IE sucks (need more gestures - people use tabs - all the time - don't need to burry them - let me swipe to get to them). Email app which I use a lot can't sync well as OP already mentioned. For someone who uses email on-the-go and on my PC's, this is quite annoying. If I read it - mark it as read on the server, if I delete afterwards - move it to my Trash (not as a new message). Also sometimes it would create 10 damn drafts of the same message in my trash folder too.

 

I understand some people would rather die than have notification center, to me it is essential - Live tiles don't suffice for me. I want to be able to see all my notifications including ones that I don't have pinned to my home screen (even more so).

 

Built-in maps are a joke and a hazard. Why on earth do I have to tap on the phone on each turn? Especially if I'm driving - using their Bing maps is a deadly risk if you ask me.

 

I can go on and on but that's been done already. It's pretty sad as I like Windows Phone better aesthetically better than it's competition but it's shortcomings and the snail-like pace they're catching up with (years now) is staggering...

The Sync issues are dependent on certain conditions. If you're a google user, blame google. There's a sync bug for EAS, but it's a tiny one.

 

Also, you are using the maps app instead of the Drive app. Simply download Nokia Drive. Will fix the issues you are seeing as the app you are using is only able to show turn by turn directions manually due to licensing.

 

I mean the app closes, then I have to restart it from the beginning. For example, a few seconds ago, I was playing UNO with friends. Right in the middle of it, the app froze for half a second, then closed. After I reopen the app, and it restarted everything. Everything I was doing prior was lost.

That's to do with the developer of the app. If you read its reviews you will see a lot of people bitching about it. You can't really blame MS for bad coding by third party devs.

[articuno1au]

lol wow. So it bugs you that Microsoft haven't added basic features, even though they've had years to do so, but if WP's userbase complains that they're not going fast enough to add these features, that bugs you as well.

 

The complaints are because it would be fine to go (slightly) faster than Apple/Google if their phone had these features to start with, but what the Windows Phone team doesn't seem to realize is they've already started a lap behind, they need to sprint, not jog.

Well, that fails to consider that from WP7.5 -> WP8 there was a complete rebase of the kernel and all of the base drivers etc. On top of this there were a lot of new functions added.

 

We've been seeing gradual updates over time, and whilst I agree they need to work faster, I don't think it could be suggested that they're going slowly.

 

Okay. Now I don't believe I have the amber update. In Settings > extras + info, it doesn't say "Lumia Amber." When I click "check for update", it does however say up to date. Is there a way to know for sure if I have the latest software?

Yeah, you can go to "About my phone" and check the OS version on the net. Will let you know.

It sounds to me like the latest update for your phone is held up in carrier approval.. It's a pain in the ass >.>

 

Amber fixes a lot of annoying ###### and makes the OS a fair amount cleaner.

 

I love building pcs and having windows and changing thing the way i want. I hate apple for thier limiations and forcing the apple way onto everything. its why i love windows

 

but when it comes to phones its percisely the reason i hate windows phone.

 

 

android is to windows phone

 

what windows 7 is to apple osx.

 

 if you want to tinker and tweak things the way you want then android is the way to go.

 

the most frustarting part of my windows phone experience was that i could not simply plug into my pc and drag and drop files into the phone like  i can do with android

everything has to go through skydrive or zune software etc

 

especily with word documents, i had to upload them to sky drive from my pc and then download them from the phone, how about transferring directly via usb!!!!

 

 

i find it hard to believe that like minded people (this ii a  tech forum after all, and most of us are windows fans who enjoy tinkering and tweaking all aspects of our computers) would honestly find windows phone adequate when the like of android exist. 

Well, WP8 doesn't actually use Zune, sooooooooooooo.. Yeah.

 

Also, you appear to be retarded. Consult a doctor for help with that.

 

A friend of mine just purchased a 925, after loving it initially he did miss having separate volume controls for ringtones and music, and obviously coming from Android, the lack of "notification centre"

 

Neither have caused me much hassle but both being addressed in 8.1 would be nice.

That drives me crazy. I get phone calls that are insanely loud on the phone, then insanely quiet via bluetooth. This is being changed in GDR3 thank ######.

 

The notification center I'm looking forward to, but don't really think is critical.

[articuno1au]

Yeah, they should, no reason they can't update individual apps/hubs without needing a full OS update.  I brought up updating IE for example, or one of the other core apps.    At that point you can have a big OS rollout once a year and most people wouldn't mind.

That'll be coming. The way Nokia approached there app updates will be the way Microsoft do it soon enough.

 

A clean recovery can only be done by 'Nokia Care Suite' which pulls down the latest image from Nokia servers, the phone itself is placed in a special recovery mode and the OS is restored cleanly to the phone. It used to be possible to do it at home but Nokia has since locked down their server so the only ones who can do it now are authorised repairers and carriers.

Not quite right. You can do a clean restore on WP8 without the NCS. Also, you don't need access to the Nokia servers to get the files..

 

I have a GDR2 ROM for my phone sitting on my desktop right at this second, with signed certs and the whole 9 yards.

 

WP8 is just WP7 with a bunch of improvements.  I'm sure there are tons of changes in the backend, but from a UI perspective you won't notice much difference.  The biggest reasons I upgraded my phone were hardware (better camera and bigger screen), app compatibility (not all apps are available on both WP7 and WP8, I wanted to make sure I could use newer WP8-exclusive apps), and the ability to just plug my phone in and copy music and videos over using the file manager.  From day to day usage you can't detect a huge difference (except that my new phone is faster, but it should be with a significantly better CPU).  And I agree, I think WP7 was excellent, too.

 

I think Android is great, too, but I use it on my tablet.  I love it to death for many reasons, but stability isn't one of them, and I can't imagine using it on my phone.  My wife uses an Android phone and she hates it because apps randomly stop working for no apparent reason and often even a reset isn't enough to fix it.  But she doesn't want to move away from Android just yet so she's stuck in this love/hate relationship with a phone that she's liable to curse at and throw across the room at any given moment.  Windows Phone makes for a rock solid phone with a great instant messaging service and camera with skydrive upload built in.  Facebook integration is great, too.  It does communication very well, which it should, because it's on a device whose primary purpose is communication.  Apps are a nice perk, but 99% of what you need in a phone is built in.  90% of the apps I install on both my phone and my tablet are games.  Android has a larger selection of games, so it works better on my tablet since I'd rather play those games on a 9" screen than a 4" screen anyway.

Pretty true. There are a lot of small improvements as well, but nothing really game changing imo.

 

Also, the move to NT slowed down the boot process immensely and that ###### me off. WP8 start up takes about 5 times as long as WP7.

[Nilus]

I didn't mention the lack of apps because that's an obvious one and something you're aware of before you buy into Windows Phone. But I agree nonetheless.

 

It's not really the lack of apps i'm getting at. It is the quality of them.  I know it's not Microsofts fault but it's a bit misleading when someone asks the question beforehand about if the apps they are there like eBay or Flickr and are told yes, but the apps are just really really poor imitations.

[AWilliams87]

1. Pin more things, you can make tiny little tiles, pin stuff at the bottom.

2. Apps that crash in regular usage get bounced from the store. I've not had a crash outside of Baconit in ages. It sounds like something funky is going on with your phone.

3. Kind of agree with this. Sometimes it works perfectly, then other times it goes full ****ing potato.

4. The gestures thing is a bit meh. You can activate tabs instead of the refresh button, which makes switching tabs a 2 click deal, but yeah >.>

5. Bluetooth needs to be enabled because NFC transfer merely pairs the two bluetooth enabled devices to do a transfer. This is the same on all OS's. Regarding wallet, I can't comment as it's not really supported in Australia.

6. This part is just moronic.. I don't suggest skype is a great app atm, but your points here are potato.

7. Ok. I'd rather not use the data, but sure.

 

I think you'll see with 8.1 the unification of some things that will make app support a lot more ubiquitous. I agree that 8 isn't enough of an improvement over 7. I'm close to skipping to Android, but at least pick your reasons properly when ranting.

 

The Sync issues are dependent on certain conditions. If you're a google user, blame google. There's a sync bug for EAS, but it's a tiny one.

 

Also, you are using the maps app instead of the Drive app. Simply download Nokia Drive. Will fix the issues you are seeing as the app you are using is only able to show turn by turn directions manually due to licensing.

 

That's to do with the developer of the app. If you read its reviews you will see a lot of people bitching about it. You can't really blame MS for bad coding by third party devs.

With the 6th point: I needed a chat that serves as a central location for my friends and I to communicate, like we did with Google hangouts. Skype was the first obvious choice. We figured since it was owned by Microsoft and will become the communications medium on the new Xbox and Windows 8, it would effective. We were wrong. It sucked. This is especially important seeing how important it is and will become to Microsoft.

 

With your last point: Doesn't matter who it is. Point is, it's on Microsoft's platform. Microsoft certified those apps to be in their app store. Also, the app which crashed the most on my was the native maps app; a Microsoft developed app.

[articuno1au]

Oh yeah, it was a complete load of tosh, but it's been getting better over time. Skype no longer crashes on me and mainly works quite nicely.

 

Yes it really does matter. Microsoft certify that the code won't crash under normal circumstances. The issue with Uno with Friends crashing appears to be server related, an area that is ENTIRELY outside of Microsoft's control.

 

I'm a registered app developer. They don't check my apps for whether I'm a moronic coder, they check them to make sure they don't crash on normal usage.

 

The app crash sounds like something is wrong with your phone. I'm on my third WP device and I've not had the maps app crash ever. If in doubt, download Here Drive or Here Maps.

 

Should fix the issue for you.

[Depicus]

It's not really the lack of apps i'm getting at. It is the quality of them.  I know it's not Microsofts fault but it's a bit misleading when someone asks the question beforehand about if the apps they are there like eBay or Flickr and are told yes, but the apps are just really really poor imitations.

 

It's not a surprise because the tools to build apps were not great and there are lots in things missing like the ability to send udp packets etc. Also the App Hub where developers submit their apps was the worst thing I have ever seen in my life. Questions on their forum were deleted if they were critical and when you get to this point developers just give up and put the time in where the money is.

[Hitman2000]

 

 

Well, WP8 doesn't actually use Zune, sooooooooooooo.. Yeah.

 

Also, you appear to be retarded. Consult a doctor for help with that.

 

 

 

 

Retarded? for not being a blind windows fanboy?

 

ok

[Yusuf M. Veteran]

WP8 isn't perfect and Microsoft are working on improving it. Things will get better with GDR3 and WP8.1. With that said, I haven't had any crashing issues whatsoever. I use Nokia's HERE apps (Map, Drive, and Transit) regularly and it doesn't feel "disintegrated". Sure, it's a separate app but that doesn't make it bad. One feature I enjoy using are offline maps (with offline navigation). Voice features are still a work-in-progress and it's something Microsoft is working to improve. In the past, it used to be very slow but as you mentioned.. it's quite fast now. It's not perfect but neither is Siri or Google Voice.

 

As for Skype, I think it's a great app. I love how it integrates with the phone so that Skype calls show up in the same way as regular calls. It may not have delivery receipts or show when someone is typing but it's still useful.

[Nilus]

I have to say during my year with WP8 I didn't experience any crashes. In fact, i was very impressed with not only the speed but also how it maintained that speed over time with little to no slowdown. 

 

It is a shame it is let down by everything else :(

[StandingInAlley]

I agree with the OP.

 

I feel that if one is willing to let go of those points as said by him then they should go with WP8. About 7 months back, i decided to switch thinking that i don't use that many apps and most of the apps that I use can be found in WP8 plus I wanted a phone with an awesome camera which Lumia 920 had except I was wrong. Today i wish I had an Android or iOS device because I really miss using new apps. Its just nice to have an option than not having one in terms of apps. I wanted to pick Fitbit or Jawbone's Up but can't because there is no support for them. 

 

Amber update which was pushed for Lumia devices in India has an odd bug where one cannot change the default search engine in IE so I'm stuck with Bing ugh. 

 

This is my plan now - Trying to sell my Lumia 920 and pick a nice Android device and maybe in near future pick a cheap WP8 device since I like the platform.