I don’t know what you were expecting 😛
But this is about my ex-phone, Lumia 950 (and Windows 10 Mobile OS)
So, I bought an Android phone. A OnePlus 3T to be precise. If you have read my previous article about Windows Phone, you would have felt that I liked it. You are right, I really liked it, until they began to screw up every good thing about it. Especially, stability!
I had a Nexus 5 and it was one of the best flagships ever! However, I got overwhelmed with its openness. There were lots of space for customization. As I had plenty of time to play with it, I had even bricked it several times. But, it survived! However, I felt that I’m not using most of its features (well, I was wrong) and decided to go back to Windows Phone. I owned a Lumia 700 before and it wasn’t that hard for me to switch back to Windows Phone. So I unhesitantly switched to Lumia 950, the beast and the last member of the Microsoft Lumia family.
The experience with Lumia 950 was remarkable until they’ve decided to screw up their OS.
After getting fed up, I decided to go back to Android! Here is why.
Lack of Apps
Well, this has never been a problem to me. As we all know as the bigger bummer for getting rejected, Windows Phone doesn’t have Google Apps (except for the lame Google Search app). I could get satisfied with alternatives such as GMaps, OneDrive, Microsoft Office, etc. Yes, they are not rich as Google’s, but it worked.
So, this was NOT a reason for me to return to Android.
Stability
This was the biggest issue I faced. Windows Phone used to be a competitor to iOS in the aspect of stability and robustness. Then Windows have decided to release its updated with lots of bugs! Meanwhile, I have decided to participate in Windows Insider Program (beta testing), as I already was a participant for Windows 10 Desktop OS. Then began to get updates with more bugs (as expected). It caused my phone to get stuck even when trying to unlock the screen! The phone becomes unresponsive to the unlock button! Then what? Only a soft reset would solve it. That was one of the biggest issues in the OS. Some of the significant issues are listed below.
- No ringtone or notification sounds (this was however fixed by an update)
- Heating
- sometimes, the phone heats like a stove, even when I’m not using it.
- One day, the full charged battery died in 4 hours and heated like hell. Maybe an infinite-loop came into play
- Brightness
- This was too buggy.
- The automatic brightness was shit!
- Apps crash randomly
- “Oh, you’re doing something important. Let me kill that app so I can test your patience.”
- Only God knows why! But think he doesn’t have a Windows Phone 😛
- Background Processes?
- This was the top most reason I sold my Lumia 950.
- Some apps, which are expected to run in the background, such as Messenger and WhatsApp, were dead without even a clue.
- I got all the buffered messages when I opened the app.
- You can imagine how many problems that it might have caused.
Poorly developed third-party apps
Yes, it doesn’t have many apps from the biggest vendors. But I humbly expect the ones I have to get frequent updates, just like they do on Android and iOS.
The best examples are Messenger, Facebook app and WhatsApp (which I use the most). When they release an update on Android or iOS, Windows Phone was no way even near getting it. This is not a fault on Microsoft guys, but I need apps to work on my phone! When Android people enjoys the newest features, I was still stuck with that old bulky looking WhatsApp. The reason was, the developers have given a minimum priority to Windows Phone app upgrades.
And the apps were not optimized as they’re on Android or iOS. Even though my phone had Snapdragon 808 (hex-core) with 3GB of RAM, it took ages to load some apps (I’m highlighting the top 3 apps that I use). Sometimes I had to wait around 15 seconds until it loads up. And WhatsApp even decides to crash after all that waiting, and needs the phone to be restarted to get it working!
And another issue with the Messenger was when I tap the notification to reply to that message, it loads the last chat screen I was using. If I was chatting with someone else, the notification from someone else will prompt me to the previous chat. If I reply without checking whom I’m replying to, things would’ve got screwed.
And there were many bugs with these apps, and I didn’t even get updates to get them fixed (even after reporting them).
That was not an issue with Windows Phone, but there is no point of staying in the sinking ship!
Poor memory management
Lumia 950 came with 3 GB of RAM and is more than enough even to play heavy games. I had only 512MB RAM on Lumia 700 and I even played NFS Run on it. But Windows 10 Mobile had constantly proved that it’s so bad at memory management.
When I minimize an app to open another app, that means that I’m planning to switch back to that app, sooner or later. But when I switch back, the OS decides to do a full load up of the app! Given that the apps inherently takes too much time to load, I had to wait for a long time till I could use the app. So, the largest portion of my phone usage was starting at the screen! And the WhatsApp was the best performer out of all, as it crashes when resuming, I need to restart the phone in order to use the app again.
You can imagine my frustration!
Image on Windows Phones
I never got any good impression by being an owner of a Windows Phone. People needed my phone only when they want to take a photo. (Yeah, the best thing about the phone is the astonishing camera, which Lumia does it’s best on the field.)
I wanted to buy a phone (Galaxy S7 or an iPhone). So I contacted some people and shops who allowed to exchange the phones with some cash for a new phone. When I say “I have a Windows/Lumia Phone”, everybody said, “No, we don’t accept Windows Phone”. Damn!
That was because of the image it had on people’s heads. People think Windows Phone is not good, but I bought one despite all of the bad comments. The wonderland existed only for a few weeks.
But I should say, most people blame the Windows Phone even without using it! So most of the reason they give are wrong! But, this was my story!
My Story
I had a Lumia 700, which was great for simple usage. Yes, it lacked many features compared to the other phones of that time (2011). But it served me well.
Then I bought a Huawei Y501, just after I came back to Sri Lanka. That was my first Android phone, and I bought it to see what it’s like. But my choice was wrong, as it had very low specs and began to get stuck after 3 months.
Then I got a Nexus 5, which was one of the greatest phones at that time. Worked really smooth and had everything which was needed. After feeling overwhelmed, I decided to sell it 🙁
Then I bought a Nokia Lumia 930, the last one of the Nokia Lumia series. But unfortunately, I dropped it and broke the screen. So, I didn’t have much time to see its features.
Next, I stupidly decided to go back to another Lumia phone, Lumia 950. Everything about the phone was great, except for the OS it had: Windows 10 Mobile.
Now, I’m back with Android and living happily with my OnePlus 3T. This phone is EXCELLENT! This has everything which I had on Nexus 5. It has many more features all the other flagships try to achieve. No lag, no crashes, and simply පට්ට. Since I have other important work, I get less chance to mess with this. I think I’m gonna stick with this. (I will do a review on this phone in a separate article.)
So, that was why I broke up with Windows Phone!
