Contemplating moving from Android to Windows phone

Big Lar wrote: »

I have at the moment the Note 4 and am considering of moving to a windows phone.

I work mostly on PC, using office 2013/16 and my thinking would be that the windows phone would integrate in well with my working environment, every so often I find myself on the road having to pull out that laptop as the android phone will not cut the mustard.

The general use of the phone is work related so I am not worried about watching video/playing games or anything like that.

I wonder if anyone here has made the move and would have the pros or cons to moving and what kinda phone should I be going for to have the same specs as the note 4.

Thanks.

Went from Android to Windows back in 2012 and back to Android again earlier this year.


In terms of hardware specs the Lumia 950XL would compare quite well with the Note 4 but the OS won’t be as polished, less apps and some of those apps that are there won’t be up to date as the Android or iOS equivalent.


Pros
The 950 and 950XL support continuum, which would be its unique selling point, it allows you to use your phone as a desktop on supported apps and with the use of the dock to plug in keyboard mouse, monitor or TV etc.
The OS is nice to look at it and easy to use, the high end devices always have great cameras.


Cons
While the OS is improving its still not there, and that is not acceptable, for years the OS has been one big update away from being right but it never gets there, you are always in beta, fine for a second phone (I use a lumia 930 as my second phone) but not on a main device.
Apps, as mentioned above you get less apps and less updates for the apps you do have, simple things like banking apps are not always available, this have been the case since Windows Phone 7, they said it would be better with Windows Phone 8, it wasn’t, then Windows 10 would bring universal apps and app bridges to port iOS and Andorid apps, still no improvement, the app gap is as bad as ever.



Personally I would stick with the Note 4 and just download the office apps for android, if anything I would consider replacing your laptop with a Surface (3 or Pro 4 depending on your budget and needs) and use that when limited by android.

Bear in mind that Continuum is not the full Windows desktop experience - ie: it'll only run what's available in the Windows store. You can't just install anything you like as you would on a laptop.

I have used several Windows phones in the past few years (all higher end stuff like the 920, 930 etc) but gave up last year and went back to Android as I got tired of the "coming soon" approach to fixing or including things that should be standard, the app gap (not just missing apps but quality - even MS's own apps work better on Android), and of course Win 10 is a never-ready beta where stuff will be changed or removed without much warning.

The 950 I wouldn't rate as a Note 4 equivalent. The camera and spec might be good on paper, but the device quality isn't as good and of course most of the mobile networks have little to no interest in Windows Phone anyway.

I'd stick with what you have or get a S6 Edge+ or S7 Edge with the MS apps you need (office, OneDrive, Outlook etc) rather than investing in a platform that MS themselves seem to be abandoning

Big Lar wrote: »

At this stage the negatives far outweigh the positives so that's the end of the Windows phone idea.
Thanks very much for the advice lads.

It's sad, Windows Phone should be great, and certainly when it works it's brilliant but there's just too many gaps between what it should be and what it is.