Windows Phone 8.1 Review
by Anand Lal Shimpi on April 14, 2014 10:00 PM EST- Posted in
- Smartphones
- Microsoft
- Mobile
- windows phone
- Windows Phone 8.1
Final Words
Windows Phone 8.1 is a much needed and well thought out upgrade to the WP platform. Action Center is extremely well executed. The new keyboard brings the most polished implementation of shape writing to Windows Phone. IE11 is faster and more compatible than IE10. And Cortana offers hope in the way of eventually turning Windows Phone into even more of a personal digital assistant. The upgrades are solid.
In terms of high level features, Windows Phone 8.1 brings the platform up to near parity with Android and iOS. If what you’re doing is calendar, basic camera work, email, SMS, web browsing, Facebook and Twitter you can have a good experience on all three platforms. In fact, there’s an attention to detail that Microsoft exhibits in Windows Phone 8.1 that at times rivals that of Apple. I suspect this is why Windows Phone users, although a small portion of the market, are generally satisfied with their platform.
With Windows Phone however, Microsoft finds itself in a very frustrating position. It lacks the marketshare necessary to make Windows Phone a primary target for developers. Apps are more likely to launch first on Android and/or iOS. Part of the problem is one of marketshare, the other part is one of philosophy. For the past 3.5 years Microsoft needed to rev Windows Phone more frequently than Android or iOS, and it needed to be on the forefront of hardware adoption as well. For whatever reason, Microsoft did neither. Windows Phone saw, at best, as many major OS updates as Android/iOS, and at worst trailed the two in terms of minor updates. I’d argue that both Android and iOS changed more since Windows Phone’s introduction than WP itself, which shouldn’t be the case as both of those platforms are far older (and thus should be more mature/changing less substantially). On the hardware side, it’s important to note that no one ever wins by consciously choosing slower hardware. Building efficient software is one thing, but failing to use the latest hardware isn’t doing anyone any favors.
Last year saw Microsoft accelerate its software release cadence, and by the end of the year was on parity with Android in terms of high end Qualcomm silicon support. These two trends must continue through 2014 and beyond for Windows Phone to continue to grow. The UI needs regular updates/tweaks to keep it fresh but also keep it evolving towards perfection. With faster hardware on the horizon, Windows Phone can no longer be the last to support the latest platforms. I can’t say I have a ton of faith that Windows Phone will become the launch platform of choice for new silicon, but I do hope the lag between what is offered on Android and WP will narrow to at most a couple of quarters.
Microsoft has a huge opportunity in its universal app strategy. Being able to run the same app on smartphone, tablet, notebook and desktop is a sort of holy grail for the next stage in the computing evolution. I honestly see the biggest strength there in gaming, but for that to work out Microsoft not only needs to push its mobile hardware more than anyone else but it also needs to treat Xbox as a platform and not as a console.
So what about Windows Phone 8.1 today? The hardware is decent and the software just saw a solid upgrade. Going back to the platform after a significant hiatus I’m quickly reminded of why it is a reasonable third choice. I’m still not a fan of the overuse of text as a navigational element, but between Action Center and aggressive use of the start screen you should be able to avoid a lot of that. Personally I'd still prefer Android or iOS. The Google services experience is understandably better under Android and unless you're using Skype exclusively, messaging is better under Android and iOS. Then there's the third party app story. The Windows Phone Store is healthier today than it was four years ago, but if you want the latest and greatest apps as they hit the market you'll want to be on Android or iOS. (Can I also add that only having three brightness settings and a ton of devices that won't let you force the display on makes testing these things a nightmare?)
I believe Windows Phone’s biggest strength continues to be as an entry level smartphone platform. If you don’t need the flexibility and bleeding edge feature/app set that Android offers, and you don’t want to invest as much financially into moving to iOS, Windows Phone offers a unique middle ground between the two platforms. With the majority of growth in the smartphone space over the coming years moving to the entry level and mainstream segments, that’s Windows Phone’s real opportunity. What’s needed is the Moto G equivalent in the Windows Phone space. The high end Nokia devices are interesting from a camera perspective, but I suspect the real chance to win is if Nokia can point its camera excellence at a more mainstream price point.
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DanNeely - Tuesday, April 15, 2014 - link
In the second set of image tests the no and standard image compression images appear identical. Did MS really manage to squeeze 10% out with no visible impact at all; or did you load the same image twice?EnzoFX - Tuesday, April 15, 2014 - link
So they should be at the bleeding edge in hardware, while focusing on the entry-level? That sounds a bit counter productive to me, but what do I know.I do agree it's great as entry-level, I have a 521, and love it for the basics and little I use it for. I don't want to do anything too complex, if I did I would use a tablet, in which case free tethering on Tmo is a god send.
Penti - Tuesday, April 15, 2014 - link
Their tie in with Qualcomm worked for Microsoft, it's one of the reasons Nokia's mobile business collapsed when they switched as they had been paying and cooperating with other semi-suppliers and much of what they did and their supply network went up in smoke thanks to it. They have already fired 30 000 employees and closed their manufacturing in Europe except for a few holding out in Hungary were most have been sacked. Uprooted how they design and manufacture and most of their supply network. What has survived is manufacturing in India and China, were they mostly has done Series 30/40 type of devices, the sub €50 market.However it didn't look like this for Microsoft's market position for a long time, other SoC-suppliers were pretty prevalent and they did lag even on getting the latest Qualcomm-chips. As Qualcomm-chips come in both new high-end variants and low-end it does make sense to be supported early, regardless of when the mass release is done on the new chip. It also hindered stuff like other screen resolutions. Basically features Nokia's Symbian had in 2010 is what Nokia's WP-phones get now, and some of the limitations Symbian had like semi-fixed resolution got carried on and still applies in 2014. Great for Microsoft which get the only Windows Phone brand for nothing, but for the market as a whole? For NA? Well it's low end devices in Europe and Asia that sells and in the States they don't sell millions of units per year as they – the low-end – haven't caught on over there. High-end is mostly a marketing vehicle for Microsoft I would say. Most of the people that has been proponents early on knew nothing about it's limitations and so those people weren't good ambassadors. Most moved on as it's been about 4 years since Mix 2010. Others like Blackberry moved out of the spotlight but has been able to create whole new platforms within the same time that had most of the necessary features from the first few releases which were out some time ago. Until now, with 8.1 which hasn't made a final release yet, Windows Phone hasn't really been a choice in an enterprise as it's (mobile) management features were worse then BB10, Android and iOS, which all three also supported Exchange much better, had better third-party support for things like sharepoint and lync and so on. S/MIME mail weren't doable until 8.1 for example. They haven't drawn on their strength's that is the rest of the Microsoft family. While they have a mobile Office suit, it's features really isn't any better than third party packages for Android, BB10 or iOS by now and enterprise features or favorites like VBA Macros or really big spreadsheets are a now go. Thus it really doesn't offer any advantages. But now it is at least workable to a much larger extent.
Sabresiberian - Tuesday, April 15, 2014 - link
Thanks for the review of 8.1 and the Icon. I've been wanting an Anandtech treatment because I believe this site is the best at detailing mobile phone hardware and software. You and Brian are also very good at moving prejudices or preferences to the side, expressing opinions as opinions and differentiating them from the facts. Well done.Penti - Tuesday, April 15, 2014 - link
Sadly Universal Apps are overblown, WinRT-framework still has it's limitations and while WinRT has been updated to the same as desktops it still is a two-projects in one solution, and if you don't do an mobile UI, or don't do a Store-UI (desktop metro) then it won't run there. Only part of the code is shared, the .NET version still requires portable class libraries and it's still built as one mobile app and one startscreen app from that project. WinRT (runtime) is sadly a limited abstraction of Win32 rather than anything else and it's still much weaker than iOS SDK or Android NDK/SDK, or Blackberry 10 Native SDK, or Jolla's Sailfish SDK. The phone still runs Win32 programs and the others don't need an API for internal apps such as browsers and a totally different one for developers of third party apps. On Android there pretty much only is Bionic-driven Native apps and apps on the Android framework through Dalvik/ART. WP still has two native frameworks and runtimes underneath it's system. The only thing it does anything better then at a technical level is probably the Bada-LiMo hybrid that is Tizen which is a mix of Bada C++ API's and EFL, which no one can relate to. It kinda is like if Nokia would bring back Symbian C++ API's, which they did replace with Qt the last few years it were around. Microsoft have to settle for the low-end market here, even if they actually can do corporate email now.Duraz0rz - Tuesday, April 15, 2014 - link
"it still is a two-projects in one solution, and if you don't do an mobile UI, or don't do a Store-UI (desktop metro) then it won't run there."Is that a bad thing? There are many instance of iOS or Android apps being developed for the phone and not scaling well to the tablet. You have to make design decisions between the two, especially since the phone is designed to be used (for the most part) in portrait mode, while tablets are designed to be used in landscape.
"it's still much weaker than iOS SDK or Android NDK/SDK, or Blackberry 10 Native SDK, or Jolla's Sailfish SDK."
Why are the iOS or Android SDKs better than the WinRT SDK?
LarsBars - Tuesday, April 15, 2014 - link
Windows Phone lagged behind Android in getting LTE support, but the Lumia 900 launched 5 months before the iPhone 5, which was the first Apple phone to have LTE.UsernameAlreadyExists - Wednesday, April 16, 2014 - link
They even had a review of it. http://www.anandtech.com/show/5724/nokia-lumia-900... Of course, maybe Anand didn't read it :)wrkingclass_hero - Tuesday, April 15, 2014 - link
"It’s no coincidence that the two players that do have that feature also derive revenue from selling advertising against user data."Didn't Apple buy Admob? Admob doesn't collect user data?
MikhailT - Wednesday, April 16, 2014 - link
http://www.google.com/ads/admob/Google owns Admob, so no, Apple didn't buy Admob. Were you thinking of a different company?