Been with 8.1 for about a week now and it's genuinely impressing me at every turn. As a former Note 2 user I was worried about the lack of apps, though I'd pretty much made the decision to suck it and see after realising I used WhatsApp and an internet browser for 99% of my phone use (Great when I found out WhatsApp had been pulled not a few days before I got the phone! 
).
Not only is the whole OS just buttery smooth, but the cohesion across the whole platform is really pretty insane. I don't do any sort of developing but the kits they're handing out must be either well locked down or bloody easy to work with, as with a lot of random app downloads + experiments I'm still to find something that doesn't function exactly how the OS says it should, or even just fit with the general aesthetic.
This ties in with the general quality of the apps, which have all been very high quality (so far).
More of a general WP observation but I like Live tiles a lot. Feels like a great balance between widgets and icons, and feels like very little wasted space on screen.
Was hoping the battery life on the 1520 would be a more notable improvement over my Note 2 but still have a few settings to find and play about with. Shame about not having an OLED screen too. If they released this exact phone with one I'd grab it in a heartbeat.
Only real couple of downsides I've found so far are the capacitive buttons at the bottom not switching off when you have a full screen video and the phone plugged in. Very annoying given I plug it in and use it to play BBC iPlayer in bed every night. No reason why they can't time out. Which brings me to the second point..
It just feels a *little* short on customisation. I don't mean custom launchers or icons, just more comprehensive menu options. I'd love a quick button in the notification drop down for Glance for example, as I'm happy to have it off during the day but like the clock it gives me at night (Can't use a desk clock app because of the buttons staying on). A button to timeout the capacitive buttons. Ability to chose how many future calendar events to show on the lock screen, etc.
A lot of the OS has a similar feeling to Win 8 (No roll eyes
) in that it feels like it's been designed primarily for idiots. That's fine, and I get that it helps hold the whole system together without too much fragmentation, but like Win8 has the desktop mode, it would be great to just get a bit more of a power user mode for WP. Still, from what I experienced with 7 and 8, they're moving in this direction anyway, so hopefully it will only be a matter of time.
).Not only is the whole OS just buttery smooth, but the cohesion across the whole platform is really pretty insane. I don't do any sort of developing but the kits they're handing out must be either well locked down or bloody easy to work with, as with a lot of random app downloads + experiments I'm still to find something that doesn't function exactly how the OS says it should, or even just fit with the general aesthetic.
This ties in with the general quality of the apps, which have all been very high quality (so far).
More of a general WP observation but I like Live tiles a lot. Feels like a great balance between widgets and icons, and feels like very little wasted space on screen.
Was hoping the battery life on the 1520 would be a more notable improvement over my Note 2 but still have a few settings to find and play about with. Shame about not having an OLED screen too. If they released this exact phone with one I'd grab it in a heartbeat.
Only real couple of downsides I've found so far are the capacitive buttons at the bottom not switching off when you have a full screen video and the phone plugged in. Very annoying given I plug it in and use it to play BBC iPlayer in bed every night. No reason why they can't time out. Which brings me to the second point..
It just feels a *little* short on customisation. I don't mean custom launchers or icons, just more comprehensive menu options. I'd love a quick button in the notification drop down for Glance for example, as I'm happy to have it off during the day but like the clock it gives me at night (Can't use a desk clock app because of the buttons staying on). A button to timeout the capacitive buttons. Ability to chose how many future calendar events to show on the lock screen, etc.
A lot of the OS has a similar feeling to Win 8 (No roll eyes
) in that it feels like it's been designed primarily for idiots. That's fine, and I get that it helps hold the whole system together without too much fragmentation, but like Win8 has the desktop mode, it would be great to just get a bit more of a power user mode for WP. Still, from what I experienced with 7 and 8, they're moving in this direction anyway, so hopefully it will only be a matter of time.
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