Maybe it's just because I'm old(?) now, but I don't remember how busy the tiles were bothering me as much as it does. The design of the phone itself is definitely a breath of fresh air compared to phones in the last 6-7 years, and I think a lot of the hardware quirks were made worse by software
I was all-in on Windows Phone from Windows Mobile 6.5 when phones looked like THIS! (The live tiles approach from 7 onwards was cool though it's a shame it never got the app support)
My ex-wife dropped hers outside, in Florida, during hurricane season. It sat in the yard for four months at least until I found it laying under some leaves. Lil' bastard powered right up.
I had one of the flagship Lumias and I'm fully convinced that, in terms of build quality at least, it's still one of the best smartphones I've ever owned. Windows Phone as an OS was kinda rad, especially when app developers actually used their Live Tiles to push notifications to the home screen etc.
The issue with the Lumias and with Windows Phone in general is that while the ecosystem was there, the developers weren't. These things didn't have official Instagram clients until Microsoft had already closed down their Smartphone division from what I remember, at the height of its popularity.
Weren't half bad, really. Problem for the one I had was when I went to update it, the update was larger than the storage. Would love to see phones go smaller
But hardware support is awesome. You can easily open up the case back and change stuff.
As for software support... If this phone has a rich custom ROM community then it's perfect for people like me!
yeah, but, as a person who's daily driving a custom rommed phone, it's just a little bit too hacky at times, especially if we're talking device certification and banking apps.
and also, it's just not the same as windows phone and most customization options in that department are rather mediocre
I'm using a custom ROM with root. It is very easy to trick banking apps into not seeing that you have root, or spoof certification.
But I understand that the majority of people will never bother with that and stay on the official ROM.
it's as easy to fix these workarounds as it is to apply them, so that isn't an option to rely on if all you want is to have everything working without having to constantly monitor what works and what doesn't. i had a lot of moments where google pay just refused to work right at the checkout
I made fun of my friend who had a windows phone, but now I feel so bad because it looks so good. He later got a blue iPhone CE (the colorful ones). Those looked so nice too, but he also got rid of it.
HMD, current parent company of Nokia, launched the HMD Skyline, an mid-high spec Android phone which has the same exterior design than Lumias. That model is also highly repairable btw.
As much as I liked Windows Mobile, I absolutely adored the end-stage Symbian devices like the E7 -- if those were an option today I'd have my daily driver solved for decades. I don't need a folding screen, I NEED a KEYBOARD. PLEASE.
And the general UI design of Windows Phone was super cool and I still think it was a good OS (which given how much I hate Win11 these days says something)
But of course : no apps.
Like such a dearth of apps, and MS just doing the worst shite
they COOKED with these designs, i remember for the last few months of using android (i had a nokia 8) i actually had a windows phone launcher and it was actually really enjoyable to use
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I tried one once and absolutely hated the home screen layout.
That and the unavailability of popular apps kinda made it an unusable experience for me.
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.ss.squarehome2
As for software support... If this phone has a rich custom ROM community then it's perfect for people like me!
and also, it's just not the same as windows phone and most customization options in that department are rather mediocre
But I understand that the majority of people will never bother with that and stay on the official ROM.
Those phones both looked great…
And the general UI design of Windows Phone was super cool and I still think it was a good OS (which given how much I hate Win11 these days says something)
But of course : no apps.
Like such a dearth of apps, and MS just doing the worst shite
😒😤😮💨