Depending on where y'all live and who you know, y'all probably know a few Windows phone users. Living in the Britain, one of the few bright spots for the Windows phone platform before Microsoft decided to burn down it downwardly, I knew quite a few Windows phone users. Most of them were low-finish, some were mid range, and fewer withal were even high-terminate. Slowly the number of users declined as people switched phones and upgraded to different platforms, I never really thought to inquire why they switched. I figured the app gap was a good plenty reason to switch for anyone, but there was one more reason rarely spoken about online. "The feel gap".

"Windows phones are $&#£" said i user I spoke to on Sabbatum. She was using a Lumia 535 on Windows Phone 8.ane, I didn't bother to explicate to her about Windows x because as her telephone striking its umpteenth loading screen, I wasn't sure Windows 10 would work as a fix. Neither is Microsoft. If they were so confident, they would have pushed out an upgrade to Windows 10 to her telephone rather than make it an optional update accessible via an app in the app store.

"Why won't my WiFi piece of work" said a family unit member using a Lumia 550, afterward upgrading to a  Lumia 650 merely to run into the same issue.

"Why can't I download whatsoever apps" asked another. His own Lumia 650 kept on requesting his Microsoft account password and later  rejecting it with an mistake stating "something went wrong" and nothing more.

Some other complained of delayed notifications, yet another complained of frequent crashing. At some indicate, it becomes a fleck harder to blame the lack of Windows phone sales on biased tech bloggers, or reluctant salespeople, if the people who have Windows phones themselves take a self-reported bad experience from it.

The issue here seems to be that many Windows phone fans – including myself – repeatedly ignore or overlook glaring issues with Windows telephone itself that normal users may not overlook.

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In my review of the Lumia 950 Forty, I noted pain points with the software which fabricated the experience untenable for me. What especially opened my eyes to information technology was not but that I had used

Information technology is not normal for your phone to reboot by itself several times a month, not even a month. Nor is it normal for your apps to crash repeatedly over and over. Information technology isn't normal for your music player to demand to be babysat to ensure it plays music when the phone is locked, nor is it normal for your camera app to crash subsequently a number of photos.  For Windows phone users, this is only an accepted reality.

Y'all are advised to upgrade to Insider Fast, downgrade to production, run Release Preview, install patch X or patch Y to make sure your smartphone can play music nether the lockscreen. When all else fails, you're villified for ownership a Windows phone because you should take known better than to buy a developer device, a low-end device, or a previous generation flagship. There's an out for everything.

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For Windows phone fans, the benefits of using Windows phone may outweigh the costs of it, such as apps like Snapchat, Apple Music and the Google Ecosystem as a whole, for others they may but desire something which works, and works well.

For a while, I had rarely ever used an Android or iOS phone, I merely used Windows phones warts and all. Tardily last year, I dabbled with Android, using the Moto G, Redmi Notation 3, Nexus half dozen and Nexus 5. Equally far as reliability goes, I was blown abroad. Not fifty-fifty with regards to things that aren't possible on Windows phones, but things that are possible but don't work reliably.

Things like opening a notification from the notification middle and being taken to the app, attaching an epitome to send without the app crashing, opening an app without the app crashing the first time, no-random reboots, no unexplained bombardment drain. Information technology all simply worked like it should. It was like Windows Telephone and Android had switched places in the bureaucracy of things, with Windows phone beingness a laggy, crashy mess and Android being smooth and unoptimized.

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At that place's an argument to be made that on lower end devices Windows may offer a better feel than the equivalently priced Android phone, but this statement loses validity with the current crop of Android devices. The Lumia 650 competes with phones similar the Xiaomi Redmi Annotation and Moto One thousand, which isn't so much a competition for the Android devices as much equally information technology is a one-sided crush downward.

On the cheaper end of the market, value for money is an increasingly  relevant metric, and Windows phones don't offer loftier value of money when you have the app gap or specs into consideration. The current crop of low-end devices ship with sleek metal bodies, powerful cameras and big screens. We tin talk in circles all well-nigh smoothness and tiles all day, only most people would rather employ a relatively slow Snapchat than non have the selection at all.

Possibly this highlights the greatest flaw in the low-end sales strategy of Windows phone. The lower end the telephone, the less reliable it is, the less people recommend information technology, the more people actively advise against it. In other words, the higher the electric current number of sales, the lower the possible number of future sales.

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Reports have circulated of Microsoft not being proud of the Windows ten Mobile feel as it is on the current Lumia line, as well as work to be done on improving the platform for future devices in Redstone two and iii.

As Windows phone sinks to less than 1%, in that location'southward no reason for Microsoft to heavily push Windows ten for phones at the moment if it heavily poisons the well of future Windows phones. Microsoft has already stated that they are committed to mobile for the future, simply not at the moment. In order to set Windows telephone sales, they have to fix Windows telephone offset, and if they tin't accomplish the latter, in that location's no signal in attempting the former.