Windows 10 Mobile Long Term Review - Is Threshold 2 any good?

[AlTech]

Microsoft’s Windows 10 Mobile is finally much more matured than when I first tried it out in 2015. A lot has changed since its insider preview. The Windows 10 Mobile Threshold 1 Builds were very buggy and not suitable for daily driver usage. Microsoft decided it was in too bad of a shape to ship it in devices and so they started working on Threshold 2.

 

Overall Performance

Now, the Threshold 2 update (the infamous 10586 branch of Windows 10) is a lot more fluid and responsive than ever before. It is still not as snappy as Windows Phone 8.1 was when I was using that. That being said, a lot of improvements have been made since then. For example, individual notifications in action center can be dismissed instead of having to dismiss all notifications from the app. Being able to customize how transparent live tiles are is freaking awesome.

 

But there are still some issues to be ironed out. One of my biggest complaints with Windows 10 Mobile apps and now some Windows 10 Mobile built in apps and services is that they often need to “resume” or “load” and it takes an eternity to change apps or open a new app. It takes damn forever to download Windows Updates for whatever reason (might just be me not being super close to my router). Moving Live Tiles still causes a lot of lag and is absolutely terrible to do. Switching from the start screen to the app list is slow and not as responsive as I would have liked despite this being an issue for so long.

 

The app problem

The app problem was never a major issue to me in the beginning due to how new I was to smartphones and how I wasn’t so used to apps yet. The app problem has gotten better but still isn’t ideal.  Some apps like Spotify, Twitter and Instagram have gotten a lot better since Windows 10 Mobile came out. Instagram’s new app for Windows 10 Mobile is nothing short of absolutely freaking awesome. The day the new app came out was the day I uninstalled 6tag. Facebook has allegedly updated their Messenger app and Facebook app but I don’t use those and so I wouldn’t know too much about them. Other excellent apps that have gotten better include Teamviewer (which now fully supports Continuum on supported devices), Windows Central, Office Mobile (Word, excel, powerpoint, onenote etc) is a lot better with a lot more features and many  of Microsoft’s stock app are universal apps that also run on Windows 10 Desktop version.

 

 

Instagram's new app

 

 

Twitter's new app

 

100% Live Tile transparency on supported apps.

 

The greyed out areas are stuff I don't know if i should show others although some I know I shouldn't.

 

Dismissing one notification at a time.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

However, while some new apps are coming/being ported over, the gaming situation hasn’t gotten any better. Game developers for Mobile devices are still ignoring Windows Phones and going to IOS and Android instead. This is really sad as some of my friends play games only on IOS or Android and I can’t take part or try out the game unless the developer cares about Windows Mobile devices.

 

I am happy that developers are trying to make apps for Windows 10 Mobile. There are still apps that I would love to have on Windows 10 Mobile that are on Android or IOS. The only reason I can think of is that, these companies don’t know Windows 10 Mobile exists or they really hate Microsoft. I informed Snapchat (a company that is well aware of Windows Phone’s existence) and they refused to reply to a tweet  that I sent out about them breaking their promise of one day releasing a Windows Mobile app. Within days I got numerous likes and retweets by other frustrated Windows Phone users.

 

Some apps like Skype are just awful and always have been. I am told that a newer skype app which is universal, will replace the current Skype app. I don’t know if it will be a lot better but I guess we’ll just have to keep on hoping.  I don’t consider myself a heavy apps user unless there’s an app I want or like. I still have to rely on third party apps for certain things like for my local Transport app since the company doesn’t have a Windows Phone app despite having an IOS and Android app.

 

Conclusion

Windows 10 Mobile is a lot more user friendly and intuitive to first time smartphone users and for those switching from older Windows Phone OS’s and other smartphone platforms. Developers still don’t show as much care as they should (something I encourage to keep bothering companies about). It is a great upgrade from Windows Phone 8.1 . More apps are coming and maybe soon more games will come. Apps are getting better so they are up to snuff with the IOS or Android equivalent, And frankly if your device supports it then you should go download it.

 

Guys & Girls, Thanks for taking a look at this. Like this post if you liked it. If you didn't then tell me why in the comments below. I hope you have a great time with Window 10. Until next time, I'm AluminiumTech. Thanks for reading

 

[LynxThe1st]

can we have tl;dr

because I cannot be bothered reading all of that about a phone OS

[AlTech]

Just now, LynxThe1st said:

can we have tl;dr

because I cannot be bothered reading all of that about a phone OS

fixed my spoiler stuff. For the TL:DR version , refresh the page and look at the conclusion.

[LynxThe1st]

Just now, AluminiumTech said:

fixed my spoiler stuff. For the TL:DR version , refresh the page and look at the conclusion.

thank you

[Godlygamer23]

2 minutes ago, LynxThe1st said:

can we have tl;dr

because I cannot be bothered reading all of that about a phone OS

Then read the conclusion.

[LynxThe1st]

9 minutes ago, Godlygamer23 said:

Then read the conclusion.

it wasn't there before, he put in after I said it