Windows 10 Tech Preview for Phone - 9941.12498 Initial Impressions
Since the announcement of Windows 10 Tech Preview for phones I've been looking forward to seeing how MS was going to move forward with this OS and installed build 9941.12498 on a Nokia Lumia 635 running Cyan Firmware.
MS made the install pretty painless. You download the Windows Insider app from the Store - request a preview build and login with your Microsoft Account - once completed - you go into settings and use the Update Phone settings app to get the build. It's about a 45 minute process. You also need to have Preview for Developers app installed as without it many of the Store Apps will not update.
But the install easily grabbed all my current settings and when completed my accounts were all there - mail, contacts, calendar were all sync'd up and apps like OneDrive were all working correctly.
I do have to say that MS has improved the overall user experience of synchronizing content and settings based on your MS account. Even Music & Video all sync'd up correctly.
So the 635 is not a flagship phone by any means - it runs a Snapdragon quadcore processor, 512Mb RAM and 8GB of base storage - but so far Windows 10 seems to run fine. Yes there can be a tiny bit of sluggishness when doing rapid scrolling - but for a Preview build not bad at all. So good job MS for supporting "entry level" phones. A little disappointed that MS did not call out the Lumia 735 as a supported device - even though I think it could run it fine..
Also even though my Lumia 635 is on Cyan and may never get the Denim firmware upgrade - I still got the latest 5.0 version of Camera. There is a little confusion - because from my 8.1 build - I also had Lumia Camera installed - version 4.9.32.
I will say this the new Camera app does load faster and reacts more quickly to actions. I don't have a high def sensor on the 635 - so features like HD capture, etc are missing - but it is a much nicer camera app.
There are some new native apps that are nice improvements - for example the Alarms app now includes a world clock, timer and stopwatch. Calculator is also expanded to include multiple types as well as unit converter - so you don't need the separate app anymore.
Many other base apps are pretty much unchanged - mail, calendar, people, etc are pretty much exactly the same. There is an expanded notifications area - in theory to give you quicker access to things like bluetooth, wifi, etc. It's nice but nothing earth shattering.
There is also a new settings app that tries to emulate what is going on with the desktop version of Windows 10. What it really did was create groups of settings - so now many are nested that you just had listed in WP 8.1. Again not an earth shattering change in the user experience.
IE also appears to be a newer version (There is no about setting to actually confirm that) but in my opinion not much improved. One thing I have noticed is that if you use Google on IE - Google puts up a hamburger in the left corner that give you access to their core apps including Google+, YouTube, Maps, GMail, etc
Cortana is updated and looks much more like the desktop version. But to be honest I haven't been a huge fan of Cortana. Just like the desktop and tablet it duplicates a lot of the live tile content for new sports, etc and the voice recognition stuff is fair at best. Personally I was happier with the core speech capabilities for doing things like voice dialing, reading text messages, etc.
But there is not much else to comment on. All of the MSN apps (News, Sports, Weather, etc) are the same versions that are running on my Lumia 735 running WP 8.1 and Denim. Office is the same, OneNote is the same. I have not yet tested a lot of my 3rd party store apps - but honestly I expect most if not all to work fine.
The same is true for the Here+ apps. They are the same versions I was running before.
So similar to Windows 10 for the Desktop - at this point Windows 10 for the Phone is very much an evolutionary upgrade and more of marketing thing to get away from the Windows 8 name.
It is going to be interesting to see how this evolves over the next few builds to see how MS refines the overall experience.
MS made the install pretty painless. You download the Windows Insider app from the Store - request a preview build and login with your Microsoft Account - once completed - you go into settings and use the Update Phone settings app to get the build. It's about a 45 minute process. You also need to have Preview for Developers app installed as without it many of the Store Apps will not update.
But the install easily grabbed all my current settings and when completed my accounts were all there - mail, contacts, calendar were all sync'd up and apps like OneDrive were all working correctly.
I do have to say that MS has improved the overall user experience of synchronizing content and settings based on your MS account. Even Music & Video all sync'd up correctly.
So the 635 is not a flagship phone by any means - it runs a Snapdragon quadcore processor, 512Mb RAM and 8GB of base storage - but so far Windows 10 seems to run fine. Yes there can be a tiny bit of sluggishness when doing rapid scrolling - but for a Preview build not bad at all. So good job MS for supporting "entry level" phones. A little disappointed that MS did not call out the Lumia 735 as a supported device - even though I think it could run it fine..
Also even though my Lumia 635 is on Cyan and may never get the Denim firmware upgrade - I still got the latest 5.0 version of Camera. There is a little confusion - because from my 8.1 build - I also had Lumia Camera installed - version 4.9.32.
I will say this the new Camera app does load faster and reacts more quickly to actions. I don't have a high def sensor on the 635 - so features like HD capture, etc are missing - but it is a much nicer camera app.
There are some new native apps that are nice improvements - for example the Alarms app now includes a world clock, timer and stopwatch. Calculator is also expanded to include multiple types as well as unit converter - so you don't need the separate app anymore.
Many other base apps are pretty much unchanged - mail, calendar, people, etc are pretty much exactly the same. There is an expanded notifications area - in theory to give you quicker access to things like bluetooth, wifi, etc. It's nice but nothing earth shattering.
There is also a new settings app that tries to emulate what is going on with the desktop version of Windows 10. What it really did was create groups of settings - so now many are nested that you just had listed in WP 8.1. Again not an earth shattering change in the user experience.
IE also appears to be a newer version (There is no about setting to actually confirm that) but in my opinion not much improved. One thing I have noticed is that if you use Google on IE - Google puts up a hamburger in the left corner that give you access to their core apps including Google+, YouTube, Maps, GMail, etc
Cortana is updated and looks much more like the desktop version. But to be honest I haven't been a huge fan of Cortana. Just like the desktop and tablet it duplicates a lot of the live tile content for new sports, etc and the voice recognition stuff is fair at best. Personally I was happier with the core speech capabilities for doing things like voice dialing, reading text messages, etc.
The same is true for the Here+ apps. They are the same versions I was running before.
So similar to Windows 10 for the Desktop - at this point Windows 10 for the Phone is very much an evolutionary upgrade and more of marketing thing to get away from the Windows 8 name.
It is going to be interesting to see how this evolves over the next few builds to see how MS refines the overall experience.
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