Windows 10: Do you use a Windows Phone?

I've been looking for a Windows Phone to run Windows 10 on. I'm hoping there will be new devices coming out when Windows 10 is released, but I haven't really heard about any.

Do you know of any new devices announced? Do you use a Windows Phone? What's the best Windows Phone (hardware wise) in your opinion?

I'm looking at either the Lumia 640 XL, or the Lumia 1520. The 1520 is almost 2 years old, and I've been hoping they would come out with a comparable newer phone, but haven't heard anything. The 640 is more midrange. Any thoughts?

:)

 

DO NOT USE A RECOVERY USB DRIVE IF YOU HAVE A MULTI-DISK SYSTEM.

I didn't find anything in Google when I was searching for this before I foolishly did it, so I thought I would put this out there, and maybe save some other poor soul from this. When you use this little slice of horror called a Windows recovery drive,
the options that you are given are very limited compared to the in-system reset. I assumed that since it seemed like Microsoft had gotten it's act more together since the days of Vista, it was because the recovery was set to overwrite the existing windows
installation, and you couldn't do anything else with it. I mean, there wouldn't really be a mechanism that just deleted things with out any kind of warning right, right?!?!? NO. It just apparently picked a HDD at random, formatted it, and wrote a new system
on there. I now have about 10 hours left on my hopeful recovery of about 3TB of mostly irreplaceable data, and god only knows how many hours of work relabeling things if it is recovered. Just as a PSA, never, ever, ever use this hunk of .... if you can help
it; use the in-system reset. And if you can't for what ever reason, physically yank all of your storage except what ever you actually want to write on unless you want to play Russian Roulette with your stuff.

 

how do you use the phone on a windows 7

Greetings Shane! Welcome to the Windows Phone forums!

What you are asking about (calling from a computer) is called VOIP (Voice over IP), and can be found with products like Skype, or Google Voice. I'll let you research those further on your own, but that's at least a good starting point.

 

I hear HTC is releasing a Windows phone, the HTC One M8 for Windows. Don't know how available it is though. Also been hearing Asus will have a new Windows phone soon.

 

I have the 1520 but I only tried Win 10 once and went back to Denim. 10 wasn't quite ready yet at the time. The new Lumia's coming out are mostly the budget versions.

The 640 is at lower-mid range I think.

The 930 (or 935?) is newer than 1520 and the specs is great.


I'm sure new models will come out with Win 10 for phones.

 

I don't really pay a great deal of attention to rumours, as I prefer official info directly from the horses mouth. However, there were these rumoured flagship specs a month or two ago. It's 'via unnamed sources', so I'd take it with a pinch-of-salt:

http://www.windowscentral.com/new-ru...d-lumia-phones

There may have been more rumours since then, I'm not sure, but if you browse through the following link you may come across some other rumours:

Rumors | Windows Central

Yes, I have a 630 and 635, which other than not having BitLocker device encryption I'm happy with. To be honest I don't really use my phone for computer stuff that much, as I'm never far away from a proper computer. So I pretty much always use a desktop instead. However, it's handy that calendar, contacts, etc. sync with my desktop through MS Account and the phone comes in handy for things like navigation, reminders, alarms, etc. Oh, and phone calls... *Biggrin

If I lost my phone tomorrow and had to buy a new phone right away, it would probably be a 640, as spec wise as a non-power user it has everything I would need from it. The only thing missing is wireless charging, which sounds pretty cool, but no big deal. The XL doesn't personally appeal to me as I really don't like having things in my pockets as it is, so I'm happy with my 4.5" screen, and 5" would probably be my upper limit. But I can see why people who use a phone a lot more than me would be attracted to a bigger screen.

The Lumia naming is a bit confusing, however there's a Lumia comparison table at the below link, which is worth reading through. Sometimes it can be only a small thing that can influence a buying decision, for example I don't have glance screen on my phone, but despite being such a small simple thing, I know it's something I would use a lot and therefore something I'd look for when buying.

http://www.winbeta.org/news/lumia-co...nst-each-other

Generally speaking though, if there's no hurry, I'd hold off and wait to see what's going to be announced when Microsoft launch Windows 10 Mobile later this year. Maybe there'll be a killer feature that you wished you'd waited for like an IR camera for Windows Hello, Continuum, etc. or maybe something they haven't announced yet. Saying that, I'm not sure how the US carrier system works, but I've seen US offers on Amazon for Lumia 635's for under $50 (£31), with no contract. For that price, if there's no catch maybe you don't really have much to loose anyway?

 

The HTC One M8 has been out for over a year.

HTC One (M8) - Full phone specifications

Compared to the M9 which was released this year (for Android) it lacks a lot, such as LTE capability.

HTC One M9 vs HTC One (M8) for Windows - Phone specs comparison

Thanks ARC, that's some great info. I hope those two phones are actually coming... It looks like there is a lot more info.. in fact, the rumored names are the Lumia 940 and 940XL.

I just went ahead and bought a Lumia 930. If these 940's come out, i'll buy one as well, but i'd rather not wait for rumors.

 

I just bought a Lumia 532 for $20 so I can hopefully install Windows 10 on it, for the price I thought it was a good little toy to play with. I am pretty amazed at what it does though, apart from the crappy screen it's pretty speedy compared to cheap Androids.

I never thought I'd hear someone say my HTC M8 lacks a lot, I dont know about the rest of the world but in Australia it runs on 4G, I often use it as a hotspot for my computers to download a movie at a very reasonable speed.

Anyway I bought it on a 12 month contract knowing that Windows 10 was around the corner, so I'll see what HTC or MS has to offer in another 3 months.

 

4G != LTE. Certain wireless carriers were claiming 4G for things like HSPDA+, when it's really 3.5G. However, it looks like they may have updated the m8 to support LTE since it was first released. The original specs I saw did not include LTE support. The LTE support in the m8 is limited though, only, only band 13 and band 4.

Still, the m8 has a quad core processor, while the m9 has an 8 core processor. The m8 has a 4MP camera, the m9 has a 20MP camera, and a lot more features for the camera.

the m9 has 3GB of memory, the m8 has 2GB. The m8 does have better battery life though.

 

In Australia it's definitely 4G, Apple paid the penalty for pretending to have it when they didn't. It's not really a 4MP camera, it's ultra pixel, the M9 is normal pixel, big difference, quad core octacore who's counting, same with ram. Apple still has 1GB on nearly all its products..

With medium use I get around 3 days on a charge.

 

I don't care about Apple. This will be Windows 10, so yeah, memory and CPU will matter.

UltraPixel? That's stupid marketing gibberish. It's their way of trying to confuse people into thinking that a lower resolution is better. A pixel is a pixel, and if you don't have enough pixels to capture data you want, it doesn't matter how "big" they are. Yes, the m8's camera can do better in low-light settings, which is a plus.. but if you want to crop those images and zoom them, you're still looking at a reduced resolution compared to a better sensor.

Regardless, These things do matter.

 

Everything matters, but how much, I've got a 6 year old 3ghz computer and a 18 month old Core i7 Mac Mini, when I run Windows I can't tell the difference.
Same with cameras, I've got cameras from 6 mp to 16mp, the only time it matters is like you say, when you zoom in or crop.
I reckon 20 MP on a phone is getting ridiculous, better off concentrating on lens and other things.

 

Yikes, I can't believe that a Mac Mini would perform that poorly.

a 6 year old 3GHz is at most a dual core, probably a single core. An i7 Mac Mini is probably a dual core 5th gen, the performance difference between these should be massive.

The Nokia 1520 has a 42MP camera, which makes it one of the best smart phone camera's there is. But a 4MP in the m8? Yikes.

 

The 6 year old is an E8400 Core 2Duo, running on 4 GB Ram,one of the best chips around for quite some time. The Mini is running a Quad Core with 6MB Cache with Turbo boost to 3.3 Ghz on 10 GB Ram, the last of the fast Mini's, like I said numbers don't always mean much, when machines are already running very fast.

I'll put it this way, if you were siting in a car at 200kph or 250kph, I'm pretty sure you wouldn't be able to tell the difference.

From what I can remember that 48MP isn't real either, but if it is I stand corrected. I'm happy with the camera on the M8, the number one thing for me was low light shots, which it handles beautifully. If I need pixels I'll grab one of my Canons.

 

I've had my Nokia Lumia 1520 phablet for 18 months now. A Droid X2 prior. I think the phablet size is an absolute must to have let alone a Windows phone. I wouldn't go back to a smaller one if given to me.

MS services, OneDrive, Office (phone version), OneNote, and other great apps all free is a bonus.

It's a 20MP camera BTW. http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/mobil...pecifications/

They're just simply beautiful. *Smile