Smartphones

Tarrant_sl said:

Also, Windows mobile OS is fucking awesome.

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Sure, if you want/need office integration. Otherwise, it really does nothing better than iOS or Android and has a hell of a lot less app support.

Except it runs better than both and app selection means dick when you realize you only use 5 after a week no matter what platform you're on.

Tarrant_sl said:

This. It literally is 100x more intuitive, runs better and more efficiently. App selection aside and grading the OS on its own, Windows Mobile is literally the best mobile OS of the big three.

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More intuitive is entirely subjective. They basically copied Android with the new Action Center, because notifications were horrid on Windows mobile. All the 8.1 update is really doing is putting Windows Mobile back on a near level playing field (Windows Mobile is more intuitive in certain aspects, but lacks a lot of the customization you get with Android) with Android. 8.1 compares really well to KitKat, but it's also not due for a few months, and Google I/O is fast approaching.

There is no way for the user to control multitasking at a fine grain level with Windows Mobile. Mail, calendar, and social media will sync in the background, but many apps won't, and it's completely aggravating. Then you have the fact that here are only two distinct places you can organize tiles; the home screen and app screen. If you use a lot of apps, it leaves you with an endless string of them to have to sort through. Sure, you can search alphabetically, but being able to separate them with folders is a much needed feature.

I like the speed and compatibility of Internet Explorer, but the lack of synced bookmarks is completely archaic. In fact, there are no folders for favorites and the lack of an organizing ability for apps leaves a huge, long and unmanageable list of links.

WP8 also doesn't have the capability of something like Spotlight Search from iOS and it's greatly needed. Yet again, not having app folders compounds the problem when you want to search for installed apps. Contacts are a pain in the ass, because it takes three clicks to search on a contact, as you need to go into People, find "all" people, press magnifying glass, THEN type in the person's name. The annoying part is that one of three dedicated bezel buttons is search, but it's just a fucking Bing search. They really need to change that to a phone search.

Lastly, Nokia Drive. I realize it's in "beta", but it definitely fucking shows. Most of the time GPS gets stuck for about 10 seconds before it'll tell me where I am. I realize that's somewhat of a "first world problems" gripe, but it feels like forever when you're trying to find out where you are or how to get some place. About 25% of the time when I do turn-by-turn directions, the phone gets confused and won't do turn-by-turn oranynavigation. It just sits there, confused. Hell, for a long period of time the app didn't even call out street names. It just used to spit out generics like, "turn right in one mile". When in a larger city where exits are often on top of each other, it was frustrating as all hell and extremely easy to get lost. Thankfully, they finally added a voice which will spit out street names, but the older voices still just give generic directions.

With that said, Windows Mobile is definitely the most stable phone OS I've ever used. The only "crashing" issues I've ever had were with the bluetooth, but it was a very rare bug that involved a specific charger being plugged in at the same time I hung up a call on a particular bluetooth headset.

Well, my impulse got the better of me and I ordered the M8. I figured if I don't like it I can always sell it off when the LG3 comes out (if I like it enough) or wait for the Note 4 or Android Silver or whatever.

I'll give a report of how I like it once I've got it up and running. Just waiting for the email/text to pick the thing up.

My god does Verizon make it a royal bitch just to order a new phone without setting up a new contract on their website. I know exactly why they do it but it is just such a major pain in the ass.

I got the M8 a couple weeks ago. It's a very nice phone. I'm not sure how it is compared to the previous version because I never used it, but I would say I am pretty satisfied. Though I hadn't used a smart phone in about 2 years so I'd probably have been happy with anything. I've been using it quite heavily (music, web, talking, texting) and can usually get through a full day without needing to charge. Planning on picking up a clear case soon so I still get show off the nice design. Personally, I still think 5'' phones are a little too big. If I'm holding the phone in my right hand I have to really stretch and adjust my grip to reach the top left corner, or be forced to use my other hand which is often comfortably placed in my pocket.

Kirun_sl said:

Tile organization, IE Sync, Spotlight search, Nokia drive

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You can create a folder tile, it's a nokia app. I'm sure soon to be an every-phone app since MS bought them.

IE syncs across devices since the 8.1 update. I'm not sure about favorites but my phone definitely knows what I've been browsing on my wife's tablet.

Cortana search gives results from web, local, images, videos, phone - not sure what else Spotlight gives but it seems to hit on everything you mentioned. I get contact results, email results, web results, text message history, etc. It is NOT just a bing search, that's the default results page. Swipe left or right and you'll see the other results on their own pages.

Nokia drive I'm not sure what is causing your issues. Granted I don't often leave my city but I have never had it get confused and often it updates itself faster than my car's actual GPS does and it's been useful every time I've used it.

All of these things work fine on my now very outdated Lumia 920.

It supposedly costs Samsung $256-260 to make the S5, if that helps at all.

Well working and intuitive OS honestly means jack and shit- in the /current/ state of mobile computing, WebOS, BB10 and WP7/8.1+ all have better navigation, task management and productivity/file management than iOS and Android in their out of the box forms.

Most people that care about this stuff will be on android and will mod/add the apps etc. that they need to make the OS work the way they want it (one of the big +'s I give android) so the other offerings (windows or BB) are just there really... both are going to have to push their niche aspects such as security with BB10 etc. and windows will have to go corporate and kill BB or go consumer and just dump money into it a la xbox classic launch and adoption.