The slow death of Windows Phone: how Microsoft lost the battle for smartphones. The slow death of Windows Phone: how Microsoft lost the battle for smartphones New and familiar features

Windows Phone is a unique mobile operating system developed and presented by Microsoft specialists. For the first time, owners of Nokia smartphones were able to communicate with the “tiled” operating system. These devices were the first to run Windows Phone. What awaits the user who decides to purchase one of the modern smartphones running WP?

Overview of the main features of Windows Phone

Acquaintance with the operating system begins after turning on the smartphone for the first time. Windows Phone will prompt the user to set the desired language and make basic settings:

To fully work with the operating system, you need to link your Outlook, Hotmail or Live account to it:

The system interface is thought out to the smallest detail. Even the lock screen looks very beautiful and is as informative as possible.

One of the unique features of the operating system in question is the possibility of complete personalization and uniqueness. The user can customize the desktop to suit their needs. If you wish, you can set your own home screen background. In combination with tiles it looks very impressive:

Regardless of the resolution and screen size, the user can enable an additional row of icons on the desktop of their device. Three rows allow you to organize your workspace as flexibly and conveniently as possible.

New and familiar features

If there are no complaints about the appearance of the operating system - everything is thought out, organic and very convenient, then with regard to the functions, many users accustomed to Android and iOS have a number of doubts. We can confidently say that these doubts are in vain! With the functional component, Windows Phone is also doing great.

First, you need to pay attention to the “Phone” section. Modern smartphones, although they combine many different functions, cannot forget about the main purpose of the phone - making calls. By clicking the corresponding button on the desktop, the user will be taken to the calls section:

Calls are conveniently grouped by subscriber, which eliminates the menu from long lists of identical calls.

G8 devices received a new player. Instead of the standard application, which is familiar to every Windows Phone user, the Xbox Music program is now installed:

The program is very convenient and more functional compared to its predecessor. Additional applications such as Video, Podcasts and Radio have become separate in the new version of the OS. The video player finally has the ability to rewind videos using a slider. You can also customize the display of subtitles.

The user has the opportunity to configure “Battery Saving”, making battery consumption as rational as possible:

In a convenient and beautiful form, this section lists all applications that consume battery power. This will allow you to identify the most “gluttonous” programs and disable them when the battery charge is low.

The camera app is also beyond praise. If in the “seven” it was of little functionality and not particularly convenient, then in the new versions such complaints do not arise:

The application store allows the user to find the program or game he needs in a matter of seconds. Everything is conveniently sorted by categories and other indicators:

The built-in browser supports all modern functions. Portrait and landscape orientation options are available. The browser plays the video without any problems, provided the page is designed in HTML5:

The developers did not deprive Windows Phone of the ability to work with cloud data storage services. If desired, the user can easily save important data and upload it to the cloud without any problems:

This review examined only the main functions of the Windows Phone operating system and outlined the key differences between the new version of the OS and the previous one. In reality, the functionality is much richer. VPN support is available, the function of broadcasting the smartphone screen to other devices, improved NFC technology and many other useful things. So Windows Phone is a very interesting operating system with a great future, which definitely deserves your attention!

Lock screen

The lock screen in WP8 is a screen in the truest sense of the word. That is, this is a full-screen image that you need to pull up to unlock the display. The picture is selected in the settings; it can be one of the standard images, or any photo or picture you downloaded to your smartphone. On NTS smartphones you can also set weather animation as a picture.

The lock screen at the top displays the current signal reception level, Internet connection type (HSDPA (H) or EDGE (E)), wireless interface icons, battery charge level and time.

Also here, on top of the system information icons, a music control panel appears. To call it, you need to press the volume up or down key. This panel shows the current volume level, music control buttons, track name, playing time, as well as an icon with sound mode, ringer or vibration.

In addition, information about a newly found Wi-Fi network or a piece of a new text message appears at the top of the screen, that is, part of it can be seen without even unlocking the screen.

Just below the center of the screen the current time and an alarm icon next to it are displayed if it is on. Even lower are the day of the week, date and month. And at the very bottom there are icons for unread text messages, email and missed calls. The mail icons for different accounts are the same, with the exception of “mailboxes” from MS (hotmail) and MS Exchange Server.

In the settings you can specify the time after which the lock screen will appear, the range of values: 30 seconds, 1, 3, 5 minutes or “never”.

You can also set a password for the lock screen. In this case, when you move the screen up, instead of unlocking, a panel with a numeric keypad will appear where you enter the password. Interestingly, as soon as you finish entering the password, the screen immediately unlocks.

Honestly, I would like to have more settings for the lock screen, for example, the ability to quickly launch a program. I also didn’t like the tiny notifications: if you remember HTC Sense, where the entire message appeared at once, it becomes quite sad.

Desktop

The workspace in Windows Phone 8 is organized into two panels, one of which contains the tiles we already know, and the other a detailed list of programs.

In Windows Phone 8, the tile menu has undergone a slight external modification. Firstly, now up to four tiles can be located in one row, and secondly, the useless arrow has finally been removed (or rather, it was not removed, but placed at the very bottom of the tiled menu). Tiles come in three sizes: small (1x1), medium (2x2) and large (2x4). If the program supports “live tiles”, then the information on the tile will be updated. As you move a tile, nearby tiles will move away. It looks the same as in the latest versions of Android, except that this feature appeared in Windows Phone earlier.

Most tiles support “unread notification counters”, that is, if you have received a new letter, then the tile with mail will have a one, the same with other programs. Moreover, this applies not only to standard programs, but also to third-party ones (for example, IM+). The “Calendar” tile deserves special mention; if you stretch it to a large size, it will display a list of current affairs that you have written down.

Adding a new tile occurs by long pressing on the program from the application menu. Also, some third-party applications can add tiles directly from the settings. Changing the size and position of tiles or removing them from the desktop is done by long pressing on the tile itself. From the list of programs, you can not only quickly add a new tile, but also delete a program.

All personalization of the desktop comes down to changing the background (black or white) and the background color of the tiles themselves (here the range has been seriously diversified). Interestingly, some apps also change their appearance depending on the color of the tiles. This allows you to maintain continuity of appearance between third-party applications and built-in ones.

The solution with tiles is interesting and unusual, on the one hand, these are ordinary shortcuts, on the other, updated tiles, and on the third, unique widgets. The most pleasing thing, of course, is that we finally got rid of the small arrow on the side and increased the size of the line on the desktop (4x1 versus 2x1 in WP7). In my opinion, tiles are inferior in variety to the same widgets in Android, of which there are a great many in the Play Market.

Status bar

Unlike Android, Windows Phone 8 pays virtually no attention to the status bar. First of all, it doesn't even fall out. Secondly, it contains a minimum number of notifications. Thirdly, this line is still automatically hidden, so if you need to check the smartphone’s charge, signal reception or new messages, you need to manually omit it, which, of course, is inconvenient.

The address book does the same thing, only you search for the subscriber's card yourself, rather than immediately opening it. After shortcuts on Android, this solution seems outdated.

The “Phone” tile opens the history of all calls, and you can immediately dial the person who called you recently.

When you call a subscriber, you see his number and the time of the call. There is no contact photo (even if one is assigned!). This is a huge miscalculation, which upsets me very much; it is unclear why it was necessary to do this.

When there is an incoming call, you will see the contact's photo, to answer the call you first need to swipe up and then press the answer call button. The button itself is narrow and flat, made completely inconveniently, you need to aim to press it.

The address book

The address book is located in the Contacts application. The application itself is divided into four blocks: a list of your contacts, their activity on social networks, the last contacts you contacted, and the “All Together” block, where created rooms and user groups are located. Let's talk about everything in order.

Your contacts list displays your address book synced with Hotmail. If you have enabled synchronization of contacts with Twitter and/or Facebook, then contacts from these networks will also appear in your address book. Contacts from social networks can be “linked” to contacts from Hotmail, then all the contact’s activity from social networks will be displayed in one card. In addition, after “linking”, a high-quality photograph is pulled up, if we talk about Facebook.

If you wish, you can synchronize your smartphone with Gmail, then the contacts will be pulled up from your Google account. The disadvantage of this method is that with such synchronization you automatically receive low-quality photos of contacts.

To create a new contact, just click on the plus sign at the bottom of the screen. There is also a “Search” button for quick navigation through the book.

The second tab displays the news feed from Facebook, Twitter and other connected social networks.

The third contains frequently called contacts.

The last tab contains a list of contact groups and rooms. What is the room like? You invite one or more contacts to create a room, then inside this room you can maintain a shared calendar, correspond, make a shopping list, and much more (for example, share photos). It is clear that the functionality of the room presupposes its use, first of all, by family or simply close people. The second use case is the corporate segment.

Call log (call history)

The call history window is simplified as much as possible. You see a list of recent calls (all), on the left is the same phone icon, on the right is the subscriber’s name, just below is the type of call (incoming, outgoing, missed), day of the week and time at which the call was made. For missed calls, the line under the caller's name is highlighted in a cheerful color (it depends on what color you have chosen for the OS).

The call list appears to reflect calls from the last week. There is no grouping of calls from one subscriber; you also cannot see detailed information about the call, for example, its duration, there is no such functionality. If you call the same person ten or twenty times, then the call list will contain these twenty entries without any grouping under one contact.

When you click on the phone icon, a call starts to the selected subscriber; when you click on his name, a window with a profile opens. By the way, if the number from the call log is not in your address book, then when you click on it you will still be taken to the profile window. That is, you can select an action, call this subscriber or send a text message.

Display of missed calls

When the display is locked, missed call information appears as an icon at the bottom of the lock screen.

On the main screen, the missed call is shown inside the “Phone” block. I already talked about this above, I think. The display of missed calls in the system line did not appear.

Working with USSD requests

The system processes direct USSD requests without any problems, and now supports requests in which you can select options.

Messages, mail

Display new (missed) messages

In screen lock mode, new text messages are displayed at the bottom of the display as an icon; new text messages and mail are not shown in the system bar. The number of messages on the main screen is shown within each block, that is, within a block, for example, for Gmail, for mail on MS Exchange and for text messages.

Text messages

Text messages are represented by a list of chats, for each chat the last message in it is indicated. In the general message window you see the phone number or name of the subscriber for each chat, and below is the last message or a piece of it in two lines. To the right is the time when the message was received, or the day of the week (Monday, Tuesday, etc.) if the message is from previous days. Unread messages can be distinguished from read ones by the color of the text of the piece of message under the subscriber's name. For unread messages, this will be the color selected in the theme: red, green, etc. The message list contains not only SMS messages, but also messages from rooms.

When you open a chat, you see all the correspondence with the selected person. The contact's first and last name are shown at the top, and messages appear below. By clicking on the contact's name, you can go to his card. The subscriber's messages are aligned on the left side, and yours are aligned on the right. Under each message the date it was received by you or delivered to the subscriber is indicated. You can delete or forward an individual message, or you can delete all correspondence with a contact.

If messages are old, then not only the time of sending and delivery, but also the day of the week will be indicated for them. If very old, the date of the message will be indicated in the format day/month/year.

When you create a new message, it defaults to text. If you add any content to an SMS, it will be converted into an MMS. Users can send photos, video clips, their locations, voice notes, contact cards and ringtones via MMS.

Another feature of working with messages in WP8 is this. In the system, when entering messages, you initially cannot see anywhere how many characters you have already entered, and this is inconvenient. The thing is that the OS shows the number of characters entered as a number only after you have exceeded the value of 130 characters for the Latin alphabet and 60 characters for the Cyrillic alphabet. This flaw has been known since WP7, it’s sad that it hasn’t been fixed.

When you enter a new message, the recipient is selected. To select it, you can start entering the contact’s first or last name, the system itself will offer options from those found in the address book. In addition, you can simply enter the phone number manually or click on the “plus” button and get into the address book, where you can select the required contact. You can send a text message to one or more people.

In the message settings, you can enable notification of message delivery to the recipient. When you turn on notifications, after each SMS you send, you will receive a response message with a text indicating what time your message was delivered.

WP8 does not have the usual message templates for most other (or all other?) phones like “Happy Birthday”, “I’m busy, I’ll call you back later”, etc.

There is no concept of a "draft message" in WP8. You cannot save drafts. Moreover, if you were writing a message and accidentally pressed the “Windows” or “Back” key, that is, you went to the main screen, the text you wrote will not be saved and you will have to enter it again. At least the good thing is that if you answer the call while writing an SMS, you can then continue writing.

And the last point about messages. If you sent a message, but it didn’t go through (you were on the subway, driving through a tunnel, your phone was in “Airplane” mode, etc.), then you will need to resend it manually, yourself. The notification that a message was not sent will only appear in one place, directly below the text of the message itself. That is, situations are quite possible when the message was not sent, and you do not know about it, because you clicked the “Send” button and immediately closed the message window.

Mail

Let's look at the implementation of mail in Windows Phone 8. Unlike what we see in Android, there is no separation by account type, that is, if you set up Gmail and, for example, Hotmail mailboxes, the same application will be used to work with them . Let me remind you that Android has its own separate mail client for Gmail and another for the rest of the mail.

I have already said that each account with mail can be displayed on the main screen in the form of a picture block. Now let's look into one of these boxes.

Mail messages are presented as a list; about 5 letters fit on the screen (HTC Windows Phone 8x). Each line displays the sender in large font, below is the subject of the letter and the first line from it. To the right of this data is the time of receipt or the day of the week (if the letter is yesterday or old). If you swipe the screen to the left, you'll move from the screen with all emails to the screen with unread emails. And the last scroll through – letters marked “important”. A convenient screen, in my opinion, it works correctly for all accounts. That is, if I send a letter marked “important” to my Exchange and Gmail mailboxes, then in both cases the system will place it on the important letters screen.

You can select letters in the list. To do this, you need to move your finger to the left edge of the screen and gently click on the area to the left of the desired letter. As soon as one letter is selected, a square will appear next to each one with the ability to put a checkmark there, that is, select it too. In addition, you can simply press the button at the bottom of the screen to call the email selection mode. You cannot select all messages at once. Selected messages can be marked as read or unread, checked or unchecked for them, and also marked “done” (a check mark will appear to the right of the name and subject of the letter).

Let's open one letter. The sender's name and surname are written at the top in large, large font. As a rule, this data does not even fit on the screen, and you will not be able to fully read the name of an unknown person. For example, if Konstantin Konstantinov writes to me, then I will see something like Konstantin Konst in both the general list of messages and in the open message.

Below the first and last name is a line with the subject, and then the date the letter was received. Even lower is the addressee, that is, you and other people, if the letter was sent not only to you or in the form of a newsletter. Next come the attachments, if any, and then the text.

The unprepared reader will receive some unpleasant news here. However, it is unpleasant for everyone. In WP8 you can scale the text of an email, just like in any other system. Make it smaller or larger. However, unlike other systems, in WP8, enlarged text is not re-aligned to the width of the screen. You understood me correctly, if you “enlarged” the text of a letter in the mail, please use horizontal scroll to read it.

You can read letters in both vertical and horizontal screen orientations. Attachments are opened by clicking on the gray “attachments” label. Clicking on the name of the attachment starts downloading it. The download status cannot be tracked, but you will know that the attachment is being downloaded by the presence of a “Cancel” signature under it.

You cannot select a specific location to download attachments; there is no concept of folders or file system to view. Accordingly, to view the downloaded attachment, you need to open the letter with it and click on the attachment there. The system does not provide a tool to view all downloaded attachments or any kind of download log for email accounts.

A downloaded attachment can be distinguished from one that has not yet been downloaded by its icon. For undownloaded ones it is general, in the form of a paperclip, for downloaded ones - by file type. By the way, WP8 does not distinguish between letters in html format, that is, with pictures, and letters with attachments. That is, in the general list of letters you will see a paperclip icon not only for letters with attachments, but also for letters in html format, because there are pictures, and these are like attachments.

If the system “does not understand” the extension or format of an attachment, no action can be taken with it; when you click on such an attachment, you will see a notification that it cannot be opened. For some OS investments, you are prompted to download an application that supports them. For example, this applies to .pdf files.

In the case of a Gmail account, the system recognizes the “there” labels as folders. Accordingly, you can see what kind of shortcuts you have. In G8, the email client has finally learned to work with labels; you can open letters marked with these labels and download attachments.

The search in the list of letters is carried out by first name, last name, subject of the letter, as well as by the body of the letter (throughout the entire text, and not just the line visible in the general list).

Mail display

The email client easily displays both standard text messages and those compiled using html. In the case of html, to download images, you must first click on any picture inside the letter, after which they are loaded.

Working with text inside a letter

Windows Phone 8 supports copy-paste functionality. That is, text from a letter (and not only) can be copied and then pasted into another place, for example, into a document or into the address bar of a browser. It looks like this: when you click on a word, an icon for copying the selected text to the clipboard appears, to the left and right of the word there are arrows, by dragging which you can select other words or entire pieces of text and copy them.

On-screen keyboard, text input

The keyboard in Windows Phone 8 has remained virtually unchanged since the days of the 7. Four lines of characters, no additional markings on the buttons: one click - one character. There is a key to enter numbers and additional symbols. There is a button for entering smiles (emoticons), there is a space bar, a “Backspace” and “Enter” key. Personally, I was counting on the ability to install a third-party keyboard, but, unfortunately, Microsoft did not please us with such a luxury. In my opinion, this keyboard is too simple. If the company doesn’t allow you to install other keyboards, then at least make yours the best and most convenient. But Microsoft did neither the first nor the second.

In landscape mode, the keyboard becomes a little wider, but not the full width of the screen. That is, in WP8 there is no particular difference between landscape and portrait keyboards; they do not differ in the ease of entering text on them.

When you enter a letter on the keyboard, it is displayed in a pop-up field above the key itself, so even if you close the button with your finger, you always see which letter you are currently entering.

Pressing a key is accompanied by sound, there is no vibration. The keyboards are slightly different for different input fields. For example, for text messages to the left of the space there is a button for entering smiles, and when working in a browser there is also a key for quickly entering “.com”. In this case, if you hold your finger on the “.com” button for about a second, a pop-up menu will appear where you can select the domain zone: .org, .edu, net.

If you hold your finger in the input field on one of the words, a cursor appears, with its help you can correct errors in words or simply move between words or phrases in already written text to add or correct something.

The keyboard has predictive input and supports the Russian language. When misspelled, words are automatically corrected.

Calendar

The calendar can be represented as a picture block on the main screen; it will occupy the entire line, that is, two standard blocks. The current day of the week and date are displayed here, as well as the nearest event, if any.

In the calendar you see a list of events for the current day, sorted by time, or a list of events for the next day for which they exist. The general list of events displays their names and location, as well as time. To the right of each event is a colored label that indicates whether the event belongs to one of the calendars you are synchronizing. Native synchronization with the Facebook calendar is supported, joint events from the common room are also displayed.

When adding a new event, you can select the topic, location, account affiliation, start time, duration, reminder and status. In addition, you can enter a note and add people from your address book for the event, who will be sent an invitation to participate in this event (by mail).

Multimedia

Music+video

It’s unclear why Microsoft decided to combine music and video in one program. What does this mean? While watching all the content, you get a mix of movies and songs. The meaning of this decision is unclear.

The music player itself supports playback by artist, album, or genre. You can also play all tracks. Unfortunately, there is no support for playing folders. It's important to note here that you can't install a third-party audio player on WP8, so the fact that Microsoft installed such a simple application is very disappointing.

As for video playback, there are practically no settings here: no subtitles, no changing the audio track, or anything else. Linear playback only. And again, you cannot install a third-party video player.

It’s important to note that in Windows Phone 8 there is no such thing as “ringer volume” or “media volume,” so if you take out your headphones after listening to music and put your smartphone in your pocket, it’s quite possible that you might miss an incoming call.

Photos

The application is divided into four tabs. In the first, you can view your photos, having previously selected sorting by date, albums or contacts. The photo disk contains direct images from the camera. You can add the picture you like to “Favorites”.

In the “What’s new?” tab displays the latest news from social networks containing photos.

Applications contain programs for working with images.

Marketplace

The app store home page is divided into four tabs. From the first you can quickly go to proprietary smartphone applications, third-party programs and games. The second contains the “program of the day” - any good application according to Microsoft. The third and fourth tabs are dedicated to the list of applications and games, respectively. They display three titles and offer to familiarize themselves with all the programs.

In addition to the usual sorting by paid/free and best programs, there is a “Collections” tile. The collections contain the best applications for various tasks. I really liked this section; it’s clear that really good applications were chosen for each of the subsections.

When you open application information, several tabs appear in front of you. The first contains a brief description of the application, its weight, the name of the developer and the average rating. The second tab is dedicated to reviews, the third tab shows screenshots of the program, and the fourth tab shows similar applications.

The app store has one inconvenient drawback - if you have already purchased an application, when you open information about it, its purchase is not displayed in any way, that is, you still see the “Buy” button. Of course, you don’t need to buy it a second time, and when you click the button they will tell you that you have already bought it and offer you to download it. Many applications have demo versions so you can try the program before purchasing.

As for search, in my opinion, it is organized better in Marketplace than in Google Play. Here, at least, all the applications displayed after searching are at least relevant to the word you enter. In Google Play, you can enter “FBReader” and get the Opera Mini program as the fifth or sixth link.

Marketplace Programs

At the moment, in the Marketplace you can find about seven good Twitter clients, two or three quality e-book readers, a couple of third-party browsers, about 9-10 social network clients, and several really good instant messengers. Third-party video players and music players are completely absent as a class. Of course, there are no third-party launchers or keyboards either.

In principle, there are many applications on the market, but in my opinion, there are about a hundred of really high-quality ones. They can be easily found in the top paid and free programs, as well as in collections.

Xbox Live

This section contains all the games available on the Marketplace. If you want to see a list of available games in the Marketplace, you will still be transferred to Xbox Live. Conventionally, all games can be divided into two types: “Xbox games” and “Others”. What is the advantage of the former? They support the achievement system from Xbox. That is, if you, say, completed the next level in Sonic, you will receive the appropriate reward. In fact, Xbox Live is the equivalent of Game Center on iOS.

If we talk about the number of games, then there are very few really good, cool toys, probably not even two dozen. At the Windows Phone 8 presentation, several interesting toys from Gameloft and others were announced, but so far only Cut The Rope has appeared.

PC connection

One of the innovations of the G8 was the ability to directly connect to a computer without intermediary programs like Zune. On the one hand, this is an absolute plus, but on the other, you still cannot upload any files to your smartphone. Or rather, you can download them to your phone, but third-party programs will not be able to see them. A simple example: the popular Bookviser application cannot open books downloaded via a PC, you need to use workarounds. Moreover, I will not be able to see the uploaded books in the folders on the PC, they (these folders) are simply hidden and not displayed.

Multitasking

Windows 8 introduces full multitasking. I can easily minimize the game, send an SMS, read Twitter, and then open it again and continue exactly where I left off. You can view all open programs by long pressing the “Back” button. However, not all applications currently support this multitasking. Developers must update their programs to be compatible with this mode. At the moment, at least Facebook has done this.

Browser

I think many of you associate the phrase “Internet Explorer” with some kind of installer for a third-party browser. However, the mobile version of this browser pleasantly surprised me; it has a simple, I would even say, ascetic design; it looks similar to the desktop version of IE in Windows 8.

The address bar has moved to the bottom of the screen, and the analogy with desktop IE is also visible here.

The browser supports multiple tabs, Flash banners and animations are visible and playable. There are no problems with watching videos on VKontakte.

Position indicators on the page are two thin stripes, on the right frame and at the bottom of the screen. They can help you understand which area of ​​the site you are in. This is convenient when you have greatly enlarged the page compared to its original resolution and want to move to another area of ​​this page without changing the scale.

The maximum zoom of the browser is redundant; you can enlarge the page so that one or two words per line are displayed on the screen. When changing the scale, the size of the pictures does not change.

When you enter an address, auto-selection works; the browser “suggests” options from the list of pages you have visited.

Unfortunately, there is no auto-fitting of text to screen size.

If you wish, you can place your favorite tabs on your desktop.

When editing an existing document or creating a new one, you can select the font size, font type (italics, underline, strikethrough) and color. You also select a highlighter color for the word or phrase to make it stand out. There is a button to roll back one or more actions.

The application supports working with Microsoft Sharepoint Server 2010; you can take part in editing and viewing documents on the server without downloading them to the device. There's also a OneNote screen in the Office hub. Here you can create various notes. You can also view PowerPoint presentations using the Office Hub.

Ringtones and sounds. Here you can configure the notification sound and ringtone (your own ringtones are now supported; to do this, you need to upload them to the Ringtones folder), enable/disable vibration alerts, and select actions for which sounds will be enabled.

Themes. Select the color of the tiles and the background on which they will be placed.

Shared Internet. Distribution of mobile Internet using Wi-Fi. Open and secure networks are supported.

Touch and send. Windows Phone 8 now supports NFC. You can use it as follows. A number of applications support the “touch and send” function, this can be a contact, an open page in the browser, a document, an image, in general, all applications where, when you call the context menu, there is a “Send” line and then a “Touch and send” field. I can click “Send > Touch and Send” in the IE browser on the Lumia 920, then lean it back against the back of another WP8 device, and a notification will appear on it, if I accept it, the same page will load on my smartphone, opened on “ lumii." The same goes for pictures and other content.

Today, Windows Phones are becoming increasingly popular. The latest version of this OS is Windows Phone 10.

According to the developers, Windows Phone 8.1 users can also get it.

However, for now this opportunity is only in the project.

At the moment, the only way to get a phone with the tenth version of the Microsoft operating system is to buy a device with the OS pre-installed.

Rating of Windows Phones

It would be useful to understand which mobile phones generally work with Windows Phone. We will go by popularity rating.

No. 1. Microsoft Lumia 640

Perhaps the most popular Windows Phone model is the Lumia 640.

In terms of characteristics, this phone is nothing special - 5-inch screen, 1280x720 resolution (Hd), 8 GB of internal memory, 8 megapixel camera. Supports 3G and dual SIM cards.

It attracts only with its price - in our area you can buy it for about 130 dollars.

LG Magna H502 with similar characteristics costs about $140.

No. 2. Microsoft Lumia 550 and 650

Most recently, the new Lumia 650 entered the market, which became an improved version of the 550 model.

The screen has become larger (5 inches at 650 and 4.7 at 550), the resolution remains unchanged - 1280x720. The camera has also become better - 8 megapixels after 5 megapixels, both with autofocus.

The 650th Lumiya has 16 GB of memory, and the 550th has 8 GB. Both phones come with Windows Phone 10 pre-installed and also have built-in GLONASS, GPS and 4G features.

The price of the 550th model is $145, and the 650th is sold for 210 units of US currency.

So far, the excitement has not subsided and they charge quite a lot of money for the new product, but in the future the price will drop significantly.

Despite its short time on the market, the Lumia 650 has already received a large number of rave reviews and will certainly be as popular as the 550 model in the future.

Both phones have a standard battery for this price category. I wish there was more. Microsoft Lumia 550 has a 2100 mAh battery, and 650 has a 2000 mAh battery.

And this despite the fact that the budget one of these two is only the 550th.

What caused the creators to decide to make a less capacious battery remains a mystery.

No. 2. Microsoft Lumia 430

There is support for GPS and GLONASS. The price for a device with such characteristics is quite standard – $170.

By the way, there is a stereotype that phones with Windows Phone OS are produced only by Microsoft itself, but next we will look at which phones from other companies come out with such an operating system.

Although Microsoft is the best at integrating its brainchild into hardware, which is why phones from this company are in first place in the ranking.

Mobile devices from the same Nokia often have problems using Windows Phone.

They relate to slow operation (freezing), correct operation of some applications and other minor features.

No. 6. HTC 7 Mozart

HTC is also joining the company of Windows Phone owners. Although so far the British-Taiwanese concern has not been very successful in this.

For $210 we are offered a small (3.7 inches with a resolution of 800x480) smartphone with an 8 MP camera and 8 GB memory without a memory card slot.

There is no GLONASS support here, only simple GPS. The battery here is weak and that’s putting it mildly – ​​1300 mAh.

This phone wins only due to good, high-quality work without failures. This device will serve its owners for many years.

But I don’t really want to pay that kind of money when the Microsoft Lumia 640 XL is live.

No. 7. HTC Windows Phone 8

The Taiwanese tried to improve the situation a little by releasing HTC Windows Phone 8 in 2012. Its screen is slightly larger - 4 inches, the resolution remains the same - 800x480.

There is less memory - 4 GB, but there is already a card slot. The improvements also include the addition of GLONASS.

For some reason, the camera was also made smaller - 5 megapixels, but they worked hard on the battery - 1700 mAh. They also removed the poor, overly oval edges and made the device more rectangular.

Now attention: it sells for $125 (yes, the HTC 7 Mozart costs $210).

This begs a lot of questions about HTC's pricing policy. But we can say with confidence that the phone is worth the money.

Advantages of Windows Phones

Windows Phone has everything to make the same iPhone and Android devices a relic of the past in the future.

This operating system has the following advantages over others, they are as follows:

• Live Tiles, that is, icons on the desktop look much better than standard shortcuts in other operating systems.
  They provide more opportunities to personalize a mobile phone, because the user can change the size of the “tiles” or customize them the way he wants. In Android, the most that can be changed is the screensaver and theme.

• Working in multitasking mode is implemented much more convenient for the user. To see all the programs, you need to press the "Back" button, after which a slide show will appear.
  On the same iPhone, you need to scroll between applications and, to close one of them, click on the small cross. On large phones this is not a problem, but on small phones it is inconvenient.
• More convenient work with contacts. By clicking on a particular contact, you can see the latest letters and messages, and not general information about the person.
  There is even a full-fledged news feed that collects information from all social networks (shown in Figure 10.a).
• More convenient integration with social networks, clouds and other services.
  The process of exporting contacts is not difficult - the user has a list of services that can be integrated with (Figure 10.b), and he just needs to click on the one he needs and enter his login and password. Then the system will do everything itself.

Conclusion! Windows Phones are an excellent alternative to Android, iOS and other operating systems - you can buy a more powerful smartphone for a lower price. Of course, it has its drawbacks. For example, this is the integration of the OS on phones not released by Microsoft - so far only Nokia's attempt can be considered successful. Still, you can and should buy Windows Phone mobile phones!

You can learn more about the features of the latest version of Windows Phone on phones from this video:

Windows 10 for phones review. Features of Windows 10 for smartphones - experience from FERUMM.COM WP-Port

Windows Phones - Most Popular Models

MOSCOW, July 29 – RIA Novosti, Natalya Dembinskaya. In mid-July, big news came from Microsoft: the company officially stopped supporting the Windows Phone mobile operating system, which still powers millions of devices. The corporation had to admit: smartphones do not bring it any profit. Windows Phone's market share has been steadily declining in recent years, and has now almost bottomed out at 0.1%. Why there was no place at all for the operating system in the market, why defectors to Android blame Windows Phone, and whether Microsoft will be able to take revenge from Google and Apple - in the RIA Novosti material.

Not a bad start

Immediately after its introduction in 2009, Windows Phone managed to take a significant market share - almost 10%. At that time, the mobile market was dominated by Symbian, on which the first Nokia smartphones ran - it occupied more than 50% of the market, the second largest player was the RIM mobile OS of the then popular manufacturer Blackberry - the famous phones with a full qwerty keyboard (20.9%). Android was just trying to find its place in the sun, occupying only about 4%.

Just in case, Google bought the unprofitable startup Android Inc., which was developing an operating system for wearable devices, back in 2005 and remembered about it only in 2007, when Steve Jobs introduced the first Apple iPhone.

Google quickly realized: the smartphone market is almost empty, and expensive Apple devices will not be able to fill it entirely.

Android's meteoric rise

At the end of 2009, confusion began in the smartphone market. Nokia by that time had already slowed down the development of Symbian and relied on Windows Mobile. And Google, in turn, reached an agreement with the Taiwanese manufacturer HTC. The first device running Android was the HTC Dream smartphone, which was a resounding success.

iOS and Android began to develop rapidly, but Apple's position, which prohibited third-party companies from using iOS, did not work in its favor. In 2011, with the release of Ice Cream Sandwich, Android was already called “the most advanced operating system”; smartphone manufacturers Samsung, Alcatel, Philips, LG began to migrate en masse to the new promising platform. As a result, Android took almost 50% of the market, displacing all the old-timers in one fell swoop. Analysts began to consider the rapidly falling share of Symbian and RIM together in the “other OS” category.

On the battlefield, Android, Apple and Windows Phone were practically the only three left. The latter confidently stayed afloat - largely thanks to the release of the popular Nokia Lumia smartphones, which gave a second life to the Finnish phone manufacturer itself.

LG also produced devices based on Windows Phone.

Nokia got mad at Microsoft

However, the Finns soon began to show dissatisfaction. In 2013, Nokia vice president Brian Biniak blamed Microsoft for the lack of competitive apps for the Windows Phone platform. It is for this reason that sales of Nokia Lumia have declined, he assured.

The irritation eventually resulted in the transition to Android. So far, some HP and Acer models are running the latest version of the Windows Mobile 10 platform (its support, observers believe, will be discontinued soon, and Windows smartphones will finally die by 2021).

In 2015, the new head of Microsoft, Satya Nadella, officially admitted the failure of Windows Phone.

“The smartphone boom has shown that Windows Phone is significantly behind Android and iOS, and we are late for that train,” Nadella said.

Closed file system

What exactly led to manufacturers and application developers starting to abandon Windows Phone and opt for Android?

Ballmer believes Nokia acquisition will accelerate Windows Phone growthSpeaking about the recently announced deal to buy Nokia's smartphone business, Ballmer said it would "accelerate the growth of Windows Phone and strengthen the overall device ecosystem."

Experts consider the main disadvantage to be primarily the underlying closed file system, which causes compatibility problems for applications and prevents their full operation. Unlike Android, the interface of Windows Phone and Windows Mobile has limited options for customizing applications. The smartphone does not have Google services, which makes it inconvenient to work with setting up contacts. And finally, there are many fewer applications for this platform compared to Android.

“Success is a terrible teacher,” Microsoft founder Bill Gates once said. The corporation itself, a long-time leader in the PC operating systems market, has stepped on the same rake. As it turned out, Microsoft was not ready for the advent of the post-computer era.

"Google and Apple moved forward with modern operating systems, while Microsoft continued to treat mobile devices as a third-party by-product," observers say.

Lack of change and sluggishness

Experts also point out that there have been no changes since the advent of Windows Mobile 6.1. iOS and Android updated their design and functionality every year. There was no talk about this in Windows Phone - the system remained monolithic and static.

“What kind of personalization? This is the eternal strict office style, the Explorer web browser and the permanent cut-and-paste function,” ironically notes the technology portal Quora.

Application developers quickly realized that their products looked much more attractive on fast-growing platforms than on Windows. Currently, there are only about 165 thousand applications in the Windows Phone Store catalog. For comparison: there are about 900 thousand of them in the AppStore, and almost a million in Google Play.

With the advent of Windows Phone 7.5, Microsoft tried to catch up, but it was too late. As a result, Microsoft found itself in the dust with Windows Phone 8: even Nokia’s high-quality hardware did not help, observers say.

What's next

IDC analysts have scheduled the “funeral” of Windows Phone for 2021 - by then it will completely disappear from the market, including the latest version of Windows Mobile 10. In the meantime, Microsoft does not intend to say goodbye to it and is releasing Microsoft Lumia phones based on it (in 2014 it bought Nokia's mobile devices business for €5.44 billion).

However, in the near future, Microsoft is going to “kill” Lumia and release its new Surface Phone smartphone with the same tiled interface. In April of this year, the company assured that it would reconsider its strategy and return to the mobile market with a new vision and new ideas. The market, however, has no doubt that Microsoft will not be able to step into the same river twice.