Windows Phone 8.1 Preview Now Avaiable!

Unknown-One

Unknown-One

[H]F Junkie
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Mar 5, 2005
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Hope you're all registered to receive the update early, because it's now live! :D Just open up Settings > Phone Update > Check for Update.

My Lumia 920 just finished installing 8.1, took about 40 minutes. Time to try out all the new features (like Cortana)!
 
the next phone I purchase will be a Windows phone damnit! still the best mobile phone experience I've had.
 
There are enough changes that I will be messing with this update for the next few days. :D The swipe down notification center is rather cool too and you do not have to unlock the phone to use it. (You can also customize it to display what you want but I have not tried that yet.)
 
HUGE update. Love the access to another row of tiles, been wanting this feature a long time. System is noticeably more responsive, and even before this update people always commented on how fast it was. I think they sped up the transition animations, which was a complaint of mine. Cortana is cool, although I have never really used any voice crap. Notification center is cool, But I am so used to tiles and lock screen notifications, I will probably not use it much at first. Time will tell.

Fonts look sharper also. Independent volume controls, vibration off (thank god). Lots of goodness.

Oh and running a Nokia 928.
 
Seems like features coming to Windows Phone are all already present in Android. They won't gain market share trying to catch up. They need to offer more.
 
rudy said:
Seems like features coming to Windows Phone are all already present in Android. They won't gain market share trying to catch up. They need to offer more.
Click to expand...

the more comes from consistent responsiveness and stability within the OS that does not degrade with time like android. My 928 runs every bit as well today as it did the day it was released. my wife's WP 7.5 never slowed down over two years of usage. Android won't do that.
 
Nimisys said:
the more comes from consistent responsiveness and stability within the OS that does not degrade with time like android. My 928 runs every bit as well today as it did the day it was released. my wife's WP 7.5 never slowed down over two years of usage. Android won't do that.
Click to expand...

That shouldn't be an issue now that Android supports TRIM in 4.3+.
 
Nimisys said:
the more comes from consistent responsiveness and stability within the OS that does not degrade with time like android. My 928 runs every bit as well today as it did the day it was released. my wife's WP 7.5 never slowed down over two years of usage. Android won't do that.
Click to expand...

Maybe but if it is true that is the case people have not noticed it enough to care. Plus the reality is WP has so many holes in their product line they need something more than that. What is the galaxy note 3 equivalent for WP? What about phones with removable batteries and SD expansions. IE the GS4 equivalent? How about do I even get any choices on my carrier for sprint the only windows phones are galaxy S3 class devices. This means MS has nothing to bring to the table but 2 year old technology for sprint customers.
 
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I love it... made my 920 so much better.

This phone just keeps on giving and giving for being almost 2 years old. The thing is super smooth.
 
rudy said:
Maybe but if it is true that is the case people have not noticed it enough to care. Plus the reality is WP has so many holes in their product line they need something more than that. What is the galaxy note 3 equivalent for WP? What about phones with removable batteries and SD expansions. IE the GS4 equivalent? How about do I even get any choices on my carrier for sprint the only windows phones are galaxy S3 class devices. This means MS has nothing to bring to the table but 2 year old technology for sprint customers.
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The Galaxy Note 3 already has a rough equivalent in the Lumia 1520 - 6-inch screen, Snapdragon 800 and a 20-megapixel camera. Phone selection is otherwise not so great, but at least the Lumia Icon/930 can go toe to toe. Also, Sprint should be onboard for future Windows Phone devices, although it's not clear just when those will show.
 
HSN has the Nokia 925 for $200. Not too sure about the upgrade procedures but if I were to get it, will I be able to upgrade to the final 8.1 even if Tmobile sits on their ass? I have an iPhone just for the reason that upgrades to the latest OS are guaranteed (well for a few years at least).
 
Does the lumia 1520 have an active digitizer or IR emitter?
 
Finally EAP-TLS Wifi support, one step closer to being Enterprise usable. Still no native RDP support, which is still inexcusable. It's truly mindboggling how Microsoft can release a phone OS that doesn't do RDP out of the box and does it better than any 3rd party app ever will. Mindboggling ...

I do have to say that WP 7.8 which I am using on a Lumia 900 is imho the best UX out there compared to Touchwiz crap and Sense-less 6.
 
With all the changes coming in 8.1 and threshold I will seriously be looking at jumping to WP from iOS especially with all the cortana synergy if you own a xbox one.
 
WP still needs developer support. With market share that low, support won't come easily. And vice versa I suppose.

If WP allows those same features on the newest Android LastPass, I'm so in.
 
Staples said:
HSN has the Nokia 925 for $200. Not too sure about the upgrade procedures but if I were to get it, will I be able to upgrade to the final 8.1 even if Tmobile sits on their ass? I have an iPhone just for the reason that upgrades to the latest OS are guaranteed (well for a few years at least).
Click to expand...

Microsoft has already said all the Nokia 8.0 devices will get the update. if nothing else I suspect it will become available through the Nokia at the minimum, just like the Black update.
 
Thuleman said:
Finally EAP-TLS Wifi support, one step closer to being Enterprise usable. Still no native RDP support, which is still inexcusable. It's truly mindboggling how Microsoft can release a phone OS that doesn't do RDP out of the box and does it better than any 3rd party app ever will. Mindboggling ...

I do have to say that WP 7.8 which I am using on a Lumia 900 is imho the best UX out there compared to Touchwiz crap and Sense-less 6.
Click to expand...

I would wager if they did bring RDP to a phone that 99% of users still wouldn't use it because it's just not easy to do. I have teamviewer and it does work well in a pinch but it's definitely not preferable. It's many times easier to just tether a tablet or laptop to your phone and RDP that way. Even in the enterprise I can't think of many use cases where the average end user would be needing that feature. Half of them have a hard enough time finding the icon to open up word because it's buried deep in the start menu. :p

If you are Enterprise IT it can be useful for a quick fix, but if you need to spend more than 2 minutes actually working on something it's not very productive.

Staples said:
HSN has the Nokia 925 for $200. Not too sure about the upgrade procedures but if I were to get it, will I be able to upgrade to the final 8.1 even if Tmobile sits on their ass? I have an iPhone just for the reason that upgrades to the latest OS are guaranteed (well for a few years at least).
Click to expand...

You definitely want to look at this link: http://www.wpcentral.com/windows-phone-81-now-available

Basically the way around it is if you simply sign up for your free developer account you can download Windows 8.1 to any WP8 phone. So if you do end up in a situation where a carrier decides it's not cost effective to update the phone you can still have the latest OS. You just won't be receiving any firmware updates.
 
Seems like almost all reviews of the WP8.1 upgrade were extremely positive, with one chicken and egg problem: developers and market share. And that's a pretty big problem if Amazon ever decide to release their Kindle Phone, with the Amazon Appstore apps being far easier to port from Android.
 
CHANG3D said:
Seems like almost all reviews of the WP8.1 upgrade were extremely positive, with one chicken and egg problem: developers and market share. And that's a pretty big problem if Amazon ever decide to release their Kindle Phone, with the Amazon Appstore apps being far easier to port from Android.
Click to expand...

That's still a definite problem, but at least some of the big pain points for end users are gone (Instagram, Vine and the like). To me, the biggest issue is getting Google to provide more than just a basic search app. Until Windows Phone is big enough that Google can't afford to "punish" Microsoft for being a direct competitor (by withholding app support, for instance), it'll be hard for someone dependent on Google services to switch platforms without making a few sacrifices.
 
Aurelius said:
That's still a definite problem, but at least some of the big pain points for end users are gone (Instagram, Vine and the like). To me, the biggest issue is getting Google to provide more than just a basic search app. Until Windows Phone is big enough that Google can't afford to "punish" Microsoft for being a direct competitor (by withholding app support, for instance), it'll be hard for someone dependent on Google services to switch platforms without making a few sacrifices.
Click to expand...
I've weaned off my Google Voice dependency by only have one girlfriend... LOL. My player days are over! Too expensive!

I am pretty proud to say that if Google turns really evil (like not being net neutral), I could go with Microsoft or any third party push mail service in a day. Only thing I suppose I would need to look at is two-way authentication if I can't use Google Authenticator. And I would really like LastPass to have the amazing fill in feature on WP as well.
 
I'm really enjoying WP8.1. It's not perfect, obviously, but they did put in a lot of stuff that people were complaining about. I really feel like I just bought a new phone... and it feels great!

The downside has always been marketshare and availability of apps. They need to work faster to make it stupid simple to port/create apps for it so that it'd be a no-brainer to get into another ecosystem with very little effort.
 
The universal app store is supposed to help out with that. But Microsoft should seriously consider going WP x86 using Intel's SoC's. Right now, I suppose we're waiting for Intel to get that SDR working. Then Intel would finally be efficient enough to compete with Qualcomm.
 
PNut12345 said:
Where can you register for the preview, if it's not too late?
Click to expand...
  • Go here and register using the same Microsoft account as your phone.
  • Run the app and sign in with your Microsoft account.
  • Check for updates on your phone and install them (if it's the first time downloading Preview for Developers you’ll have an update to install before being able to update to Windows Phone 8.1).
  • ?????
  • Profit.

Remember this is a preview and you will encounter bugs and issues of various degrees so make sure you really want to do this as you cannot roll back to WP8.
 
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