Itâs been hard to not see Windows 10 Mobile as the neglected, obligatory piece of the puzzle Microsoft has been putting together. From buggy builds, to broken third party apps, plus a messaging nightmare on upgrades, how could anyone really give Microsoft a chance. That said, I finally took the dive and upgraded my primary phone, a Nokia Lumia Icon, to the Insider Release Preview.
After a week of usage, and installing an upgrade I had missed, Iâm surprised to say things are nice on Windows 10 Mobile. Performance on high end hardware is solid, whether thatâs launching apps, taking photos, or fiddling with settings. Battery life has been livable, though Iâll admit Windows Phone 8.1 seems to perform better.
On the app front, nearly all of the built-in experiences have been upgraded and improved. Mail and Calendar both perform well for a light user like myself, processing a few emails and possibly adding a calendar item time to time. Groove is light years ahead of XBOX Music, questions about whether youâre playing content offline non-existent, and catalog browsing easier than ever.
As for third parties, the evolution is here and there, but definitely coming along. Some long time apps present on Windows Phone, like iHeartRadio and TuneIn, received substantial updates which improved their look and feel, but deprecated some of their past nice features. Other apps, like Breaking News, simply crossed the line into usable, a welcome change as a Windows phone user.
Last, but not least, customizing Windows 10 Mobile has been surprisingly nice. I was critical of backgrounds behind tiles, but Iâve found myself experimenting and finding some solutions Iâve loved. The lock screen changes are okay, but Iâm still not the biggest fan of font sizes or transparency focus here.
A week in, I donât think Iâll downgrade my phone.
Iâve come to enjoy many of the improvements in Windows 10 Mobile, while gaining the ability to overlook some of its faults. The only thing that worries me is reliability, which isnât in huge terms like phone crashes and apps failing, but small things like the new Data Sense not consistently showing how much data Iâve used. The issues that come up seem like ones I could live with, as well as Microsoft should be able to fix with a small amount of work.
Windows 10 Mobile isnât perfect, and leaves a lot of Windows Phoneâs treasured uniqueness behind, but itâs by no means the dumpster fire we saw with early Insider builds and the Lumia 950â˛s release. Itâs a maturing OS, one that you can probably run on your daily driver on the Insider Release Preview ring, as long as you can expect a few quirks that MS still is ironing out.