Gadgetory

hey guys it's Brandon man in front pocketnow.com you know it's been about two years since the first Windows Phone devices came out back in the fall of 2010 and now Windows Phone 8 devices are hitting store shelves I spent about a week with the Windows Phone 8x and I want to tell you what I think about Windows Phone 8 now two years after the release of the platform let's get to it first and foremost Windows Phone 8 finally supports high resolution displays and it's great to see Windows Phone in high resolution the 8x has a 1280 by 720 display and indeed Windows Phone 8 looks good at this resolution but I have to admit I've grown quite used to high DPI displays thanks to Android and iOS so this wasn't particularly thrilling for Windows Phone 8 I was most excited to mess around with live tile sizes one of my biggest frustrations with previous versions of Windows Phone was that the user wasn't given any choice on how large or small various tiles were for example I hated having my photo style always be two by one well that is no more now that you can change the size of any live tile the prospect of a get in get out and get back to life kind of operating system is even more possible because you can do a lot with glanceable info if you're changing the live tile sizes based on your own needs after just a few minutes of customizing I had the Start screen customized to my liking I placed some context in the small live tile size in the upper left corner to allow me to quickly dial people eye contact often I added a medium sized tile for my calendar so that I could quickly see my next appointment I placed four internet shortcuts again in the small tile size to conserve space in the middle of the display then using the large live tile size I placed my email INBOX a little bit further down granting me a view of my newest message I went on to configure my Start screen to fit my needs things were going well next I wanted to see if the speed and fluidity had improved for Windows Phone 8 since it's now on the Windows NT kernel and now that it's running on to CPU cores Windows Phone 8 finally supports multiple cores bouncing around between apps flipping through screens and browsing web Windows Phone II felt fast but not noticeably faster than previous versions perhaps this is a testament to how well tuned Windows Phone is and how well it has been tuned for speed and fluidity the next thing I wanted to check was the app situation had it improved so I jumped into the app store to search for some favorites Facebook and Twitter were they're both with live tiles I noticed that now in the Windows Phone app store now just called store app listings tell you if there is a live tile associated with the app neat so I proceeded to download The Weather Channel Facebook and Twitter all of which have live tiles and variable tile sizes interestingly some apps can take on all three live tile sizes and some just two then I installed the YouTube app and I was tremendously disappointed to see that the app was merely a link to em you tube comm fail while Windows Phone 8 has a built-in music app that works very well with Windows 8 and offers some great features I use Spotify often oddly a search for Spotify yielded no results but probably because a Windows Phone 8 app version of Spotify is in the app is in the works and is forthcoming I also didn't find Google Voice but plenty of knockoffs and that story rang true for many app searches I tried bad piggies not their Hulu not their speedtest.net not their Chrome not their it looked like Windows Phone had not yet achieved parity in terms of app selection with what is offered by Android and iOS and then I began using the device and this is where some of the neat little features of Windows Phone 8 came to the surface I set my lock screen to show me photos from facebook on a rotating basis which was pretty neat I installed a camera lens app called cam well which applied some amazing real-time effects to the camera I was reminded by just how productive and efficient the Windows Phone email app is and I felt confident that Windows Phone would never crash or lag and then it would quickly respond to all of my inputs and it did I also came across a few niggling issues for example many of the third-party live tiles stopped updating my facebook tile was showing an update I made over a week ago and The Weather Channel live tile app was showing conditions from when it forecasted to snow it seems that you actually have to go into the to have it update and that's really not ideal so in the end I came away from my week using Windows Phone 8 feeling exactly the way I did about it two years ago I think that the platform is unique refreshing and it feels so fast it's still that middle ground for those that want to customize more than iOS but not have as many options as an Android with some awesome hardware coming out that run Windows Phone 8 like the Lumia 920 and the Samsung at TS there are plenty of reasons to get excited about Windows Phone 8 but me I'm sticking with Android and iOS for now because I just can't get past the lack of apps it's possible that some developers are retooling their apps to work on Windows Phone 8 but I'm just tired of waiting so let us know what you think about Windows Phone 8 two years after the platform came out Microsoft killed Windows Mobile they brought Windows Phone 7 to the table and it's been a while what do you think about the platform drop us a comment and let us know what you think if you liked this video please give us a thumbs up and be sure to subscribe to our channel if you want to see more videos like this and thanks for watching that's it for now