brotkasten said:
How do you like the OS so far?
Not over the moon, to be honest. There are some things I like and I'll articulate them when I've used it more, but there are also a lot of things that I immediately don't like and I'll list them...
Hubs and Games: I don't really like that Applications appear in the main tile list by default, but games are segregated inside the Games hub (unless you then pin them up front). I'm not sure why those would be the two categorical distinctions. Wouldn't arbitrary folders actually be a better option? I wish there were folders. I actually get the idea of having a Games hub, but I wish there were better options for display of non-game apps and I wish there was a quick way to simply display everything you have on your phone outside of the hubs.
Marketplace Download Handling: I don't like having to enter the marketplace to be able to see my current downloads. I also don't like that one of my downloads mysteriously hung, and I couldn't cancel it. The only context option I had was to "pause" it which did nothing. Rebooting my phone caused other downloads to initiate but the same download stay hung. Rebooting again after all the other downloads finished, the hung download restarted from scratch.
Syncing/PC plug-in: The way it interacts with your PC is weird. Phone plugged in to charge battery. Click on Marketplace. Oh, wait, I can't use the Marketplace while my phone is plugged in? Okay, I'll go to the Zune application on my computer and download something there. Wait, it doesn't actually download to my computer or appear in my collection, it just kind of automagically makes its way onto my phone? Err, okay, I'm not really sure why that would be the case. Also I can't actually see the full list of installed applications and games in Zune, only on my phone.
Achievements wouldn't sync properly: The achievements I earned in Minesweeper earlier didn't show up. Tried rebooting. Tried using the Xbox Live Extras thing. Tried running Minesweeper. Tried toggling Wifi. Waiting an hour or two did the trick.
Status bar icons: I don't like that there's no icon up top indicating whether I'm on Wifi or not. Actually, sometimes there is, sometimes there isn't. I don't have a SIM card set up yet so I'm using it as a Wifi only device so this is important to me. In some pages, I can click to display the icon, but it's not clear which I can and which I can't in and the click to display was something I stumbled into.
People, what is "Me"? In People, the icons aren't very well explained the first time you enter before you popular your contacts. I click "Me" and I see "ME Windows Live", share a quick message, no news to share right now. Is this Windows Live Spaces or something else?
Bottom of screen menus and "...": There's a pin at the bottom of this screen, which I can figure out is to pin the tile to the main menu. The "..." on the bottom of screen options suggests there's more options, but it actually just adds the description "pin" to the pin icon. In other applications like IE, it actually means "more options", which is what's unusual about this. Don't think it's a good UI feature when it has an ambiguous meaning.
Cut off tex One other tiny Metro gripe. Click on "Office" and go to the Documents pane. You get "Explore Excel", "Explore Word", and "Explore PowerPoi(half of an n)". I actually like the text cutoff thing in the title, because it's a hint that there's more going on if you swipe to the right, but in a list option I don't like the text cutoff because it just makes it trickier to tell what's going on. I'm not really sure why you wouldn't just wrap the button or lower the font. Obviously I can tell it's "PowerPoint", but... Well... Yo ca tel wha I' typi her bu yo woul pref I typ ful word righ
Phone wrong about updates: When I first got the phone and clicked phone updates, it said I had none. Oh, okay. Then I plugged it into my computer and my phone had at least two updates. Why did my phone say it had no updates?
Xbox Live Messaging not convenient I was disappointed to find out that while you can send messages via Xbox Live, you can't send it through the Messaging program. Instead you go Xbox Live, swipe to the Xbox Live panel, click.. uh... well, there's nothing that suggests you can click anything, but if you click it you launch Xbox Live Extras, swipe over to messages, and do it there. But the Xbox Live Extras messages UI isn't as nice as the main phone UI for messaging.
What's a button? Related to the not knowing I could click thing in the last paragraph; while I like how clean it is, it's rarely clear to me what is a button and what is simply a line of text, because there are no outlines for buttons or feedback when you "click" on something
Grief about my specific model I don't like that there's a home button, but when the display is sleeped, the button does nothing. The fact that the wake button is not easy to push makes this worse. Volume rockers aren't great either.
Deal of the week? In games, there's a deal of the week, right? I know this because I went to a WP7 site and looked up what it was. I don't see anywhere in the Games hub to actually see what the deal of the week is.
Misc why don't they have this: No multitasking as best as I can tell. No Twitter in the People Hub. You can't take screenshots. This is stupid. Doesn't seem like I can enable a percentage for my battery. No complex passwords on lock screen, 4 digit only.
Search my phone? I figured "Search" on the main menu, even though it went through Bing, would search my phone as well. Nope. Just web search. Oh. Bummer.
Avatar Extras WTF? Avatar Extras is really really stupid, and I wish half the apps in it were built-in and in a nice UI instead of avatardified
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Basically I feel like there are some great ideas in the UI but the OS as a whole is still a few years behind. Also this particular phone is heavy, gets hot, and doesn't really look all that nice. This experience really wouldn't convince me to switch and if I was recommending a smartphone, my order would still be iOS before Android and I don't think I'd recommend this unless someone specifically told me they wanted achievement points on their phone. Still, I got it for a steal and so it's worth it just to play around.
I mostly like the Metro UI. It looks excellent in the games hub and the pictures hub. I love it when the next pane is "peeking" at me. I love the lock screen. I also like text entry and the lock screen. I love the font rendering in IE. On the other hand, I like the back button. The iPhone doesn't have one. I'm not sure if I like how much space it takes up on the phone, but it is neat to have the software UI never have any back indicator.
