I went pre-paid years ago and have never looked back. It is half the cost and overage fees are impossible, if you reach your cap, that's it.
I have been using AT&T pre-paid for a while and the funny thing is, the cost of that plan has actually gone down by $10/month since I first started on it... That is basically unprecedented in my experience with carriers... Compare that to contract users. The rate may go down halfway through your contract term for new users, but since you are in a contract, you have to continue to pay that original rate.
Funny thing is, as far as I am aware, this is the first time in history where "Microsoft" and "Windows" are displayed prominently on a Windows Phone.
In the past, Windows Phone was "just an OS" and the manufacturer and/or carrier would brand everything.
So, at best, your B) and C) points have not had a lot of time to really prove out one way or the other. As for A)... *shrug* it just depends on what you need. Also, just stating that you have 10,000+ apps in your store is really meaningless and only useful in a marketing sense.
If all you do is the standard 10 things most people use their smart phones for, then Windows Phone is just fine. You may need to find alternative apps to the ones you normally use, but maybe you don't. For example, on Android and iPhone I LOVE BeyondPod for my netcasts. On Windows Phone I don't have that available... but the built-in podcast software is decent enough, or I could use something like PocketCast, which I have heard is pretty good.
This used to be a problem like almost 10 years ago with Windows CE based phones. This happened to me all the time, which is why I switched off of Windows Phones as soon as Android came along.
However, after experiencing Android and it's sluggishness (which never really got better), I switched to iPhone... which was ok, but I never wanted to "buy in" to the whole Apple ecosystem and so therefor always felt like a second class citizen.
Anyway, I wanted to give Windows phone another shot and bought a very low end ($40 brand new) Lumia 520 a year ago. I was utterly amazed at how usable a cheap phone was. If I were to buy a low end Android phone, it would be unusable in any reasonable sense.
Now, it *has* crashed on me... but it is always when using the built-in podcast app that triggers it, and this has become much less common in the last few months.
The phone part has never been anything but rock solid.
these animations are what a lot of people refer to when they use the word "smooth" to describe the platform
Actually, even without the animations, I find the simple transition between apps really nice and snappy. The nice thing about live tiles is you can fit way more of them on a single page than you can widgets on android. There is nothing similar on iPhone.
On both Android and IOS devices, I always spend a good deal of time just navigating between pages with different app icons. On Windows Phone it is all right there. Even the stuff that is not is literally a swipe and a flick away. I think they really nailed the small form factor UI.
There are also some really clever UI implementations on Windows Phones that don't appear to exist on the Android and iPhones I have used. Stuff related to copy/paste operations and forms are nicely optimized on Windows Phone and are always a hassle on Android and iPhone.
Bottom line is a Windows Phone is much cleaner and more efficient to use than either an Android or iPhone...
I was looking at a continuum device in the local MS Store the other day. It appeared to be a dongle attached to a Windows 10 phone (I forgot the model, but probably one of the new flagship series) which allowed for keyboard, mouse and video input/output. The UI on the 24" screen was standard Windows 10 and it was pretty snappy... I think they are close.
Oh come on... you mean the fact that this took place on Mars didn't interest you at all? You have to know who the main character is before you see a movie?
I completely get it. I *could* spend $500 on an iPhone or I could spend $50 on a Windows phone that is just as fast.
I will never do the "contract" thing again, it is just a waste of money. $40 / month pre-paid with unlimited data and text seems a lot more reasonable than $80 / month for basically the same thing under contract. Where does the extra $40 / month go? Paying off the iPhone... which you will have paid almost $1000 for by the end of the 2 year contract.
Well, actually you can do a type of NoScript using group policy and kill bits for all corporate IE users. The central management of IE makes it ideal for our corporate environment. Instead of allowing any user to add any exception they want, we have a process by which we will vet the exception case and add it to a global allow list.
We, of course, do not allow Flash or Java to be invoked in the browser and we use the Intranet, Trusted and Internet zone profiles built into IE to restrict other aspects of web browsing.
I think that IE can be just as safe (or more so) than any other browser.
Improvements to SmartScreen will be a welcome addition to the toolbox.
Well, on the Windows Weekly podcast, Mary Jo Foley has indicated that containerization will likely be a future addition to Windows 10 just like it is in Server 2016.
I would fully expect several Windows components to begin to take advantage of this.
It seems like this kind of thing happens all the time.
For example, you get into several car accidents because you were drunk and behind the wheel. After a few strikes, you are not allowed to drive any more for a while. When you can drive again, all off your information is shared to all the insurance companies who are all going to give you high rates because of your past activity. The only reason they will give you insurance at all is because there is a state mandate that they have to, otherwise, they may choose not to serve you at all (turn you away at the door).
Another example, you fail to pay your CC debt and it goes into collection. Other, unrelated creditors may decide to turn you away, not because you ever did anything to them but because you failed to pay someone else....
To the point, I don't think it is wrong to share information about people who shoplift or otherwise break the law.
Clearly, there is a slippery slope here though. What if, instead of breaking the law, you are profiled because of your race or political beliefs in one store... now you are flagged in other stores... does a full dossier come along with the flag? There could be good an bad things about that too...
Also, further down the line, as technology progresses, facial and body recognition may become so accurate that they can flag potential shoplifters just by their stance and behavior coupled with what they are wearing. All people in burka's for example might be unfairly flagged due to their "shoplifter" clothing style and the fact the system cannot see their limbs and face.
The thing is, SmartScreen has always been kind of useless. I can count on my right hand how many times I have seen a SmartScreen alert and all of those were false positives or because SmartScreen couldn't phone home or something.
Anyway, any improvement to this technology is welcome.
What I really liked about that show was the genuineness.
For me it just rang true all throughout, it was nice to watch a show where my BS alarm wasn't constantly going off.
Of course, it could just be the mood I was in at the time and then cherry picking my warm fuzzy memories and forgetting the rest. I have a tendency to do that.
Well, Netflix would benefit greatly, but you would also benefit.. You see, it's a "synergy" in the literal sense... so to single out Netflix's benefit and say that it is nefarious is kind of disingenuous.
Perhaps a better phrase would be "Everyone's got problems"
I do think that the "First World problems" phrase has some merit as a "reality check" type of thing. But in this case you usually have to purposely blind yourself to the source and just take the phrase on its own.
To automatically dismiss an idea because of hypocrisy is kind of like throwing the baby out with the bath water. Everyone is a hypocrite and a contradiction, that is sort of what it means to be alive. You take with one hand and give with the other.
I guess this must just be due to the fact that every network now has their own streaming service that they want you to pay for.
It seemed like Netflix used to have a nearly bottomless well of content, now I am hard pressed to find new stuff. It also seems like I can browse through Netflix's entire streaming catalog in a few minutes from my Roku... which doesn't seem right.
Also, Jessica Jones was a pretty great show. My favorite Netflix original, though, was "The Killing". Unbelievably amazing.
Slashdot Mirror
I went pre-paid years ago and have never looked back. It is half the cost and overage fees are impossible, if you reach your cap, that's it.
I have been using AT&T pre-paid for a while and the funny thing is, the cost of that plan has actually gone down by $10/month since I first started on it... That is basically unprecedented in my experience with carriers... Compare that to contract users. The rate may go down halfway through your contract term for new users, but since you are in a contract, you have to continue to pay that original rate.
Funny thing is, as far as I am aware, this is the first time in history where "Microsoft" and "Windows" are displayed prominently on a Windows Phone.
In the past, Windows Phone was "just an OS" and the manufacturer and/or carrier would brand everything.
So, at best, your B) and C) points have not had a lot of time to really prove out one way or the other. As for A) ... *shrug* it just depends on what you need. Also, just stating that you have 10,000+ apps in your store is really meaningless and only useful in a marketing sense.
If all you do is the standard 10 things most people use their smart phones for, then Windows Phone is just fine. You may need to find alternative apps to the ones you normally use, but maybe you don't. For example, on Android and iPhone I LOVE BeyondPod for my netcasts. On Windows Phone I don't have that available... but the built-in podcast software is decent enough, or I could use something like PocketCast, which I have heard is pretty good.
Not to mention that while Microsoft may be out of vogue now, who knows what it will be 5 years or even 10 years down the road.
Keeping a horse in the race is a good long run strategy.
I look at it this way: Not being a market leader in the Mobile space forces MS to be agile and innovative.
That can only be a good thing for end users. Especially if they use their deep pockets to subsidize R&D and hardware costs.
This is a very similar story to mine.
I figured "what the hell, $40 on amazon... what could it hurt?"
A year later and I am still using the phone...
This used to be a problem like almost 10 years ago with Windows CE based phones. This happened to me all the time, which is why I switched off of Windows Phones as soon as Android came along.
However, after experiencing Android and it's sluggishness (which never really got better), I switched to iPhone... which was ok, but I never wanted to "buy in" to the whole Apple ecosystem and so therefor always felt like a second class citizen.
Anyway, I wanted to give Windows phone another shot and bought a very low end ($40 brand new) Lumia 520 a year ago. I was utterly amazed at how usable a cheap phone was. If I were to buy a low end Android phone, it would be unusable in any reasonable sense.
Now, it *has* crashed on me... but it is always when using the built-in podcast app that triggers it, and this has become much less common in the last few months.
The phone part has never been anything but rock solid.
these animations are what a lot of people refer to when they use the word "smooth" to describe the platform
Actually, even without the animations, I find the simple transition between apps really nice and snappy. The nice thing about live tiles is you can fit way more of them on a single page than you can widgets on android. There is nothing similar on iPhone.
On both Android and IOS devices, I always spend a good deal of time just navigating between pages with different app icons. On Windows Phone it is all right there. Even the stuff that is not is literally a swipe and a flick away. I think they really nailed the small form factor UI.
There are also some really clever UI implementations on Windows Phones that don't appear to exist on the Android and iPhones I have used. Stuff related to copy/paste operations and forms are nicely optimized on Windows Phone and are always a hassle on Android and iPhone.
Bottom line is a Windows Phone is much cleaner and more efficient to use than either an Android or iPhone...
I was looking at a continuum device in the local MS Store the other day. It appeared to be a dongle attached to a Windows 10 phone (I forgot the model, but probably one of the new flagship series) which allowed for keyboard, mouse and video input/output. The UI on the 24" screen was standard Windows 10 and it was pretty snappy... I think they are close.
They have yet to bring out the Microsoft Zunephone 360.
Well, actually, As far as I can tell, they just took some of the aspects of Zune and made it into Xbox.
Xbox music (now called Groove) is alive and well on Windows phones.
Oh come on... you mean the fact that this took place on Mars didn't interest you at all? You have to know who the main character is before you see a movie?
Yeah, it was a nice little action movie with some magical sci-fi time travel. I have seen much worse in the name of science (fiction).
Well then, how about this one?
I am sure it comes down to priorities.
I completely get it. I *could* spend $500 on an iPhone or I could spend $50 on a Windows phone that is just as fast.
I will never do the "contract" thing again, it is just a waste of money. $40 / month pre-paid with unlimited data and text seems a lot more reasonable than $80 / month for basically the same thing under contract. Where does the extra $40 / month go? Paying off the iPhone... which you will have paid almost $1000 for by the end of the 2 year contract.
Looks like somebody is having a bad case of the Mondays
Well, actually you can do a type of NoScript using group policy and kill bits for all corporate IE users. The central management of IE makes it ideal for our corporate environment. Instead of allowing any user to add any exception they want, we have a process by which we will vet the exception case and add it to a global allow list.
We, of course, do not allow Flash or Java to be invoked in the browser and we use the Intranet, Trusted and Internet zone profiles built into IE to restrict other aspects of web browsing.
I think that IE can be just as safe (or more so) than any other browser.
Improvements to SmartScreen will be a welcome addition to the toolbox.
Well, on the Windows Weekly podcast, Mary Jo Foley has indicated that containerization will likely be a future addition to Windows 10 just like it is in Server 2016.
I would fully expect several Windows components to begin to take advantage of this.
It seems like this kind of thing happens all the time.
For example, you get into several car accidents because you were drunk and behind the wheel. After a few strikes, you are not allowed to drive any more for a while. When you can drive again, all off your information is shared to all the insurance companies who are all going to give you high rates because of your past activity. The only reason they will give you insurance at all is because there is a state mandate that they have to, otherwise, they may choose not to serve you at all (turn you away at the door).
Another example, you fail to pay your CC debt and it goes into collection. Other, unrelated creditors may decide to turn you away, not because you ever did anything to them but because you failed to pay someone else....
To the point, I don't think it is wrong to share information about people who shoplift or otherwise break the law.
Clearly, there is a slippery slope here though. What if, instead of breaking the law, you are profiled because of your race or political beliefs in one store... now you are flagged in other stores... does a full dossier come along with the flag? There could be good an bad things about that too...
Also, further down the line, as technology progresses, facial and body recognition may become so accurate that they can flag potential shoplifters just by their stance and behavior coupled with what they are wearing. All people in burka's for example might be unfairly flagged due to their "shoplifter" clothing style and the fact the system cannot see their limbs and face.
Exactly this.
Each new security feature is additive.
The thing is, SmartScreen has always been kind of useless. I can count on my right hand how many times I have seen a SmartScreen alert and all of those were false positives or because SmartScreen couldn't phone home or something.
Anyway, any improvement to this technology is welcome.
That would be killing the cow and then they could no longer milk it.
Yeah, I always wondered why a SS card was a valid proof of identification when applying for a job.
At least with a birth certificate you have a notarized seal...
What I really liked about that show was the genuineness.
For me it just rang true all throughout, it was nice to watch a show where my BS alarm wasn't constantly going off.
Of course, it could just be the mood I was in at the time and then cherry picking my warm fuzzy memories and forgetting the rest. I have a tendency to do that.
I have always been a sucker for the serial too.
Well, Netflix would benefit greatly, but you would also benefit.. You see, it's a "synergy" in the literal sense... so to single out Netflix's benefit and say that it is nefarious is kind of disingenuous.
Perhaps a better phrase would be "Everyone's got problems"
I do think that the "First World problems" phrase has some merit as a "reality check" type of thing. But in this case you usually have to purposely blind yourself to the source and just take the phrase on its own.
To automatically dismiss an idea because of hypocrisy is kind of like throwing the baby out with the bath water. Everyone is a hypocrite and a contradiction, that is sort of what it means to be alive. You take with one hand and give with the other.
"I don't have any legs, you insensitive clod!"
You can still put socks on your stumps...
Yeah, I have noticed a real decline.
I guess this must just be due to the fact that every network now has their own streaming service that they want you to pay for.
It seemed like Netflix used to have a nearly bottomless well of content, now I am hard pressed to find new stuff. It also seems like I can browse through Netflix's entire streaming catalog in a few minutes from my Roku... which doesn't seem right.
Also, Jessica Jones was a pretty great show. My favorite Netflix original, though, was "The Killing". Unbelievably amazing.