As a long time iOS guy who's been using Windows Phone (Nokia) for over a year, I can honestly say it has the best UI in terms of usability for the form-factor. You're right - the map smokes all others. The only issue I have is the non-webkit IE browser and lack of a few key apps.

IE 11 will include WebGL support [1], and due to Microsoft's 'core systems' sharing across big Windows and Windows Phone, this is likely to propogate down to the phone.

However the lack of webkit will remain :(

[1] http://www.infoq.com/news/2013/06/ie11

The big issue with not previously including WebGL support was glaring security issues right? Doesn't WebGL essentially use root access to your gpu?

> Doesn't WebGL essentially use root access to your gpu?

Only in badly-designed, non-conformant user agents. :)

The WebGL security issues have, for at least a year, been FUD. The spec is essentially fixed, drivers have become a whole lot better, and browsers have become a whole lot stricter in their validation code. WebGL is not OpenGL nor OpenGL ES.

Examples: while the OpenGL ES spec is silent on buffer overflows, WebGL mandates user agents to signal errors; while OpenGL ES doesn't specify the state of freshly allocated textures, WebGL requires them to be blanked out; WebGL textures can never be from non-origin-clean canvases.

Except on Linux. As an anecdote, as recently as January, visiting any WebGL sites that used any shaders would reliably panic my kernel with NVidia hardware and the NVidia binary blob. I then switched to Intel hardware which is much more stable but also shows how much variance there is here.

For me to be comfortable with WebGL, we'll have to really train graphics card manufacturers to take security issues as seriously as web developers do. That isn't going to happen any time soon.

Huh, if you don't mind me asking, which video card? I've used linux+nvidia pretty exclusively for work and never seen anything near as bad on linux (I do run higher-end cards than the average PC, though).

On OS X, on the other hand...

If memory serves, it might have been a "Quadro NVS 110M", which is equivalent to the super-old "GeForce Go 7300". It was an old laptop.

MS has also focused a lot on security in its WebGL support. For example, it security audits the drivers.

FYI, Android devices will soon not use WebKit, as Chrome is changing to Blink. Whilst Blink is a fork of WebKit, I believe that the differences between mobile Safari and mobile IE will be as small as the differences between Safari and Chrome.

At the risk of starting a device war, I'd agree with everything you've said, except that Android does a lot of those important things better still. Maps in particular- Google Maps is utterly unparalleled.

But it's all down to the user- I have no requirement for Remote Desktop support, so that doesn't matter to me. I don't use OneNote or Office, and use Dropbox for file syncing.

Long time ago I had an old Windows phone, HTC Diamond and some other wierd pda/phone type thing that was awful. Since that I went "Android" - I've used HTC Hero, Desire, Xperia Arc and Xperia S. Now I'm using Lumia 920 I got from my workplace.

I used to think that Google Maps was great, but after using Nokia's HERE maps I have to say, HERE is better. Not sure if it's the hardware, but first of all it's A LOT faster than Google Maps ever was. Secondly, HERE maps work offline (altough I just heard Google is finally enabling this with their maps).

Without wanting to sound like fanboy, the 920 is a great phone: it just works. The UX is better than in android, mainly because different apps all follow same guidelines on how to implement UI navigation/actions.

On the android phones I had, most of the time it was "free for all" with the UX as different manufacturers and devs implemented their own ideas on how nav/actions should work.

Other things I can say about 920: battery time is great, wifi (and wifi sharing) work flawlessly, sound quality is great both ways and the _camera_ is best I ever used in a mobile phone. It just puts all other mobile phones to shame.

I'm looking forwards to 1020 and hope to get one when they are available.

Only bad thing I can say is the Windows store and apps. I miss quite a few apps I used on my android phones. It's a shame so many devs only focus on apple/android.

Offline maps has been available since at least 2 years. I think you had to long tap a point, choose Save offline from the menu, choose the dimensions of the square that pops up and the square becomes available offline.

Yes, but that downloaded map data is useless. You cannot search in it, find any routes in it or anything. You have to use the net and query Google. So it's more caching of the view than actual map data.

Not only that, but every now and then Google Maps want to check something over the Internet and just locks itself with an undismissable spinner and "Loading" message until you find a connection.

Well, it is seems like caching of the actual map data, but the application itself is not capable of performing the searches or figuring out routes. Since the device I am talking about was really not that powerful enough to perform that kind of computation, it could be intentional.

It also only lets you download 5 "squares" at a time for some reason.

Nokia Maps is _amazing_ and has been since the Symbian days, even more so by the fact that you can download maps beforehand (whole countries) and use them offline. Utterly unparalleled might be a bit harsh.

I can vouch for this, Nokia Maps is just amazing. The ability to download maps offline is extremely convenient, not just when you are out of the country and don't have a data connection, but also when you are running low on battery.

However, I am still surprised how we got here, we went from having offline maps on all GPS devices in the beginning of last decade to online only maps by the end of it! Now we have to tout the ability of having offline maps as a feature?

Well yeah, google wanted it in the cloud. How are they going to track and thus monetize you if you're not phoning home for the map?

Last time I tried Nokia Maps (on a WP7 device probably a year ago, admittedly) I tried searching for a nearby location by entering a partial address. It failed. I tried searching for a cross street without using name suffixes. It failed.

Point is, everyone has different needs from a Maps app. I don't drive, so don't need navigation. I just need to enter an address quickly and find out where it is, so offline downloads don't really do anything for me.

I don't drive either, so walking/public transit directions are INTEGRAL to my survival. I haven't played with a Windows Phone in almost two years, though.

Nokia maps has all of those plus handy apps like onebusaway

> Point is, everyone has different needs from a Maps app.

Exactly. For instance Nokia Maps don't cover Japan, so they're a complete non-starter for me.

POI data used to be notoriously bad for Nokia maps. They have been working hard to address it, and now it is up to "mediocre" ;)

Google Maps can download maps beforehand, but for some reason it won't let you plan a route without an internet connection. Probably because their route-finding algorithm would crush a phone or something :)

In the latest update, 7.0, there's quite a bit of conversation that this is no longer possible. It's recently come out that it can be done with a gimmick, typing 'okay maps' I believe, but it remains unintuitive as a primary task let alone worthwhile feature.

Their routes are mostly useless anyway. Just look at the map and figure it out.

it usually just says "offline map not available for this region", or something like that.

That is definitely a thing that you don't appreciate until you have to use it. We were on road over the long weekend and were lost with no network connection. Thanks to offline maps on my Lumia 920 I was able to find the nearest road offline and get back on road to our destination.

I don't ever post here but figured I'd add my two cents to this. I got a Nokia Lumia 928 about 40 days ago (just passed time for insurance). This past weekend I went on a trip from Seattle to Yellowstone. We had four people in the car and in most of Idaho and most of Montana there was very sparse 3G or LTE connection. My phone was the only one capable of doing offline GPS navigation. I've been quite surprised with how much I've enjoyed my Windows 8 phone and only become angry with the lack of games when I'm on the toilet.

I recently returned back to the UK from a 2 week long US road trip, covering 2000 miles. We downloaded the Nokia Drive data for the states we were visiting in advance onto my girlfriend's cheap Lumia 710, as we wouldn't have any data connection (not wanting to incur roaming charges). We were utterly dependent on the Nokia Drive app, and it performed exceptionally. Definitely recommended in place of a dedicated satnav.

Not to be glib, but it sounds like your Nokia saved you from adventure :)

adventure that I didn't anticipate. Yes. and I am thankful for that :)

Hard to imagine how anyone ever got anywhere before smartphones.

I agree. In fact, I'm still using a Symbian phone, and the maps still work. (Offline maps are essentially the only smartphone-esque feature that I make use of on a regular basis, so I feel no need to upgrade.)

I was working at jimmy johns as a driver about four months ago. One of the drivers there had a Nokia phone, I had an android, and obviously delivering you often get addresses that are sometimes slightly incorrect etc. Google maps never failed me, the windows phone guy would get lost constantly. I don't know why, could be just bad driving, but one thing that the google maps seemed to be better at was determining the location of businesses and for traffic and TRAINS (since the town I was in had 2 different tracks).

In short, I'd have to agree that google maps is unparalleled (important to note that the iPhone people didn't even bother using their maps).

Maybe the iPhone people just knew where they were going?

I used to deliver pizza. If you had to stop and look up addresses you lost money to the drivers who didn't. It was to your advantage to learn your way around the delivery area.

However, the software elegance is the primary differentiating factor.

+1 I haven't been able to get maps to work at all on my Nokia 920, I can't even figure what the map app is....everything is prefixed as Nokia something app with some weird names that don't work. Suffice it to say, I'm forced to use my old iPhone for anything that involves a map.

Windows phone would be much better if they offered a google map app for it.

Lets just to with an example...I wanted to find the nearest post office, typed it in, I got a result about 9 hours flight away from where I lived. Google maps was able to return something down the street.

Install "HERE Drive+": http://www.windowsphone.com/en-us/store/app/here-drive/31bbc...

Download the offline maps you need and you are good to go!

There's a manual here if you need one:

http://www.nokia.com/us-en/support/product/nokia-drive-plus/

Looks nice, but I don't drive!

The HERE Drive+ is designed specifically for in-car-use (to work as standalone satnav replacement), but they also have "HERE Maps", which will give you public transport and walking directions: http://www.windowsphone.com/en-us/store/app/here-maps/6c2863...

What is available for the cn market? My phone is locked to that even though I'm American myself.

I was use ping here maps, or HERE whatever, there are a lot of them and I'm not sure what each does. It didn't help me find something as simple as the post office when I needed to mail off tax forms last month, which google maps and apple maps had no problem with. Very disappointing.

There are 2 such apps in the WP store. gMaps and another whose name I forget

So none of you guys cares about openness, uh? Too bad, if more people, we wouldn't have the problem of closed platforms to begin with.

I actually care more about having competition and choices than just openness. Open source softwares suffer from stagnation just like the closed ones when they are left with no competition. Which is why I am actively rooting for Ubuntu Mobile and Firefox OS. I am also hoping with more Mobile OSes, we will start seeing standards to interact and share data between them.

You should also root for sailfish. That is one beautiful and open OS

Windows Phone is more open than iOS in the sense that you have multiple OEMs making multiple types of phones targeting different markets unlike the iPhone. For example, the Lumia 521 is just $130 off contract in the US. Also the walled garden prevents the malware problem that Android has. So it can be considered as a happy medium between iOS and Android.

The off contract 521 is awesome. I got a new one for $100 on ebay and it's specs are plenty for what I need. It rivals $500+ phones.

Yup, I managed to grab a new one at a Microsoft store for $86 (had a gift card and they had in store promos I abused). Most bang for the buck consumer product I have ever purchased.

There is an open platform for phones?

"It's superior to my old iPhones in almost every way."

Unless you count battery life, GPU, probably CPU, form factor, build quality, the wildly superior app, media and accessory ecosystems. But other than that what have the Cupertianians done for us lately?

As an iPhone user, I can chime in with my opinion.

It looks like the iPhone and 920 battery life are both pretty abysmal http://blogs.which.co.uk/technology/phones-3/best-phone-batt...

CPU and GPU for the end user isn't important. What is important is the perf of the UI, which WP7/8 have always been buttery smooth when compared to iOS and Android devices with better hardware.

I'd also say Nokia is very closely behind Apple in build quality if not on par. And their form factors have been great as well.

iPhone/iOS definitely has a better ecosystem, but the apps on WP8 are getting better.

Apple better than Nokia in build quality? Oh my... Do I need to bring out the drop-tests various blogs have done?

Sure bring whatever you want. The build quality of iphones is attested to in scores of independent reviews and it's not the same thing as drop test resistance.

For me: When a phone 'requires' a case to protect it from gentle use, even of putting it on the table so it will not get scratches is absurd. My iPhone 5 got scratched up before my case arrived, and I was so careful with it. I attribute this to 'build quality' also, it's not just how it feels.

I think Nokia phones are more "sturdy", exemplified by its cheap phones that just won't break. Apple is more meticulous I'd say. I have a Lumia 920. There are just tiny little seams and creaks that one wouldn't find on an iPhone.

Here's battery life from a well known blog:

http://www.anandtech.com/show/6914/samsung-galaxy-s-4-review...

No Lumia on there but I think that matches up with the general btty life rating for iphones. Some nokias in this listing:

http://www.anandtech.com/bench/Smartphone11/349

"CPU and GPU for the end user isn't important."

It certainly can be for certain apps.

"WP7/8 have always been buttery smooth when compared to iOS and Android devices with better hardware."

I'm not sure why you've lumped iOS with famously jittery Android (at least historically, 4.2 seems to have solved lag) since iOS is usually cited as the standard for smooth interface as in this initial WP 7 review from Josh Topolsky: "probably the most accurate and nuanced touch response this side of iOS4."

http://www.engadget.com/2010/10/20/windows-phone-7-review/

The battery life metric I care about is: how long will the battery last after I've been using all kinds of weird apps for a year.

That's where iPhone seems to excel. On a fresh install of Android, using just one built in app, it seems fine. But eventually the phone fills up with stuff that seems to drain it. Not sure how Windows Phone fares on that front.

Absolutely that's a problem with Android. It's a natural consequence of having a platform where apps are free to access pretty much any hardware in the background with no review (that's a good thing if you're a developer though).

However, Android gives you tools to see which apps are using the most battery, and you can uninstall them if they're a problem.

Recently I noticed much worse battery life on my nexus 4, opened up the battery stats, and saw 30% of my battery usage was the consequence of a messaging app I don't use, deleted it, and got back to normal.

In this regard WP8 is very much like iOS and not even close to Android. Apps are 'tombstoned' when they are not the visible app. So no matter how many apps you install, when they're not open, they won't use battery.

Battery, build quality and form factor are not better for the iPhone. Battery's about the same, build quality is similar, but iPhone loses points for being either easy to scratch (black 5) or easy to crack (4, 4S). Apple in general makes stylish but not robust phones. iPhone loses on the form factor because it really has only one that is acceptable - the 5. I am typing this on a 4s and the screen is too small and the shape does not feel as good in the hand as the round polycarbonate Lumias.

CPU and GPU don't seem to be so different subjectively. Both are smooth.

The apps are vastly better on iOS, even the ones that are on both platforms e.g. one cannot insert rows in Excel for WP 7 or add annotations in Kindle. Support seems better for Apple, as Lumia 800 and 900 customers did not get WP8, while the older iPhone 4 will get iOS 7!

How do you do remote desktop? I've used WP8 for a while and haven't found one that's even decent.

I use RemoteDesktop from Topperware. The mouse and keyboard UI work very well for me.

Teamviewer is present as well.