Windows Phone 8.1 vs Android Marshmallow

i recently got a OnePlus 3 and it broke not even a week into its use. the phone is amazing: lightweight and blazing fast. the screen (color and resolution) and the speakers could be better but it’s a flagship-level phone for $400 so i can’t complain too much. plus, the alert slider is wicked awesome.

the screen started artifacting and flickering and devolved into a reboot loop, and finally failure to boot. i sent the phone in for a repair and switched to my backup phone: a Lumia 635 that has Windows Phone 8.1 (it won’t run WP10).

as i got back into WP (i’ve been on it before), i realized how elegant of a mobile OS it is. there are many positives – and of course, negatives – to Windows Phone. i love bullet points so here are my personal pros and cons.

the good:

• amazing contacts app that merges all data streams together
• per-app notification settings [e.g. different sound] out-of-the-box
• beautiful and smooth UI, especially live tiles
• great battery life
• daily Bing wallpaper out-of-the-box
• excellent email experience
• excellent calendar and tasks experience

the bad sorted from most painful to least [along with potential resolution]:

• no Snapchat app [quit Snapchat?]
• Messenger chatheads [no replacement]
• Netflix app does not support Chromecast [use a computer that does]
• HBO GO [no replacement]
• no native Gmail app [would need to switch to outlook.com for best experience with the native mail app]
• no Amazon Shopping app [use the mobile site]
• no Amazon Video [no replacement]
• no Youtube app [buy tubecast pro for $3]
• no Google Keep [switch to Wunderlist or Evernote]
• no Google Music [switch to Spotify]
• no Google Maps [switch to Waze]
• no Venmo [use pay.mo]
• notifications in the action center do not disappear even after you’ve launched the app and handled them

the list of bad is doable but aggravating nonetheless. i am getting an Amazon Fire tablet which would in theory allow me to handle the missing app and functionality were i to have a Windows Phone. that said, i really wish these apps were just on Windows Phone. i’d actually switch away from Android back to Windows Phone.