TEN REASONS WHY YOU MAY WANT A WINDOWS PHONE 8 DEVICE

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If you’ve been reluctant to embrace
a Windows Phone because of its shortcomings, this list of Windows Phone 8
improvements might sway you.

Even the staunchest Microsoft fan
can’t deny that Windows Phone hasn’t been a big seller. Despite some rave
reviews for both the original iteration introduced in February 2010 and for the
“Mango” 7.5 update, sales have remained slow.

As attractive as I found some of the
Windows Phone 7.x devices, many people still stuck with Android because it
serves their needs better. Here are my top 10 reasons why Windows Phone 8 looks
as if it just might lure many away from 
their favorite Android when it’s time for an upgrade.

1.         Additional storage — on steroids

You might opt for the HTC Rezound
instead of the Nexus, for one big reason: The Nexus doesn’t have the microSD
card slot that you may really wish it should be in any phone. Many dudes like
being able to add extra storage if/when needed. I was happy to see that Samsung
reversed that decision with the Galaxy S III.

One of my dislikes regarding Windows
Phone 7.x is the lack of support for user-removable microSD cards, as well.
Microsoft apparently heard my (and others’) complaint, as the Windows Phone 8
devices support not just microSD, but microSDXC, so you can add as much as 64
GB of additional storage. One of my reasons to pass on Windows Phone no longer
exists.

2.         Multiple cores

At a time when multiprocessing is
the rule on the desktop and increasingly, on the laptop, high end smartphones
have followed the trend with dual-core processors. And industry experts expect
the competition among quad core phones to heat up in the second half of this
year, with the Galaxy S III leading the pack with its 1.4 GHz Cortex-A9
quad-core CPU. Meanwhile, Windows Phones have tagged along behind, with
single-core processors.

Never mind whether the Windows
phones were plenty fast running on those single-core CPUs. Specs matter not
just for what the phone can do when you take it out of the box, but also in
regard to how it performs after you’ve loaded it down with apps - including
resource - hungry apps that might not have existed at the time the phone was designed.

When Microsoft announced that
Windows Phone 8 will support multiple processors (finally), I breathed a sigh
of relief. Now we’re hearing that the Windows Phone 8 platform is scalable
enough to theoretically support processors with as many as
64 cores. Not that we’ll be seeing those anytime
soon, but it’s nice to know that the OS is capable of that.

3.         Big, beautiful screens

Sometimes bigger really is better —
especially when you’re trying to watch a movie or navigate a Web page. When the
Droid X came out, with its massive (at the time) 4-inch display, I was wowed.
I’ve been lusting after the Galaxy Note and its 5.3 incher, and I got all
tingly when I read that the Galaxy Note 2 might top it at 5.5 inches.

With the exception of the HTC Titan
at 4.7 inches, most of the Windows Phone 7 devices had comparatively small
screens. And even the Titan had a low resolution 480 x 800 display, whereas the
4.65 inch display on the Galaxy Nexus is 720 x 1280, the same resolution as the
HTC Rezound’s 4.3 inch screen. Even the little 3.5 inch screen on the iPhone
4/4S is higher resolution at 640 x 960.

This was yet another reason I just
couldn’t bring myself to commit to a Windows Phone. Now that Windows Phone 8 is
expected to support 720 x 1280 or 768 x 1280, I don’t have to worry about that
anymore.

4.         Better apps

The current Windows Phone
Marketplace has more than 100,000 apps, but that’s still low compared to iOS
and Android. Now that Microsoft seems to have “settled” on a phone OS strategy
(finally!), I’m hoping we can expect more and better apps for the platform.
According to a recent survey from R.W.
Baird, 71% of the top 200 app developers
are interested in the Windows Phone platform now, with two-thirds expressing
excitement about the common code base across Windows Phone and Windows 8.

Since it will be much easier for
developers to create apps for both platforms, we should eventually be able to
have many of the same apps on our phones that we have on our desktops and
laptops. That kind of consistency is good for users as well as programmers, as
it means little or no learning curve for the phone apps.

5.         Lock screen notifications

When I’m out and about, I check my
phone often for email messages, missed calls if I’m in meetings and have the
ringer turned off, and so forth but to do that now on Android phone, you have
to first unlock the screen, then go to the appropriate app or pull down the
notification bar. With Windows Phone 7.5, you get some information right there
on the lock screen. According to reports, Windows Phone 8 will
improve on that, enabling developers to display
notifications for third-party apps, as well.

6.         One wallet to rule them all (I hope)

In its preview of the Windows Phone
8 platform on June 20, Microsoft focused a lot of attention on its Wallet
software, NFC hardware, and the potential to use them to make mobile payments.
Done correctly, this could be huge.

Windows Phone 8’s wallet
functionality will compete with Google Wallet,
Isis, and Apple’s Passbook. You’ll be able to use your phone to store your
credit card information and make purchases at NFC-equipped retail
establishments and store loyalty cards and digital coupons. It also supports in-app
purchasing.

7.         More devices to choose from?

One of the problems with Windows
Phone 7.x has been the limited choice of devices in comparison to Android
phones. (Of course, you do have more choices than iPhone fans.) Apple’s
philosophy aside, one size does not fit all. To be fair, it’s easy to
understand why vendors couldn’t get too excited about building phones that
didn’t support 4G or high resolution screens when those were two of the hottest
features wanted by buyers. I’m hoping that Microsoft’s new direction with
Windows Phone 8 will inspire hardware vendors to give us more models to
showcase the new capabilities of the OS.

Details about Windows Phone 8 models
are being kept under wraps at the moment, but news of some of them have
already started leaking.

8.         Finally — 4G

One of the reasons Verizon hasn’t
embraced Windows Phone 7.x in US, according to some rumors, was the lack of
support for its fast 4G LTE network. Verizon is all about the network, and
phones that can’t take advantage of the latest network technology in which it
has invested so much effort and money (including advertising money) just don’t
interest it much.

 Makes sense to me. I, as a user, had
little interest in a phone that would limit me to the old 3G network when LTE
was available. Now that Windows Phone 8 will support 4G, Verizon seems to be
warming up to Microsoft,
with its chief financial officer
saying in an interview back in April that it is looking for Windows Phone 8 to
be a strong third player in the smartphone market.

9.         Nokia maps

One of big reasons many haven’t been
able to tear themselves away from Android is Google Maps and Google Navigation.
A smartphone without turn-by-turn GPS navigation doesn’t seem all that smart
once you get used to having that functionality built into your phone. Now Microsoft has decided to
integrate Nokia’s 3D mapping service
into all Windows Phone 8 devices. Sounds as if one more of the things on your
must-have list has been taken care of.

10.       Playtime

Okay, this isn’t a big priority for
me. I’m not really a gamer. But now and then, such as when I’m stuck in an
airport with a delayed flight on a rare occasion when I have no work to do,
I’ll play a game or two. And who knows? Maybe I’ll play more often when game developers can create
better games for Windows Phone 8 – especially
those that will catch the attention of IT freaks like me. And although it might
not be a big deal for me and many business-oriented users, it will be important
to many consumers and could push them toward buying Windows phones. The more
successful the platform, the more likely that more new features and apps I do
like will come along