Following on from AAWP's rather handy guide to the very best applications for Windows Phone 8.1 and Windows 10 Mobile, here's an updated (three months on) version of our similar crowd-sourced guide the very best one percent of games on the platform. Enjoy! And do comment if you have other suggestions, based on your own gaming experience.

Microsoft claims that the Windows Phone Store has almost half a million applications. Say half of them are games - the directory on this page contains not much more than 100. Even with the inevitable tweaks and additions (see the comments below, no doubt!), we're still looking at under 1% of the full number of games in the Store. Meaning that 99% are either novelties, rubbish or (worse) fakes or clones of existing game titles. If I may put it bluntly, that's an awfully high percentage. Microsoft should be ashamed.

Fear not though, for All About Windows Phone is here to help, with a bookmarkable page that should be a useful aide-memoire after a hard reset if rebuilding a phone from scratch or, perhaps more appropriately, a great place for a new Windows 10 Mobile user to start.

Some notes:

• Where possible, I've included links to relevant reviews/features or to entries in the Microsoft Store. Where a review references a Store URL that seems not to exist anymore, I'm blaming Microsoft's reorganisations and occasional changes in name/ID by the developer. In such cases, try search instead on your phone - and watch out for fakes with similar names.
• Note that in some cases titles may be only available for Windows Phone 8.1 OR Windows 10 Mobile - happily the vast majority here work on both!
  
• Watch out for outrageous purchases in some freemium games - I've filtered the freemium titles in the list below to just the ones which have good ratings and reviews. Just be careful, that's all, when tapping to 'buy' within a game.
• Implemented as a table, I've kept the width right down and only used two columns, in order to be really phone-friendly!

I've broken down our recommendations into categories, to be helpful. No doubt things may get tweaked in time!

Updated 25th July 2016:

Please do comment if you can add game-hardened suggestions for this top selection, and I'll incorporate them into the table!

Wikipedia needs no introduction, of course - and neither does its web site, which works remarkably well in all web browsers, degrading gracefully when needed. But that hasn't stopped several third parties from piggy backing on the accessibly nature of the data to create friendlier app front ends. Comparing like for like, I'm pitching the mobile web (Edge) experience here with the old-but-classic Wikipedia client from Rudy Huyn and the brand new (still in beta) UWP client from Kavimukil.

All three options are completely free, of course, but the latter does have a 'donate' option, should you want to support development.

The options then:

• wikipedia.org in the Edge browser on Windows 10 Mobile
• Wikipedia (by Rudy Huyn (last featured here on AAWP a couple of years ago)
• Wikipedia UWP (by Kavimukil)

I'll look at the interfaces, how content is formatted and then any special features. Let's start with the initial views:

Wikipedia.org (left) has an extract from the featured article of the day, followed by news mentions of content items. There's the usual Edge URL bar at the bottom, of course, this is a web page, after all; (right) Rudy's Wikipedia app kicks off with a very WP 8.1-ish 'Metro' tile-heavy panorama, but including a link to the featured article as well.

Immediately, Rudy's old 8.1 app highlights the chance to switch themes, an immediate benefit for AMOLED-screened phones in terms of saving power. Here's the white theme, which is the default...

...and then you change the visualisation options to switch to the dark theme, which also helps when reading at night, of course.

The new Wikipedia UWP has the usual Windows 10 design language - hamburger navigation menu, wireframe controls in the bottom bar, and so on. Again, there's a link to the featured article, though tapping through starts this off with a nice large image rather than a tiny thumbnail, which is a nice touch.

Wikipedia UWP uses the concept of switching backgrounds for content, either for power saving or for clarity of content. Plus the framing and interface is also available in dark and white themes, with the latter being the default.

The tabular 'facts' section of each Wikipedia article, as seen in the old 8.1 application (left) and the new Wikipedia UWP (right). The odd light banners, by the way, are because I 'switched background', as mentioned above - you may find that you need to revert this according to content if the occasional white-on-grey headline isn't legible!

Searching for things

I then turned to specific queries and the presentation of the matches. Staying topical, I looked for "AMOLED", i.e. the screen technology:

Firstly on wikipedia.org in Edge, it's all white, as already mentioned, but very low bandwith and very functional. Searches are quick matched, relevant images are presented first....

...with the main content formatted perfectly for the phone screen. Article sections are presented initially as headlines with a 'v' or '^' icon to control whether they're expanded, as here (right).

Back in Rudy's 8.1 Wikipedia application, there's also quick matching, though the initial view of an article is a bit screwed up in terms of margins. Hey, it's an oldish app and I'm sure Wikipedia are always tweaking things on their servers....

Once into the main article text though, it's presented pretty well, with the toolbar 'Sections' control popping up a handy navigation pick list (right).

Over in the new Wikipedia UWP, there's also quick matching as I type, plus the initial images in the matched article are more sensibly sized and laid out.

No problems with the article text here, running in dark theme with dark background - it all looks rather magnificent on the AMOLED-screened Lumia 950 and 950 XL. The blue arrow control takes you up to the top of the current article, of course. (right) As with the 8.1 app, there's a control to pop up a hyperlinked table of contents that can be swiped and actionned.

Logging in and marking

What about logging in to Wikipedia and keeing track of the things associated with your account? In fact, there seems only to be the 'Watchlist' at Wikipedia's end. Let's see what happens on mobile:

In Edge on the Wikipedia site, of course, it's no problem to log in to your account and see your current Watchlist.

Watch list items are shown with a 'star' (and you add items this way too), so it's clearly analagous to 'favourites'; (right) in Rudy's 8.1 Wikipedia app there's no way (unless I'm missing something) to log into Wikipedia, but you can set articles as 'favourites' locally, i.e. on this particular phone/instance. Better than nothing, I guess.

Wikipedia UWP has a fledgling 'login' function, though very restricted currently and labelled firly as 'beta'. There's the promise of being able to edit pages in the app, which is very exciting indeed - plus I'm guessing that the Watchlist will also be either supported or synced with the current (also local) Favourites system.

Local favourites are kept, again, but most of the thumbnails are a bit broken at the moment. Early days then for this third party Wikipedia UWP app, but it's looking promising. And remember that as a UWP it works fully on the tablet and laptop too.

Extras

What about extra functions and features in the new Wikipedia UWP?

A list of cached ('offline') content is kept, for easy reference later on - it's not clear yet how large this might get - I'd hope for a setting to control it other than just clearing everything; (right) there's a useful 'nearby' list of items from Wikipedia, overlaid on Windows 10 Maps data, though the amount you can zoom out to include more items is very limited currently. Tap on any item to find out more!

In terms of places, there's also a location-sorted list, with a little more information - tapping through takes you to the full Wikipedia article, as you'd expect.

UWP settings - lots of settings(!)

Pick a winner? Well, when it's fully developed, the new UWP app of course - but I do encourage you to give the developer some feedback and even beer donations. There's a lot of potential depth to this new application, as you can see from these final screens:

Plenty of tidy up functions (not all shown here) plus the ability to pick a font size and even font family for article display - impressive control and using the full range of fonts built into Windows 10; (right) plenty to play with in terms of colours and styles, worth me playing with, in conjunction with the background and overall themes, I think?

There's a live tile, plus push notifications (it's not clear for what, yet!) - and the suggestion that helping fund Wikipedia UWP will also help pay for the necessary push tokens via Microsoft's servers. Either way, send the guy a virtual beer if you will?

I'll certainly keep Wikipedia UWP installed and monitor it as it develops - do please comment if you've tried it too.

Of course, the Wikipedia application featured here is by a third party and there's no reason why Wikipedia couldn't do its own first party version. But I contend that there's really no need - the existing options, as demonstrated above, work perfectly well and one of the solutions will already meet anybody's needs.

Many people around these parts (AAWP) will have been living with the Insider builds of Redstone for months, but for anyone else coming from a 'production' standpoint, i.e. the Lumia 550, 650, 950/XL out of the box, or on one of the many older Windows Phone 8.1 devices which have been upgraded, there's quite a bit that's new. Also, unusually, there's not much choice about whether to proceed - you'll simply get this update and there's zero benefit from trying to stay on the older version of Windows 10 Mobile, i.e. Threshold.

Windows 10 Mobile's big new upgrade is due to hit regular PC users on or around August 2nd, 2016, i.e. in just over 24 hours as I write this, but there's still much debate as to how fast this will be pushed out to Windows 10 Mobile users - I've been sceptical in the past and I still think that 'Redstone' isn't 'ready'. Certainly not when upgrading 'normob' phones, people who won't know where to turn if things go wrong... But hey, it's Windows 10 'as a service' these days and it's perfectly possible that Microsoft will just roll out Redstone ('Anniversary Update'), warts and all, and then fix bugs after the fact in new updates on a regular schedule. We just don't know.

Anyway, in all the coverage we've given to the various Windows 10 Mobile Redstone Insider builds, we've never gone over the step change improvements for the new '14393' branch over the old '10586' branch, i.e. the 'Anniversary Update' over 'production' Windows 10 Mobile.

So here goes, it's quite a significant list - the changelog for PC users making the jump is even bigger, of course, and there are plenty of articles around the Web detailing these. But here's the much shorter list that's relevant to phones, i.e. Windows 10 Mobile.

Security

This is almost completely under the hood, but worth putting first. In an age where cyber-crooks are out to get you at every turn, through malformed emails, MMS, dodgy links, and so forth, having an OS and web browser (Edge) that's hardened and fully up to date is essential. Just look at the knots the Android world is tying itself into as it tries to come to grips with devices and forked or old OS branches, all with known security vulnerabilities, and with tens (if not hundreds) of millions of phones worldwide already compromised to some degree.

Just as I've encouraged everyone I know to move up from Windows Vista to 7 to 10, purely on the basis of what's improved and hardened under the hood, so I'd strongly endorse the security improvements in Redstone, in part powered by the Microsoft Intelligent Security Graph, spotting malicious URLs before you're served them up in the Edge. All of the security fixes are invisible in the interface, so they're not high profile, but they are significant.

And all of this is on top of Windows 10 Mobile (and Windows Phone before it) being the most secure OS in the first place, though admittedly some of this might be due to 'security by obscurity'.

Better browsing, period

In addition to protecting against security threats, Microsoft Edge includes 'power-saving improvements, using fewer CPU cycles, consuming less memory, and minimizing the impact of background activity and peripheral content'.

Although extensions won't be available yet on Windows 10 Mobile, they're 'coming soon'. Just in case you wondered about an ad-blocker. When browsing, you can now swipe left and right, to go forwards and backwards (respectively) in your browsing/window history.

Action Center

Notifications are better spaced and you can also now select how many messages each application can show in Action Center and you can set a priority for each, i.e. where they sit in the notifications list. So you can customise this hugely, perhaps with Facebook at a lot priority and your work Outlook email at the top, each controlled to a certain number of lines. All this is done in Settings/System/Notifications & Actions, just scroll to the bottom of this dialog and you'll see the individual application controls.

You can now also drag and drop to re-arrange the buttons (in Settings) so you can arrange them however you want (shown above, right).

Cortana improvements

You can now share items with Cortana and 'she' will create a reminder for you, based on person, place or time (and actionned by 'her' as appropriate). See the screenshot example below. It works using the built in Windows 10 Mobile sharing system, so should work with almost any application. Using the Microsoft Cloud and your account, Cortana can also push notifications to a Windows 10 PC so you get missed call alerts, low battery details and app notifications there. 

Store enhancements

The Store client has been facelifted several times, and little of this has been seen so far by 'Threshold' users. Most notably, you can now tap through an item that's installing or updating, to the original item's page and have a read through. There are also larger download/progress bars to let you know what's going on, plus information on system requirements and even (sometimes!) a 'What's new' pane. 

Below the famous 'Check for updates' button is now an up to date list of everything that's been installed or updated, in reverse chronological order, complete with version numbers. Very useful, especially if you have automatic app updates turned on. There's also a Store notification every time something does get installed or updated, but this is a pain and is best turned off in Windows 10 Mobile's Settings.

Reorganised Settings

There are plenty of detailed tweaks, but one of the biggest (other than double-tap-to-wake's possible appearance) is probably complete control of each application's background agent - within Settings/Battery/Battery usage, tapping on any app's name pops up a dialog letting you choose between 'Always allowed in background', 'Managed by Windows' and 'Never allowed in background'.

Notably, Kid's Corner has been removed, but its functionality is largely duplicated by Apps Corner, as discussed here.

Enhanced Continuum

In addition to a better Continuum experience - and which will continue to improve, compatibility has been widened to include all Miracast displays and Wi-fi-connected Windows 10 Anniversary Edition desktops and laptops. Obviously this needs more testing and an article on its own, so watch this space.

Applications, Applications

In addition to the OS changes, both under the hood and added to the interface, there's also the 'app factior'. In this case all the Microsoft and third party applications which have been based around the Redstone APIs and which require the newer version of the operating system in order to run. A good example of this is the first party Skype Preview, i.e. the UWP app that's Microsoft's flagship Skype app going forwards, which requires facilities in the Anniversary Update in order to work. And there are many more examples.

What to do to get Windows 10 Mobile Anniversary Update

Nothing. You'll be notified in Action Center when the update has been made available for your phone. This applies whether you have a 'native' Windows 10 device (think Lumia 950) or an 'upgraded' one (think Lumia 830, 930). In either case, as part of the rollout (and expect it to be slowish, with Microsoft looking for issues and tweaking builds as they go), you'll be notified - you don't need to keep checking manually, as the automatic check (in the background) runs every few hours anyway.

All this applies to the full compatibility list of Windows 10 Mobile devices, the main ones of which include:

• Alcatel OneTouch Fierce XL
• BLU Win HD W510U
• BLU Win HD LTE X150Q
• Lumia 430
• Lumia 435
• Lumia 532
• Lumia 535
• Lumia 540
• Lumia 550
• Lumia 635 (1GB)
• Lumia 636 (1GB)
• Lumia 638 (1GB)
• Lumia 640
• Lumia 640 XL
• Lumia 650
• Lumia 730
• Lumia 735
• Lumia 830
• Lumia 930
• Lumia 950
• Lumia 950 XL
• Lumia 1520
• MCJ Madosma Q501

Though extra devices are joining this list all the time, not least the Acer Liquid Jade Primo and the HP Elite X3, both of which ship with Threshold and which will need the update.

...and older phones?

So that's most interested parties catered for then. But I have to put in my standard caveat that older phones, 2012-2013 vintage, powered by the Snapdragon S4 chip and typically with '20' at the end of their name, are not compatible at all with this release of Windows 10 Mobile. If you've upgraded any of these phones to W10M 'Threshold' via the Insiders 'Release Preview' ring then that's as far as these phones can go. So you're stranded, albeit stranded on a much more recent OS and set of UWP apps than if the phones had been left on 'ye olde' Windows Phone 8.1. So it's still a net win, arguably, even if not all the UWP apps being produced are compatible. (Note that there is a hack that can take these older phones right up to Redstone, by pretending to be a Lumia 640 or 1520 or whatever, but it's very, very, VERY tricky. And time consuming. And I still haven't succeeded. So just don't bother unless you really want to be geeking out for an entire day. Really.)

We'll thus end up with a three tier set-up in terms of which OS version phones are on. Much as shown on my original chart, there are phones officially designated to stay on Windows Phone 8.1, phones that were designated this way but which were upgraded anyway to the W10M Insiders 'Threshold' Release Preview by knowledgeable users, and officially sanctioned and upgraded phones on the 'Redstone' Anniversary Update. Microsoft will only really recognise the last of these tiers, since the first is now too old and the second unofficial, but for what it's worth, three tiers is what many of us will have to bear in mind in terms of content and applicability here.

In theory, the title of this tutorial should make no sense. After all, you just use the Flickr app, right? Oh yeah, there isn't one. What about one of the third party Flickr apps? Ah, they've all now stopped working properly. Hmm.... What about using Flickr via the web interface? Actually, this does provide a way forwards, though it's slightly more involved than you might think. Here are the pointers you need.

Flickr, of course, is well known, a great place to share your photos from, in the knowledge that the full resolutions will be retained and even downloadable by others, along with descriptions, EXIF metadata and more. Just a shame that Yahoo owns Flickr. And that Yahoo itself just got bought by Verizon. Ah well.

My goal here is to be able to upload a photo to Flickr, make it public and then add it to a number of relevant Flickr Groups. That doesn't seem too outrageous, does it? Flickr itself is often browsed on a tablet or desktop, i.e. on a large screen on which you can appreciate the images better. But with the cameras being so terrific on the likes of the Lumia 930, 950 and 950 XL, Flickr seems - in theory - a good fit for creating and uploading images direct from the phones.

With Flickr Booth having vanished into oblivion and Flickr Central having lost track of the newer Yahoo/Flickr login system, my thought was to use Flickr's own web site as the conduit for uploading from a Lumia and adding photos to groups, but I was foiled slightly by the 'mobile site' for Flickr dating back to 2008 or so and not knowing anything about 'groups'! Which got me started thinking about using the full Flickr web site - after all, if I could upload and share a photo using a Windows 10 laptop or Mac or whatever, all via the full web interface, then why couldn't I do the same with the new Microsoft Edge browser in Windows 10 Mobile?

As it turns out, I can indeed. With a few caveats! You see, the Flickr web site is heavily optimised to work on a desktop sized (and shaped) displays - it's a bit of a web travesty, really, and has few fans. But it kind of works, most of the time.

Anyway here goes. Keep up at the back and you'll be uploading photos to Flickr and adding them to Flickr groups in no time...

The first thing to do (and the last thing to reverse, probably, after completing this procedure(!)) is to pop into Edge's Settings and switch the 'Website preference' to 'Desktop version'. This ensures that when you go to flickr.com you get served the same page as if you'd been on a full Windows 10 laptop. Tap on the standard 'upload' icon and then peruse the new rendered page carefully. In this case, I've panned and zoomed in a bit on the top right - look for the tiny link to 'Old Uploader' - I've tried the javascript-heavy 'modern' uploader and it falls over quickly with the Windows 10 Mobile image picking and then text entry systems - trust me.

And so it's to the old uploader, very close to what you'd see if you started out with the Flickr 'mobile' (ancient) web site. But it does work. 'Browse' for an image in your Windows 10 Photos application in the usual way....

While you're here, if you haven't done so already, 'Add to favourites', for quicker access at a later date; (right) Oops, yes, just spotted my own typo above!

Tap on 'Upload' when you've picked the right image (or images, this being a 'multi' uploader!) and if you're quick then you'll see the uploading screen on the right - though with modern connection speeds, it'll only be for a few seconds...

There's then a sparse-ish form to fill out, with title, description.... and tags and choice of Flickr sets (if you use these). It's slightly fiddly to tap and type, but at least multifarious layers of javascript don't get in the way of the entry process, as happens on the full 'modern' uploader; (right) after hitting 'Save' you'll may be turfed back to the mobile site - I know I was. Still, you'll at least be shown confirmation of your new photo on Flickr, complete with title, etc.

To get your new photo into a group (that you're already joined to), head back flickr.com from the URL bar and your new preference for the 'desktop view' will give you the desktop site and its drop-downs; (right) from the Photostream, pick your latest photo and hopefully you'll see the full desktop view of the image and all its attributes and data. Including a small pane and link 'Add to group'...

Tap this link and a grid of your joined groups will be available, just tap the ones you want the photo to be in - I've rotated to landscape mode here to make sure that all my 8 or so groups are available on-screen for tapping, and also to be able to more easily pan the page to find the 'Done' button!

And there we go - horrendous page rendering (it's really not Edge's fault, it's simply terribly convoluted coding by the Flickr web team in my opinion) but at least it confirms that my photo is in the two groups I selected.

Phew. That's a pretty tortuous set of steps to get a photo into a couple of Flickr groups in 2016. Mind you, actually accomplishing the above only takes a few seconds once you know what to do - it's not the extra time taken that's really the issue, it's the sheer inelegance of it all.

But what choice do I/we have? I've suggested the idea of a Flickr UWP to a friendly developer, but would welcome input from anyone else who can improve the current Flickr-less app situation. 

PS. Of course, Flickr's very future is in doubt given the chain of takeovers - what other photo hosts do others here use that allow full resolution upload and download? Just curious!

The Rio Olympics are due to kick off for real tomorrow (with the opening ceremony). And your Windows phone is a pretty good device to keep up with the 42 sports and 300 events that will happen over the next sixteen days. Here's a rundown of the main ways you can keep tabs on Rio.

We have to start with Sport though - that's the MSN Sport application that's effectively a built-in on Windows Phone and Windows 10 Mobile. Not least because an update last week added a whole new section decicated to the 'Rio 2016 Olympics', to be found on the hamburger menu. The Sport application is customised to some degree to your language and region, though you can add and subtract specific sports in Settings (e.g. take away the football news, in my case!)

But the Rio 2016 Olympics section is notable - the stories themselves are gathered from the usual accredited mainstream sources, of course. Here's a brief gallery of the sort of stories and information to hand in (MSN) Sport on your Windows 10 Mobile phone:

Prominent on the hamburger menu, the Rio 2016 Olympics support! (right) 'Top stories' are the illustrated headlines that you (probably) need...

Expanding into the headlines, consistently illustrated and each showing the source. Tap on any panel and you're into the main story (right), note that as a UWP app (of course) you can get rid of the virtual Windows controls to gain more screen real estate for reading.

The other two tabs/pivots are shown here - for the medal table (obviously, zeroed out at this stage, and note the drop down if you want to see the medal table from any previous Olympic Games), and (right) for the schedule, broken down by day and time across all disciplines.

My only complaints here would be that the Sport application's search facility can't look inside these special panes, for example here (left) trying to find the timing of the heptathlon; (right) you can pick disciplines by sport, but sadly the pick list lumps all the athletics events together.

Just in case you'd been living under a rock for the last four years and your Windows 10 Mobile hasn't ended up with Sport installed, you can find it here in the Store. There's a colourful live tile too, with a top story from the front page. Recommended.

Twitter's Moments tab is growing on me - it's a useful glimpse into the world of news, filtered through what's being said about each story, all in one place - and here focussing on the Olympics.

Then there's all the direct streaming TV coverage. This will vary a lot, depending on where you are in the world and your own local broadcasters, but in the UK there's the good 'ol BBC, with full live and catch-up video coverage (including Olympics Playlist, a daily catch-up summary) in exhaustive detail available via the 'iPlayer' application (last featured on AAWP here) - yes, it's a Windows Phone 8.1 application, but it still works just fine on Windows 10 Mobile. 

And the jump off point for latest news, also from the BBC, is bbc.co.uk in your Edge browser, as shown above, with a dedicated Olympics section that's worth adding to your favourites. This also links back through to streaming video content, including that on iPlayer.

Finally, I cannot resist putting in a plug for one of my favourite phone games that just became super-relevant: Angry Birds Rio! This is still in the Windows Phone/Windows 10 Store, is a free download and will give you oodles of fun and atmosphere, even if there's no actual human sport involved(!) Go on, you know you want to....

Hmm.... not quite as population-dense as the real Rio, but hey....

There are two complete games here for free (well, freemium, at least) - the Rio original level packs here are the best and most colourful, in my opinion, while the Rio 2 packs are loosely tied in with the second 'Rio' movie.

The gameplay's still Angry Birds, though with the goal here of releasing captive birds and other animals. Note the power-ups at the top, if you want to use these after the initial trials then that's where the freemium comes in....!

Hopefully this round-up has proved interesting and helpful to anyone wanting to get into the Rio action over the next sixteen days. Comments welcome!

I'm sure many people will have spotted that Samsung has introduced 'iris scanning' for its brand new top of the range £700 Galaxy Note 7, to be available soon. Ignore all the claims that it's 'innovative' though, the (now much) cheaper Lumia 950 and 950 XL had this nine months ago. What got me musing though was why Microsoft's implementation wasn't seen as ground breaking in the first place. Why should that be?

Anyone with a Lumia 950 or 950 XL will have given the iris scanning option for 'Windows Hello' a try on their phone. Chances are that you set it up and eventually turned it off as 'too slow' or not reliable enough - if the recognition fails even one time in ten then it's frustrating and you might as well use a PIN.

But let's start with Samsung's impementation, shown off in their B-roll video below - watch this before I comment further:

So the basics are identical - a training session in which the user has to remove any glasses, line up properly and then gaze at the top of the phone, followed by an unlock procedure that relies on proper alignment and gaze again, with a recognition speed of around a second after that. Samsung's video goes into extra detail regarding specific content on the phone which can be 'locked' or unlocked with the iris recongition, but the basics are all the same. Samsung's video also doesn't show the recognition being retrained with glasses on, though I'd assume that the same principles apply as on Microsoft's implementation back in 2015.

So, back to the Lumia 950 and 950 XL implementation - I've only used this on and off since 2015 because it's too unreliable and slow - for me:

• A personal one, this. Recognition with my varifocal glasses is patchy - it's obvious why. The shape and dimensions of my irises vary depending on the exact angle I'm pitching my head at. I suspect this will remain an issue with all iris recognition systems, though 'Improving recognition' with several cycles of set-up does indeed improve things - I now get a reliable 'Hello Steve' four times out of five, albeit with several seconds of trying each time. Still, for anyone without glasses or with a plainer prescription, this should all not be an issue.

Even if already 'trained', popping back into your sign-in settings gives the chance to keep 'Improving recognition', essentially adding more slight variations to your iris signature.

Training with and without glasses. As you can see, with varifocals it's usually necessary to tilt the head backwards so that you're looking through the 'near' part of the spectacle lenses!

• For some unaccountable reason, Microsoft chose to include visual confirmation of what the iris recognition system was up to - so 'Looking for you', 'Making sure it's you' and then 'Hello Steve'. And so on. Each message is forced to stay up on screen for a second or so, to give the user a chance to read it - making what could have been a one second 'silent' process at least two or three seconds in real time. Which is too slow.
   
  If the messages could be turned off in Settings then we'd be down to around the same second or so that the Samsung Galaxy Note 7 sees. Microsoft, this is trivial, surely? Just provide a setting to suppress the messages - all that's needed is a 'Windows Hello, looking...' message that stays on-screen until the unlock happens. That Microsoft hasn't thought of this just shows that the Lumia 950 devices aren't being dog-fooded enough in their labs. If the programmers were forced to use the iris recognition on the 950s as their primary smartphones (rather than iPhones etc.) then they'd think of this in seconds.
  

Great to be informed, Microsoft, but we get the idea. Now give us the chance to skip the message and animations and let's speed the sign-in process up!

• Microsoft made the mistake of only including the iris recognition, i.e. not in addition to a conventional fingerprint scanner. Samsung got this right for the Note 7 with both forms of authentication. Maybe Microsoft's aim was to take a leap into the future, but with the two sizeable caveats above it's clear that it wasn't a totally successful leap. 
   
  Microsoft's problem, of course, was where to actually put a fingerprint scanner on the Lumia 950 and 950 XL hardware - there's no room on the frontispiece - at least not without compromising the clean 'all glass' lines, and the side and back of the device come off as one, i.e. in the replaceable back cover. What would I have done? Put the scanner on the back below the camera island, in a separate mini-hump and one also matched by a cutaway in the replaceable backs (as with the camera). Ah well. What might have been!

The second point above can still be addressed though, in a Windows 10 Mobile fix/update - I'd very much like to see this happen. With recognition down to a second it would be genuinely useable. And all it takes from Microsoft is to NOT display a couple of on-screen messages/animations.

The imminent HP Elite X3 gets things right with both a fingerprint scanner (on the back) and iris recognition, of course. At a price, but it shows where Microsoft could have gone in this regard.

Having said all this, iris recognition will never - I predict - rise to the same level of ubiquity as fingerprint authentication. It's handy as a second string means, but it's not always convenient to physically raise your phone in front of your eyes, plus that second's delay (at least - this doesn't include time to raise the phone and make sure your eyes aren't blinking and without glasses, etc.) will never get remotely close to the few milliseconds needed to read a fingerprint on a digit which is already part of the motion of picking up a phone from a desk.

So take the whole current 'innovative iris recognition' hype with a pinch of salt. It's not that innovative, it's not that fast, it's not going to take over from fingerprint scanning in the wider smartphone world. It's merely 'quite cool'. Which is fine for geeks like us, but it's not going to catch on or be practical for the general populace.

Still.... Microsoft, if you're reading this, what about sticking that extra setting in, eh? Pretty please!

Sometimes even the best-designed UIs can make simple operations harder to accomplish - Windows 10 Maps has made great strides in the last 12 months, but I found myself scratching my head over the utterly basic function of saving a location as a 'favourite'. Happily, you just need to know the trick - and it's as simple as dropping a pin!

So you're either at a location and you want to make sure you save it for future navigation or reference, or, potentially, you're planning a trip in advance and pre-saving some of the places that you know you'll want to navigate to. Either way, the interface in Windows 10 Maps doesn't give any clues whatsoever as to how to proceed:

For example, you tap on the 'star' icon to in the toolbar bring up the favourites list (above, left) and then you look for a '+' control or similar. Surely there's a quick way to add to this list of places? Nope. Frustrated, you go back to the map and tap the blue dot (i.e. your position) - aha, a pane of options slides up, we're in business. Except that we're not. You can navigate to the location specified (you're usually already there, in this case!), you can search for stuff nearby, you can share the location or print it out. In fact, everything except save the location as a 'favourite'!

Gah.

Which is where you have to think laterally. In addition to tapping on UI elements on the screen, what else can you do? I guess it means that the UI designer missed a trick, but I found out that if you long press on a spot on the map, you get the option to 'Drop a pin'. Which at least sounds promising (below, left):

And lo and behold, a panel appears at the bottom of the screen, swipe this up to see the options and information in the screenshot above, right.  Although 'pin' and 'favourite' are essentially slightly different concepts, one leads to the other - having dropped a pin, you can then tap the star icon to save it as a 'favourite' (the star icon itself then changes to the 'star plus editing pen' shown above, right).

Tapping to edit, as you might expect, lets you name the new favourite and even add some notes of your own, as shown below, left:

When done editing, swipe up and then tap on 'Save', as shown above, right. 

We can confirm that the new favourite is in place by tapping on the aforementioned 'star' icon to bring up the 'favourites' list, here including my new favourite 'Humphreys' (below, left):

From this favourites list, of course, the usual functions are possible, including pinning the location (or directions to it, i.e. it's a destination from your current location) to the Start screen. In fact, these same pin options are available from the generic 'dropped pin' pane, as shown above, right.

I guess all of this makes sense, but I'd still like to see a '+' icon in the favourites view, defaulting to adding a new favourite at your current location (for example). One for the Windows 10 Maps team to think about and build in? 

PS. If all the above is second nature to you and makes perfect sense then well done - you're a better man or woman than me. But I still wanted to post the tutorial as an aide mémoire for others.

I've linked a few times to an ultra-geeky hack to get Windows 10 Mobile Redstone (a.k.a. Anniversary Update) onto older smartphones, those that Microsoft deemed unsuitable for the very latest code. After a few (abortive) attempts I've now made progress in upgrading one of my own Lumias, a 1020 and, while I still think that you need a degree in hackery and lots of patience to proceed, here's how I got on taking a 2013 Snapdragon S4-powered Lumia into uncharted Redstone territory and beyond....

I'll save the usual disclaimers and caveats - if you're attempting any of this then you're well aware of the risks. And if you're not then run a mile - just buy a newer phone!

[Big thanks to AAWP reader Tasos Rizopoulos ('greebo' in the Disqus comments below) by the way, he held my hand through a lot of this!]

The prerequisites:

• an older non-approved Windows Phone 8.1 device that you've already taken to Windows 10 Mobile 'Threshold' (the 10586 build branch), i.e. while you could over the last year, before the cutoff date two weeks ago. *
• a Windows 7, 8 or 10-running PC
• plenty of time and patience

*  For devices still on 8.1, there's an expanded version of the procedure below and which involves flashing ROM images, but this is yet another level of geekiness and perhaps demands another article in the future!

For the procedure below, I'm using my classic Lumia 1020. Gulp. Let's hope this doesn't go horribly wrong. This could equally well have been a Lumia 820, 920 or 925 though. I wouldn't recommend any of the 512MB RAM devices (e.g. Lumia 620) - that's asking just a bit too much, I think you'd agree.

Do note that there are some caveats to taking an older phone like this through to Windows 10 Mobile 'Redstone' (and beyond):

• You can't use the camera in Skype (Preview). If you even try then you'll 'break' the camera until you next reboot the phone. This may be a showstopper if you do Skype video calls of course (though apparently Viber works). With the latest Skype Preview version from the Store, updated this morning(!), this all now works fine.
    
• Brightness is stuck on 'Auto' - not a huge deal, since most people leave it on this anyway, but....
    
• Glance screen is gone, since all the registry keys that the older phone hardware need are moved competely for Redstone. Potentially another showstopper for some? Comments welcome! By the way, there's a terribly geeky hack to replace these keys - or you can do a lot of typing - see here for more (from page 85) if you want to dive into this rabbit hole!
    
• Bluetooth's Action Center tile seems broken. But you can still long press it to get to the Bluetooth panel in Settings.

If you're happy to proceed then read on. I/we've tried to cut through the mumbo jumbo on other sites and provide an illustrated walkthrough - we've tried to eliminate any unnecessary steps and provide visual confirmation at each stage that you're seeing the right thing. And even after writing the text below, some of the steps might not be essential - see the comments below - but at least if you do everything as listed below then things should work.

Step 1

On your phone, go into 'Settings/Update & Security/For developers' and select 'Developer mode'. Yes, acknowledge the scary warning, you should already be scared anyway, at this point!

Step 2

On your PC, grab the old Windows Phone 8.1 SDK application deployment utility, filename WP8.0 SDK Tools Lite Setup Av1.20.zip. Once downloaded, extract it all and go run the .bat file supplied. This will take a while (loads of components are involved) and you'll need to approve permissions every so often.

Step 3

Still on your PC, download the vcREG registry editor. It's a file ending in '.xap'

Step 4

From your Start menu, run the Windows Phone 8 Application deployment tool.

Step 5

Select 'device' and pick the registry editor .xap file that you grabbed just now.

Step 6

With phone connected and screen turned on and unlocked, click on 'Deploy'. Nothing appears to happen, but over on your phone have a look at the main applications list - vcREG should be there!

Step 7

On the phone, run vcREG, tap on the '...' menu and then on 'templates'. Check 'Live Interop' and 'Restore NDTKsvc' and then on 'Apply'. Your phone is now 'jailbroken', to use the iPhone jargon. And we'll be able to play with its registry!

Step 8

Back on the PC, download 'Interop Tools' from the developer's folder archive, I went for the stable v1.7 under 'older versions', but this may have advanced by the time you read this. You'll need the main (around 2MB) application, with typical filename InteropToolsApp_beta_1.7_0.0.157.0_arm.appxbundle

Step 9

Using Explorer on your PC, copy this Interop Tools application file onto a suitable folder on your phone, e.g. 'Downloads' in the usual way.

Step 10

On the phone, head for File Explorer, navigate to where you put the Interop Tools application file and tap on it. It should install quickly and silently.

Step 11

Look under 'i' in your applications list and run 'Interop Tools'. Tap on 'Registry browser'.

Step 12

Navigate through (in turn, i.e. 4 taps) the registry key hierarchy:

1. HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE
2. System
3. Platform
4. DeviceTargetingInfo

Step 13

This is where is gets really interesting, we change the phone's ID as far as Windows is concerned so that when the phone update routines come calling, it reports itself as a device that's most definitely 'allowed' to get the Redstone/'Anniversary Update' (and beyond) OS versions. In this case I'm using the Lumia 950 XL for the ID, but others have used the codes and name for the Lumia 640 with success. I honestly don't think it matters - you end up with the same OS code. Just as long as the model you specify is provisioned at Microsoft's end for the new OS updates!

In each case below, make a note of what the key was before you change it - the paranoid might like to revert everything after the update is done, just in case some Lumia 950 XL update is pushed in the future which doesn't agree with the hardware (unlikely, but....)

• Tap on 'PhoneManufacturer' and change the 'Registry Value Data' to 'MicrosoftMDG' (capitalisation is important). Tap on 'Write' and then 'Write' again.
• Repeat along same lines for  'PhoneManufacturerModelName', set this to 'RM-1085_11302' (or RM-1116_11258 has been suggested for dual SIM devices, again mimicking a Lumia 950 XL)
• Repeat for 'PhoneModelName', set this to 'Lumia 950 XL'

Step 14

You can check that the registry changes have been made successfully by heading into 'Settings/system/about' - you should see that your Lumia 1020 (or whatever) is now pretending to be a Lumia 950 XL!

____________

What happens next depends on when you read this tutorial! If after August 2016 then the official 'Anniversary Update' will probably be out for the 950 XL and you should see this immediately in'Settings/Update & Security' in the usual way. Otherwise it's best to proceed through the usual Windows Insiders programme route. Install this from the Store and enrol in the 'Fast ring' in the usual way. Well, 'Slow' and 'Release Preview' would also work, but as you're already on the precipice here then why not continue to live dangerously?(!)

After an enforced 'configuration' reboot you can check for updates again and this time you'll see Redstone (e.g. build 14394.5) waiting and indeed downloading.

After the usual installation, 'spinning cogs' and 'migrating' steps you should have succeeded in getting your older Windows Phone from Threshold to Redstone. Well done. If you didn't then sympathies. Either try again or go down the pub and drown your sorrows?

Things to do or watch for

Start by heading into the Store and 'Check for updates' - there will be quite a bit to update, as usual. So be patient!

When preparing this article, there was an issue with Skype (Preview, i.e. the UWP app) in the Store and the current version killed the camera in the phone until the next reboot. At the time of writing/updating though (9/Aug/16), Skype Preview has just been updated and you don't need the blocking steps that I originally wrote about. Phew!

And that's it - for now. I'll add to the caveats list if I spot anything else going wrong. Comments welcome on how you get on, if you're brave enough!

File this one under 'by popular demand' - every time I put up a feature delving into taking the ever popular Lumia 920/925/1020 into the brave new world of Windows 10 Mobile, I get requests for benchmarks and speed ratings. I'd already shown that Windows 10 Mobile was roughly 50% slower than Windows Phone 8.1 on the same hardware, but now we have a whole new OS branch to consider, thanks to a little gentle hacking. Is Redstone really smoother and faster than Threshold, i.e. on the older hardware? Even though it absolutely wasn't designed for it?

The question is somewhat academic, since you have to work hard to get to these versions, i.e. we're well into geek territory. Buy hey, we're all interested in the results, aren't we? And yes, I promise I'll get back to current devices very shortly after a week of 'retro'(!)

Based on my previous feature, and using some data from it, for this comparison, I used the S4-based, three year old Lumia 1020 and Lumia 920 (with the same core chipset):

• on Windows 10 Mobile 10586.586 (yes, a slightly new build exists, but it's no longer accessible to my Insider-updated Lumia 920)
• on Windows Phone 8.1, the official latest production OS for the device
• on Windows 10 Mobile 14393.67, the latest Fast Ring Insiders build, currently on the Redstone branch

Some notes:

• As usual, I've concentrated mainly on real world operations, I don't believe that processor and GPU-bound benchmarking utilities tell a complete story - what matters is how fast the phones are when being used for real.
• The timings also assume that each app wasn't previously open or 'tombstoned', i.e. we're looking at cold start timings on the whole.
• I do include a typical benchmark figure at the bottom of the table.
• In each case, I timed the operation several times and picked the fastest.
• All applications were latest versions, updated in the Store, of course.

See the asterisked notes for clarifications to exactly what I was testing and see the comments below for what all this means, etc. 

* Just 'Calendar', of course, under 8.1  
** Just named 'Mail', under 8.1
*** A more limited view under 8.1
**** HERE Maps, under 8.1
+Skype Preview UWP under W10M Redstone
++ 'Office Mobile' under Windows 10, of course 

As with my original conclusion, slightly edited here:

...there's a very significant difference between Windows Phone 8.1 and Windows 10 Mobile 'Threshold' - a 70% increase in time taken if you add it all up. And if you take away the boot time (assuming that people don't restart their phone every morning) then it's much closer, for the day to day operations, to a ratio of 2:1. Now, it's true that many operations on a smartphone will run at the same speed, such as when an application is on-screen and the user is interacting with the UI, but I don't think the operations listed above are that outrageous, and are intended to be real world tasks.

For you and I, riding the wave of Windows 10 Mobile and the Insiders Preview programme, we're just happy that everything (mostly) works, are enjoying some grown up Office, mapping and communications applications - so what if the phone runs 63% slower? Perfectly acceptable, and hey, maybe it'll get tuned and optimised in time (yeah, I know, the eternal optimist)? But what about the man in the street?

I then launched into an editorial about how the latter would be utterly unimpressed by a phone which had effectively slowed to half speed after the update - and Microsoft obviously agreed, since the S4-based x20 Lumias all got omitted from the official Windows 10 Mobile upgrade list. 

Had Microsoft allowed these older phones to upgrade (officially) then we'd have been in even more trouble when the time came for this 'Anniversary Update' (i.e. Redstone), which is rolling out to all Windows 10 Mobile devices. Look at the timings above, after taking away boot timings, the overall application experience is nigh on three times slower than under Windows Phone 8.1.

Wow. Not that it's stopping me playing with the older hardware on the various platform versions, thanks to a little Insider and registry hacking, which is why I'm able to report on all this.

Threshold to Redstone?

However, the most commonly asked question following my recent adventures into Redstone territory was "How does performance improve or suffer compared to 'Threshold'"? And it's this that the table above answers. Look at the timing totals, with the Redstone-powered Lumia being significantly slower overall than under Threshold. What's interesting though is that in general use the two OS versions feel about the same. In fact, if anything parts of the UI feel smoother under Redstone, as you might expect given the extra work put into it by Microsoft. 

As you can see for yourself, the main slowcoaches under Redstone for the older phone are Maps and Skype. The latter I can understand - this is the new 'Preview' UWP version, probably still has debug and unoptimised code inside, and so on, but route planning in Windows 10 Maps is a mystery. As far as I can see it's the same UWP app on the same processor - so perhaps there are some Redstone-specific optimisations designed for the newer phones and which just don't work as well on the old S4 processor? All very curious!

PS. I included one benchmark, the oldish but respected PeaceKeeper, which runs on the web, even in ye olde Internet Explorer under Windows Phone 8.1. It wasn't very conclusive though, aside from perhaps showing that Microsoft Edge under Redstone is now pretty well optimised and fastest by a small margin.

Now, take all this with a pinch of salt, since I wasn't there to supervise(!), but WindowsUnited (page is in German, note) managed to get hold of an Elite X3 and shoot some back to back photos with the champion Lumia 950. Best of all, they put up the full resolution photos online for people like me to analyse. 

I'll pick out three example photos/scenes, and use our famed AAWP comparator to look at the raw quality of the photos. As many have commented, the capabilities of the Elite X3 camera could be the clinching factor in whether to buy it or not (over, say, a Lumia 950 XL), so I'm very interested indeed in how the device does.

Notes:

• the site didn't do any low light shots - at least, not yet. We're still waiting for an AAWP review Elite X3.
• the original images were at 10MP and 16MP respectively, in 16:9 mode. So the higher resolution of the Lumia 950 shows a smaller portion of the scene for a given 1:1 crop, as shown below.

Test 1: Ferns

A shot of some greenery in a garden, here's the full scene:

And here are the interesting central 1:1 crops, just wait to make sure the page has fully loaded and then use your mouse or trackpad pointer to compare the images:

It's fairly obvious that the extra resolution of the Lumia 950 gives it an edge here, plus I prefer its colours, whereas the Elite X3's shot is somehow colder and more artificial. What do you think?

Test 2: Trees

Sunlight through tree leaves, always a demanding test of dynamic range for a phone camera. Plus natural detail, always a pain to get JPG encoded in a realistic way:

And here are the interesting central 1:1 crops, just wait to make sure the page has fully loaded and then use your mouse or trackpad pointer to compare the images:

Aside from the detail stats, I do prefer the resolved detail (e.g. leaf edges) on the Lumia 950 shot.  Both photos here have over-exposed points - if I'd been trying to take the shot I'd have used HDR mode or manually dropped the exposure a stop.

Test 3: Sky

A shot of the cloud peeking from behind the clouds, another challenging shot in terms of dynamic range, here's the full scene:

And here are the interesting central 1:1 crops, just wait to make sure the page has fully loaded and then use your mouse or trackpad pointer to compare the images:

Maybe a slight win for the Lumia 950 here, though the differences in colouration are interesting - I'd have to have been 'there' to know which was closest to reality! And again, both shots are over-exposed - a little tinkering with settings when shooting would have helped, though I appreciate WindowsUnited's efforts in trying to push the boundaries here(!)

It's clear that the Elite X3 camera's not too shabby - I can't imagine that it will top the Lumia 950's once I review it and try out all light scenarios (there's no OIS, for one, only single LED flash for another) - but it's up there with the best of the rest, including iPhone 6s/SE and Galaxy S7 - it's hard to tell exactly where the Elite X3 camera falls without hands-on testing!

Roll on review units here in the UK then and a full spread of Ellite X3 vs Lumia 950 camera tests. In the meantime, your comments welcome!

Again, you can read the original post from WindowsUnited here (in German).

In the last AAWP podcast, I wondered where occasional guest writer Ow Kah Leong had got to, suspecting that he'd been seduced by another mobile OS. I was largely right, though there are nuances below that need reading! In response to my mention of his name, Kah Leong has written in with his current thinking and details of his latest pre-order...

Kah Leong writes:

Steve must be horrified to read the title of this article. Having started the latest AAWP Insight #188 with my tweet and appealing for an article, he must be muttering to himself "This is how that guy, Kah Leong, rewards me for the reading his tweet on the podcast!" In fact, I have been mulling over this article for the past few weeks. It’s just that work has been busy and I had no time to sit down to flesh it out. The latest Insight and name-check prods me into action, so here goes!

More than two years ago, I penned the article 'Goodbye, beloved Symbian... Hello, Windows Phone!' (). In the article, I mentioned at that time Android did not have the sufficient pull factor for me to switch to it from Symbian. The combination of Nokia hardware and Microsoft software proved enticing enough for me to jump to Windows Phone. Now 2 years on, what has made me switch mobile OS again?

Push vs pull

It is not the pull factor of Android that prompted the switch. Not the promise of a gazillion apps or the lure of the biggest mobile OS in town. Having spent the last four years on two mobile OSes that are miniscule in market share and number of apps (not that the Windows Store is devoid of apps but I think we can agree that the breadth of apps is seriously lacking), those are not the major concerns for me. The truth is that the push factor has become larger and larger. 

The earlier USPs of Windows Phone have dropped away one by one:

• Here Maps – yes, Steve, I hear your cries that Microsoft Maps is just as good or even better. Putting aside the updated mapping data and info, I’m sure many out there still regard Here as king.
• Camera – yes, there goes Steve again! I know 950/XL is your darling but I think you would also agree that the gap now is razor-thin. It’s more of a preference. I’m sure Samsung and LG are on par with the 950/XL in many cases. My Lumia 1520 is no slouch either but 'excellent smartphone camera' is no longer a term reserved for Lumias.
• Build quality – My 1520 is built impeccably despite the polycarbonate. Despite one cracked screen, it has soldiered on gamely in the last 2 years. My son’s 535 has just seen the ghost despite being only 1 year old. The 950 and 950XL are just not in the same league in terms of build.
• Software – while W10M is now stable and looks more modern and matured, it seems to have lost its initial freshness and charm. I can’t really put my finger on it but W10M is not that much different from the other two mobile OS – pull-down notifications, hamburger menus, etc. Live Tiles is the saving grace of W10M – some didn’t like the constant animating tiles but I like the way it presents pertinent info smartly and quickly.
• Services – while I can understand Satya Nadella’s strategy of offering Microsoft services on other platforms, the company after all has software and services in its DNA. What does it say about its commitment to its own mobile platform that there is nothing unique on W10M – no extra features, or more pretty or easier to use, W10M didn’t get it first, etc. So what it is so special about Windows 10 Mobile then?

Besides the disappearing USPs, W10M suffers from other pains too:

• Hardware – it’s difficult to find! Microsoft is not helping when it still lists the Lumia 950 at S$898 and 950XL at S$998 (roughly half those numbers to get the pound equivalent). The Galaxy S6 can be had for S$698, so go figure… And the quality of Microsoft-made Lumias are just a disappointment, to say the least, in my opinion.
• Accessories – because Microsoft now refuses to be in the consumer market, where can I get my covers, cases and batteries? I ordered my Lumia 1520 case directly from a China manufacturer. I use a tempered screen protector for my screen as I have cracked it once, and again I have to really look through an online seller’s catalogue to make sure I get the right one.

I am sure readers agree that while a Lumia has given many hours of joy, there have also been many times that you would like to fling your Lumia against the wall out of hair-tearing frustration.

I do love the many things that my Lumia 1520 offers:

• Monstrous screen that is a joy for media consumption. It is also really readable in bright sunlight.
• The heft and solid feel of the build.
• The Live tiles and Start screen customisability

(Ahh..the lovely Photos Live Tile showing off a sunrise shot on Alishan, Taiwan; and the Aeries Live Tile showing Joseph Schooling winning the gold medal for Singapore!)

• Photographic prowess

(One of my favourites – the majestic Mt Fuji in Japan)

(A close-up of a fallen leaf in Taiwan)

(Rays of sunlight in Taiwan)

• Beautiful and useful 3^rd-party apps – 6tag, Podcast Lounge, Aeries, Poki, Feedlab etc. Thanks to all the developers for helping the users to stay connected to many services and being productive.

The switch

Alas the time has come. I have pre-ordered a black Galaxy Note 7 with my operator but I’m keeping my 1520. The latter will no longer be my daily driver – it has started to show some signs of age and it’s no longer rock solid in daily functionality. At times, it will connect a call but neither party can hear each other. I just need to restart my phone more times now. The question I asked myself is should I continue with Windows 10 Mobile hardware? 

After some hard-heading thinking with reasons that you can read from above (but those are certainly not exhaustive), I decided that the time has come to go Android. This is definitely not about the app gap. Having spent 2 years on Symbian and another 2 years on Windows Phone/Windows 10 Mobile, the gazillion apps on the Play Store are not a big pull factor.

The Note 7 is a pretty easy pick for me. No, Chinese manufacturers do not appeal to me, despite the lower price. And Nexus is hard to purchase over here – anyway, the 6P is a Huawei product and that is not for me. The Note 7’s 5.7” screen is not too much of a compromise, size wise, and the IP68 rating is a strong plus. 

I will still continue to keep an eye on W10M development as I can still see the unfulfilled potential that it has. The Insiders Programme has been a fantastic ride and it has generally always been, even on 'Fast Ring'. Even Google has jumped onto the bandwagon with this public testing idea. However, Windows 10 Mobile is still playing catch-up to Android and iOS in some ways.

Conclusion

As I asked in the tweet that Steve used in the Insight podcast, can Windows 10 Mobile still thrive without the recognition that being in the consumer markets would bring? Is Microsoft hoping that by wrapping up the enterprise market, it could then open up the consumer market again? I am not so optimistic. While the HP Elite X3 looks like a great device, I am not sure many consumers would find it a sexy smartphone to flaunt to their friends. In addition, Microsoft has no killer USP as of now. I can find Cortana and Office on Android and iOS and they work just as well.

With both Android and iOS inching onto enterprise turf, the focus on the enterprise market  may turn out to be a decision that Microsoft rues.

Now, go with me on this. I'm contending that the current Microsoft Lumia 950 and the 2006 Nokia N95 have a lot in common - more than you might think. It's just that there was something about the 950 in my hand as my main smartphone that reminded me of a feeling I'd not had for a decade. Then it hit me. Ten years ago I'd had the ground-breaking N95....

I still have the presentation box for that first Nokia N95 (from WOM World, as it was then), with the slogan on the top 'There's a thing in this box. But it's not one thing, it's many.' The idea of the Nokia N95 was that it was the first  smartphone to really encompass all the emerging portable tech in one small gadget. High spec 1/2.5"-sensored 5MP camera, GPS, loud stereo speakers, and so on.

Now, technology has moved on in the intervening decade and the N95's feature set is now commonplace - in fact, it's de rigeuer and exceeded in even budget phones in 2016. But the Lumia 950 gives me something of the same impresison. That of one smartphone that can do everything. OK, apart from most of the Google services. And Snapchat. And Pokemon Go. But again, bear with me.  

Here then are the main factors that make the Lumia 950 remind me of that original N95, a tech classic in its own right. Might the list also cause you to re-examine the 950 in a new light?

1. Materials
   Both are unashamedly plastic. I know the current fashion is for aluminium, but plastic has its advantages too - it can be formed into any shape, it's cheaper, it absorbs impacts much better and it's fully transparent to radio signals, so that's better reception for GPS, cellular and Wi-fi and the possibility of Qi wireless charging.
     
2. Flexibility
   Now, back in the day it taken for granted that every phone had a battery you could get at, replace, swap out, etc. Ditto a memory card that could be inserted and swapped. The iPhone, arriving shortly after the N95, changed the industry's thinking and now most smartphones arrive with a battery sealed inside and many also have non-expandable internal storage. Sadly. Like the N95, the Lumia 950 has a replaceable battery, plus you can put in as much storage as you like via microSD.
     
3. Best kept secret
   Now, I know what you're going to say - the Nokia N95 sold in the millions across the world. But only over a couple of years - it was very expensive for its day - and even then only as part of a very small smartphone scene (less than 20% of all phone sales were smartphones then). And if you cut out the majority of N95 owners who bought it because it was the new tech on the block then you're left with an enthusiast tech community of fans who knew the device was the pinnacle of convergence and used the heck out of it. Now with the Lumia 950 and Windows 10 Mobile, with seemingly miniscule (5% or so even in main markets) market and mind share, so again we have something in your hand that makes you stand out from the crowd, the populace with their mass of iPhones and Android devices.
     
4. Best camera phone in the world
   It really was. Back in the day - early 2007 - the Nokia N95's large 1/2.5" 5MP sensor ruled the imaging world. For phone-shot images, at least - we were still a long way from DSLR quality. The N95 was streets ahead of everything, I'd argue, with only a couple of souped up, imaging-centric feature phones as competition. And now in 2016 we have the Lumia 950 as - demonstrably - the best camera phone in the world, beating off the Samsung Galaxy S7 and iPhone 6s/SE.
     
5. Pricey at first but came down fast, similar at each stage
   This is true of most new tech, but the Lumia 950 and Nokia N95 both typefied the trend, with prices that were arguably 25% too high at launch and then were down to the 'right' price around six months afterwards. And with monetary values which were nigh-on identical. Which means that the Lumia 950 can now be picked up for under £300 new and SIM-free.
    
6. Buggy and crippled but fixed up in software within six months
   Yes, yet another huge similarity - the original N95 was almost unusable - I had one of the first off the factory floor and the first v10 and v11 firmware was appalling. Yet v12 fixed things up acceptably and I seem to remember v20 firmware introducing 'demand paging', i.e. not all of every running application had to be in RAM all the time - this meant an increase in the free RAM after booting from about 20MB to 30MB - a massive jump. The Lumia 950 similarly arrived incomplete, with the OS in something of a state and evidently unfinished, yet with the Redstone update about to hit production devices we've got something much more capable and polished all round.
     
7. Up against the iPhone!
   And a world full of Androids now too. The original Nokia N95 was pitched, within six months of launch, into a head on battle against the Apple iPhone. The latter arrived ridiculously immature and under-featured, yet the futuristic vision of the 'Internet in your pocket' and an all-touch interface was something that proved sustainable in the long term, while all the N95's massive feature set gradually got merged into the iPhone range - by the time of the iPhone 4S we'd effectively reached parity. And here we are in 2016 with the Lumia 950 still facing the Apple iPhone as its nemesis, this time the iPhone 6s. And about two billion Android smartphones too, of course - Android hadn't even been dreamt up when the N95 was launched.
     
8. The '95' factor
   And I can't ignore the most trivial but obvious similarity that both models have the number sequence '95'. The '9' series always signified the top of the range in the Nokia world and this has carried over into the Microsoft naming. Heck even the Lumia 1020 is really the Nokia 909 - did you know that? Check the various internal 'about' screens!

Comments welcome then. Is it just me making this sort of 'classic' comparison?

File this under data points of interest, but AAWP reader Andrew Elliott had taken the time to shoot the same subject every ten minutes or so through a UK summer evening, giving a chance to see how well the Lumia 950 does - OIS, 1/2.4" sensor, f/1.9 aperture, and so on. The results are subjective in that only the 950 was tested, but the chance to look at an interesting scene as the sun sets proved too tempting. It's a novel way to test low light performance from a camera phone and i thought you might be interested too.

Of course, the Achilles heel of the PDAF (Phase Detection Auto-Focus) in the Lumia 950 is that, like traditional contrast-based focussing, it's not brilliant in low light and a few of Andrew's images have slightly indistinct focus. But the tests were still worthwhile.

Here's the overall scene, sized for the web here, in late evening light:

So light was already very low when Andrew started his Lumia 950 shooting spree. Credit to him for sticking with it.

And, to show the progressively decreasing light and the way the Lumia 950 camera coped, I've mashed his 11 shots (over 100 minutes) into one 4K video, embedded here. The shots aren't perfectly framed, but they're darned close. Doing sets of test photos like this is very hard work - you just try it sometime. Something always goes wrong, whether weather or forgetfulness or a rogue photo or a busybody neighbour, or whatever. Something.

Of course, you may not have the equipment to be able to see the full 4K resolution (roughly corresponding to the 8MP photos being captured), but see what you think anyway:

Andrew was impressed overall by the 950's camera and so was I. Let's look in more detail, right down at the 1:1 pixel level, taking a small portion of the frame above (the right edge of the roof). The 'slices' here are presented in time order as the light reduced further, showing the passage of time and the slight increase in noise levels:

Given that it was almost pitch dark at the end, the final slices are pretty impressive. Although the changing colours are notable, it's impossible to say how accurate they are without having been there, i.e. the reflected setting sun would have an impact.

If you're interested in doing your own analysis, the photos are here (sans location info) as:

1. http://mediafiles.allaboutwindowsphone.com/elliott/house1957.jpg
   
2. http://mediafiles.allaboutwindowsphone.com/elliott/house2019.jpg
   
3. http://mediafiles.allaboutwindowsphone.com/elliott/house2030.jpg
   
4. http://mediafiles.allaboutwindowsphone.com/elliott/house2043.jpg
   
5. http://mediafiles.allaboutwindowsphone.com/elliott/house2053.jpg
   
6. http://mediafiles.allaboutwindowsphone.com/elliott/house2103.jpg
   
7. http://mediafiles.allaboutwindowsphone.com/elliott/house2112.jpg
   
8. http://mediafiles.allaboutwindowsphone.com/elliott/house2121.jpg
   
9. http://mediafiles.allaboutwindowsphone.com/elliott/house2131.jpg
   
10. http://mediafiles.allaboutwindowsphone.com/elliott/house2141.jpg
    
11. http://mediafiles.allaboutwindowsphone.com/elliott/house2153.jpg
    

Part of what makes the Lumia 950 images so good at the pixel level is the PureView oversampling. It's dramatically less impressive than on the old Lumia 1020 (which used something like an 7-to-1 oversampling algorithm - on the 950 we're only talking about 3-to-1 (the exact details of the pattern algorithm used are proprietary). We can look in detail at this in action, or at least try, thanks to Andrew including a 16MP shot of one of the darker scenes above as well as the 8MP original. Note that he/we cheated slightly in shooting these on different days, but light levels were very similar, in terms of minutes after sun-down.

On the top, a 1:1 crop from the 16MP version of the house image, on the bottom a 1:1 crop from the 8MP oversampled version:

In practice, although oversampling benefits are relatively small on the Lumia 950 and 950 XL, there are certainly still there, you can see that the crop below, though smaller, is also slightly 'purer' and less digitally noisy. 

Plus shooting at 8MP means that you can use around 1.5x lossless zoom and you typically end up with 2MB JPGs to share rather than 5MB files. Which saves everyone data in the long run. For all of these reasons I leave my own Lumia 950 and 950 XL firmly in 8MP mode for daily use.

Comments welcome. Maybe Andrew's tests will inspire you to come up with an interesting image sequence of your own - if so, then please to get in touch!

PS. See also my camera head to heads with the likes of the Nexus 6P, iPhone 6s/SE and the Galaxy S7. The 950/XL came out on top each time.

In a break from traditional content, here's something that the 361 team recorded a few days ago... It's AAS & AAWP editor/publisher/owner Rafe Blandford's 'origin' story. Packed with details that even I didn't know and with a few chuckles along the way, this is a must-listen hour of chat for anyone who reads the sites. 

From the 361 podcast description:

This week we put Rafe Blandford in the spotlight - his formative experiences with Psion devices (and broken limbs), founding the ‘all about’ empire, being a blogging pioneer and getting ‘inside Nokia’. Rafe shares his experience at the fore-front of online media, hitting 1m readers per month, ‘really big servers’, knowing more about Nokia than Nokia Execs and being laughed at by Steve Ballmer.

And here's the audio itself - a quick tip: listen after the closing credits - there's a bonus 10 minutes of reminiscences that you'd otherwise miss!

Very interesting - even if I get the impression that the AAWP years were skipped over too much due to time constraints. Maybe this episode should have been an hour-long special?

You can subscribe to the 361 Degrees podcast here via RSS, of course, if you're new to it. And then, in case you want more of Rafe's voice, there's our own AAWP podcast. The AAS podcast finished at the end of 2014.

I was left wanting more though! More on the AAWP years, more on his view of the future, more on his love of walking in Wales, more on concrete, etc. If you have any extra questions or topics to ply at Rafe, maybe we can tackle them in a quiet week on the AAWP show!

PS. Then and now (below)! 2004 and 2016:

There still seems to be some confusion about what to expect from the mythical 'Surface Phone', rumoured to be coming in spring 2017 from Microsoft. I did note that we'd been talking about this beast for three years now (this from 2013), so I wouldn't hold my breath for it, if I were you. However, assuming that the stars align and that Microsoft does unleash a new, Surface-themed Windows 10 Mobile device on us, what would it look like and what would be inside it?

Here's my best guess then for the mythical Surface 1060 (yes, I'm predicting a name too!):

• Aluminium unibody design, clean edges (as on the Surface hybrids), i.e. not too many 'bar of soap' curves. No user access to battery, folding kickstand in rear (less substantial than that in the other Surface phones, obviously). There's unlikely to be any hard core waterproofing, we're not talking a device that will be used in the wilds or when out jogging in the rain!
  
  
• 163 x 85 x 9mm, 230g - heavy and large, but not totally out of place in a 2017 mobile world, especially given the device's ambitions. Yes, it'll still be large compared to average consumer devices, but the Surface Phone/1060 will be in a market niche already, so it might as well have some optimised hardware that helps it stand out as 'different'.
   
• 6.5" QHD AMOLED display with virtual controls. Gorilla Glass 4 (5 having proved to be a flop due to the lack of scratch resistance). 6.5" sounds large even by 2016 standards, but the overall form factor will be similar to the 2014 Lumia 1520 yet with the removal of the capacitive controls making room for an extra half inch diagonal for the display. 
    
• Snapdragon 830 (or current equivalent) - we already have the 820 in the HP Elite X3 and things should have moved on by Spring 2017.
    
• 8GB RAM - this isn't just a geek dreaming here, RAM is the most critical part of much of any computer's day to day experience, in terms of speed. And with Continuum working better and with higher resolution screens and greater ambitions, you are going to need all the RAM you can get. 4GB, as on the Elite X3, will be borderline by 2017, so Microsoft will hopefully play safe with 8GB. We're now worlds away from those first Lumia Windows Phones(!)
    
• 64GB/128GB/256GB internal storage options, no microSD expansion - the latter exclusion sucks, but I think Microsoft will plump for the simpler, more foolproof single internal disk, especially in the business market. Any serious storage transfers will be via a dock and an external hard disk or similar.
    
• The same 20MP high-spec cameras as in the Lumia 950 and 950 XL, including the OIS, triple LED flash, etc. There's little point in anything more being done in this direction, since Juha and team nailed it before they were made redundant, with the only real caveat being the ten second (background) image processing delays after taking a photo. With the faster processor and GPU, these delays should be down in the two second range, meaning that you can tap to immediately review a shot and not really have to wait at all. So no R&D needed for this aspect at all, just re-use the components.
    
• 8MP Front facing camera - nothing fancy here, selfies aren't exactly top priority in a 'Surface Phone's target demographic!
    
• Twin front facing stereo speakers - the Elite X3 has done this, numerous other larger phones have done this (I'm a big fan) - given the large screen then there's going to be a degree of media watching, so why not please consumers with some decently directed sound? HP went for the Bang & Olufson components, maybe Microsoft can go for the JBL equivalent and put in some serious optimisations, London-style?
    
• Fingerprint scanner on back and iris recognition on the front - as on the HP Elite X3, i.e. you can use either method to authenticate. And both really are needed, for different use cases and situations.
   
• 4800mAh Li-Ion battery, USB 3.1 spec, Type C high current (5V/3A) support. Charging from scratch takes around two hours.
   
• Runs on 'Windows 10 Mobile Redstone 2', includes the usual Office and Outlook (etc.) software set
   
• Optional clip-on keyboard case, used with the kickstand in the phone - offers a 80% size 5 row QWERTY keyboard. It snaps onto the phone's left side with magnets and NFC connection to initiate the Bluetooth keystroke (HID) input. 
    
• Optional desk dock for charging and Continuum
    
• Optional hook-up to a virtualised corporate Win32 environment, as arranged by a company iT dept - similar to what HP has done with HP Workspace. Strictly for big companies though, it'll be expensive to set up!

That's my best guess anyway, all of the above is eminently 'doable'. 

Of note is that the 'Win32' functions are all virtualised, i.e. a Surface Phone will run an ARM chipset, probably the Snapdragon 830, and so there's no compatibility with traditional 'Windows' applications, compiled for Intel chipsets. This is something which many have speculated on, but it's not grounded in anything likely. For starters, Win32 applications written for desktop sized displays are going to be unusable on a phone's screen, even in the 6" region. Instead, there will be all the UWP applications, not least Microsoft's own Office and, no doubt, hundreds of other main titles by early 2017.

HP has shown that what's usually needed in the Win32 space for road warriors is being able to access corporate data and, given that their on a VPN connection to a company server anyway, why not run any specialised Win 32 applications ON the (Intel) server and simply use the phone's Continuum facility and a larger local display to provide a window (sic) through onto the remote apps?

I do wonder how many other top end smartphones will be around running Windows 10 Mobile by 2017. HP's Elite X3 should be well established, with sales in the hundreds of thousands (if not millions), Acer's Jade Primo looks a little stillborn and under-committed by its manufactuer, but I'd bet on at least one more household name coming into this ecosystem this year. Dell is probably favourite to jump onboard here.

Comments welcome, would you buy the Surface 1060, as predicted above? 

With another update for mid August 2016, and now in more phone-friendly format, here's our directory of the very best of the Windows Phone (and Windows 10 Mobile) world. If you or someone you know is just starting out on the platform then look no further for suggestions.

Microsoft claims that the Windows Store has around half a million applications. Say half of them are games and round down - that still leaves 200,000 genuine apps. The directory on this page contains just about everything that most people reading it will ever use on the platform - and the total number is still only in the hundreds. Even with the inevitable tweaks and additions (see the comments below, no doubt!), we're still looking at just a few tenths of one percent of the full number of applications in the Store. Meaning that over 99% in the Store are either very niche ('long tail' apps), novelties, rubbish or (worse) fakes or clones of existing titles. 

Fear not though, for All About Windows Phone is here to help, with a bookmarkable page that should be a useful aide-memoire after a hard reset if rebuilding a phone from scratch or, perhaps more appropriately, a great place for a new Windows 10 Mobile user to start.

Some notes:

• Thanks to the AAWP community for suggestions so far (e.g. in the comments below), this is a crowd-sourced project!
• Not included (obviously) are games. They're here. Also not included are applications which come with every phone, such as the core Windows and Lumia apps.
• Where possible, I've included links to relevant reviews/features or to entries in the Microsoft Store.
• Yes, I know that a couple of entries are in two categories. Just trying to be helpful!
• Implemented as a table, I've kept the width right down, now with just two columns, in order to be phone-friendly. In other words, you can view this article on your phone and, depending on the link and the item, dive right into an app, its page and then download it. In theory!

I've broken down our recommendations into categories, to be helpful. No doubt things may get tweaked in time! Most applications will work equally well on Windows Phone 8.1 and Windows 10 Mobile, but there may be one or two small incompatibilities here and there. I've started marking Universal Windows Platform apps with 'UWP' after the title, but it'll take many updates of this feature before all universal applications are changed/marked.

Directory updated August 2016

General Adobe Reader Aerize Explorer Pro AppRaisin UWP Awesome Lock Band Store Bing Rewards Box (8.1) Box (UWP) Carpenter's Friend CloudMesh Copy Space Dropbox UWP Easy Transfer Firmware Update Check Flashlight XT Folders Pro Glance Background (8.1 only?) Jack of Tools     LCARS Interface for WP     Lockie      Lockmix MyAppFree     MY EE OneReader Password Hide  Radaee PDF Reader Send Anywhere ShareFolder Explorer Spirit Level+ Toolkit Pro  Torch Pro    Zedge	Productivity 2Day Appointile BlastNote Calendar Import CamCard Chronos Calendar UWP ChronoMts Clear List Clipboarder Evernote  Fast Post Feather Notes InstaNote Mileage Book    My ContacTile Notepad Next UWP NotepadX Office+   Office 365 Admin OneCalendar  OneDo Reading List Slack Squid (Papyrus) handwriting T3XT K1NG Text Reader Voicy Wunderlist
Travel and Movie Booking ATM Milano BookMyShow Easy Taxi Expedia UWP Fahrplan Kayak London Travel Moovit National Rail Olacabs redBus Uber UK Trains	Communications and IM BBM Facebook Messenger UWP Hike Messenger Indoona Join Conference Jongla Line Loadkit Download Manager MetroMail Skype UWP TeamViewer UWP Telegram Messenger Truecaller TU (calls/texts over Wifi for some networks) Viber UWP Video Optimizer for Whatsapp Voice 2 Mail Whatsapp
Camera replacements/aids 1Shot camera   CamScanner    Fhotoroom GoPro Instaweather Pro Lens Picker Office Lens Photo Scan UWP Pocket Magnifier ProShot QR Scanner+ UWP SoZoom	Music/Speech recording/tuning 4TRX Airyware Tuner Audio Recorder Hifi Audio Recorder Pro Guitar Tuna Karaoke One Lexis Audio Editor n-Track Tuner Pitchlab Guitar Tuner Wave Master
News and Web AAWP Universal (!) AlJazeera CBS News CNN Daily Mail Online ESPN FeedLab Flipboard Fox Sports Go (USA) Maxthon Browser NewsSpot Nextgen Reader Opera Mini   Surfy The Guardian This is Money UCBrowserHD Wall Street Journal	Imaging/Graphics 6tag Adobe Photoshop Express    Afterlight UWP Fantasia Painter  Fotor Fresh Paint Fused Double Exposure Hi Collage Instagram UWP Instance Lomogram Momento+ My Memories Interactive Slideshow Old Look Photo Lab     Phototastic Photo Story PicsArt Rawer TouchRetouch Vinci Waterlogue
Music playback/streaming /downloading 7digital Audiocloud Audiotica BBC iPlayer Radio Core Player Deezer Loco Music Player Music Locker Music Now MusicTube my Piano Phone NOIZ Radio Lounge Shazam SoundByte UWP SoundHound Spotify TuneIn Radio YouTunes! UWP	Reference Advanced English Dictionary City Art Search Dictionary Duolingo (various) Elements - The Periodic Table Flightradar24 gTongue Pro offline dictionary Larousse Francaise Mathologica Memorize It! Merriam-Webster Dictionary National Trust park4night Perfect Dictionary Periodic Table Pro  Poki for Pocket SilverDict+ Star Walk 2 UWP Translator Vivino Wine Scanner Wikipedia WolframAlpha yelp
Shopping/Banking Ally Bank (USA) Amazon ASB Mobile Banking (NZ) Bank of America UWP Barclays Mobile Banking Danske bank Mobilbank Norway DNB (Norway) eBay First Direct Flipkart  foodpanda HDFC Bank ICICI Bank iReff Recharge Plans Kotak Bank Mobile Pay (Denmark) Mobile Pay Norway My USPS UWP (USA) My Giffgaff UWP Myntra (India) NatWest Newegg PayPal Quicket Royal Bank of Scotland Wells Fargo Sainsburys SBI Anywhere (India) Starbucks UWP State Bank Freedom (India) USAA Vips (Norway)	Social 6sec Aeries UWP Baconit BLACK for Facebook Disqus Facebook, Facebook UWP Fenice Foundbite Foursquare Instagram UWP LinkedIn MeTweets Pages Manager Peregrine pin.it Readit Straw Swarm Tapatalk Twabbit Tweet It! UWP Tweetium UWP Twitter UWP Vine
Navigation/Travel AroundMe Car Dash CycleTracks GPS gMaps Geocaching Plus Geocaching Pro GeoGPS Hike Blackbox London Travel maaloo Outdoor MapFactor GPS Mapsnap GPS Marine Traffic NaviComputer Simple Latitude Simple OSM Ski Blackbox Sygic GPS Navigation Trip Advisor	Settings/Internals/Utilities 8 Zip Lite AIDA64 Authenticator DataCounter UWP Feem Wifi Insider Pro Net Check Network Speed Test PhoNetInfo Speedtest.net   Storage Cleaner Pro Sys App Pusher Total Commander Wifi Analyzer ZAPYA
Sports/Exercise/Health Adidas miCoach Caledos Runner Endomondo ESPN Cricinfo fitbit MyFitnessPal Onefootball Pitlane One SofaScores Live Scores Sports Tracker Striver Track Runner Yahoo Cricket	Media (Video) All 4  (UK) AllTube Grabber   BBC iPlayer  (UK) BBC Store  BT Sport CCPlayer Pro Cineplex Enternatinment (Canada) Demand 5 (UK) Flixster Hulu Plus     IMDb ITV Player   (UK) LiveGaming (Twitch)      Metrotube myTube!    Netflix NRK TV, NRK Super, NRK Radio (Norway) Perfect Tube UWP Playcast UWP Tubecast PRO TuneIn Radio TVCatchup TV2 Sumo, VG TV (Norway) VLC
Podcast related/Audio-book Audible BringCast Carboncast Cast UWP CastCenter Grover Pro UWP i Podcast Pocket Casts Podcast Brain Podcatcher Podcast Lounge Podcast Bandit PODCASTS Podcaster Podcast+ Pro Podcast Picker Poddi P | Cast pod.ding Podcast Critter SlapDash Podcasts WPodder	Privacy/Secrecy/Security 2FA BeFriend (personal) CodeSafe Pro Enpass Lastpass MetroPass OneLocker
Reading Bookviser CHM Reader Comicana Cover ePub Reader FictionBookReader Freda Kindle Manga Blaze Tucan reader Wattpad: Free stories and books Xodo Docs (Best PDF reader)	Video editing/sharing Auto Witness Frame Grabber Hyperlapse Mobile Movie Creator MovieJax Movie Maker 8.1 Movie Moments My Memories Interactive Slideshow My Webcam PicPlayPost Vid2Pix Videoshop
Weather-related AccuWeather UWP Amazing Weather Blue Skies MetService Towns & Cities (NZ) Prognoza Storm	Calculators and (numeric) Converters Black Box currency converter Calculator2 Percentages Calculator Unit Converter XE Currency
Finance Monetal Money Lover expense manager My Stocks Portfolio Receipt Tracker Toshl Finance	Time related  Avirall Time Suite Gentle Alarm Clock Realarm    Visual Timer World Time

____________

Of course, there are bound to now be comments along the lines of 'Why isn't my favourite app here?' The AAWP community is very knowledgeable and I welcome further app suggestions - if you're passionate enough to comment here and if you're not the developer (spam!) then suggest away (be SURE to include the right - or at least a relevant - URL, to avoid linking to a clone or fake) and I'll get right on with adding those titles to this continuing bookmark-able feature.

In the meantime, enjoy. And do please pass on this URL to others via social media or similar.

With Microsoft announcing that they're not making any more smartphones in 2016, the field is seemingly wide open for another company to step in with a Windows 10 Mobile flagship. And, in some ways, the Elite X3 is just this (review coming). But, with the caveat that this is still early days in terms of firmware for the X3, imaging really isn't its strongpoint...

On paper, the X3's camera seems underwhelming. A 10MP sensor (in 16:9 mode, there's no option to change this in software as yet, so we don't know what the 4:3 resolution will work out to, though somewhere around 13MP seems likely), a f/2.2 aperture, only contrast-based auto-focus, and a single LED flash. It's clear that this, despite the overall price of the device, is some way behind the current mid-tier to top end competition, as you'll probably see below, but there are two big caveats to this casual observation:

• This is early days for the Elite X3 in terms of firmware and optimisation. I get the impression that there's more to come in terms of low light performance certainly. The Anniversary Update, with its new APIs, will help, as will new device firmware. Given that the X3's fingerprint scanner doesn't work at all at the moment, i.e. it's waiting on the imminent Anniversary Update reaching it, which will enable better biometrics support.
• The Elite X3's reason for existence isn't imaging. This is a business tool - unashamedly plastic and tough, yet highly specified internally. The camera isn't one of those high-spec components though - all it needs to do is to be able to snap whiteboards and scan bar codes, I suspect. We're not talking consumer-grade camera phone photography here. The X3 exists for its dual biometrics (when they work, currently waiting for updates), for its Continuum performance, for its toughness/durability, for its loud stereo speakers perhaps (or maybe that's just me), for its expandability via docks and pogo-pin accessories.

Notes:

1. The Lumia 950 XL has a choice of resolutions - I felt that the 8MP PureView (oversampled) mode was the best one to go for in matching the (currently) enforced 10MP 16:9 mode of the Elite X3. But the 16MP mode is there on the Lumia if you need it, of course.
2. As ever, I was limited slightly in choice of subjects by prevailing weather conditions and by other factors. I do show a wide range of test shots though - hopefully!

Test 1: Overcast landscape

My standard suburbia test scene, with loads of detail, shot here in overcast conditions as the sun wasn't playing ball. Quite dim, in fact, but a good test of the optics here. Here's the overall scene, as shot by the Lumia 950 XL:

In case you want to grab the original images to do your own analysis, here they are, from the Lumia 950 XL and HP Elite X3, click the links to download. And here are the interesting central 1:1 crops, just wait to make sure the page has fully loaded and then use your mouse or trackpad pointer to compare the images:

The clarity and purity of the Lumia stands out here - the professional optics, the OIS, the oversampling, the image processing, all contribute to - simply - a better photograph. Of course, as I say, it's early days in terms of X3 firmware, plus I'll have to update this feature if the sun ever comes out again(!)

Test 2: Indoor still life

A little test shot, with a bedside lamp and glass of water, here under just the lamp's own illumination. Here's the overall scene, as shot by the Lumia 950 XL:

In case you want to grab the original images to do your own analysis, here they are, from the Lumia 950 XL and HP Elite X3, click the links to download. And here are the interesting central 1:1 crops, just wait to make sure the page has fully loaded and then use your mouse or trackpad pointer to compare the images:

Again, the purity and noise-less image from the Lumia 950 XL stands out, even with both phone camera using a 1/30s exposure. Look how much noisier and fuzzier the X3 image is.

Test 3: Indoor still life - with FLASH!

The same test shot, with a bedside lamp and glass of water, But here with LED flash turned on. Here's the overall scene, as shot by the Lumia 950 XL:

In case you want to grab the original images to do your own analysis, here they are, from the Lumia 950 XL and HP Elite X3, click the links to download. And here are the interesting central 1:1 crops, just wait to make sure the page has fully loaded and then use your mouse or trackpad pointer to compare the images:

No, your web browser didn't fail to load the second image. The X3's flash facility is horribly, horribly broken at the moment. Massive over-exposure. I tried this three times and got the same result. Again, early days, and I expect a system firmware update to arrive which fixes this.

Test 4: Ultimate low light

A simple test for how capable the sensor and optics are - in very low light indeed (my own eyes could barely make out detail) indoors, a large photo print on the wall. Here's the overall scene, as shot by the Lumia 950 XL, making it appear MUCH brighter than the print was to my eyes:

In case you want to grab the original images to do your own analysis, here they are, from the Lumia 950 XL and HP Elite X3, click the links to download. And here are the interesting central 1:1 crops, just wait to make sure the page has fully loaded and then use your mouse or trackpad pointer to compare the images:

The X3's result is pretty accurate in terms of how dark the print was in the room - but there's little excuse for how far it is behind the astonishing result from the Lumia 950 XL camera - it almost does turn night into day. Amazing.

Verdict

In addition to the test scenes above, I shot numerous others on a day out - and half of them (the interesting half) were also (incredibly annoyingly and) retrievably corrupt, i.e. the JPG files couldn't be read on anything I had. And perhaps related is that the Elite X3 tends to reboot after using Camera. Gulp. To be honest, I can't believe that HP let the device ship in this state. This is currently unreviewable - I said to their product manager months ago "Do. Not. Ship. This. With. Threshold." Yet here we are. A smartphone flagship with buggy firmware, old OS and underperforming components (the screen and speakers aren't as bad as the camera, but they're still sub-par) selling for a premium price. More musings on all this in my full review - which I'm tempted to leave for after the Anniversary Update hits the X3, as otherwise it'd just be a train wreck.

In terms of results (so far, I'll update this feature and produce others, no doubt, in the future), the Elite X3's rear camera is akin to that in a typical £100-£150 Android handset, I'd say. Which is not to say that it's a total disaster (aside from flash, at the moment) - see what I said above, consumer-grade photography just isn't supposed to be one of the X3's strengths. Though I do know a fair few Windows 10 Mobile enthusiasts (including me!) who were eying this up as 'a better Lumia 950 XL' and who will be VERY disappointed by the results above. However many caveats I insert!

Thanks to Clove for sending the review Elite X3 over - I can't recommend the X3 - at least, not yet, so go buy something else from them - a top company! Clove.co.uk, of course.

As already discussed many times on AAWP, the Elite X3 is a business workhorse rather than a consumer media powerhouse, but while we're waiting for new firmware and the Anniversary Update to fix all the current issues, I wanted to carry on testing specifics - imaging, and here the forward-facing stereo speaker capabilities of the Elite X3.

In order to give you an idea of the X3's speakers, I've put it up, on video, against some other known good and bad data point devices:

• Lumia 950 XL (the X3's closest real world competitor)
• Lumia 1020 (a typical 'Nokia' era mono phone speaker)
• Google Nexus 6 (typical of the current breed of phones with stereo speakers - see also Alcatel Idol 4, Nexus 6P, NextBit Robin, numerous Sony Xperias, the list goes on)
• Marshall London (the current audio champion, even if the rest of the phone is slow and outdated)

So here goes. I recorded it in one go, fluffs and all, because I didn't want any video editing software to get in the way - YouTube's own recompression is the only barrier to you hearing what I heard. I shot the video on my trusty Nokia 808 PureView, with its amazing HAAC microphones and low noise floor, so the capture is pretty accurate.

I would advise you to crank up your (hopefully high enough quality!) speakers or headphones though, in order to really hear the differences for yourself.

In short, the Elite X3 speakers aren't terrible - they're loud enough and good enough to play with the rest of the smartphone market in this regard - but some of the latter are in the budget category and for a purchase price of well over £600 and with the B&O branding I really was expecting more here.

Your comments welcome. How important is speaker output to you (watching media, sat-nav, speakerphone calls, and so on)? Did the X3's output disappoint you?

PS. I chose this piece of music because it really pushes the phone speakers in terms of volume and range of frequencies - did you spot the extra bass that the London renders, for example? 

PPS. See also my verdict on the Elite X3's camera - which underperforms more than its speakers. Though HP can fix a lot of it with new firmware, hopefully!

As I've said already, the device isn't ready for the prime time yet - it's desperately in need of optimisation, of new firmware, of the Anniversary Update, due in two weeks time. Now, we borrowed a unit from Clove (nice people, go check them out) and so are cheating slightly - the Elite X3 is meant for businesses over the next 6-12 months, as part of a larger deployment solution, by which time it'll hopefully be working properly. Still, there's enough in this early peek to be able to draw conclusions as to the X3's strengths (literally) and weaknesses.

Demonstrating less than perfect outdoor visibility, here's the Elite X3 in all its (tough) plastic glory...

So, with the huge caveat that HP is aiming this at businesses, buying as part of multi-device packages over a longer time frame that we're used to seeing in the consumer market, here's my take on the various technical aspects of the HP Elite X3.

Using my (updated) initial specification comparison as a jumping off point, I've added a column for comments on how the Elite X3 has (so far) delivered in practice. If the table is too much for your phone browser then consider using the new AAWP Universal application instead!

On to device photos though, here's the retail HP Elite X3:

...And from the back, showing the grippy matt black plastic and stylised HP logo...

The underwhelming 13MP camera, single LED flash and (currently non-working) fingerprint scanner...

The also stylised bottom speaker grille - the actual speaker component is behind the left hand edge, hence the increased density of cosmetic 'holes' there....

The underwhelming 13MP camera, single LED flash and (currently non-working) fingerprint scanner...

The top speaker is a lot more understated, but still pumps out reasonable, if not ground breaking, volume and fidelity...

The pogo pin contacts on the back, designed to give extra options when clipping an accessory onto the X3's back. Nothing's been announced yet, though.

The card tray pulls out from the left side with a fingernail (no paper clip needed!) - a seal on the inside of the external panel keeps the recess waterproof. Note that SIM slot 2 can have a microSD card OR a nano-SIM. Options, options...

USB Type C and fully reversible, of course, plus it works up to the full 3A at 5V. Plus there's Qi wireless charging too.

So a mix of both good, indifferent and bad so far with the Elite X3. Could I use it as my main smartphone right now? Absolutely not - the horrible lag every now and then (e.g. in Edge), the rebooting after taking most photos, the image corruptions, and so on. With the issues resolved, we'd then be down to a camera that's leagues below what Lumia enthusiasts have been used to, set against better audio and far greater durability. In which case it's a tough call.

I'll be reporting more on the Elite X3 through 2016, of course, not least when official PR devices arrive, stocked with new firmware and the Windows 10 Mobile Anniversary Update. Watch this space.

In very bright overcast conditions, I'd say that the Lumia 950 XL's CBD polarisers give it a significant visibility edge....

Microsoft's plan to retrench from the consumer market and leave Windows 10 Mobile, across the world, to partners and licensees, hasn't been working out too well. Plenty of companies have signed up, but many of them are 'bringing their 'B' game', not their best efforts. In most cases, the Windows 10 Mobile handset is just a tweaked version of a company's 'A' product running Android. Even the mighty tech giant HP's Elite X3 is proving a bit underwhelming. I do realise that a 'Surface Phone' is tied to the timings for 'Redstone 2', but it still can't come fast enough to reassure enthusiasts that there's high-end hope in a world of premium and more capable Android devices and iPhones.

This was discussed a little in comments on a previous story, but I thought it warranted a full editorial. For all the times we talk up that Windows 10 Mobile is part of the wider and huge 'Windows 10 ecosystem', it's ending up more as a token part, a proof of concept, if you will. Yes, there are hundreds of thousands of mostly happy Lumia 950/XL/650 owners across the world, plus another million or so owners of older handsets (think Lumia 735, 830, 930) who have done the opt-in Windows 10 Mobile upgrade. But even this number is small compared to the tens of millions still using 'old' Windows Phone 8.1, even in 2016, through sheer inertia and lack of awareness by users. And it's tiny compared to the numbers of Android and iOS users across the world, each of which is now into the billions.

So we're not kidding ourselves here. But there should be room for the number of people using Windows 10 Mobile to grow - there's the lure of UWP apps that work just as on the Windows 10 desktop, after all. But Microsoft has seemingly retrenched from making significant quantities of hardware, selling or closing down factories and making (I'd have thought) crucial redundancies - it's a far cry from the profligacy of phone models that Nokia used to exude.

The plan, presumably, is for lots of Microsoft partner companies to take up the slack (after all, it's free to license Windows 10 Mobile) and produce a wide variety of hardware across the world. In large enough numbers and in high enough quality, so Microsoft doesn't have to. But I don't believe this is happening - it turns out that it's harder to design, build, sell and support a smartphone than most companies would have thought. Nokia used to be a master of all of this, of course. It's one reason why Microsoft bought it, especially at the fire-sale price. Sadly, most of the intelligence and infrastructure has now been lost.

Yet partners and licensees across the world aren't really taking up the slack at all. I went through most of the current contenders here in some detail - it's a lacklustre line-up if I'm honest, with either ultra-low-end or niche hardware, or perhaps a 'Windows' version of an existing Android handset with trivial modifications and next to no optimisation. And half the handsets are still not available to buy and even then only in certain markets. Even the brand new HP Elite X3 is so far showing a distinct lack of TLC.

In part it's Microsoft's fault, of course - the operating system itself hasn't been bug free and quite a few crucial APIs have been missing in action until the current Anniversary Update (which is still rolling out - I did say that it wouldn't auto-magically happen on August 2nd as many claimed), not least support for niceties like fingerprint scanner support. In fact, it's also Microsoft's fault for axing so much of their own inherited hardware infrastructure before its partners had proved their mettle*. I do appreciate that with Nokia-like domination of the ecosystem then there wouldn't be much oxygen left in the room for partners, but surely we've now swung too far the other way? 

* It's reminiscent of the situation when Nokia went all-in on Windows Phone in 2011, putting the kibosh on its existing Symbian ecosystem almost a year before it had any hardware of its own on the platform, with the resulting large hole in its sales dramatically speeding up Nokia's decline.

What can Microsoft do at this point then, at least on the hardware front? Make sure that the Lumia 950 and 950 XL (and the 650) stay in production at the very least. Stop closing factories! And accelerate plans for the mythical Surface Phone - yes, we know that it's not due until Spring 2017, but if the hardware's anywhere near complete then 'do an HP' and announce it next month for 'late November' availability and ship it with the Anniversary Update and the promise that 'Redstone 2' will follow in due course.

Comments welcome - can Microsoft still pull a rabbit out of the hat?