All About Windows Phone

News, reviews, information and apps for Windows Phone.

Featured Editorial Content

Status report for April 2021: services and apps on Windows 10 Mobile

2021 Smartphone photo storage thoughts

A 2021 ‘PureView’ battle: 808/1020/Pixel/iPhone

Case? Who needs cases?

Camera head to head: Lumia 950 XL vs Samsung Galaxy S21 Ultra 5G

Recent Editorial Content

Camera head to head: Lumia 950 XL vs Redmi Note 10 Pro

Last week I pitched the new AMOLED-screened budget Redmi Note 10 Pro, made by Xiaomi, against the IDOL 4 Pro (for its screen and media capabilities) — and the result was almost a complete whitewash. The Redmi Note 10 Pro, at just over £200 inc VAT, is a stunning game changer of a device, specs-wise — but can its camera system beat out an old AAWP favourite? With Xiaomi’s excellent image processing, despite the low price tag, I’m expecting a close run thing.

# Posted by Steve in Features || Comments 12:53, Apr 18th

Head to head: Alcatel IDOL 4 Pro vs Xiaomi Redmi Note 10 Pro

After the Lumia 950 XL head to head with the flagship Xiaomi Mi 11 in the £700 range, I wanted to match this with a similar comparison feature at the other end of the market, but this time using the media-centric Alcatel IDOL 4 Pro, my favourite Windows-powered phone of the last era in AAWP. The (Xiaomi) Redmi Note 10 Pro is also brand new and usually around the £200 mark, while still offering an impressive (even game changing) spec level, especially against something as relatively old as the Alcatel, though this put up a close fight in some areas, as you’ll see.

# Posted by Steve in Features || Comments 13:07, Apr 15th

‘Piny — Pinterest with love’ UWP updated for 2021

A full four years ago I looked at a fledgling UWP Pinterest client for Windows 10 Mobile — and, believe it or not, it’s still being updated, with the latest in the last few days. The developers, Chococode, are one of the last active UWP app developers compiling for Windows 10 Mobile, so credit to them. Piny UWP is now £4 if you want to zap the ads, so it’s slightly pricier than it was originally, but heck, at this stage in Windows 10 Mobile’s existence, it’s worth showering active developers in beer, so buying them a pint in this case is money well spent, I contend.

# Posted by Steve in Features || Comments 06:47, Apr 13th

Smartphone wired audio/DACs. (2021 update)

Minor apologies for two quick updates to this ‘reference’ article in a few days, but I’ve added the rather excellent Samsung Type C to 3.5mm DAC/dongle, plus made numerous extra tweaks to the table, including quoting maximum sample rates and resolution where known. Here I look at wired audio quality from smartphone 3.5mm jacks (where they have one) and from add-on, plug-in DACs/dongles (where digital output is the only wired way forwards). Worth bookmarking, hopefully, and coming back to later in 2021, since I’ll keep updating it as needed.

# Posted by Steve in Features || Comments 17:47, Apr 11th

LG Mobile officially shuts down, ends 15 years in smartphones

Starting off (in the smartphone world) with Series 60 (on Symbian) handsets, transitioning through Windows Phone 7.x phones, and ending up on Android, LG has officially closed its Mobile division, with the short statement quoted below. It’s been a rocky road for LG, but even back in the mid 2000s at the Symbian shows, I never really felt their heart was in it, at least in terms of selling to — and supporting — the West. Some thoughts and a few looks back below.

# Posted by Steve in News || Comments 10:31, Apr 5th

Review: Apple/Cubilux: a tale of two Type C DAC/dongles.

Yes, yes, it’s a confusing situation. I blame Apple, for taking away the 3.5mm headphone jack from their flagships (to boost sales of their new AirPods) and then I blame other companies for copying Apple. Happily, most phones under about £400 still come with jacks, but for anyone wanting an Android flagship for the last two years and who isn’t all-in on Bluetooth, some way of getting wired audio out of a Type C jack is worth researching. Online, you can get ‘adapters’ from £1 to £100, which means that you might like some guidance from AAWP. Here, I test two candidates and am blown away by one in particular!

# Posted by Steve in Reviews || Comments 17:21, Apr 1st

Status report for April 2021: services and apps on Windows 10 Mobile

Here, for April 2021, is the refreshed/latest news and comment on applications and services on Windows 10 Mobile — the OS itself has now had its very last security update, but it still works on the whole. This feature will summarise what’s broken and what’s not, along with workarounds where possible. Details and links have all been updated throughout. Note that I’ve kept the URL the same, so the last nine months of comments are all still here.

# Posted by Steve in Features || Comments 16:53, Mar 31st

Netflix and Windows Phone/Windows 10 Mobile. lives again!

A year ago, Netflix stopped working on all Windows-powered phones — the fear was that this was a conscious decision by Netflix to axe streams to specific platforms. In fact, it turns out that something was just ‘broken’. And clearly the broken bit affected enough customers on enough legacy platforms that Netflix’s engineers tracked down the bug and fixed it — Netflix works again on Windows 10 Mobile!*

# Posted by Steve in News || Comments 14:46, Mar 30th

Camera head to head: Lumia 950 XL vs Xiaomi Mi 11 5G

Xiaomi is now no. 2 in Europe by some metrics in the smartphone world and it’s easy to see why, with great value, high spec handsets — and, to my delight, with good image processing in their cameras. And now we have the first of the next generation Xiaomi flagships, the Mi 11, currently £650 inc VAT on Amazon UK. So not cheap, but also not crazy Samsung or iPhone flagship pricing. Last week I looked at overall specs, here I test out the Mi 11’s imaging against the usual staple, the Lumia 950 XL.

# Posted by Steve in Features || Comments 06:41, Mar 29th

Head to head: Lumia 950 XL vs Xiaomi Mi 11 5G

Another year, another Xiaomi flagship, good value for money compared to the Samsungs and OnePlus of this world. Except that there are several variants, two of which have yet to be announced (next week should see the ‘Pro’ and ‘Ultimate’). Regardless, I have the standard Xiaomi Mi 11 5G in hand and here I do a head-to-head against my standard benchmark device (for AAWP), the Lumia 950 XL. Imaging is next, don’t worry.

# Posted by Steve in Features || Comments 07:29, Mar 26th

Everything you need to know about Windows Phone 8 (FAQ)

Breadcrumb

thals1992

Senior Member

A lot of people are flooding the WP8 sub-forums by asking questions that haven’t exactly been answered in a straightforward manner. This is my first stab at this and this post will grow over time.

What are some pros and cons of using Windows Phones?

LTE (E-UTRA in most implementations) is a different standard to GSM and CDMA. It has features that allow it to work with GSM and CDMA hardware, but its essentially a new beast. LTE have their own frequency blocks in most regions (it can also share the same bands as 3G, but lets not go there) and operates independent of the «3G» networks, so if you want LTE to work, you’ll also need 3G and 2G bands to work as well.
To start, lets say we have a Lumia 928.

It has the following:

• LTE network bands: 4 (1700 MHz — block f), 13 (700 MHz — block c) Verizon says that it needs a firmware update to enable the 4th band
• WCDMA network: 850 MHz, 900 MHz, 1900 MHz, 2100 MHz this will usually be the same as GSM
• CDMA network bands: BC0, BC1 (we can safely ignore this; these are the main bands that others will use, but there might still be an exception to this.)
• GSM network: 850 MHz, 900 MHz, 1800 MHz, 1900 MHz

So, if I wanted to use this with a GSM carrier and LTE, I need to find a carrier that uses LTE band 13.
That limits me to Open Mobile (Triad 700) in Puerto Rico, Entel Bolivia in Bolivia, and Digicel Cayman in the Cayman Islands. That’s just the Americas.
In Asia, I can use MTS Uzbekistan and UCell in Uzbekistan. That’s all the places that share LTE band 13 and the 700 MHz c block. When ever LTE band 4 is enabled on the device, I have a plethora of other carrier I can use in the US alone and three of the main carriers in Canada ( Bell, Rogers Wireless, and Telus)
Check the tables here to make sure they share the same LTE band and frequency. YOUR MILEAGE MAY VARY!Well, at least better than mine anyways.
​

Check your device specific forum if its available.
If your device is manufactured by Nokia, go to seidea.com and either download the latest Nokia Product Tool or Nokia Software Updater. This tool will have the Latest ROM for your specific device and you can run a few hardware tests on it as well. You can also follow the tutorial in the WP8 Dev and Hacking section as well.

If your device is manufactured by Samsung, having a ROM for your specific device will be hit or miss. The ATIV S (SGH-T899M model) and the ATIV Odyssey (SCH-I930 model) does not have a public ROM. The I-8750 has several ROMs available. If you need to know more, just visit the WP8 Dev and Hacking section.

If your device is manufactured by HTC, chances are your out of luck. There are only two ROMs available and you can follow the tutorial in the HTC Windows Phone 8X Development and Hacking section. NOTE:The only ROMs available are European, it might not work on other devices designed for your region.
If your device is manufactured by Huawei, keep checking the WP8 Dev and Hacking section. I know very little about the W1, let alone the W2.
​

The first thing I can recommend that you could do is to understand a bit about programming. The biggest thing is that you can at least READ code, whether is in .NET, C, C#, or C++, or even Native Code. (We need this the most along with people who have a grasp on Assembly!)

The second thing I’d recommend to do, is to obtain a ROM for your device. Make sure its the right Product number, or the same edition of your device. That will be helpful if your phone dies and gets the spinning gears of death.
Then, I’d obtain a tool to extract/mount your rom to be able to peer through various files that would be of use, along with a tool to flash it to your device.

The third thing I’d recommend is to obtain a decompiler and a good app that does comparisons between two files. @GoodDayToDie recommends Reflector or JustDecompile. I use dotPeek, because I don’t need it to run in tandem with Visual Studio.

The fourth and final thing I’d recommend is to learn some low level stuff. Whether that’s how to analyze USB traffic, how to code in assembly, or just simply learning how to use a network packet sniffer. Packet sniffing isn’t too difficult to pick up.

If you do happen to do some of these recommendations, it will be useful outside of Windows Phone, but for «hacking» in general and useful if you need a job where you could use this kind of knowledge.
​

Guide to Using Your Windows Phone for Everything

Using Your Windows Phone

With Microsoft’s Windows Phone platform you have at your fingertips a fast and responsive user interface that will get you to the task you want to perform in at most a couple of swipes. Getting the most out of the platform means first mastering the gestures, which are largely swipes, flicks and taps. You should also spend some time getting used to the keyboard. In under five minutes you should find that it is the quickest and most accurate mobile text entry experience you have ever encountered.

The Windows Phone 7 Hubs

You won’t get anything done on your Windows Phone without using the hubs.

The Office hub provides access to Word, Excel, PowerPoint, OneNote and SkyDrive syncing, while the People hub looks after your contacts and social networks. Meanwhile the Marketplace hub is where you download apps, games and music and the Music and video hub is your entertainment area – effectively turning your phone into a Zune.

Another area that you shouldn’t miss is Bing, available via the Search button and capable of giving you all of the answers you need to local and general web search. You also shouldn’t miss out the Games hub, which is where you will find the Xbox Live integration!

Other Ways of Using Your Phone

When using your Windows Phone, regardless of the model, there are various cool things that you can do. For instance, if you have the Mango update then you can use Windows Live Messenger and Facebook and chat with the same contacts across both services.

Meanwhile with a Zune Pass account you can enjoy great music streamed to your phone for a reasonably low fee (varies depending on your territory). Any problems you encounter on your handset can usually be easily resolved.

Even Being Social Seems Like a Chore

With all of the features on Windows Phone, you might feel slightly overwhelmed by the options. After all, a phone is social enough with chatting and text messaging – why would it need to have Facebook and Twitter integrated? Fortunately, social networks can easily be vanquished from Windows Phone, so you don’t have to feel pressured into using or enjoying them.

Similarly, don’t feel that the device is all about gaming, either. You can successfully disable Xbox Live, and ignore the Games hub completely. What better reason to do this than to use your handset as a mobile office?

Storage Options on Windows Phone

Natively, storage options on Windows Phone are limited.

There are ways around this, however. Due to the Microsoft specification for the devices, microSD cards cannot be removed. This is an anti-piracy measure that has been quite successful, although users can easily upgrade their storage capacity on most devices if they’re prepared to factory reset their phones in the process.

Curiously, only data synced via Zune can be saved to Windows Phone, and this means that any file that isn’t a photo, video or music/audio cannot be synced. The way around this is to fool Windows into thinking the device is a mass storage device…

Managing the Operating System

The Windows Phone operating system itself is incredibly easy to use, but from time to time you might opt to discard your settings and personal information. You might be planning to hand the phone over to a friend, return it to the manufacturer or simply try using it from scratch again.

Restoring factory settings on your phone is easy enough to do, but there are other ways of wiping data from your handset. For instance, you might care to flash a new ROM onto your phone, potentially allowing you to access a different version of the Windows Phone OS. You might also fancy jailbreaking your device, although you should note that this can have some undesirable effects.

Finally, if your phone is stolen, as long as it has a data signal, you can send a signal to it to wipe the data from the device via a dedicated Windows Live web page.

Windows Phone App Management

Like any mobile phone platform, the Windows Phone lives and dies on the quality of its apps. Following a slow start the Windows Phone Marketplace is now bursting at the seams, adding 1000 new apps every month, and there are now more and more ways in which you can access it, either via the phone itself, the Zune desktop client or via a new dedicated website!

Understanding the steps required for updating and managing apps and games is vital if you are going to use your Windows Phone as effectively as possible, while any errors that you encounter in the Marketplace hub can be readily resolved.

Tethering Windows Phone

With Windows Phone you shouldn’t be able to tether your handset to a PC or laptop to acquire an Internet connection by using the device as a modem, but thanks to the hard work of talented developers and hackers there are a few “under the counter” methods. While the second generation Mango devices allow wireless tethering, first generation handsets have to rely on secret engineer keypads to activate wired tethering via USB cable.

Updates and Syncing

Updating your Windows Phone will enable you to enjoy the latest features that are available, such as those released in the NoDo or Mango upgrades.

One thing to remember is that even if you own a Mac, there is a Windows Phone update tool that you can use. It is also available for syncing music and movies to your handset, and is called the Windows Phone Connector for Mac. Using this will enable you to gain much of the same functionality as the Zune application delivers to Windows desktop users.