Windows 10 Mobile review – the future’s bright but be wary

Calls and Messaging

Windows 10 Mobile makes it simpler to reply to text messages. When a text comes in, they now appear as actionable notification banners at the top of the screen. To reply, you can simply pull down and tap out a quick message without leaving the app you’re currently using. Alternatively, you can swipe up to dismiss it, or look at it later in the Action Centre once it’s disappeared.

Meanwhile, if a call comes in and you’re too busy to answer it, you can simply tap the Text Reply button next to Ignore and you can automatically send a text saying, ‘I’ll call you back’, ‘Please text me’, or you own individual message.

Likewise, if you have a particularly large Windows phone and only have one hand free, simply hold down the Home button and the entire operating system will shift towards the lower half of the screen, bringing the top of the screen within easy reach. It’s not particularly useful for anything else, though, as the rest of the screen has been very poorly optimised for scrolling. I couldn’t even get to the bottom of my Start screen in one-handed mode, let alone any of my contacts or text messages beyond the first couple at the top, so you’ll probably only want to use this for accessing the Action Centre or Settings menu.

What you can do to make things a bit easier is change the location of the keyboard. This feature works on any Windows 10 phone which has a 5in screen or above, and you can simply drag the keyboard to whatever position you like by holding down the spacebar. In Messages, for instance, you could move the keyboard to the top of the screen and have your message thread at the bottom, potentially making it easier to type depending on your grip.

Microsoft Edge

Internet Explorer is no more. Like the desktop version of Windows 10, Microsoft’s mobile OS uses its new Edge browser for surfing the web. It still has a similar layout to IE; the address bar is still at the bottom of the screen, along with the tabs and refresh buttons, but you’ll also find a new Reading View icon on the right next to the menu settings.

^ If you’d rather just get to the article at hand, switching to Reading View takes out all the extra formatting. You can also change the background colour to make it easier to read

Not all web pages support Reading View, but those that do essentially strip out all the page formatting and online advertising to make articles easier to read. You can choose from a variety of font sizes as well as a dark, light or grey background. The dark background should be particularly beneficial for Windows phones with AMOLED screens, as due to the way AMOLED screens work, the black background and white text should help save battery during extended browsing periods. You can also add articles to your Reading List to save for later. You’ll find Reading List in Edge’s new Hub, which can be accessed from the main menu, as well as your Favourites, History and Download tabs.

Conclusion

Windows 10 Mobile is certainly an improvement on Windows Phone 8.1, but there are still a few kinks that need ironing out, such as performance, its confusing Settings menu and next-to-useless one-handed mode. However, Continuum is a brilliant new feature, and the overall appearance of the interface looks much more streamlined and professional. Microsoft is bound to tweak its operating system over the coming months, but right now we couldn’t recommend whole-heartedly that you upgrade from Windows Phone 8.1, or at least not until we get to test performance on older handsets.