The Windows 10 Preview is designed with Lumia phone in mind, and now that it has been rolled out to the six compatible handsets, it is time to take a look at actual and hands-on reviews about Microsoft's development-in-progress OS.
One of the first impressions that emerge about the Windows 10 Preview for Lumia phones is that the outstanding features of the OS is yet to come, but it sure provides subtle hints at which direction it is heading to. Now that is something interesting to look forward to about the Preview.
The new features also prove interesting, although not groundbreaking, thanks to the improvements Microsoft has made to transform them into better features that they are now. Among the phone feature enhancements that tech reviewers like PC Pro, Digital Trends, and Engadget feel glad about include the background customization, speech recognition, quick and interactive notifications, short cut buttons, and the more organized Settings menu.
With the improved features above, Windows phone users can add two more lists to the Action Center quick settings and interact directly through notifications. The latter option allows phone users to dismiss alarm and reply to a message via the alert itself. This is currently not available to e-mail but Engadget indicates that it would be great if Microsoft would make this available across commonly used apps to cut the time spent on clicking and loading the app.
Support for text and speech features has also become broader with the Windows 10 Preview. The blue dot found in between the z, x, and comma keys serves as a four-way virtual joystick, allowing easier editing of typo errors and deleting of words in a message a phone user is composing. This serves a relief for Windows phone users since it isn't available in previous OS versions.
Moreover, speech recognition is working way better with the new OS. This feature works both for texting and Internet surfing. While this is limited to US-based Windows users, those in the UK and other non-English speaking countries can change the language settings to English so that Windows virtual assistant, Cortana, can understand and interpret it.
Windows phone users can now change their phone background like in Android and iOS phones. The tiles become translucent and their colors are also customizable to make them look coordinated with the background photo.
The list of categories in the Settings menu is now trimmed from fifty to ten "sensibly thought-out categories, making finding for any setting easier.
The review focuses on interesting improvements made with the Windows 10 Preview. Watch out for what's not working and what's yet to come in the following updates.
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