 A year and a half ago, I switched to Windows Phone with the HTC 8X for a month to see if the platform could woo me away from iOS. Four blog videos and a month later the answer was a definite no. But Windows Phone has had a lot of time to mature, so when HTC reached out about the 1M8 for Windows, running the latest 8.1 version featuring Cortana voice control, I jumped at the opportunity to review it. Cooler Master V-Series semi-modular power supplies feature 80 plus gold efficiency and their gold guarantee 5 year warranty. Click now to learn more. We'll kick things off positively. Hardware wise, HTC didn't change much. But I don't really feel like they had to. I love this phone. It's the 1M8, man. It's got a fast CPU, ample RAM, enough storage on board with micro SD expansion if you need more, front facing boom sound speakers, their ultra pixel camera with a two tone flash that is designed to perform best in low light scenarios, and finally that wonderful glass and aluminum 1M series build quality that is second to none. Anyway, if you want to know more about the hardware, you should check out our original 1M8 review where I basically say it's awesome. This video is more about the software. Off the bat, Windows Phone has some advantages. It runs extraordinarily well on relatively low end hardware. Mind you, so does Android these days. It's a tile display and navigation animations are eye catching and beautiful. Mind you, what isn't these days. And finally, it works really well with Windows services like Office, mobile, OneDrive, and Skype. But what doesn't these days? Okay, so those weren't really advantages at all then, were they? This is going to be a rough video. Setup was easy. I imported my accounts and settings from my old 8X in just a couple minutes. Also, Google account two step validation is super easy to deal with now and doesn't require app specific passwords, so that's good. But once I landed on the desktop with its live tiles, shoot, I don't really know where to begin. Just like last time around, I started by trying to find equivalents for the essential apps that I use every day. And it's a real chore. The first party Facebook and Twitter apps are pretty good. Instagram has a very functional beta. Speedtest.net, Flickster, and WhatsApp all worked fine. Plex is available, but I'm not paying $5 for it again, so I can't comment on how good that one is. And Dropbox and Sono services are enabled through third party apps that have some, but not all of the functionality and ease of use of the official ones on other platforms. Which leads us to the stuff that's missing. Google stuff is a nightmare. So kiss goodbye stuff like the YouTube studio creator app and Hangouts. And while Google Play Music has a third party app, this very amusing review the developer left on his own app really highlights the issues with relying on these when the APIs can change overnight just like that. And then in no particular order, here's some other stuff that I use every day without suitable replacements. Harmony remote control, drop cam, replacement keyboard such as SwiftKey. I mean, even Apple is going to start allowing third party keyboards in iOS 8. Come on Microsoft. Speaking of which, scam apps. The only things labeled SwiftKey in the Windows Phone Store are straight up scams. One of which has been there for over a month without being cleaned up. For shame Microsoft, which I guess leads to a discussion about the stock keyboard. Its text prediction is accurate but slow. I felt like oftentimes it was missing keystrokes and the thing is so huge that A. I simply can't type on it without accidentally mashing B every time I go for the space bar and B. With auto correct, auto fill predictions, the navigation bar and some obnoxiously huge UI elements in some places. It's amazing how little of the screen you actually get to use sometimes. I guess it's got swipe style typing now, but I don't care because I don't really use that. It needs other things to improve first. Which leads to yet another complaint. Who is this UI made for? At least TouchWiz knows it's for people whose eyesight is starting to go and who aren't that familiar with phones. With nice, you know, loud sound effects when you mash on the gigantic buttons. Windows Phone on the other hand doesn't really give you any indication whether a button press worked. Other than, you know, after a little bit at doing the thing. And on top of that, a single screen can have text as wide as your face in headings and then like super tiny micro text that you'd have to squint at unless you have perfect vision. And on top of that, I just plain don't find it very intuitive to use. Drag down to see your notifications. Okay, with you so far. Click an email. All right, brings up an email. With you so far. Looking at the email. Okay, now I'm done. Now what? Maybe if I press back, I'll land in the inbox? No, no. That just takes me away. Okay, well, is there maybe another button in case I want to look at other emails when I'm done with this one email that was in my notifications? Or do I actually have to go all the way back to the desktop and open the email client from there? Wow, that's slow. And lots of things are slow like this. How about a quick draw speed competition to dial someone's phone number? No T9 dialing is a big heaping wheelbarrow full of suck on top of all the other things that are slow about this process. Some stuff is okay though. Quick toggles are reconfigurable in the main stuff, including portable hotspot sharing is here. Also, I was corrected when I said on our podcast that folder support on the desktop is still missing. You can create folders of apps making organization quite a bit easier now, so that's good. Changing ringtones lets you change without previewing at full volume, which is nice. Good for parents with newborns. And I love the control that you have over snoozing and dismissing notifications. Every OS needs this. Let me control how long it snoozes for. And there's more positive stuff too. Cortana is actually quick to use and seems to learn a little bit. After the first time for a given task like call Yvonne, it doesn't force me to navigate unnecessarily through menus to confirm things. So for things like basic voice dialing and sending quick SMS messages, it's really fast. But I also think it's been oversold a little bit. While actual speech recognition for me was great, there's still no support for basic system setting stuff like volume control and screen brightness. And I found it very flow breaking to have to press the voice button in between interactions. You know, like, show me where there's a sushi restaurant. Okay, here's something nearby. You can't just keep talking. You have to press the button again. It is very promising for the future though, and I'm excited to see where Microsoft is taking this one, because it's pretty darn mature for a first attempt. Okay, so it's conclusion and more thoughts time. I think the bottom line for me here is that while in my mind HTC did a great job of delivering the best enthusiast grade Windows Phone 8.1 experience they could. You know, their social media feed, BlinkFeed works as a live tile, the Duo camera, weird depth feature and quick video and photo highlight reel features are enabled through apps as well. And they did a great job. But even if their entire company was staffed by like cowboy astronaut millionaires, there was nothing they could do to make the Windows Phone ecosystem suitable for enthusiast high end use. Nothing. Basic functionality, call people, take pictures and video chat on Skype, all this stuff works. So I guess I could recommend it for my mom. But go any further than that, and I don't understand why anyone would want it. For intermediate users like my sister, she's going to be baffled by the need to use third party applications, some of which cost money for stuff like YouTube. And then as we get into the higher end enthusiasts who are able to jump through those technical hoops, the ones that are likely to be also jumping on the trends of like wearables and connected devices and stuff, and we got another deal breaker. The lack of third party developer support becomes a complete no go for Windows. And it happens over and over. The unofficial Pebble app does some cool stuff actually, but doesn't notify of calls and texts, apparently due to Microsoft policies. Deal breaker. The unofficial Dropcam app supports new images every two and a half seconds with no live video, audio, or historical video scrubbing. Deal breaker. And it's just on and on like that. Battery life was a very positive point with the phone often lasting me two full days or more, but I think a big part of this is how inefficient to use it was, and therefore how little time I actually spent using it. Even stupid stuff like trying to find a draft email that I started creating on the desktop in the stock email client, which is otherwise one of the better aspects of Windows phone, was just such a waste of time that I would just walk to my computer if it was nearby. So all in all, this phone baffles me a little bit. It's a phone for no one. I understand that some people have a thing for supporting the market underdog and are willing to work around numerous inconveniences to do it, or have specific complaints about Google and Apple that would cause them to want to avoid using the services of both of those companies, and for you, there's high-end Windows phones like the 1M8 for Windows. For everyone else, there's stuff out there that's just plain more functional and easier to use, and in the case of the 1M8, also exactly the same price. So the conclusion pretty much writes itself here. Guys, thanks for watching. Like the video if you liked it, dislike it if you disliked it, leave a comment letting me know if you have some thoughts on the whole Windows phone versus other platforms thing. I would love to hear from you. 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