Why I've stuck with Windows Phone

A couple of weeks ago Microsoft announced they were exiting from the mobile business.  It wasn't a huge surprise to many phone users - they had been thoroughly thrashed by Apple and Android for years, had lost huge amounts of money through their Nokia venture and the app store has never amounted to much.

However, over the last few years I've become a little attached to Microsoft products.  I bought a Surface RT when it was on offer and my Nexus 7 suffered a terminal crack while on holiday a few years ago.  Then, when it was time to renew my mobile contract I picked up a Nokia 830 running Windows 8.1 and found a system that seemed to join up in a way that worked for me.  Shortly after my wife bought me the original Microsoft Band.  It's no Apple Watch, but it complements the setup perfectly.  Then I replaced the RT with a Surface Pro 4, and 18 months later still enjoying it hugely.

My Nokia has been running out of steam a little in recent months, I'm sure the upgrade to Windows 10 was part of that, and has been looking a little tired around the edges.  However there have been continual rumours over the last two years that Microsoft were working on a Surface phone, a device that was supposed to break the mould of the mobile world.  In the last three months the rumours have died away and Microsoft announcing it wasn't going to update its mobile platform ever again pretty much suggests the Surface phone is off the table. When Bill Gates and the head of mobile at Microsoft ditched their Windows phones for Android models it was a pretty clear picture.

But Windows mobile does pretty much everything I need from a phone.  I'm not much of an app user, hardly ever downloaded any when I last used Android, unlikely to start now.  The build set that comes bundled with the phone is all I need and although MS have stated they won't develop anything new for the phone they will keep its security updated, at least for the time being.

So I got to thinking 'what's going to happen to all those Windows phones on the production line', and had a look around at the top end Windows phones.  The one that took my eye was the HP Elite X3 - a 64Gb RAM, quad core, dual sim phablet with B & O speakers that was selling for around £700 before the announcement (still is on Microsoft's UK website).  I picked up a brand new model for nearly half of that and that'll keep me going until I really do have to revert to Android.  Who knows - perhaps Microsoft will develop a Surface phone running on Google's OS by then?