(I wrote this post on 10th December, but was waiting for Open Live Writer to support Blogger)

So this happened.. Last week I reset my phone so that Narelle could use it for a day (hers had broken the previous day). Once I replaced hers and got my handset back, I reset it again and started re-installing all my apps. Windows Phone may not be the most popular phones around, but one of the nice things about them is that they do automatic backups, and by default save all your contacts to the cloud, so there isn’t much you can accidentally lose.

So after reinstalling everything I thought “hmm.. Maybe I should try out the Windows 10 update”. I’d resisted this urge previously as I’d read lots of reports of how unstable it was, but now the new 950/950XL handsets are out which come with Windows 10, and there’s just been an additional update since then too. Worst case I can use the support tool to reset my phone back to Windows Phone 8.1 again.

Phone Update screen installing Windows Phone 10

The install took a little while (maybe an hour?).

I did notice the battery seemed to run down a bit on the first day – admittedly that day included the update which would have used a bit of juice.

Windows Phone 10, Battery Status showing 23% left

The trouble is it’s hard to know if that is just Windows 10, or my handset – I’ve seen it occasionally do similar things with 8.1.

Windows 10 Mobile looks quite nice. The upgrade kept my icons on the start screen, though the layout needed tweaking as the size of the icons seemed to have changed slightly.

Windows Phone 10 Start Screen

Some of the apps are updated (eg. News, Mail, Calendar). Actually I think I prefer the 8.1 News app, but the new one is ok. I have two mail accounts on my phone, and they ended up being combined. Not sure if there’s a way to un-combine them.

Some pluses – they finally have an Australian keyboard option (Aussie! Aussie! Aussie! Oi! Oi! Oi!). The browser is also the latest Edge version.

Some minuses – possibly due to my older handset – I find the response time for various things quite slow. Even just turning the phone on and unlocking has a noticeable delay. The opposite is true of scrolling. It seems a bit too sensitive, and I often end up scrolling way further than I intended.

I’m going to stick with it for a little while and see how I go. If the battery does prove to be a problem then reverting back to 8.1 might be the best option.