You can check my previous reviews of Lumia 735 and Lumia 800

In my opinion, Windows Phone OS and Lumia smartphone line was the greatest thing that happened for mobile market, period.

No matter how little money would you spent on the device, you could be 100% sure that it will never let you (or slow!) down.

Despite the fact that Lumias were very similar to current Android phones in terms of the design, there was something special about these devices - maybe it was the display, weight or even just rubber minimalistic cases (❤️) but I feel that modern smartphones are lacking of that magic something in their form factor.

Metro (Modern) UI

Ah, the tiles - words can't describe how much I love the idea behind them. I think it's the most ergonomic solution for touchscreen interfaces:

• they're big, so you can click on them without fear of misclick

• the live tile feature is far more handy than simple counter of unread notifications (or whatever app wants inform you about)

• minimalism at its finest!

• great match of good whitespace usage and fonts

• subtle yet complementary animations

• lightweight implementation - it runs smoothly on all kinds of devices (from budget to flagship ones!)

• since Windows Phone 10 release you could use advanced customizations of the UI

Screen display

I'm gonna say it aloud - modern hight-end smartphone models are too big - their screens are at least 5 (almost 100% frameless) inches of size. I have just launched my Lumia 800 which has 3.7" display - nowadays it might seems to be a bit too small, but not uncomfortable to use (especially with one hand). Maybe 4.7" one from Lumia 735 would be more appropriate due current standards. As a average hand size person, devices that has screen size bigger than 5" becomes too big to use without fear of falling it out of your hand.

The other great thing that Lumia serie had is ClearBlack display - to very this day I ask myself why this hasn't become a standard? I remember using Lumia 800 during the very sunny days of summer wasn't a problem at all. Now I need to enhance brightness of my Android device to at least 90% even during cloudy winter days while outside.

In pair with great screen there was best touchscreen keyboard I have every used. After I switched to Android, I've tested dozens of keyboards that are available (both free and paid), but none of them was that good as the Windows Phone one.

Time to switch

I have switched to Android around 2 years ago. I am not a smartphone power user but more and more apps I've been using were declaring end of life/support for Windows Phone platform. Besides that I've noticed that I've started having issues with connection to Windows Phone Store itself from time to time (app was launching but it seemed like it didn't have connection to the server - nothing has been loading at all).

After some time using some stock / built-in Android launcher I've learned about Launcher 10 - I don't remember exactly when was the last time app had convinced me (or ever) to buy full/premium version of itself after trying out the demo before. But this one was the solution I've been looking for after switching from Windows Phone. You can basically customize almost everything (similarly to Windows Phone 10 customization features, but with even more options) - from background, tiles size, transparency, colors, labels to even icon sets (so you're not attached to original app icons if you don't want them). This launcher also supports calendar, weather or clock widgets so you can get from your home screen as much as you need/want. What was a big surprise to me it also enables you to display app list in the same way as it was in Windows Phone ❤️. Big kudos to the author, he totally nailed it! 💪

Summary

If you're an Android user and you're missing Windows Phone so much as me, I totally recommend Launcher 10 - it's worth every penny. I'm now keeping my fingers crossed for Surface Duo (release date and price) hoping that it will be a good match for this launcher as well 🙂.

PS. Happy Valentines! ❤️

-- ł.