The Move From Nokia–What’s Missing?

When the HTC One (M8) for Windows was release in late August, there was a severe party happening in my head. Finally, after almost 2 years away from my beloved Titan, I was coming back to HTC for a real Windows Phone. Don’t get me wrong, the HTC 8x was a good device, but compared to the powerhouse devices that Nokia was throwing out there, it just didn’t measure up very well. Fast forward a few months in to my journey with this new titan of a phone and I can tell you that there is something missing with the M8 that I just didn’t account for entirely.

First off, missing out on the Nokia suite of Apps didn’t seem all that bad at first. Yes, I miss Nokia Camera, MixRadio and Play To. They were huge reasons why I was able to avoid going back to Android for so long. Losing them was like losing my wallet, it sucked, but I was able to get everything to work again. With Apps like OnePlayer and the advanced HTC Camera features I didn’t miss them too much. But…

As I drifted into the device itself, there were many pieces missing from the functionality of Windows Phone that I just didn’t realize were Nokia-centric. Starting with the looks, the Nokia Display App features a way to edit the color profile of the device and set it up to save battery with the brightness control. That’s missing from the M8. Next we jump in a bit further with the Touch menu found on the Lumia series. This includes double tap, navigation feed back and the touch sensitivity settings. Again, missing on the M8.

Moving onward, glance is gone, though the Dot View case sure does a nice job of filling in for glance. Access Point is gone as well. There’s no adjusting both the data and MMS APN’s on the M8, just the data settings. Device hub is missing also. In fact, one of the best features of Windows Phone for me personally was the call+SMS filter App, which isn’t actually an App, but a part of Nokia’s firmware!

Overall, I don’t regret the move back to the gorgeous HTC handset that I have grown to cherish in the last month and a half. In fact, it’s quite the opposite, I love my HTC One (M8) for Windows more than any of my Windows Phone devices so far and can’t imagine having to carry anything else at this point.