The dream of the one device and several screens always has appealed to me. But I'm worried because of the whole app situation.
Also, any W10M devices work on Sprint?
Also, any W10M devices work on Sprint?
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Mobile OSs How good does Continuum work?
- Thread starter Michael Goff
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From my brief experience with a Lumia 950 XL a friend was trying to sell me, continuum works, but its extremely limited.
Indeed if you have a monitor & keyboard / mouse to connect it to, the chances are you actually already have a computer or laptop.
There are only a handful of stock apps that work, and you can't really multitask - even running word ends up being a slow cumbersome exercise, akin to a very cheap netbook experience. And it crashed a number of times and on couple of occasions required me to unplug and restart the phone. It was quite buggy.
In principal it should be great, in practice its pretty meh.
After about 4 days with the 950 XL I returned it to my friend and told him I wasn't interested. The lack of apps is still a major problem, the lack of google support is another. Continuum novelty expired after about 90 minutes of trying it.
Biggest issue for me was the 950 XL itself. It just was meh! of a device.
Indeed if you have a monitor & keyboard / mouse to connect it to, the chances are you actually already have a computer or laptop.
There are only a handful of stock apps that work, and you can't really multitask - even running word ends up being a slow cumbersome exercise, akin to a very cheap netbook experience. And it crashed a number of times and on couple of occasions required me to unplug and restart the phone. It was quite buggy.
In principal it should be great, in practice its pretty meh.
After about 4 days with the 950 XL I returned it to my friend and told him I wasn't interested. The lack of apps is still a major problem, the lack of google support is another. Continuum novelty expired after about 90 minutes of trying it.
Biggest issue for me was the 950 XL itself. It just was meh! of a device.
I doubt we will see many more Windows Phones going forward, and therefore chances of developers even bothering to make the already limited apps on Windows Phone work for Contiuum is slim.
Great idea in principal, but comes way too late to save the platform ...
This is coming from this forums #1 Microsoft fanboy, I think continuum kind of sucks. It's an interesting concept, but it doesn't really give us the "one device" utopia. MS really needs to get x86 capability on windows mobile. Now with that said I do NOT expect desktop programs to run on a smartphone UNLESS they are hooked up to a larger monitor, that truly will be "one device". Exactly as MRU says, if you already have a monitor, keyboard and mouse then chances are you already have a PC. Let's not forget the bulky adapter and having to plug into that.
Continuum apps themselves are quite limited, more limited than I thought they would be. Even though they are universal, they really seem like blown up smartphone apps. It's a shame because MS is on the r ight train of thought. Sure they are unifying windows to some extent across all platforms, but it's just too simplified. The genius of MS strategy was always them fixing Windows to work in the touch and/or mobile world, instead of releasing a dumbed down OS like Apple/Google did. But with continuum it seems they are dumbing down programs into apps on a large monitor, and that's already been done with poor results. Maybe MS will make a better effort in avoiding utterly stupid mistakes like not having mouse support in iOS.
In any case windows mobile is dead. I doubt a surface phone will revive it, and certainly continuum won't. So I'm not sure where continuum is going from here. Personally I'd love to see some form of continuum on my Android phone, Ihave no idea if this is feasible. Maybe the Android version of Office, for example, can morph into something more useful when connected to a larger monitor. Now it makes more sense because Android is limited anyhow, so you don't have the expectation of a desktop program.
Continuum apps themselves are quite limited, more limited than I thought they would be. Even though they are universal, they really seem like blown up smartphone apps. It's a shame because MS is on the r ight train of thought. Sure they are unifying windows to some extent across all platforms, but it's just too simplified. The genius of MS strategy was always them fixing Windows to work in the touch and/or mobile world, instead of releasing a dumbed down OS like Apple/Google did. But with continuum it seems they are dumbing down programs into apps on a large monitor, and that's already been done with poor results. Maybe MS will make a better effort in avoiding utterly stupid mistakes like not having mouse support in iOS.
In any case windows mobile is dead. I doubt a surface phone will revive it, and certainly continuum won't. So I'm not sure where continuum is going from here. Personally I'd love to see some form of continuum on my Android phone, Ihave no idea if this is feasible. Maybe the Android version of Office, for example, can morph into something more useful when connected to a larger monitor. Now it makes more sense because Android is limited anyhow, so you don't have the expectation of a desktop program.
I actually really like Continuum. I sampled a Nokia 950 XL for work. It worked fairly well. I'll say I kept my expectations in check (I didn't expect that it would replace my laptop completely). I took it on a business trip overseas and was able to use it exclusively (though I had my surface as a backup). The only "annoyance" was dragging around the hub to connect to an external display - otherwise I used a MS foldable keyboard with an arc touch mouse and I was able to do all of my work (mostly web-based applications and word/PowerPoint). I did feel a bit like James Bone using it.
From an expectations P.O.V. -
- it's not a laptop, don't expect it to be able to run heavy applications. It runs Office apps pretty well.
- Browser performance was not bad
- smooth operation running on a monitor or projector.
- Worked well connecting to HDMI on the TV in the hotel room.
- Never had any issues with crashing or any issues with the hub
- It scaled very well - from phone to TV to projector
- Again, not huge in the processor and memory space, but works well for basic tasks
It's not "one device, many screens" (yet) but it could work as the only computer you need on a business trip (assuming you're not doing CAD or video editing).
From an expectations P.O.V. -
- it's not a laptop, don't expect it to be able to run heavy applications. It runs Office apps pretty well.
- Browser performance was not bad
- smooth operation running on a monitor or projector.
- Worked well connecting to HDMI on the TV in the hotel room.
- Never had any issues with crashing or any issues with the hub
- It scaled very well - from phone to TV to projector
- Again, not huge in the processor and memory space, but works well for basic tasks
It's not "one device, many screens" (yet) but it could work as the only computer you need on a business trip (assuming you're not doing CAD or video editing).