After iPhone and Android Windows phone is the most popular choice in smart phone market. It has all the features which makes a successful operating system for smart phone. I think the only area where Windows Phone is lacking is not having enough application in app store. Though Microsoft claiming that day by day number of application is increasing, but till date it has less number of official app in Windows Phone store in comparison to Apple Store and Google play. The good news is that you can get almost all the applications of our basic daily use for Windows Phone platform and it is growing day by day.

Some feature I like is that it has in-build data and storage counter. You can set your monthly data usage limit . Phone will automatically warn you when you are near your limit. Also you can see statistic of which application is using most storage space in your phone. If necessary you can move your installed applications from phone memory to SD card. You can instruct your phone to store your music, videos, pictures and other downloaded applications to your SD card. Windows Phone start screen is the most customizable area. You can pin your favorite application’s icon there. You can re size them of your choice. Many apps having live tiles, that means they can show update when pinning at your start screen without opening the app. You can enjoy live tile with almost all mainstream apps like news, facebook, twitter, weather etc.

If you have Microsoft account then you can add that with your phone. All your email, contacts and calender will remain in sync. I found this feature is very useful for me. It has build-in office app for phone. Though it is not as sophisticated like as Microsoft Office desktop, but it is good for viewing email attachment and last time editing before sending to someone through email. Outlook is very usable for daily email. It support Microsoft Exchange account, so you can add your office email in it. Outlook phone app not support .pst files. That means you cannot create archive in it. Email, contacts, calender with them you can use Windows Phone as a professional user for your work.

Another good feature is lock screen. By default it shows time, date, your calender appointment/event and notification like miss call, text SMS, email, twitter, facebook etc. You can customize what notification you want to see in your lock screen. You can set lock screen background picture from your own picture in the phone, or you can set other application to control this. You can set twitter or facebook updates to show in your lock screen. People hub also a useful feature. It shows all your contacts in one place, like your Microsoft account contacts, facebook, twitter people in one place.

The latest Windows Phone OS which is Windows Phone 8.1 has added some more value. Some nice updates of this you find really helpful as a user. Now you can find notification center with all your notifications in one place. You can type faster with sweep keyboard. Now it support six columns space in start screen. It support background picture for the start screen. The most impressive feature of Windows Phone 8.1 is Cortana. Cortana is the personal assistant. It works like Siri in iPhone and Google now in Android. It is now in beta version and currently not in India. Being a beta software it works nice as a personal assistent in your Windows Phone.

With all these we hope Windows Phone and app store will grow and it will become more usable to the users in near future.

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