Windows Phone 8.1 Review: Cortana Leads a Feature-Packed Update

What's This?

Cortana, Windows Phone's built-in voice assistant, is the marquee feature of the 8.1 update.

Image: Mashable, Will Fenstermaker

By Pete Pachal2014-04-14 12:00:29 UTC

Windows Phone has come a long way. Microsoft's phone platform has enjoyed a lot of critical success over the past few years, but the praise was mostly for things like design, cool tricks like live tiles, and the fact that it's not made by Apple or Google.

Even when Windows Phone received kudos, it was usually in an "attaboy" kind of way — a backhanded compliment that subtly hinted the truth: that for all its pizzazz, the operating system was, in some ways, months or even years behind its chief competitors, iOS and Android.

See also: The Year in Microsoft: 10 Defining Milestones

No longer. With Windows Phone 8.1 — which gets distributed to developers today, with the first handsets coming in a couple of weeks — the software on Windows handsets has caught up with its rivals. In a few use cases, Microsoft even offers a better experience.

The condition of Windows Phone's app catalog remains a big asterisk, though. Many popular iOS and Android apps don't have a Windows Phone version, and some of those that have taken the leap don't offer all the features of their counterparts.

Nonetheless, users and developers can approach that platform with a new confidence. Windows Phone 8.1 delivers the great user experience the platform is known for, but with far fewer, "Man, this phone would be great if only it could…" moments than previous generations.

The upgrades in Windows Phone 8.1 generally fall into three main buckets: new features, better personalization, and Cortana, the platform's newborn virtual assistant.

Cortana

The most scene-stealing new feature in Windows Phone 8.1 is Cortana, a voice-powered virtual assistant named after Master Chief's holographic helper in the Halo video games. While functionally similar to Apple's Siri, Cortana is more than just voice: her goal is to serve you better by learning from your behavior, anticipating your needs and offering you information when it makes sense.

Image: Microsoft

She does this by examining not just how you use your phone, but also with hooks into your personal information like your Bing and Facebook profiles (all opt-in, of course). Because anything that has access to our Bing history would really know a lot about us, right?

In all seriousness, it's a great idea, but one that takes time to really work. In my brief time with Cortana, I didn't get so much as a hint of her "anticipatory" abilities, although I look forward to the birthday gift suggestions for my brother come July.

I did, however, get a sense of Cortana's ability to learn. The first time I asked Cortana to text my wife, her contact card popped up along with every person in my address book who shared her first name. After I told her the correct one, on every subsequent command — whether it was a text or something else — all I had to do was say her first name, and Cortana knew who I was talking about.

That was great, but Cortana doesn't always get the hint. After pinning Mashable to my phone's home screen, I asked her to "Launch Mashable." Dutifully, Cortana asked whether I wanted to open the website or my Mashable Email account. I told her the site. And I did so the next 12 times I uttered the same command, but she never figured out to just stop asking and go right to the site.

This problem gets worse if the app in question lets you pin things to the Start screen. Evernote, for example, lets you pin individual notes to Start, so every time I asked Cortana to launch Evernote, she asked me which one. One was the actual app, another my To-Do list. But Cortana saw them both as the app, with the same name.

Image: Microsoft

Cortana was fantastic at performing typical voice-assistant stuff like creating calendar appointments, emailing contacts and setting reminders. I particularly liked the People Reminders — where you can attach a reminder to a specific contact, rather than a time or place ("remind me to tell Andrea I have two tickets to Rocky next time I talk to her").

Cortana also negates the need to download Shazam since she can listen for music and tell you what's playing just as well. She'll even save your search to refer to it later.

After spending some quality time with Cortana, I'm intrigued. I definitely get the sense that she's more capable than Siri, but it's hard to say how much is mere potential at this point. I'd love to see her integrated into more parts of the experience — I find it odd that she can't search the Windows Phone Store, for example.

I want to believe Cortana might, after months of continual use, evolve into an indispensable tool. The framework is there, but based on what I saw that's going to take some retraining.

Personalization

In iOS 6, Apple introduced a VIP list feature so users can designate contacts that matter the most to them. Windows Phone now has the same functionality with Inner Circle — a list of people who will be able to reach you even if you've set the phone to "Quiet Hours," another new feature that's similar to Do Not Disturb in iOS.

Microsoft hasn't just learned some feature tricks from Apple, though. With version 8.1, Windows Phone adds iCloud to its list of compatible accounts — something even Android phones usually don't offer. Now, if you have family members or important contacts on iOS, your Windows Phone will be able to integrate things like Calendars seamlessly.

The Calendar app itself is upgraded as well. When you're in the Week view, tapping on a day expands it with some pretty nifty animation. Tapping the day's header or the back button takes you back to the Week view. Microsoft's really outdone itself with the UI — it's much better than iPhone or anything on Android.

Image: Microsoft

One of my favorite aesthetic upgrades in version 8.1 is the Start screen background image. When you first set up your Windows Phone, you usually pick a theme color, which then dominates the Start screen's live tiles that don't have their own color.

Now, instead of a color, you can choose for those tiles to all share the same image. As you scroll up and down your start screen, the image doesn't move as fast as the scoll, so the tiles feel like a window to the picture in the background. Trust me, the effect is pretty cool.

Image: Microsoft

New features

One of the biggest holes in Windows Phone's feature lineup was some kind of notification center. The software could handle push notifications, of course; it just didn't have a central hub for them. Now it's got one in the form of Action Center, which you access by sliding from the top of the Start screen.

Besides providing a place to see your most recent notifications, Action Center also some quick settings. There are controls for Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, airplane mode and screen rotation lock, but those are just the defaults. You can substitute whatever settings you wish for the four buttons — a nice touch of customization.

Image: Microsoft

Action Center is well thought-out. For instance, when you dismiss one of the notifications by swiping right, the app's live tile reflects the change. After all, if I've already seen the email here, I don't need the tile screaming at me to check back. That's very logical, and something I'd like to see iOS get better at.

Microsoft changed the built-in onscreen keyboard in Windows Phone 8.1 to a "Word Flow Keyboard" — which is essentially Swype. The idea is you input text by swiping through letters without actually tapping the screen. You still can, but since you don't need to lift fingers anymore, you may be able to save some time.

I've never been that good with Swype, so I was skeptical of new feature, but I found that the big-key design of Windows Phone's keyboard makes all the difference. While I was often unsure of what to do with my other hand, the Word Flow keyboard was great for dashing off short notes quickly. You need a couple of days to get confident with it, but once you do you'll wish it was there on every phone you use.

Image: Microsoft

There are a host of other minor upgrades, including the ability to upgrade a voice call to a Skype call, VPN support and a reading mode in Internet Explorer 11, but the best one may be Wi-Fi Sense. This feature lets you skip any agreement screens when joining public Wi-Fi networks (which can sometimes interfere with access). Even better, you'll be able to share network access to any contact, without sharing a network's password. The downside: said contact needs to be using Wi-Fi Sense, too.

Going to 8.1

Windows Phone 8.1 isn't just another software update. With it, the platform is technologically closer to its rivals than its ever been (although some deficits, like Bluetooth Low Energy support, are still nagging). With Cortana, Microsoft is even venturing into parts unknown in the hope of creating something really forward-looking.

For today, though, Windows Phone 8.1 is a phenomenal smartphone experience — in many ways superior to iOS and Android. It's a shame, then, that the ecosystem is still challenged with issues surrounding app selection and app quality. Instagram on Windows Phone, for example, is a shadow of its iPhone version.

Windows Phone is rising fast, though, and in some regions its the No. 2 platform. At least with version 8.1, it's got about the most solid rocket booster it could get.

Topics: Cortana, reviews, Tech, Windows Phone, Windows Phone 8.1