My apologies, this is gonna be long.
I returned my last 950XL for a refund a few months ago and went back to my old 1520. It's amazing how that felt like an upgrade, but it definitely did.
Anyway, the 1520 died recently and I also had _had_ it with the lack of apps, random crashes (though these were more prevalent on the 950's and 950XL's than the 1520) and general bleak outlook on the Windows front.
So I got a Huawei mid-level phone to tide me over until I could get a S8+ Duo. My experience so far (it's been close to a month now) is very mixed.
First and formost, the app situation on Android is great. All the apps are there. My bank apps which were recently pulled, the parking app, the DJI Go app which was never available on Windows in the first place. All there. Great. Also, the apps don't mysteriously crash and burn as they sometimes would on the 950's (and still do on my Surfaces, Xboxes, PCs etc - surely an underlying UWP issue) and they are noticeably faster, not only in operation but also in terms of startup time. It's a joy.
I prefer the Outlook app over the standard Android email app, but I much prefer Windows mail app over Outlook. The same goes for a few other apps, but overall, it's better to have apps that are somewhat sub par than not at all.
And this is where things take a turn for the worse.
I greatly miss the live tiles from Windows. In fact, I miss the entire UX, but mostly that is because I'm accustomed to how Windows works. Live tiles is something more though. Before making the switch to Android I could tell you, at any given time, what the exchange rate between USD and GBP was and if I didn't know it of the top of my head I'd know within seconds of looking at my phone, because there was a live tile telling me along with financial headlines and so on.
Sure, there are widgets on Android. It's a great concept, in fact some of the widgets are much better, or rather much more efficient, than live tiles will ever be (unless they ever do implement the actionable tiles they talked about back when). The problem with widgets though is this, they all look completely different. There it's no underlying design language for them. The UI becomes a garbled mess as soon as you add more than a couple to any given screen.
Also, what I've found is that the majority of apps don't have a widget at all, and those which do often doesn't provide the kind of information at a glance one would expect or need.
In general, I feel a lot less informed about the world around me now than I did while using Windows, and it's all because there are no live tiles showing me (pulling me in) the news headlines, financial markets, sports scores, upcoming events and so on.
Which brings me to notifications. What in the hell is going on with notifications on Android? I've tried a bunch of different launchers, lock screen replacements and whatnot by now, but apps will still randomly not give a notification at all or they will be delayed and appear like busses, all at once. Also, a bunch of apps seem to only give notifications while the all is running. Ring Video Doorbell for example, on Windows phone the app is much more basic than on Android, but notifications would always show up. On Android, notifications have only ever arrived while the all had been in memory. I've missed umpteen package deliveries (I also have smart locks so can let drivers in when I'm not here) since switching and I can no longer rely on being alerted once the postman passes (for some reason, his is the only vehicle which sets of the motion detection at the back door).
The same is true for so many other apps. Email notifications seem to randomly show up. Skype, which I've had a love/hate relationship with for years is even more useless for chat now than it was on Windows. The other day I got a bunch off notifications all at once and it turned out the were for messages sent some eighteen hours ago?!
Other times my phone will chime or ding or wake up for some reason, but not tell me why or show any sign of why in the notification centre or open apps.
And finally, well, for now at least. While some apps do allow you to "pin" shortcuts to the home screen(s), it's not by any means as many add on Windows, and the ones which do mostly just gives a single link location.
I'm still getting the S8+ Duo, but if the app gap improves even a teeny tiny little bit within the next year I'm going right back to Windows. It's a much more polished experience and even though Microsoft has chipped away at everything that initially made Windows Phone so promising and unique, it's still a much better experience overall than I've found Android to be.
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