So my Moto G LTE broke…I decided I was kind of over Android and didn’t want to go to ios having owned an ipod touch before and never really liked it plus I feel like their phones sell at such a premium. I also wanted to go back a bigger screen having moved from a lost HTC One to the Moto G LTE.

With all this Windows 10 buzz I decided I gonna go Windows. I got a Blu Win HD lte for less than $200….and now I think I’m nuts I did kind of research and thought I’d be fine but tiny things are driving me nuts, Pocket Casts has no functionality compared to BeyondPod, no god damn sleep timer! I miss the way the Gmail app would sort out incoming emails to purchases etc….thats no longer the case with the mail app on Windows.

I was also thinking now with Windows 10 for phones on the horizon and their apparent move towards apps working across all devices and easier ways for devs to copy over from android and iphone apps.

Note I’ve had this phone for just 24 hours lol.

Every once in a while I think I'll switch to WP, I think they're really neat but I just want the security of having apps that I get with android.

My first smartphone was a Windows Phone device and I haven't gone elsewhere since. Ask me anything. I might be the best/worst person for this (since I've never used another platform outside of 10 minutes with someone else's phone).

I'm using Podcast Lounge and don't have any issues with GB feeds.

For videos I recommend VLC. It came out recently and plays anything I throw at it.

Is there a gmail app you could install?

I hooked up my gmail account to the default mail app. Probably doesn't have all the functionality, but it can do anything I would want to do with my e-mails on a spartphone.

For podcasts, today I started using Podcast Lounge. I recommend it.

Good to hear VLC is finally out. Now I only wait for foobar to come out and I'm set.

Not too late to return it, right? I don't know what the availability is like, but OnePlus Two (or One Two?) is the best Android phone so far.

Last time I checked, Metro Mail was a decent gmail client.

So the major thing I miss from a gmail point of view is the purchases dividing out. I'm starting to live with it though.

As for Podcast Lounge...it is so much better than where Pocketcasts is up to on Windows in terms of how the UI works and functionality around it's play back settings. However I cannot get it to auto download. I've read how your phone has to be plugged in and it will auto do it but it's not been. It will auto refresh/update the podcasts but not download them. This is despite me setting the sync up to download etc.... it's a major step back in how I think about podcasts used to be just having it work for me lol. Have you had this problem at all?

@falconer You said to ask you anything so here goes! What do you for a news aggregator? I used to use googles news app to pull through gamespot, polygon, kotaku etc... it would strip the formatting but nothing seems to be out there. A bunch of these news apps seem to do nothing more than pull the mobile browser version through and actually impact on the screen space by having ads take up a good chunk of the page.

Cheers for the help guys seems I'm not alone!

One last question as well what the hell do people use for maps? the actual map app will plan a route but not do navigation so I have HERE Drive but my issue with this is the route won't display as steps only the map itself.

I loved my Windows phone when i had it. Unfortunately when my work provided me with my new phone i only had the option of an Iphone or Android, i went with the Iphone6.

I don't know what it is about it but the Iphone just lacks personality, it's weird i know, but when i had my Windows Phone it felt like my phone. My Iphone not so much, probably the main reason was I was one of the few in my group of friends who had a Windows Phone so it just felt more unique and tied to me.

I use the default "News" app. You can add/remove news sources as you wish, and the app will sync across any devices where you're signed into the same Microsoft account.

@fram: This app would be perfect except it gets stuck saying one moment please upon set up.

@Bane hmmm I can't seem to add sources to the news app that aren't on their list it says it can't find them....

@flameboy84: I use Cortana for news at a glance. If I want to see more, I'll use Microsoft's News app or USA Today. But when I want sports stuff I'll go to ESPN or a couple of F1 apps that I have.

I use Here Drive for navigation. I don't see any option anywhere to do what you want. That seems counter to what most people want though, so that's probably why it's not in there.

@falconer: Yeah I get that but it's just very odd that they wouldn't even offer up the option for a quick look at the directions as a list. It's no huge deal but would have been nice. Also am I right in thinking that Here Drive works without data so if I'm abroad I can use it. A lend over from Nokia maps?

@flameboy84: You can look at the list of directions. It's in Here Maps if you scroll down before tapping on navigation. I don't remember off the top of my head how to get to it in Drive, if it's in that one.

Downloadable maps has always been a feature of Nokia/Here/Microsoft maps. It's not a "hold over", it's a feature.

@falconer: ok cheers.

You know what? I installed the thing yesterday, loved the interface and the per-podcast settings and just assumed it was going to work the way you expected it to work. I didn't feel like listening to any podcast before I read your message. When I checked, nothing had been downloaded. I know why though. Did you read the explanation of their sync mechanism? There is a link in the settings. They rely on the Windows Phone background download mechanism to minimize the power usage during working hours (I think). This mechanism kicks in when three conditions are met:

1. The phone is plugged in and there is at least 90% of juice left in the battery.
2. You're on Wi-Fi (I suppose this can be overridden in system settings)
3. The screen is locked.

I was at 80% after an uneventful night, so I plugged the phone in and when I woke it up after half an hour, there were 17 new episodes waiting for me. Seems to work as intended.

It seems like MS is shooting itself in the foot here by providing a convenient system-level mechanism, which is muddled by these strict restrictions. I have no idea why they don't allow competent users (it's hardly a power user level feature) to set the conditions for download initiation.

Yep, it works offline and it's a pretty sweet feature if you ask me. Also, when I switched from Android and Google Maps I was quite surprised by the precision of the directions that Here Drive gives. I used to be mislead much more often by GM, espacially in the centers of towns with a lot of one-way streets and on complicated multi-level intersections with multiple consecutive exits. It might be the precision of road-geometry in the map or just that the time interval by which the instruction precedes the desired action is better suited to my (legal +5-20 km/h) driving speed. Also this might be the other way around in the US, since Nokia was always more popular in Europe. I wonder what the new owners will do with Here Maps.

Podcast lounge is great.