Windows Mobile is 10 and one of the most important features of the operating system is Windows Continuum

Windows Mobile is 10 and one of the most important features of the operating system is Windows Continuum. You can thus turn your phone into a full computer. Is it successful Microsoft? We threw our PCs a day aside to try Continuum.

To look at Continuum, you must first understand what the function is precise. We wrote there already an article about which you can read here. In a nutshell, Windows Continuum is a new feature in Windows 10 Mobile, which lets you create a complete computer from your phone. Through your phone via a dongle hanging on a screen, you see a modified version of Windows 10 on your screen, complete with start menu and taskbar. Continuum is an essential part of Windows 10. The operating system must namely to bridge the gap between desktop and smartphone, and that starts with the long-cherished desire of a smartphone is actually a computer. Read also: 5 Things You Should Know About Continuum

Impressive
In theory, Continuum works particularly impressive. It is very simple to use and has some clever and useful features. It is also striking that Continuum is not a simple emulator but a new form of Windows 10 that could almost pass for full-fledged operating system. When you use Continuum, Windows 10 transforms into a desktop environment. Which has a start menu (which is an exact copy of the Start menu on your phone), a tray with different apps, and an Explorer. Even more impressive is how to change an app. Take Word, which suddenly turns through Continuum in the desktop version of the word processor.

Difficult in practice
Yet there are a few things to Continuum that do not work well, and are so annoying that they make virtually useless feature. Very unfortunate, but ultimately it works on Windows Continuum a very unpleasant experience.


few apps
That has to do with a few things. On one side there is the lack of apps suitable for Continuum. Windows Mobile has an app problem, and that is mainly in Continuum forward. Where you on the mobile phone still can come up with detours to the lack of apps (you can visit the mobile site Nest, despite no native app for it), you simply have no choice with Continuum.

You can continue using your phone as a phone still

One of the advantages (and also one of the more impressive features) of Continuum is that you can continue using your phone while you're working on your screen. Although you will not use WhatsApp on your PC, you can just use it on your phone chat app without something changes on your phone screen. In addition, you can use the special startup Continuum app on your phone, so you can use them as a mouse. That's very impressive, especially because at such times does not notice a delay or lag (at least not with the Lumia 950 ).

Power button turns everything off
What then again it is an incomprehensible design choice is that you can not phone taking off. That means in practice that you can not turn off your screen - and guess what very often occurs automatically when you put down your phone after you get 'em used? Every time you lock your device accidentally closes Continuum. That not only means that your screen goes black, but already lost your job. That means you need to restart your browser and other apps when you turn on screen - all are Word documents fortunately saved periodically.

Charge does not always
Continuum does not start always after closing more

Additional annoying is that Continuum does not always boot properly if you've locked your screen by mistake. At least half of the cases initiated the screen no longer automatically, and we had to unplug it from our monitor to get underway the feature again.

Strange UI choices
There are more strange problems in the OS whose usefulness escapes us completely. So Continuum does have a full Action Centre on the big screen, but you will get notifications only within the phone itself and not on the screen. There is also always a bar on your smartphone screen that lets you switch from the smartphone image to the virtual mouse - but the bar is always top of the screen, right in the place where normally always burger menus.

The infamous "app gap"
Windows Mobile has always suffered from the infamous "app gap, the fact that there are simply far fewer apps exist for Windows than for Android and iOS. Microsoft thinks (or hopes ...) that can solve with a few tricks in Windows 10 Mobile, and Continuum is one of them. By making the OS more attractive to people, app developers have to ultimately build more apps, and making for Continuum.

only Office
However, this means that there are still hardly use apps for Continuum. Only the standard apps from Microsoft itself, such as Office (Word, Excel and PowerPoint), email and OneDrive suitable to run in full screen, while apps like Twitter or Evernote does not have yet. Those apps are not to be used by Continuum, Continuum and that makes a lot less productive.

Edge
However, Microsoft says that Edge browser it plays a central role, because through the browser is of course possible to use the Web apps. In theory. In practice, however, while you walk against the limitations of the Snapdragon 810 processor, the Lumia 950, because although it is very good for smartphone concepts is for the desktop is simply not powerful enough.


Multitasking is impossible
Continuum is especially interesting for office users, who generally use more applications than the average user. So we have on an average day Twitter, Slack and Evernote open, but that's Edge really too much to ask. Regularly tabs then reload in the background, which is particularly annoying when you just stand somewhere in a chat conversation.

It is true that the app gap mainly attributable to developers - which, after all, have no apps for Continuum. On the other hand, you may wonder if Microsoft does do enough to bind developers to itself (more on that opinion is divided) and it is a mystery that many Microsoft apps like Skype and Groove Continuum are not compatible.

too spartan
In practice, it is very difficult to work with only Continuum. Well, you should not use Continuum to edit videos or live streams to follow, but if you even get to a computer should change to resize an image than just missing too much of the OS.

Lack of good Scout
Another great lack of Continuum is a solid Explorer. Windows for the desktop, the Explorer next to the Start menu, perhaps the most important part of the operating system, but in Continuum lacking proper integration of the Explorer, which makes working with files a very frustrating process. or to open the Explorer from the Start Menu in Continuum, but unlike other apps on the screen changes or not to new application. Explorer on a large monitor is simply a gigantic black surface with a few files on it.

Explorer does strange
If you need to upload a file from the browser, you will not see pop-up as the desktop OS, but a full screen version of the Explorer. Double-clicking a file does not work, because it opens up an image in the Photos app. Instead, you must click once on the image and then click on the check mark at the bottom of the Explorer. Also missing important features in Explorer, such as displaying a thumbnail, or information like file size.

Almost the same, but biting else
It all seem small and at first sight unimportant differences, Continuum and Scout in particular are full of such small design flaws that biting work a little differently than Windows 10 on the desktop, so much that the work is an unpleasant experience. Although everything seems to be similar, but you have to learn all over again because everything just what works differently.

Poor OneDrive Integration
Frustrating is the lack of integration of OneDrive, which works perfectly on the desktop because OneDrive there is simply a folder in Explorer.

Windows 10 Mobile, and thus Continuum, OneDrive is a separate app that does not work with the Explorer. Try, therefore, to save an image, you have to choose in advance the needs in the Explorer or OneDrive. If you do wrong, you can start again.

bugs
But the most annoying of Continuum are the many bugs that plague the feature. Unexplained crashes, error messages not to find fault codes, the image that often shall be set automatically ... It makes Continuum to an overall frustrating experience. That is very unfortunate for a feature that is so promising, but it is practically impossible to work a full day on Continuum. We tried it. It was one of the less productive days we have had.