Using Windows Phone in 2026 reminded me just how badly I miss it

Die-hard Windows Phone 8.1 fans have been hard at work recently. First, there was an update to the alternative app marketplace, 8Marketplace. Shortly after, a third-party app unofficially brought Telegram support to the platform. We’ve also seen updates to a few other apps recently, bringing Bluesky support and more.

The renewed interest certainly got my attention. While I never used the Windows Phone platform as my daily driver beyond a brief period around 2014, when I bought a secondhand Lumia 1020, I did really enjoy it. I even had a Windows 10 Mobile-powered Lumia 650 I used as a secondary device. While I liked the Lumia 650’s Windows 10 Mobile experience, I felt like Windows Phone 8.1 was a better platform overall, and so I was excited to see the OS getting new love in 2026.

This led me to dust off my Lumia 1020. It had been at least two years since I last turned it on, and even then, it was only for around ten minutes to see if it still powered on. If I’m honest, I hadn’t really used the phone in any meaningful way in nearly a decade. While the battery still holds a charge and the phone booted up just fine, the battery life is unsurprisingly severely degraded. Still, beyond that, the phone works about the same as always.

I was able to get onto Wi-Fi with no issue, though Internet Explorer barely works with most of today’s websites, and I ran into many issues there. I ended up installing the 8Marketplace app, where I found a few custom social media apps and a few older, working legacy apps like TuneIn Radio. Overall, it was a fun, nostalgic romp that was undone by the same enemy that has always haunted the platform: a lack of app support.

There’s no way to use Windows Phone 8.1 as a primary platform in the US in 2026 due to the lack of key apps, lack of security fixes, and the fact that I can’t even get it to play nicely with any of the big three networks with the US Mobile SIM I installed. Windows Phone is simply too old, lacks many modern LTE standards, and has no 5G support.

I might not have gotten a usable platform experience here, but playing around with the Lumia 1020 still taught me something. I miss Windows Phone more than I thought.

Windows Phone was far from perfect, but many of its problems had more to do with timing, marketing, and Microsoft’s commitment issues than with any major problems with the platform itself. In fact, one of the best things about Windows Phone was just how well it worked on minimal hardware.

Thanks to incredible optimizations, Windows Phone wasn’t particularly resource-intensive. As a result, the company tended to focus more on mid-range specs. For example, the flagship Nokia 1020 sported a Snapdragon S4 Plus, which was a generation behind the Android flagships that ran newer Qualcomm chips. Instead, the company focused on an easy-to-use interface and camera performance.

Not only did the Lumia feature a then-impressive 41MP camera system, but it also had one of the most robust camera apps available. In some ways, the Nokia and Microsoft Lumias felt closer to Google’s later vision with the Pixel. Lower-end hardware on paper, but with software optimized to make the most out of every spec.

The downside to Microsoft’s strategy is that Windows Phone and later Windows 10 Mobile missed opportunities to deliver power-user-level devices that could have been better futureproofed. Just like early Pixels, its phones also stumbled a bit with battery life.

It wasn’t just performance that stood out positively for Windows Phone; the OS itself was extremely smooth, and the Metro UI felt truly unique. The UI offered live tiles with glanceable information that Android and iOS have only recently been able to match. In some ways, I’d argue that Metro’s approach made it even easier than some of the solutions modern mobile OSes have adopted.

Then there was the deep integration with Windows itself. Unified contacts, native (though limited) Office support on Windows Phone, instant OneDrive Sync features, and more.

Microsoft has continued to expand on its mobile-to-desktop integration in Windows 11, but these days it is instead making it easier to work with Android. I really think they would have made an even bigger dent here if Microsoft had kept pushing its unification efforts with its own mobile and desktop platforms.

Most of what made Windows Phone special is now possible these days on both Android and iOS. It’s just that the exact strategies used differ quite a bit.

Not everyone loves Microsoft’s direction with Windows 11, but it’s still grown into a robust OS that is miles ahead of what existed in the Windows 8 and Windows 10 days.  I’m truly sad that we’ll never get to see what Windows Phone or even Windows 10 Mobile could have evolved into with better direction and app support.

There’s nothing predetermined about Windows Phone’s fate, and different company decisions might have resulted in a much more successful product. Frankly, Microsoft badly underestimated the future impact of smartphones early on and was pretty much scrambling to catch up as a result.

The evolution from Windows Phone 7 to Windows Phone 8 and then to Windows 10 Mobile also introduced significant fragmentation issues. Naturally, this didn’t help the poor app support situation. Microsoft tried to counter somewhat toward the end with greater financial incentives for devs and a push to convert existing Android apps, but it was too little, too late by then.

What would Windows Phone even look like today if it had somehow survived? While we can’t know for sure, we can look to its surviving competitors to get a better idea.

Android and iOS have both championed many of their own unique features, but over time, we’ve also seen greater cohesion as both platforms adopt each other’s standout features with small tweaks that better fit their DNA. Windows Phone would have likely evolved and improved its UI by further refining what it did well, while borrowing the most successful features from its competitors.

If the platform had survived, I would have probably still stuck to Android as my primary OS, but I really think more competition would have been a good thing. How about you? Do you think Windows Phone’s survival would be good for the market, or would it just lead to more confusion?