Microsoft pushed Windows 10 Mobile Redstone Build 14342 yesterday, as the latest Redstone build to Windows Insiders in Fast Ring and rocking any Redstone Preview supported Device as per the official list. Time for our Installation experience, Hands-on demo of Build 14342 and new Store app, Bugs list and Impressions of the Build 14342 now!!
Apart from the changes, new features, fixes and improvements in official changelog, we reported many unreported changes and features over the last Build 14332, which you can watch in action by clicking here.
Installation Experience:
Just like Build 14332, the Installation experience has been mixed to good for the Build 14332. It was smooth on again one of our devices and depending upon the network conditions and connection speed, it took around 50-55 minutes for the build to get downloaded, installed, data migrated and the devices getting up and running. On other device it took around 1 hour 10 minutes. While we didn’t face any issue with Data migration post installation of the update, you may face it and best is to wait and let it do its thing and finish data migration. In case it takes too much time try a soft reset and it may work finally. You can refer to our common issues and errors fixing guide for more.
You will be usually notified for a restart when the download has completed in background. It may require up to 1 GB of free storage. So, check the storage before you upgrade and you can check our tutorial on how to prepare for upgrade to Windows 10 Mobile.
Hands-on Impressions:
We have demoed the Build 14342 on two devices, Lumia 640 XL and Lumia 550 and here is what you can notice in our hands-on video demo.
- During our hands-on with the Build 14342 we found it to be fast and responsive and mostly crash-free
- The overall UI, Lock Screen, Settings navigation all feel sorted out.
- Multitasking looks good too with Fast Resume working fine even on Lumia 550
- Native apps like Microsoft Edge, Camera, Outlook Mail & Calendar etc work fine
- Microsoft Edge seems loading pages bit faster as compared to last Build and swipe navigation is really impressive. It has been not crashing since the last build.
- Mobile Data and Wi-Fi works fine and without any issue
- Battery Life seems promising so far
- It looks like a good daily driver build if you don’t mind some sudden quirks. Yes, it is a Fast Ring build and can get moody at times, though it is one of the most stable Redstone builds.
Major Bug & Issues:
- Microsoft needs to do something about the Bluetooth functionality. It takes lots of time in even pairing two devices on Build 14342 and experience is not good. We tried and failed in sending images from one device to another even after pairing both of them.
- It is not frequent but swiping down to close Apps in Multitasking screen doesn’t seem to close the apps and the “closed apps” open one by one, till the time you close them again.
- New Store app has many issues and the Recent apps history takes ages in populating. The Check for updates button seems broken though the Store app auto-checks for apps updates when you launch the app.
So, Build 14342 can be said to be a more promising build than last Build 14332 but still has some major bugs that needs to fixed especially the Bluetooth experience and Store app issues. In our opinion Microsoft is moving in right direction with the latest Redstone builds. Our hands-on with this build is still brief and we may be able to find more bugs and issues after playing with this build for some more time. We also want to make it clear that it is our hands-on experience with the build and your experience may vary and may be better or worse than ours.
We must mention that we haven’t done hard reset on our devices but we recommend if you are facing lots of issues. You can read our guide to fix commonly known Windows 10 Mobile upgrade, installation and usability issues.
