Microsoft pushed Windows 10 Mobile Build 14393 to Insiders in Fast Ring and many consider it to be the RTM Build. You can read the official changelog and known issues by clicking here and here. On public demand, we bring our hands-on demo and evaluation of the build 14393. We have shared our Impressions of the build including performance, multitasking, gaming, navigation demo, bugs & Installation experience on a Lumia 640 XL and a Lumia 550.
Build 14393 Installation Experience:
The Installation experience has been smooth for us in case of the Build 14393. On three of our devices it took around 35-40 minutes for the build to get downloaded, installed, data migrated and the devices getting up and running. In case it takes too much time for you try a soft reset or plug-in the phone 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.
Build 14393 Hands-on Impressions (Performance, Multitasking, Gaming, Battery Life & more):
Here is what you could notice during our hands-on,
- The Build 14393 runs very smoothly on the low-end Lumia 550 and mid-ranger Lumia 640 XL. We did a hard reset on Lumia 640 XL but not on Lumia 550. But the experience has been equally good on both.
- It packs mainly fixes and improvements and feels to be fast and responsive during normal daily smartphone tasks like start-screen navigation, apps list scrolling, opening and closing of settings, handling calls, texts, Mails and more.
- Mobile Data and WiFi connections work fine on our devices
- Store works appreciably fast and fine for most of the times. However after a hard reset, apps re-installation may seem stuck at times and may happen slower than expected.
- Native apps like Maps, Camera, Outlook Mail & Calendar etc work fine. Sharing works flawlessly. In case you have done a hard reset you may however face issue with configuration of Google Mail. We have posted about this issue separately.
- Microsoft Edge has kept improving with every build. It loads pages faster and zooming, panning etc work appreciably well.
- Video streaming and playing also works fine without any issue like flickering faced on very early builds and we have demoed it too.
- Gaming also works fine and with Build 14393 we can see UWP games (optimized for Windows 10 Mobile) resuming really fast from background. The older games which are not optimized for Windows 10 Mobile like Traffic Rider lag while resuming
- Multitasking for apps works impressively and apps resume really fast from background. Apps don’t crash in background while multitasking
- Battery Life seems quite good so far during our hands-on usage of the Build. The Battery discharge rate seems to be the one of the lowest so far.
Major Bug & Issues:
- Microsoft needs to work with developers to get the Windows 10 Mobile optimized version of the games in the store, as optimization seems to be the culprit while multitasking with older games. Windows 10 UWP games resume instantly from background.
- Bluetooth functionality needs a UI and connectivity overhaul. Fixes for known Bluetooth issues too
- Store still has some glitches and one can face issues in apps installation after a hard reset
- In case you have done a hard reset you may however face issue with configuration of Google Mail.
In terms of performance, multitasking and overall polish it seems very close to earning a daily driver status for itself. So, Build 14393 really seems to be a solid build so far, but with many bugs still there one can just hope this is not the actual RTM build. Microsoft may release several cumulative builds for Build 14393 before making it the public release or Anniversary update. Microsoft, please take your 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 recommend hard reset, if you are facing lots of issues. You can read our guide to fix commonly known Windows 10 Mobile upgrade, installation and usability issues.
