WHAT IF WINDOWS PHONE 8.1 IS ACTUALLY GOOD?

We confess: It’s no big secret that Android and iOS are more popular than Windows Phone - right now, at least. But what if the new Windows Phone 8.1 is actually good - and dare we say it - even better than its competitors?

LIVING IMAGES MAKE MOVING MEMORIES

It’s your daughter’s birthday, and you want to take a picture of her blowing out the candles on her birthday cake. Wait, should you take a photo or video? Quick, she’s going to do it!

With Living Images, you’ll never have to choose, and you’ll never miss a precious moment. Living Images captures the seconds before you snap a photo as a video. Whereas other phones capture only a still picture, you’ll see a video of your daughter preparing to blow out the candles, then the photo you took of the exact moment she did.

The best part is that it all works automatically whenever you use Nokia Camera (on selected Lumia phones), so you don’t have to worry about using a separate app, or ever missing a moment you never want to forget.

TYPE FASTER, WAY FASTER

Yes, we know that your Android friends have apps like SwiftKey and Fleksy installed, while your iPhone friends are waiting for iOS 8 to install new keyboards. But the new Word Flow keyboard comes installed with Windows Phone 8.1, and it lets you type faster, way faster, just by gliding your nger over the screen. The Word Flow keyboard even broke the world record for fastest keyboard when it was rst unveiled. Word Flow can also pick up names that are nondictionary words from Contacts, and you can add your own words to the dictionary.

SAVE TIME, MONEY & SPACE USING SENSE

With Windows Phone 8.1, your phone just makes sense. If you have lots of stuff on your phone, the new Storage Sense lets you see what’s taking up the most space, plus help you delete big apps and temporary les to make more room.

Worried about going over your data limit this month and paying big for it? Data Sense helps you watch your data usage and can even help you reduce it, by doing little tricks like compressing browser data. Running low on power? Battery Power Sense to the rescue; it’ll shut down non-essential apps to help your phone keep running. But if you must have your WhatsApp running you can pin it to a VIP list to get your messages.