Windows 10 vs Windows 8.1: The changes so far in pictures

Nobody knows for certain what the future holds for Microsoft in mobile, especially now that the company has essentially admitted that buying Nokia was a blunder that cost it nearly 8 billion dollars. And yet, development of Windows 10 is still going strong, and with it fans of the software giant's mobile operating system will have something to talk about for a long time to come.

We're not quite there yet, though. Windows 10 for mobile is still in beta, and access to it is reserved for the adventurous at heart. Months ago, we added a new resident device to our list — the Lumia 635 — in order to keep track of what's new, and we're finally ready to reveal some of the changes. Why the delay? Well, for a long time, the beta program just didn't work for us, and despite a number of emails sent to Microsoft, we never were given assistance figuring the problem out. Thankfully, the issue resolved itself (well, not really, but carry on) with time, and we were finally able to flash the beta software on the 635.

Rocking the 10136.0 build, it's worth pointing out that we're a step behind — the newer version simply won't install for us, no matter what. But since we've been sitting on a ton of screenshots for what feels like forever now, we decided to just go ahead and show you what's changed already. Quite frankly, even obtaining these wasn't easy, as the software is all kinds of unstable and crashes/hangs almost every other minute. That's normal, of course, given its beta status, but it again explains why we took our sweet while.

No more rambling, though. Let's take a look:

Windows 10 always on the left; Windows 8.1 always on the right.