Yesterday I did something a bit cray cray; I bought a Windows Phone.  Now, before you go thinking I've lost my mind, I bought it just to write code on.  I want to broaden my skills, so to speak.  But I should mention a few things about this phone: first of all, it's a really nice phone.  It has a solid feel to it, and it's quite peppy, and very usable.  I haven't used the phone part, admittedly, (because I didn't want to activate it) but then, who uses a phone as a phone these days anyway?  The hardware is slick.  It's obvious that it's the descendant of the Nokia machine; say what you will but they build quality phones.  User replacable battery, for example.

Of course they don't call it Windows Phone 10.  It's just Windows 10.  Which is cool, because I think Microsoft is genuinely onto something here.  The major reason I haven't invested in an iPad Pro is because it doesn't run OS X.  It runs iOS, which is cool and all, but doesn't run the stuff I want to run, most notably XCode.  Merging all the Windows platforms - what they call UWP (Universal Windows Platform) is clearly the right answer.  

And another thing worth mentioning about this phone - the Microsoft Lumia 640 - is that it costs 30 dollars.  30.  Without contract or anything.  At Best Buy.  It's a very nice, solidly mid-range phone, that I could recommend to anyone (from a hardware standpoint), for roughly 15 times less than the cost of a comparable iPhone.

This is not to say anyone will buy one.  They won't.  At least, not this time around.  But if Microsoft can keep pushing out $30 phones and merge Windows with their phone OS, and if I could run Visual Studio on my $30 phone (which, by the way, can already connect to a keyboard, mouse and monitor), then I honestly think they could be on to something.