Hands-on with Windows 10 Mobile build 10572 – The best one yet?

Lumia 1520
Lumia 1520 (Image credit: Windows Central)

Microsoft surprised Windows Insiders again today with another release of Windows 10 Mobile – the second within six days. Build 10572 was released despite having the same upgrade issue as the previous build. This setback means to upgrade from last week's build 10549 you first to need to rollback to Windows Phone 8.1 and then take the direct upgrade to build 10572.

So is it worth it? You bet. Not only does this release bring many new features, but the performance improvement on our Lumia 1520 is out of this world. Dare we say – this is starting to feel like RTM territory? That does not mean all is well – especially for dual SIM phones – but this release feels vastly different than any other.

Watch our hands-on video to see my first impressions!

Here's what's been fixed and what's still broken in Windows 10 Mobile build 10572

Some of the biggest additions include:

  • Text from your Windows 10 PC through your Windows 10 Mobile phone to any number – This relies on Cortana, for now, and it works very well. Cortana even notifies you that the message has been sent. So far, it does not look like you can directly send through the Windows 10 Messaging app, but this is still a new feature.
  • Camera is better, faster - Although we had some hang ups with reviewing the images, all now seems to be working. The camera is finally faster and is returning to Windows Phone 8.1 levels of performance
  • Store Offline Maps on SD card - If storage is a concern, you can push offline maps to your storage card. This feature is huge news for devices with low internal memory
  • Revamped Storage Settings- Storage settings get a new look
  • Edge is faster, now has progress bar - One of my pet peeves is fixed as Edge now has a progress bar when loading a website; there is an option to change search from Bing to another engine, but it is not yet working; Edge overall feels more polished

There are still a few occasional hiccups. When we send through Outlook from Photos, the message is sent but Outlook hangs on the logo; some users have complained they can't set a background image, and there are few other oddities, but hardly anything show stopping.

Microsoft has also reportedly fixed the Cortana-power issue, meaning better battery life. We'll, of course, have to play with the build over the next few days to see how it holds up, but yeah, this is worth the trouble. Even the Store is supposedly fixed for stuck-apps.

Build 10572 is a big milestone for the Windows 10 team, and we are super excited about using this as a daily driver.

Need more help? Jump into our Windows 10 Mobile forums and sound off in comments about your experience with Windows 10 Mobile build 10572. Is this the turning point? Let us know!

Daniel Rubino
Editor-in-chief

Daniel Rubino is the Editor-in-chief of Windows Central. He is also the head reviewer, podcast co-host, and analyst. He has been covering Microsoft since 2007, when this site was called WMExperts (and later Windows Phone Central). His interests include Windows, laptops, next-gen computing, and watches. He has been reviewing laptops since 2015 and is particularly fond of 2-in-1 convertibles, ARM processors, new form factors, and thin-and-light PCs. Before all this tech stuff, he worked on a Ph.D. in linguistics, watched people sleep (for medical purposes!), and ran the projectors at movie theaters because it was fun.