Does the third row of tiles make your Windows Phone 8.1 Start Screen too small?

HTC 8x: Initially I thought it looked too small. I've rearranged everything and experimented with different colours ect and I don't think I could go back now. I find myself using the large tiles and medium tiles a lot more which look fine

Using 3 row tiles on my L620 BUT only using the large and medium tiles

A little too small on my HTC 8X but I expected it would be so am not concerned.

I find it great, at the beginning I was a bit unsure thought it looked bad and too small gave it a chance and I love ❤ it.

With a third row, everything becomes tiny on the 1020. If there were no margins, maybe it was useful, but now it is not. I reverted back to two columns layout.

I use medium tiles...and its very good

It reduces the scrolling time but looks too small on my 920.

On my 920 if I keep medium tiles as the smallest size it still looks better than the last style

It looks sexy on my Lumia 720, some people will never be satisfied the good thing is that you can retain wp8 look

It was a litle weird on my Lumia 520 at first, but after a while you get used to it. Now I can have a lot more wide tiles on my Start screen than I could before. Before they took up way too much space.

I don't really get this article and discussion. If you have a 4.5" screen and want to get the third column then of course everything will be smaller! It's like buying a camera with a certain angle and let's say you can fit 10 people from 3 meters away with no problem. If you want to fit in more people they can either squeeze together or you can move a bit back (everything gets smaler) or you can buy another camera with a wider angle.

The same goes for live tiles. They could have squeezed thema a bit but this would have ruined the clean UI. The only other two possibilities are that it's either smaller or you buy yourself a bigger phone.

It's just impossible to fit more tiles per row into the same screen. If you like it great if you don't, switch back to two column layout.

I have the three columns on my HTC 8X and it was a bit strange at the begining but now it's just pure awesomenes :D

Love it on my 8x

It's not that bad on 520

Third column looks just great on the Lumia 820.  I

Even after only a short time using the three column view the old two column layout seems goofily large.

Though on any phone smaller than my 925, I wouldn't consider it

Looks absolutely gorgeous on my Lumia 925. Loving 8.1 so far.

this is awesome feature i like this too much big  square tiles in three rows looking awesome & its optional i think nobdoy have problem about this feature.

Works great on my 1020. You just need to change the old layout, not just add to it. Cortana now take pride of place at the top.

I love it on my HTC 8X

Using Lumia 720. Now I cannot live without 3 column support. Sure the tiles are small but now I can have more large and medium tiles.

Background image + 3 column support = Ducking Awesome :).

They are small but I like it a change is a good thing n I can go back any time I want
Plus now I can see alot of stuff at the same time
Windowsphone + Lumia FTW

I now have more apps on my start screen than I did before the update AND I don't have to scroll!

Btw I'm on Lumia 820, and yes text had become a little too small for some tiles but its fine for me, ice tested it on the 920 as well and it looked a lot better on that

Works just fine for me, I'm not going back to the two columns any time soon

Love it on my 920! Really enjoy the additional organization it offers me and the less scrolling I need to do means I'll be less likely to forget what I'm looking for, lol.

I like it mainly because I can replace the small tiles with medium ones and finally use live tiles effectively.

I'm not a fan of phablets, but the moment I first saw the 3rd column on my L920, I thought to myself I should have bought the 1520!

On my HTC 8X lookin fantastic too!! Maybe it's it's a little bit small yeah.. But still suiting my phone beautifully.. Luv it

I'm happy sticking with two rows on the 920. The tile background image is enough to futz with for now. I just can't get over how amazing this keyboard is!

NO!!! Even in my 620!! I serious

Awesome on my 925...everything is right there...loving this update, keep it coming Microsoft

Using it on my Lumia 521 and I actually like it.

Looks too small, but I'm really happy with the OS update. It's great.

On my Lumia 1020 it looks great!

imo in 720p res they should have 5 small columns instead of 6 ones or they should let users handle font tiles (size, boldness). I use a lot of live tiles with integrated twitter and fonts are small. I like it but they should improve it.

Shoulda made it a user option.

It's far too small on my Lumia 820. The tiles are about the size of my thumb xD

Love it on my Lumia 920 I am using mostly medium and large tiles

Well I absolutelly love it! I use it on Nokia Lumia 925 and the size is normal for me, not to big but not to small. I used it for a day and then tried to get back to two columns... I felt that something is missing and it doesn't feel as good as with 3rd tile column.

I am currently using a Lumia 1020: The first time I turned it on I was surprised by the small size of the live tiles... I immediately turned it off thinking it was way too small. I have since turned it back on and o am trying it out. Like every thing else I will learn to adjust...

I personally love it on my 720 :)

Text is too small on my 920.

Hmm, can I have the picture I use on my tiles visibly in the WPCentral tile also? (I never get that thing working like I want it)

I have a lot of apps installed on my L1020, and after trying out the extra row, I can't live without it.
That said, it's great to have the option because when I grow tired I can go back again.

My 820 can't get enough of it. Some tiles are a bit blurry but nothing extreme. Definitely not going back to 2 rows.

Love it on my 928, any smaller and the small tiles would be too small but its perfect the way it is

First saw and felt very small and so stupid on my 1020. But when i keep them all to middle and large there it cmes the beauty. Now its very nice on my 1020. I can have more tiles in the same space and medium tiles compare to the small ones.

Actually, I have a L520 and I love the 3rd row...but I also have "young eyes", and my fingers aren't too fat yet. There is no way I will recommend it for my dad, who can hardly hit small tiles in the 2 column setup with his fat fingers.

It's just amazing to have the option. Who doesn't like options?

It took me a couple of hours to get used to it on my 1020.

I ended up doing a hard reset to get Cortana working properly and when it came up with the normal sized tiles it felt huge after only that little bit of time. All of my Start screen is now visible without scrolling at all and it doesn't feel crammed or difficult to use.

I think it looks great on the 920

Too small for l920

Perfect on my 920...its all about you arrange them around your background...i didn't like it the extra tiles on my surface either at first but after a while I got used to it and couldn't go back to the bigger tilea

In 720 res. they should implement 5 small columns instead of 6 or let us handle font size of medium and large tiles ( or even make them bold). I use a lot of live tweet tiles, and on 920 on med & large is hard to read. (I use background image, which is awesome)

Too smal for my 720...

Looks good on my NL810 (4.3")

On my 920, I think the smallest tiles look great. I love it, wish they'd added it sooner. I even have sausage fingers, and they're not hard to press at all.

At first I was a little let down by the third row of tiles on my Lumia 820. After a little bit of getting used to though, I'm really found of it. If anything, I prefer it to the standard 2 column layout. I feel that it gives the OS even more of the 21st Century vibe that makes WP so unique in the smartphone world. The fact that it emphasises the parallax effect is just a nice bonus!:)

Too small on my 810.  Still glad they gave us the option. 

The small size is too small but the medium and wide are perfect. I would like a wide size that covers the three rows because I usually use the wide tile as separator but is not compulsory.

I'm I the only one that feels WP 8.1 preview a slower than WP 8.0? Of curse in speaking of devices like the 925 and above... 1.5 Ghz and 1 GB of RAM or lower specs...

From Lumia 920

I've it activated on my 1020 and I am loving it. Although I think 4.7" is the lowest screen size where it still makes sense since it does look quite small and peeps with bad eye sight might have issues.

I would hope Nokia would release a Lumia with a 5" screen though; the 6" of the 1520 & 1320 is just too big for my liking.

Its okay on my 625 (4.7) XD

822 looks awesome

IS IT A THIRD ROW OR A THIRD COLUMN?

I love it! With only two columns, it is hard to use the wide tiles without using a lot of space. With three columns, I now have three sizes to use!!!

Come on George Ponder, update the article to change it from row to column. Ridiculous that you haven't fixed the error yet.

When did a 4.5 inch screen become small feeling?  Since when do we need to have 5 inch phones?  They look ridiculous.  Remember Zach Morris's phone in Saved by the Bell?  Yea thats where we are headin only thinner is all. Giant screens (anything beyond 4.5 inches) are absolutely pointless.  You can barely hold them in one hand and they look like you have a damn clipboard in your pants when you are walking. Stop making phone screens bigger.  Get a tablet for god sakes.

i like it on my 1020, and loved it for the week i had the 1520. being able to use medium tiles instead of small ones is killer as i get almost as many tiles across as before but they show more information.

what i am really hoping is future implementation of the "4x4" tile that's in windows 8.x the big square would look great in the expanded layout!

maybe they will add it if/when the interactive tiles go live 

I think it looks cute

Great on my ativ s

First time I rejected the third column on my 1020. But now I'm trying to give it a chance to save me from scrolling down too much. I wish a large square tile (just like on Windows 8.1) will come in future updates of Windows Phone, the worse downside is that large tile for some kind of them isn't large enough. I mean gallery one or others with nice previews like that.

Yea but that's cool...i don't mind
520 user

I love it on mia 920

I figured if I can hit the letters on a keyboard which are already small then having a small icon on my 4inch L521 is no problem at all.

too small for my ATIV imo, even with a 4.8" screen. the 3rd 'column' is more ideal for 5"+

What annoys me in this is not that they gave people with <5" screens a third column. Is that they don't allow people with >5" screens to NOT have that column. On the 1520, sure, fine, it's a gigantic screen. But I see no reason why the 929 and 930 couldn't have the toggle to disable the third column.

The fact that the switch to disable it isn't there is yet another motive for me to NOT buy the 930 or any WP with a screen above 4.5".

I like the three columns on my Lumia 920!

Its a column, not a row. And yes it makes things too small on my Lumia Icon.

I love it on my L920

Devices that have ED(480p) resolution & under 1gb of ram look better with just 2 rows. While devices that have minimum hd specs or higher(720p) & 1gb of ram or higher would work well with 3.

I have the htc8x and the third live tile update it's so awesome looks incredible the small boxes are tiny but big things require small sacrifices. I love everything about the 8.1 update

I really enjoy it. I have it pinned six across but what I've done is set three medium tiles most of the way. This allows me to have 2-3 tiles with information as opposed to 4 with little to no information.

Nah, it looks lovely

Nah I think it looks lovely

They are COLUMNS not ROWS.

And this article is kind of pointless.  They knew people wanted it, but at the same time knew people didn't.  Hence why it's an OPTION. :)

Like it on my 928

Nah I like it

Even it is small, it is doing well.. Working great

Tried it on my 920 and didn't really like it. However it gives people options.

Guys there could b solufion for this..microsoft should remove the black boundaries at left n right side of screen,this wud stretch uo the tiles n that unused black space boundaries on both left n right sides can be used..what say???

The normal sized tiles looks awesome on my L920, the smaller ones a bit too small. I love the transparency of the tiles, my phone looks brand new :)

Yeah, love it!, got an Ativ S 4.8' and looks great, thinking to get a big screen device now like the L1520, there this 3 column feature will be awesome

I'm giving it a try and it does look a lot smaller than I was used to. Lets see how it goes in a few days.
I'm also giving the parallax backgrounds a try and it all depends on the picture used but I'm still not convinced.

It looks good on my 920. Will obviously take getting use to for people that are using it but it's awesome and it's great that they gave the option to enable it!

Its small on my Lumia 520 but I always wanted that third love tile column.j just loved it.

Yeah, tried the 3 columns on my Lumia 1020, and it wasn't great. I was gonna try and use it anyway for when I finally upgrade to the 1520, but switched back to 2 columns. 1. Yeah, things were a lil too small. 2. Started for a bit, but didn't feel like putting the time into finishing the reorganization of my Start screen to make everything look normal again... :P

I love my 720 with more tiles on it. I was waiting for it all these years :)

Don't like it on my 920. I don't fill the screen up as it is and leave the upper left portion of the screen empty. Too many tiles jammed in and it feels like my phone is shouting at me. I had the Zune HD and WP7 and those screens felt like they had room to breathe, so I try to replicate that feel.

It's a great option to have, but I don't like it.

Loving the 3rd row on my L920

Looks nice on Lumia 720

Now how about being able to make IE pinned sites wide with the new ability for live tiles ? That would be awesome!

It looks toooo small on my Lumia 520

Not small at all in my620 :)

At least we have the choice. In my 1020 it's worthy. Quite small but it works :)

I don't really get it. If you don't like it, don't use it, is it a big enough problem that they added something which is entirely optional? I first turned it on, thought it looked small, but I got used to it pretty quickly. I've changed some icons to the middle tier when they were the small one before, so I have a lot less scrolling now. 

I'd like to see the rows on a 620 before I upgrade

On my Lumia 520 looks very small and cluttered. I'll stick with two columns unless they zoom in or something so it doesn't look so tiny.

It does on my 4.3 820.

Perfect on HTC 8X!!!

a bit yea

I own a 1520.. I don't have these problems LOL

Initially yes. But once I got used to it, it's very convenient. I don't have to scroll a whole lot

Great on Ativ S. Medium tile for mostly used apps big for calendar and photo stuff small tiles for less used apps etc.. It looks very nice

Looks way small on granddaddy 820 too.

My 920 screen looks bigger using the third row, very beautiful

I added an ideia to windows phone user voice about this:

http://windowsphone.uservoice.com/forums/101801-feature-suggestions/suggestions/5778607-allow-the-third-column-to-be-only-for-small-tiles

I think it would be better if we had an option to use the third column for small tiles only. A total of 5 small tiles in a row, instead of micro tiles, can make the screen looks better.

I'm using a lumia 720. As an example, with the third column I need to hold my phone closer of my eyes to see the big tile of Bing Weather.

Couldn't be better on 1020, really pleased

928 looks great

At least we have an option

920 here. Its cool. Some where to big before

I love them on my 820 they are kinda small, but useful.

Very small on a Nokia Lumia 520 :/

I thought it would be too small on the 920, but it is manageable. Haven't mis-tapped anything yet. The text is just a little too hard to read, but it's fine.

Too small. Running Lumia 1020

No option for I own 1520?

Lumia 720 , plain black background , 3rd column of tiles enabled.

Minimalistic but works for me.

Best feature after Cortana and Action Center for me on my 620. I hope Microsoft keeps this feature in official version of WP8.1 on my 620. Love it!!

I really love it 'cause I don't have to be scrolling down all the time to find my stuff. Also, it looks amazing to have more tiles of different sizes on the homescreen. 

here im the best cz im using the smallest wp ever ie NOKIA lumia 620... and yessssssssssssss itz tooooooo tiny for me... but still im using it cz its amazing.. :)

I am so loving it. Really like not having to scroll so much.

Admittedly it is kind of small on the Lumia 920. However, that doesn't necessarily mean it is a bad thing. I love it! And never once has it caused me problems in launching the right application...

Gonna rock WP8.1 on my 920 as long as possible with three columns of tiles :)

p.s. isn't it a third column as opposed to being a third row?!?

I use it on 4,3'' 820 and  4,5'' 920, but on 520 with 4'' screen is kinda useless..

Perfect on my 1020, always thought tiles were a little too big now perfect size.

its too small on 520 but i needed more tiles so ...

and 8.1 is slow as hell on my 520.

Perfect for me.. I have the 1520 :) maybe I'll update my 920,but the screen is cracked so I'm still on the fence on whether I want to or not.

I personally think its so amazing. No more for screen swipes to get to the bottom, and so much more room for the wide tiles!!

Love it! Kinda neat and cute. Lol!

Have a 620 and ABSOLUTELY LOVE IT! Even if some might find the text too small, i'm glad microsoft atleast gave someone like me the OPTION to check it out. Doubt I'm going back..though setting up the start screen is a REAL task now! lol

Love it 1020

I like it on my 920, I guess it's good were have a choice !

Love it, but it's an option. It's okay if people hate it, nobody's forced to use it.

With third row on 925 I can keep some tiles medium size, and the ones I had on medium before, I can set to wide (weather, photos) and the shortcuts that I only need to launch the app are small. It's great. It's a little small, but after 1 hour of more tiles I reverted back to less tiles and it was gigantic.

Two times you need to update. First time it download 2MB then again you need to check for update there you need 385MB. And total time for completing this update is 45 min....

Ya battery life has been decreased with wp8.1

On my Lumia 925 it looks too small with 3 rows. I rather keep the 2 rows, but it's nice to have that option. WP 8.1 is great but unfortunately I noticed a huge difference on my battery life after the update. I blocked most of the apps from running in the background and have the same settings as before, but even with cortana blocked too, the battery life decreased a lot and that kinda sucked.

With the third column on my Lumia 920 I think font size should be a little more bigger

It looks very good in my Lumia 720, but because of low PPI fonts are very small...

Third column looks awesome on my Lumia 1020!

On my 925 having a third column of tiles makes things uncomfortably small for my adult-sized hands. I do love being able to have a background image on my tiles though...

Hey people any idea whether the update comes in less than 500mb?

I have it on my 8X. It feels a little on the small side, but overall I prefer it to having less tiles. The nice thing is, if I ever get tired of it, I can always switch back.

Tiles become too small on Lumia 520 even if my eyesight is pretty good. Anyway, thank you MS for the opinion to at least try out this great feature!

The third row makes me wish there was a way to save homescreen configurations. I need to drastically reorganize to have a 3rd column and right now I am quite content with the 2 col setup i have.

I see every one here liking the new tile settings! Any one can change it as per their choice

Looks awesome on the Samsung Ativ S

I'm kinda late to the party but the option to have more tiles works great on my Lumia 925.

Yes, its smaller than I'd prefer.   But thank you Microsoft for giving me the choice.  In balance I'd rather have the benefits of 3 columns and squint a little.  

Choice is a wonderful thing Microsoft.  Give us more of it.

Loving how the three columns look on my nokia 820. I hope they don't take it away from 4.3" screens in future updates. Can't live without it now.

I'm quite happy with my 920. Now I can really minimize those tiles that don't matter to me so much. And make bigger the important ones. No problems here.

920 ❤ it for the same reason as many posters; made more tiles wide and was able to reduce the "throw" to the bottom of the start screen to one flick

Sooooo tiny, now i understand why they hesitated to put this option on devices smaller than 5 inches

Lumia 920 and I can finally get all of my icons on my main screen! Huge option for me that will help me hold off for the next big WP. It's like being able to change the resolution on you PC, user choice is great!

I am a big fan of the third row on the 1020.  It great reduces the scrolling. 

But bigger is better, she said.

Seriously? This is the stupidest complaint...if its too small, don't use it. It doesn't force you.

I love it on my 1020.

Tiles are ok, but text is unreadable on my 820. Not usable.

I can't see the background image, i lack transparent tiles, help please?

Yes 920

Mmm
Kk
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. Hug
He Mrm

It does look kinda small on my Lumia 925. I still like it though. The only issue I have is with the small tiles. The 1x1 tiles are really small.

Looks great on my 920. Admittedly small but not too bad. With a lower resolution screen I can imagine some tiles would be illegible though

I have 925 i love three column awesome

Looks good to me on my old 920 my daily driver is the 1520 however

Tried it on my Sprint HTC8XT and it was too small. I had to go back to normal. If Sprint ever get the Lumia 1520 then I may apply the third row. However I do miss not seeing artist artwork or photo on the Xbox Music tile when playing music. That was one of my larger tiles. Since it no longer plays artwork, I resized it to the smallest tile setting.

Too small on 1020, but that's probably because I use a lot of small tiles. I'll mess around with tile size later.

I like it on my 8x. There are so many apps and its awesome

I agree with many saying that with third column settings, the tiles look small. But i also think that skinned tiles with background image does not look good on 2 column tiles! Its really good that Microsoft gave a setting to change these when ever we want! So people who like 2 column tiles can keep it, people who don't like it can change it to 3 column tiles. But for me in my Lumia 520, i like 3 column tiles as it looks good with skinned tiles!

It's a bit small on my 920, but its worth it to use double wide tiles. I never used them before, couldn't justify wasting a full row on one icon.

Tried a few minutes on my 3.8" screen L620... needed a microscope to see the smalest tiles :/

I love it - but I would like a super wide one that goes across the whole screen !

I've switched to 3 columns on my Lumia 920 and really like it. Once Microsoft enlarges the text on the calendar live tile it'll be perfect (or if there's a third party calendar live tile with bigger text but that opens the standard calendar app when tapped).

It's a great idea but really why the black space between tile is still so big? Reduce that and get bigger tiles.. Looks small on the 920 but very useful!

It sure does. Therefore, I don't use it.

I've got the update running on the Lumia 928 and I think the third row is fine

At first I thought it was too small. It took some getting used to, but now I'm loving it. Wouldn't want it any other way. ;-) - Lumia 920.

I like the extra row on my Lumia 920. At first I was taken aback by how small it seemed, but as I rearranged the tiles and resized them to med and wide and still have room for more, the more I liked it the new setup. The tiny tiles are still tiny but perfect for those little things I need quick access to on the fly. (manually turn on Bluetooth, etc.) I just needed to adjust to the new look.

Well on 920 looks great, but on 620 it a bit confusing on certain tiles that have text inside since the lettering looks too small even if you set the tile as wide...it happens with the calendar for instance. But you know still largely depends on which tiles you use on your home screen.

It is great on my 920, Some tiles clearly are not beneficial on a smaller tile but some are..

I have the top row with 6 small tiles of stuff I don't need status on, just things like phone / text / whatsapp for speed of access then the rest of my start screen is a mix of different size tiles depending on the app and the info it gives.

If you take the time to experiment it can be good.

I think it looks great on both my 920 & 1020. WP8.1 is a great update. Well done Microsoft.

too small in L520, but i don't know why i love it xD

I like it on my 810 quite well. Looks good and I don't have to scroll nearly as much!

Too small on a 1020...for me anyway. I don't know why the dude in the forums is getting bent out of shape over it, its an option, quit whining.

I enabled the 3rd row on my Lumia 920. Thought it was a bit small at first but found it way better in the end. I now have all my fav apps standing on my homescreen. I don't need to scroll down anymore. Well, I still have a few apps at the bottom but all my main apps are showing up right away which is more convenient. I'm also using more medium and large tiles than before and I also have a good sight so it's not an issue. I'm now fully using the tiles and the screen real estate! Most people who have used my phone were complaining that the icons were too big and they take  too much of the screen real estate. Some even said that Windows phone was for old people because of the huge icons. Of course, the legibility of the screen is the reason why the icons were that big but I do think having smaller icons is better. However, I do understand that some people find it hard to read.