You told us: You'd totally use Windows 11 with Android apps on your phone

Windows 11 has some rather strict system requirements, which means many PC owners could be left out in the lurch at first. But that hasn’t stopped tinkerers from porting Windows 11 to smartphones.

A student ported the new Windows update to 2015’s Lumia 950 XL Windows Phone, while a group of hackers got it running on the Snapdragon 845-toting OnePlus 6T. What if Windows 11 and Android app support was officially available for your phone? Would you use it? That’s what we asked last week, and here’s how you answered.

Would you run Windows 11 on your phone if it had Android app support?

Results

Are Android Authority readers open to changing operating systems entirely? Well, just over half of all polled readers say they’d run Windows 11 on their phones if the operating system had Android app support on mobile. That’s a little surprising in my book given our Android focus, but suggests that the apps are more important than the Android platform itself.

Meanwhile, a sizeable chunk (29%) of polled users say they might hop aboard if Windows 11 on mobile had Google support as well. This isn’t surprising, because Google apps are used by a ton of people around the world. Third-party apps like Uber and WhatsApp use Google’s services as well, making things even more complicated. We’ve also seen HUAWEI’s Google-free take on Android, and the lack of Google apps and GMS support has hurt the company’s mobile business in a big way.

Finally, just over 18% of respondents say they won’t run Windows 11 on their phones regardless of whether it had basic Android app support or Google integration. This is an understandable decision as Windows isn’t really made with mobile screens in mind, and it shows with the UI on unofficial ports. So the upside of having full-fledged Windows in your pocket might not outweigh UI and/or performance issues.

Comments

• Bryant Allen: If Microsoft would’ve did this before, they still might have stayed in the smartphone game. There new (old) foldable phone doesn’t count because it runs Android. But, how would it run Windows11.
• Carmelo Parian: That is surprising, imagine a smartphone running Windows OS and it’s also fully supporting Android apps.
• Painfully_Candid: I don’t care about Android apps as it is, so I certainly don’t care about Win11 on a phone because of “Android app support”.
• turk: If they would be smart they would’ve used the grounds of windows 10x for an mobile device or just made a nornal surface phone with a single screen. If they would have made their own skin like Samsung does where they would integrate Microsoft apps I would buy one.
• Andrew Zuo: And yet they won’t let you install it on a 6 year old computer. Planned obsolescence in action.

Thanks for voting in our poll and for leaving comments. Do you think Microsoft should take another stab at Windows on mobile? Let us know below.