Microsoft Teams is not usually installed by choice. It is installed because your job runs on it. That framing matters, because it changes what a review is for: not to convince you to use it, but to help you use it better on a phone you would rather not spend all day inside.
What Teams does well
Depth of integration with the Microsoft 365 ecosystem. Files in Teams are files in SharePoint and OneDrive. Meetings scheduled in Teams appear in Outlook. Notes taken in a channel meeting go into a Teams-wiki-like space. If your organisation lives in Microsoft’s tools, Teams stitches them together in a way no independent chat app can match.
Channels are where the app is strongest. Distinct rooms per project, per client, per team, each with its own files, tabs, and permissions. On a phone, jumping between channels is fast, and unread indicators are legible.
Meetings run through Teams are polished. Audio quality is high on both Wi-Fi and 4G. Screen sharing to and from a laptop while you are on the road works. Recording is included on almost every plan.
Chats — one-to-one and small groups — are competent. Rich formatting, gifs, reactions, threading (unfortunately optional), and file sharing all work.
What it does less well
Notifications. Teams’ default notification setup is aggressive: every @mention, every message in every channel you are in, every meeting reminder. On a phone, this is a genuine wellness problem. The single most important setting on the app is Settings → Notifications: turn off channel-wide notifications you were subscribed to by default; leave only @mentions and personal chats on. Consider quiet hours for the evening.
Performance can be sluggish on mid-range Android phones. The app is heavy — 300+ MB installed, several hundred MB more of cached data. Cold-start times of 4–6 seconds are common on older phones.
Threading is optional. If your organisation does not enforce it, channel conversations turn into long, unstructured scrolls. This is a Microsoft choice more than an app fault; ask your admin to enable “conversations must be replies” if you have the influence.
Search is capable but slow. Full-text search across your organisation’s channels and chats works, but the app takes seconds to return results on a large workspace.
Live captions and language
Real-time captions in meetings support a wide list of languages and generally work well. This is a legitimate accessibility feature — for meetings in a second language, or for participants who cannot listen for the whole hour, captions make a real difference.
Translation in captions is also improving; you can set your caption language independently of the meeting language.
Guest and personal accounts
You can add a personal Microsoft account to Teams for freelance work with clients who are also on Teams. Managing multiple orgs and accounts inside the app is possible but not smooth — the account switcher is buried, and notifications from personal accounts do not always route reliably.
If you freelance for several Teams-based organisations, expect friction.
Settings that make Teams tolerable
- Notifications → Channel activity → Off (for channels you do not need to hear from).
- Notifications → General activity → Off unless you have a specific reason.
- Notifications → Quiet hours → Set to your actual off-hours.
- General → Auto-download images/videos → Wi-Fi only.
- Data and storage → Clear cache → do this once a month if the app slows down.
Who should install it
Install Teams if your job requires it — you have no other choice. Configure the notification settings above the first evening, and it becomes tolerable. Skip it if your workplace uses Slack, Google Chat, or another primary tool; Teams as a secondary messenger is not worth the install.
Verdict
3.5 / 5. A capable business chat app whose defaults are hostile to anyone who wants a phone that is not always on. Reasonable once configured; heavy, and never really quiet.