Nokia Lumia 800 For the first time in ages, it's possible to recommend a Nokia phone to somebody in the pub. Nokia's first Windows-based device is the company's most attractive consumer product for some years, at least in the modern era of touchscreen smartphones. Nokia Lumia 800 Windows Phone 7.5 Mango handset A reversal of fortune? Nokia' …
The "grumpy" comments are, in my experience, largely quite unfair. e.g. I much prefer WP7's app list to endless screens of icons. I also think the criticism of Live Tiles is down to the reviewers ignorance on how WP7 works. So overall, I think it is reasonable for such minor, largely personal gripes not to have affected the overall score, given how well received the phone has been pretty much everywhere else.
And from the title I was talking about the review not the phone itself.
No comment on the maps from Nokia, how was the GPS signal pickup? Does this phone offer all the current Symbian methods of position determination?
The included headphones and music output as a whole got no mention which greatly disappointed me.
The included case that comes with the phone, worthless POS or actually worth using? Did it make the design issues worse or better for the reviewer? Was it even tried? How hard was it to get on the phone and then take off? Did it add excess bulk?
Charging time? Power consumption of said charger? Both when charging and not.
Design issues. OK you didn't find the design that great and I don't mind a reviewer saying that, but given it's been taken from the N9 nearly in its entirety I would wager that the build quality will be much much better than is hinted at in here. The technology of the screen got very short shrift. I find this baffling when it is of such a cutting edge nature.
Come on El Reg, stop pulling your punches. I come here looking for a review that lets the reader know that the phone has been truly used and abused. This reads like it was borrowed for 24 hours and that the reviewer had several other more important things to be doing at the same time. For a review score of 80% I would of expected much more detail. If you felt that all the phone had to offer was covered then I would of said the score, based on this review, should of been around the 58-62% range.
A more detail review on maps. See this write-up.
http://www.ic-mobile.com/blogs/97-nokia-in-2011-a-royal-wedding-without-belle-and-whistles
It doesn't have these features
" Choosing the type of route to use in navigation, such as avoiding ferries (This was demonstrated in a Youtube video where Lumia was taken out for a drive and got stuck in a ferry lane for 30mins).
Choosing how to get there, such as the shortest route or the quickest route.
Being able to just point to a location on the map and drive there, without keying in the address.
Favourites that can sync to Nokia Maps online service and a "Home" button to quickly navigate home.
Pronounce street names.
ETA status during Drive navigation.
Voice guided Walk navigation.
100% offline mode for walk and public transport direction.
"
So there's NO reason to even consider this phone at all.
WP7 STILL hasn't got a good navigation app. It lacks ALL the necesarry coms-features we take for granted with Symbian all for a facebook/twitter-centered contacts manager. Djeez.
Seems like I'm gonna get myself another C7 as spare. I don't want to ditch 5 years of technological advancement over this immature piece of crap no matter how great this crap looks from the outside.
This review is going to make many people quite upset. Are you actually saying that a Nokia with WP7 is a good idea? What about all the doomsayers that predicted a quick and swift death to both?
I have been a WP7 user since December, I don't believe that I have seen more than 10 people with one, most people I know with one are people on Xbox Live but, this time, I believe it is going to explode. Give it an year or so, and the platform will become mainstream.
Well done to Nokia and Microsoft for the gamble
Dare I get one for my wife ?
Android is probably a bit too messy and time consuming to work well for her (she likes "geeky" stuff and is technically competent but doesn't have the time to constantly monitor, adjust and tweak to keep things running).
Apple and iOS she doesn't particularly like and would find restrictive as she does want flexibility at times. Tight integration with Windows is required for business use.
Blackberry doesn't seem to offer the hardware form that she wants and the recent 3 day outage has put her right off.
Currently she still has a Nokia with Symbian and she has aleways liked Nokia's build quality and to be honest, styling. Strangely a key feature for her is absolute volume of the ringer. She sometimes works in noisy environments and needs a substantial ring tone volume level which surprisingly many phones are pretty feeble at.
This review picks up the point that phones these days are definitely multimedia devices first and have a phone function as an option, but this isn't always well integrated.
I might just pass for the moment, or maybe take a punt on the Lumia710 as a cheaper first pass which one of the kids can take on if she doesn't get on with it.
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I have been a WP7 user since Oct last year and I have to say yes I would get your Wife the Nokia 800 for her next phone. I was a big Android user but I always fund problems with it slowing down freezing and had various problems depending on which android device I had.
I got the HD7 as I like big screens on my phones and I have to say it was not much different to my HD2 in terms of specs but the software worked very well for a first gen WP7 OS. I upgraded about a month ago to the Titan and this is even better for me as the screen is nice and big for my big hands. But what you should look at is what WP7 offers over other devices like Android and IOS. You get Just on WP7 phones you get Zune Pass, Xbox Live, Office, SkyDrive, Camera button which unlocks phone when pressed, People hub with Facebook twitter Linked in and MSN intergration.Bing search, Scout, Music, Vision and Voice commands. A desent app store that is getting bigger and better each day. Cross xbox and WP7 games and live tiles. The Nokia also has Nokia Maps, Nokia drive and Nokia Music to add to that list too.
My GF was a big Iphone user and after playing with my HD7 she decided she would give it a try and got a HTC 7 Pro and said she will never go back to Iphone again.
Alot of people think WP7 is a bad move for Nokia but I dont think it was. If you look at the other option they had in android that is more or less owned by Samsung and HTC so for Nokia to stand out would of been hard where with WP7 HTC and samsung are the bigger names but no one has really got the number one spot yet which makes it a good choice for Nokia.
But The software is by the best on any phone os out there fast and stable. Yes no phone has a duel core processor or over 512mb of ram but this is because WP7 dose not need it where android dose.
Its your choice on what you get for your wife but I think once you both have a play with it in the shop you may well like it and be surprised on how well the OS works and how nice the new nokia phone feels.
"Dare I get one for my wife ?"
No. It's a POS. It only looks nice/different from the outside. At least the cyan one match the ugly cyan tiles that are being used in that thing that they sell as a UI.
"Tight integration with Windows is required for business use."
This device is as tightly integrated with "Windows" as an Android phone. There's NO outlook synchronization. In case you can't remember what Outlook is. It's that PIM that Microsoft shoved in our throats for over a decade in it's most expensive iteration of MS Office. The funny thing is that apart from it's former 2-GB PST-file trouble, it's actually pretty good. A very comprehensive contact manager and very extensible calendar. Small business and self employed businessppl (like myself) relied on it for years. Synced phones daily through a simple easy 1-2-3 process with the supplied USB-cable (or in some cases over bluetooth). Contacts kept private on the local PC.
Unfortunatly that same Microsoft that enforced Outlook upon us suddenly turned Cloud. And wants us to store data on THEIR servers (they're copying this attitude from Google apparently). Gone is your privacy as these Clouds get inevitably hacked and cracked some day and these companies hand over customer data (including YOUR contacts!) whenever the US-authorities came around for a tea-visit .
The trouble is. That your wife works with Symbian today. She's accustomed to syncing calender and contacts with the USB-cable. She's familiar with a full blown navigation tool on her phone that links both calender- and contact-addresses. She probably uses the onboard FM-transmitter to occasionally play that MP3-song on her phone through the car stereo. She can today record that telephone call from that customer to deal with later (when she's at the home-office). All these things she can't do (yet/ever) on this new-kid-on-the-block.
This phone is a setback 5 years. An immature OS which centers around a chaotic gimmick-website Facebook (while most FB-users don't even provide much details on their profile as Mr. Orlowsky himself admits). He's comments about none-tech-savvy users using webmail as primary email-source is pure bollocks. Most ppl use the POP-account provided by their ISP. In fact at installation of 'the Internet' must technicians set-up this account for their customers. The places where I've seen free webmail (usually live/hotmail) based accounts being used is by 'the kids' while parents use the POP-accounts, the kids use hotmail (prime reason: its Live messenger integration). The only ppl that I've seen using GMail are the ones with an Android phone. Again as a self-employed professional myself I have a company POP-account through the hosting of my company-website. I use THAT. So a FB/twitter/hotmail/gmail-centric toy is useless for me. And no, self-employed professionals don't have to money nor time to invest in a Windows 2008-server + exchange server or whatever MS can come up with.
I'd say, buy her a nice C7 8GB, a USB-cable extender (as the 10cm USb is way too short. ARE YOU LISTENING NOKIA) and a nice leather pouch. I'd go for the mahogany brown model as it looks flashy without screaming toy and because its hard to find it's exclusive enough to be noticed.
What started out to be a promising review turned out to be a negative review of Mango and the Lumia 800 by a iPhone (most likely) or Android user. Even the likes of Preston Grala who has been a Microsoft adversary for a long time gave Mango a better rating than you and he is a very well respected critic. It's clear you really didn’t like it, but that's your choice. The fact you prefer folders and grid icons like Windows NT 3.51 style of the 90’s again that's your choice. I had an iPhone for nearly 3 years, loved it ad would have had the iPhone 4 if it wasn't for Steve Jobs famously saying that there was nothing wrong with the iPhone 4, it was the users at fault for holding it wrong. That sheer arrogance drove me WP7. It took a week or so to get used to it, but the Metro design that you so dislike is like nothing out there. As I said above, both iPhone and Android (un-customised) as so pedestrian and old fashioned with their Windows NT 3.51 style desktops and the equally old fashioned “in app out app” approach and Metro is so fresh and invigorating. WP7 is a true cloud phone, and as you rightly said, it does not require a PC or Macintosh as all your contacts are stored in Windows Live so you're not reliant on old fashioned syncing with a home or work device. As for the Bing search button on the front, you must be quite ham fisted if you kept accidentally pressing it, I do not have the same problem and find it a really great "one touch" way of finding stuff. The sharp corner design is awesome, I love it, it makes it stand out from the everyday humdrum rounded corner boxes, Nokia is to be praised for that.
I found your comments or lack of them about IE9 intriguing, I have an Omnia 7 (Focus S winging it’s way from the USA as we speak) and I don’t have the font problems you seem to have, perhaps it’s a Nokia screen issue, or maybe something else.
It really does not bother me who sells more phones or who has the best and most flashlight apps or even that WP7 does not have a myriad of Anti-Virus programs that Android users have, all I care about is that the likes of Microsoft and Nokia et al quietly just keep doing what they are doing. By the way, my 74 year old mum has an iPhone as well as do many of her friends
Do me a favour, use the phone solely (put your iPhone in a drawer or something) for 30 days then come back and write a review ;-)
Interesting they used the N9 chassis, presumably to kill off Meego. It's approximately the same price as the 16G version.
Oh, Andrew - please don't start a sentence with the conjunction "And". My English teacher would spin in his grave if I did that! ;-)
Otherwise, good review, thanks.
So it can import address books from various sources, but can it export that data? Or is WP7 yet another example of the classic Microsoft roach motel, where your contacts are expected to stay forever, forever?
(I know documents and pictures on Skydrive at least can be rescued by connecting to it with a PC, to my surprise this worked even with non-IE browsers)
Your data stays where it is, it's more of a sync than an import.
Too posh for hotmail and got all your contacts on Gmail? No problem, sync the account and when you throw the phone away your contacts are all still on G-mail where they started. no lock-in here! When you add a new contact to G-mail, (hotmail, facebook, whatever) it automagically syncs itself to the phone.
Works both ways too, you get the choice of where to store any contacts when you add them via the device.
So, you review phones and don't know that the hardware search button always brings you to Bing? It's not a Lumia thing. Moreover, it was changed in Mango so that it' can't be used for contextual searches anymore. OTOH, speaking of search, I didn't see you mentioning the sound/visual searches. I guess MS needs to make something that calls you "ambulance" when you ask it to actually call an ambulance to draw some attention...
"you can’t fast scroll through the address book alphabetically"
This is the second WP7 review I've read on here that says that. When you have the address book open, click on one of the header letters in the coloured block, and it brings up an A-Z list for you to get where you need to quickly
"There is no conventional address book: this phone will not sync contacts with your Mac or PC, or even barely acknowledge they exist. Instead, there’s the People application that piggybacks on to Facebook, LinkedIn or Twitter, and it’s more helpful to think of it as a record of “Stuff people have done""
I tend to avoid using social media and so this feature definitely does not appeal. Without an address book being included, I can't see Nokia's Windows-based smartphones being of interest to me.
Why can't Nokia have two modes; this social media mode and a traditional address book mode? Oh, of course, it's because they don't control the software and Microsoft dictate the feature set.
I don't keep phone numbers in GMail or Hotmail, because the phone I have is owned by my employer and the numbers in my phone are clients.
I keep them in my phone and sync to the corporate contacts server (Exchange in this case), like every corporate user.
Like every sane employee I do *not* put work stuff on Facebook, Twitter etc, and do not want my work phone to have anything to do with either of them.
So if this review is anything to go by, Windows Phone 7 cannot be used in the coporate market.
That's a fairly odd decision - perhaps there is enough demand for personal phones, however it feels a bit weird for Microsoft to reject the only market that ever took Windows Mobile on board.
WP will sync contacts, calendar, and emails from Exchange so you don't have to use google, hotmail or whatever.
I use mine for both and post to twitter, etc with my personal account and use my work account for work business.
This review is very misleading, it sounds like the reviewer picked one up for half an hour and had a play with it while keeping their iphone in the other hand
Microsoft said when they killed of Windows Mobile that Windows Phone 7 IS NOT for the corporate market. They told that press that Windows Mobile 6.x professional would be kept for those users.
Windows Phone 7 is for kids who play with facebook/twitter, play music on the go and are interested in XBox-games. The most 'tech-savvy market' they aim at is indeed XBox-live customers.
This is obviously a toy phone for teenagers. Why can't you ppl comprehend that? Microsoft is turning into a toy company for rich kids whom are a tiny bit more rebellious than their Apple pampered counterparts. As apple is also turning into a portable games-console/media-player business it's clear where this will end for business execs.
And blimey - are they genuinely that insane?
Windows Mobile is the worst pile of shit I've ever had the misfortune to encounter, and as far as I can tell it's been dropped completely by all the phone manufacturers, and not used for any new designs at all.
So much for 'corporate' use.
Choice of corporate phone now seems to be a toss-up between Blackberry and Android, pretty much depending on whether you want to let RIM inside your firewall or not.
Being playing with a 701, and whilst it's definitely no iPhone with regard to pretty UI transitions etc, it does pretty much everything the iPhone does (and in some cases more).
Battery life is very impressive - haven't charged for two days and still going. But I don't call a lot.
Cameras good too.
Come on, only Orlowski could do a "review" of the prostitute, sorry, lumia, phones? With such gems as "WinPho 7 now offers a better experience for ordinary punters than its Android rivals." to start with, and with mr. Orlowski latest articles lauding and praising the colourful fischer-price like interface, how much credibility does this have?
I know all the softies will downvote me at once (yes, all 10 that vote here regularly), but come on, can you be more transparent than this?
Maybe. Usually all comments mentioning the ugliness of WP7 and its limitations get the same 10 downvotes, though. But you're right, this time we'll get also the few remaining Nokia employees, not only the softies, downvoting my comments.
Still, that won't change the fact that WP7 is ugly as sin, apparently targeted at dummies with its limited copy of android's widgets, still way behind android (if it is at iOS 2008 level as you claim, then maybe in 4 years it will catch up to the current - 3.x - android incarnation), and the hardware is meh at best, not even the same level as last year phones. But I suppose some people will still buy it, if only due to the Nokia brand.
Wow, for a phone that scored 80% that really comes off as a negative review, like you were annoyed it was so good. Atleast it's not just being compared to the iPhone, but the entire of Nokia's old products. How that's relevant I'm not sure, but there we go.
Also, hardware stats: not including them is a cop out.
Oh why, Microsoft? It's prettty important to me in the sticks, especially when I have to place my phone in a metal box to force my phone to lose its minimal ('one bar') Orange signal and thus latch onto to the locally stronger T-mobile signal in order to converse with people.
I hope this matures well, though.
For example, try putting a small pea in your shoe next time you go out for the day. That's pretty minor, yes?
Equally, try putting a bit of stickytape over the part of your current phone that shows the signal strength. I suspect you'll find it a bit annoying, especially as there's plenty of space to show the information.
Rather like the regular "The action could not be completed for an unknown reason" errors that pop up on Windows Mobile 6 whenever it's lost signal.
While the reviewer perhaps had a few too many complaints, as a soon-to-be first time WP user I like to know how contact syncing works and that searching for contacts wasn't as easy as it could be.
I've already planned on buying this phone, in spite of knowing the design flaw of the usb charging port, but that IS a very legitimate complaint that DOES need addressing.
I was surprised to read a complaint about the browser; every other review out there has nothing but praise for IE9 on WP.
It turns out that you can sync contacts with Exchange (humble pie duly eaten), but *not* with Outlook.
Basically, you can only sync to a 'cloud', and it is completely impossible to sync contacts with a locally connected computer.
A rather foolish decision in my opinion, given that the top two (iOS and Android) allow you to do both.
If you tap the letter in your list of apps or contact you get an alphabet - tap the letter to go to the start of the list... this will only happen after you have a list of a specific size or greater... (not sure of the amount).
I love WP7 - waiting for the next lot of nokia phones, these offer very little new to what I have got already...
If this phone imports all of your contact info, from everywhere, then uses it to aggregate all social interactions to the device.... does that mean that Microsoft will start spamming all your friends in your name (and everyone else you've ever emailed) just like FB did when I accidentally let it get hold of my gmail addresses?
710 has 8GB, 800 has 16GB. Is that not an internal?
Camera is quite different on the 710 - 5mp vs 8mb, no dual LED flash...
Different screen.
But other than that, I suppose same processor = same internals?
It also seems that lots of manufacturers are dropping MicroSD support for mango. Anecdotally, it seems to have caused quite a lot of trouble as the MicroSD card needs to run at the same speed as internal memory to work without issues. Rather than explain that to the mass market, it seems manufacturers have removed the facility. HTC Radar, HTC titan are missing them... Shame.
Nice actually, but what I really would like to see are technical details: What exactly is supported with all the services WP7 syncs with? Just phone numbers and email addresses is not enough. What's with company name, street addresses, contact photo, birthdays and relationships... Even Google actually sucks quite a bit here.
For casual use the most basic things will certainly be enough, but for any kind of professional/business use I would really like to see a table of what gets synced here.
It syncs with your hotmail, gmail account, facebook etc is additional option you can disable. It syncs with exchange but not your local outlook. Of course your local outlook may already be syncing with your hotmail. Personally I found it little inconvenient but once I stored my address data in hotmail I know they are always accessible from anywhere in the world and won't bother with my local outlook again.
"When you have the address book open, click on one of the header letters in the coloured block, and it brings up an A-Z list for you to get where you need to quickly"
err....that's not quickscroll and it's a damn site less easy to use than the fast scroll system used by iOS and Android. I'd say the comments in both Reg articles stand.
It means the facility to run your finger up or down the screen quickly to trigger a list of the letters in the alphabet that you can scroll through A-B-C-D-E, The number of contacts is irrelevant, there are only 26 letters in the English alphabet. What's important is how fast you can get to those contacts starting with each letter. Fast scroll does not mean scrolling quickly through all your contacts, despite the name.
"It means the facility to run your finger up or down the screen quickly to trigger a list of the letters in the alphabet"
Yes and a similar thing is available also on WP7. But with hundreds of contacts is still useless because once you land on the letter bucket, you still have to scroll through too many names (unless you are always searching for Xenu and similar friends...)
I stand on what I said: I find search more useful (then again, as we already said several times, also in WP7 you can bring the letters and select what you want)
Battery life, profiles, and call quality are quite important for a lot of people (well, me). How the hell did call quality go down, I thought that was a hardware feature?
Perhaps we could have a comparison with a 700 (Symbian Belle). For argument's sake we can assume that both will be around in 5 years time and it'd be interesting to see which scores better on functionality alone instead of emotional baggage.
Then while putting a rubbish WinCE based OS on, ruin the design with stupid old fashioned buttons and make sure the search button can't be changed from the search engine only MSFT employees use.
Then make sure the camera isn't up to usual Nokia smartphone standards, and while you're at it reduce the call quality and hobble the battery life.
My Meego phone has none of these problems!
The innards and antenna are made by Compal, an off-the-shelf WP7 board (because they are all the same). And the camera is better than the one on the E7, better sensor and not EDoF - low-light performance is bad because you can't do miracles with small-and-thin camera modules after Nokia caught all that flak about the lardness of the N8 camera.
Of course, being Andrew, no mention of how the Maemo6 in the N9 was the modern platform Nokia needed and already had, with an app GRID, letter scroll shortcuts, Skype integration, Opera (which will never be ported to WP7 because of MS rules), and TWO days of battery life (and the N9 is a real Nokia in reception and call quality)
Reduced to off-the-shelf boards. I'm not surprised call quality and battery life have gone to the dogs, Elop strikes again.
If they've changed their camera design because of flak then it wouldn't be the first time they've taken too much notice of bloggers and armchair critics. They should carry on including N8-style cameras in their top-end phones, if you want 12MP you've got them and if you want widescreen you've got that too (in 9MP mode).
The review doesn't make it clear that not supporting tethering is a failure of the Lumina, not windows phone mango. I have an HTC radar at work and it support tethering just fine.
IE9 is fine on my HTC mozart, I've read in another review that the blurry fonts on the lumia are a bi-product of the screen choice.
As has been posted before, can we just get a review of Mango with all the features thrashed out and then review the phones as reviews of the hardware and additional software only.
I have played briefly with samples of the 800 & 710 and it has the shiny shiny but no where near the customisable grunt I get from my current device.
Read/write from/to external USB memory being a big one.
Symbian may seem complicated to some but you can really make it do things that other phones just wont. Maybe its just me who like messing with settings & trying things out? FM transmitter too, proper useful.
Maybe the N8 was/is the pinnacle of what a phone can do & its all down hill from here in to the phones for nuggets sphere who like shiny over function, but I sincerly hope not.
Only gripe is that Orange take an age to release OTA updates, but other than that, boss!
Gonna take a lot more to prise me away from S^3
Yep.
Before Facebook most person-to-person non-realtime messaging was done over email. Public protocols, mostly.
Now it's done via Facebook - walled garden.
Disussed here:
Facebook: Privatising the internet, one Poke at a time
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2010/11/16/facebook_embrace_and_extend_email_hubris/print.html
Can it support ringtones over 39seconds? No.
How about tones over 1mb in filesize? No.
How about custom tones for message, email and alarms? No.
These aren't Lumia failings, they're WP failings, pretty basic but personally a new phone feels like my new phone once it makes the noises I want it to. That way I always know if MY phone is ringing.
I believe that you can do custom ringtones, something to do with making an mp3 setting it to type "ringtone" in Zune, then syncing it. Not sure how to do it, because while it was almost a no-sale issue when I got my WP7, it turns out that I can't be bothered with custom ringtones after all.
At the start of this review I saw the score, and the bold statement that WP7 is now better than Android, and I thought that maybe my view of WP7 could be wrong. This is a view that was formed from my experience with test handsets by HTC back when the OS was first released, and is in essence that the OS is clunky, confusing and inflexible. I've not read anything since then to change that view.
However there were so many little irksome points mentioned throughout the review that I wonder at how such a high score was arrived? For most of those niggles I found myself thinking "well, that doesn't happen" or "you can change that behaviour" in comparison with Android. Or even with IOS in some cases.
The review gives me the impression that progress has been made, but it still doesn't inspire me to change my disinclination to recommend WP7 to anyone, technical or not. As so often seems to be the case with Microsoft products: I think I'll wait for the next service pack.
..but then again, I don't buy a new phone anyway - I tend to wait a few months. By that time, the early adopters have gone through the early suffering and I know what the phone is really worth.
Having said that, I am torn between good (it's a Nokia) and very bad (it uses Windows), and I suspect that my existing old iPhone (it's usable and by now average) will thus not get replaced soon..
Interesting to read about how the live tiles and transitions become tiresome quickly, i did wonder if this would be the case when i first saw the OS. There was spate of attempts at fancy UI's a few years back, but experienced users quickly pushed back and it was quietly dropped.
Seems MSFT didnt get the memo or didnt care, opting instead for initial impact at the POS over substance. Despite this, i think it will do well.
The N9 will do me for now, as WP lacks power features like decent multitasking. Maybe next year.
Seems strange you'd complain about not being able to see the signal indicator, I mainly use my phones for data services and appreciate the extra screen space, but when I do really want to know signal strength you know when I want to actually make a call it pops up when you tap the phone tile or select a person from the people tile, strange it'd display it at the point most people really need To know they have signal.
Also it always displays on the lock screen, jus' saying.
Works on my hd7 and Titan. Came from android won't go back.
I know this article is a positive review for a Microsoft product, which will be seen as heresy by many techies just on basic principles, but... Those who are wading in, have you actually tried WP7?
My next phone will be running it, and not iOS which my current phone uses. Why? It takes Apple's approach of getting things done and refines it, and also allows better business integration. It has been designed based on what situations people actually want to use a mobile device for.
I like how Andrew has come in for flak by saying what non-techies want: people want stuff that works without an instruction manual, without messing around, and something that occasionally surprises and delights. WP7 Mango does that in spades, without dumbing down.
I'd wholeheartedly agree that WP7 offers a better proposition and experience to average punters than Android. MS fanboi? No.
Does it have the flexibility of Android? No. Does the populous in general need the flexibility of android? I'd argue no...
Weak hardware specs, coupled to a price only £30 less (less than 10% of the total price) than an iphone 4S?
The review also seemed like he was trying very hard to praise the phone, but was having trouble doing so...
Not to mention the lack of apps compared to an Apple or Android based handset...
Why would anyone want one of these?
iPhone sucked like a hungry calf when it first launched.
How did they get away with such a shoddy product?
The other manufacturers are merely the mass production end to this release.
Nokia, however, is a trusted manufacturer of quality products, They understand their users and know how to build a product people like.
Apple took 4 iterations to get it even close to right, and you lot lapped it up simply because it was Apple.
Imagine what the Nokia 801 will be like...
*I am an Android phone user*
Specifically, a smartphone review that doesn't even discuss the calendar and tasks functions counts as uninformative for me. Not much about actual GPS/calendar use either. Since Nokia is meant to be bringing their resources for this to the Windows platform I expected to see a bit more about this.
I kind of like it. I think it's asthetically pleasing; I prefer wider phones to thinner phones and to me, the whole purpose of a smartphone is emphasis on the latter part of the moniker: PHONE! If this thing has the same Nokia reliability as some of their older phones, in terms of reception and clarity then I think it's worth a shot. However, I'm with a couple of other posters: I do not want to make my contacts public domain information; I don't want integrated into face book, and here's the deal breaker... I DON'T want Bing! In my experience it's as useful as bulgarian funbags on the back of a turtle.
If they address those issues, I may buy one.
I'll stick with my old N8 symbian, pisses all over Win7 AND android for battery life. I WANT a battery that will survive longer than a day, fuck I can get a WEEK out of mine! heavy usage at least 2 days. I do like android, it's doing great, just wish they' do something about battery life. Win7 looks great but is a baby, I mean it can't even use memory cards FFS! Java? no? even my 'dated' symbian can do java. Win7 I can see becoming a real winner, it looks great but at teh moment it's all eye candy with nothing underneath the hood, it's gonna take a few more years until they turn it from a pretty looking box into a usable tool! I love both android and win7 but I really wish they'd do something about the awful battery life, it's embarrassing that an O/S that has so much slating; Symbian, can wipe the floor with them on battery life. In a few years I'll likely need a new phone, but if by then my years old N8 still has better battery life than a modern Win7 or android I'll be sticking with my N8 lol. Cmon boys get with it.
It is clear from most of the negativity in this review that the person writing it has not spent nearly enough time with WinPhone 7 to be able to assess it objectively. For example, if certain tiles' animations are annoying, just move them where you can't see them or remove them completely (they will still show up in the App List). I love the way my Live Tiles have come alive since the Mango update. Also, once the App List reaches a certain size, it shows the letter squares so you can navigate alphabetically, like you do with contacts. I find it way better than scrolling through endless screens of regimented grids of icons, as I used to do on my previous phone and I keep the apps I use regularly on the Start screen (Live Tiles).
It is also a little interesting for what is not here. Every other review I've read of this phone is mightily impressed with it's responsiveness to touch, yet there is no mention of it here.
This guy is also the one and only reviewer so far with any negative comments on the beautiful design of the phone. I think the currently available N9, which looks mostly identical, is easily the sexiest smartphone on the market today and is about the only handset that really has anything different to offer, in terms of style.
It seems Andrew is something of an Apple fanboi too, if he counts AirPlay as an advantage when Bluetooth (A2DP) is generally much less hassle and works with every brand of device, as well as allowing you to stream music in your car. With Apple no longer at the top of the tree, either in terms of handsets or app downloads, one has to wonder how long they will continue to enjoy the 3rd party hardware support they have to now, or their premium position when it comes to new app releases.
If Android has managed to comprehensively overtake iOS in less than two years, there is no reason to think Microsoft and Nokia, working together, cannot also take a significant bite out of the market. If the marketing campaign for the N9 is any indication of Nokia's will to succeed, they are clearly going make sure that WP7 and Nokia are front of mind with everyone who walks in to a phone store, which is exactly what WP7 has needed.
"If the marketing campaign for the N9 is any indication of Nokia's will to succeed"
Then I would say they will die.
The N9 marketing was very limited and limited to only some countries.
I suppose the N9 was never meant to succeed (due to Microsoft).
Still I wonder if it would be so difficult to produce decent hardware and give the user
the choice to choose the OS.
I just cannot force my self to bye any Microsoft and nobody will, today, pay me for
using one.
Also I cannot understand why I would like to share my contacts with a cloud.
Also I have decided to never get a facebook account as my wife has one and I have to do all
the delete clicking. If I had one my self I would never have the time to eat or sleep.
I still have a Nokia 9100, and just for fun, I sometimes use it,
superb quality still working fine.
Young people tend to go "wow" when they see it.
nice looking hardware, iphone-y enough to pass for "cool", but different enough to not be one of the many android-ish clones. I can't fucking stand the interface designers' seeming obsession with oversized header text that purposefully clips the edge of the screen. +1 nokia, -1 microsoft.
paris--will she ditch her iphone for this?
Hi folks,
Comparing some functions between the several platforms
C7/N8 Symbian
----------------------
The N8/C7 are the most popular o/t current Symbian devices. They have Symbian Anna nowadays their latest installment of Symbian^3.
- Outlook sync (USB & Bluetooth) including contact-categories, repeating calendar-items and birthdays.
- convenient adressbook with smart-dialing and favorites. A lovely widget on the homescreen allows up-to 20-contacts on a horizontal scroll-list. Very nice.
- 2-way call recording (even when calls are made over BT headset)
--> manually via inbuilt Recorder program (as explained i/t user-guide) or automatically using 3rd-party software. Beeps every 10 seconds unless patched or using particular 3rd-party apps.
- LED Flash (C7) can be used as Torchlight. Move and hold lock-button down for a few seconds.(no 3rd party app needed). The old Omnia used the volume down button for this feature.
- Nokia Maps (most mature version). You can set which routes to avoid (e.g. ferry, tunnel etc..), extensive POI-database, interacts with BOTH contacts and calendar, special pedestrian-mode with spoken streetnames and digital compass (very nice indeed).
- FM-transmitter and FM radio. I don't really care for the FM-radio but the FM-transmitter is a neat little feature that hardly gets the attention it deserves. Its absolutely awesome if your car hasn't got iPod/MP3/USB-integration. Sure, its not perfect because the FM-band is quite saturated but it does what its supposed to do. The real fun part is that the FM-transmitter also plays Movies (audio) and game-audio through the FM-radio too. Obviously and unfortunately, all the other things that also uses the radio-chips can't transmit over FM while receiving data (like calling or navigation).
Nokia N9
-------------
The most handsome of all Nokia's models with a gorgeous UI. The only true contender as iPhone killer. From what I gathered on the interweb the software doesn't use all the hardware features and probably never will (at least not from Nokia). Even landscape support is quite limited :-(
Outlook sync? Any ideas? I assume that since N9 also integrates with OVI-suite software it'll behave the same as a Symbian device. I suspect that it'll also syncs with both USB and BT. That categories are kept as groups. And that calender items get synced the same as they do on Symbian handsets.
- Address-book seems under-developed and misses some modern features like smart dialing. Essential if you have a +500 contacts database.
- There's no 2-way call recording. In fact from the intel I have the Recorder program is absent on this device. There's no mention of 3rd party software in this field either.
- There is a LED-flash and while it can't be used as a torch using a convenient button or icon on the home screen. There are 3rd party programs to address this. I've even found free apps.
- Nokia Maps.... hmmm. It seems that Nokia divided Maps into 2 items on this device. There's Drive and there's Maps. A lot of Symbian-features seems to be missing (like avoiding toll-booths, ferrys or sandy roads). Features which made the Symbian Maps a true replacement turn-by-turn-navigational tool for an incar-navigation or PNA. From what I've read the N9 version of OVI/Nokia Maps just isn't there yet.
- It wasn't very clear from the technical documentation but it seems the N9 does have FM-radio and an FM-transmitter (however no apps to use both of them). I've read that, contrary to the N9, the N900 (Maemo) has a functional FM-Transmitter. :-(
It seems that indeed the N9 has a lot of un-used potential (front-cam, FM-radio & Fm-TX). But since Nokia clearly indicated that this machine will not get further developed it'll probably never get utilized. A real shame! Especially since they DARE to ask approx. 500 euros for the 16GB model!!!
Lumia 800
---------------
It's more or less the WP7 twin o/t N9. It looks almost the same. It has the obligatory camera button but lacks the front-camera (which isn't used on the N9 either from what I gathered). The problem with this device is the fact that Nokia has absolutely nothing to say in how the OS evolves. Sure, they can make suggestions but it doesn't mean these ever get considered. Which means that Nokia will have to resort to make 3rd-party apps themselves to fulfill the gaps in missing OS-functionality (which isn't necessarily bad).
The situation with the Lumia 800 with it's latest WP7 v7.5 (mango) seems like this AFAIK.
- Outlook sync? Outlook who? The same company that enforces Outlook upon us (as primary PIM) for the past decade turned 180 degrees Cloud. Sure, there's virtual exchange servers to hire (which add another cost to the already astronomical fees telco's are asking). Sure there's Google, there's Hotmail, there's Facebook. Unfortunately discretion doesn't allow me to post my +500 clients addresses, tell nos and email-addresses to these clouds. As they get inevitably hacked, cracked and broken. Not to mention that the majority of Facebook participants don't even fill in this info in their profiles.
- 2-way call recording. Oh boy... while there used to be some WM6.x devices that where able to do this. The aforementioned Samsung Omnia (1) could do it similarly like Symbian (both from BT and on the device), The acer Neotouch could only do it on the device itself though it had a record-button prominently display while in a call :-) WP7 has no mention nor capability to record calls. Perhaps Nokia might address this (which I strongly doubt) by porting their Recorder software to WP7. This seems a definite no-go for me as I NEED this feature (the fines for calling while driving are up-to 150 euro in my country!!!).
- LED-flashlight. Again this device has a LED-flash which could technically be used as a lamp. AFAIK only HTC devices (with LED-lights) have an app to use it as a flash. There are 3rd party apps like White Light that should do the trick unfortunately its a hit-and-miss on certain devices. So much for MS-restrictions to adhere to conformity and hence stop software incompatibilities to occur. FAIL!!!
- Nokia Maps. Well, it seems they used the exact same version as on the N9 with the SAME restrictions and shortcomings. Doh!
- FM-radio and FM-transmitter. There is an FM-radio (and there is software to utilize it indeed). The FM-transmitter is absent?!?!? What's the use of a 32GB music-storage device if there's no easy way to play back in my car? Again, a let down from a supposedly high-end Nokia smartphone.
In essence the same problems as with the N9. An immature OS which lacks MANY features that current devices have standard. The hardware is less capable but you get a faster cpu than in N9 (as if that really matters in a cellphone). Social media integration seems pretty well covered in WP7.5 and some hw-features are more accessible for 3rd-party developers. But as of now, the platform is unusable for small self-employed professionals like me. It seems like it's targeted at teenagers whom spend the whole day (though a 'whole day' is probably too optimistic due to battery constraints) on facebook and listen to music. Teenagers for which actually making a call is a luxury (thanks to the high fees telcos ask) and hence spend more time with SMS and tweets than making actual phone-calls. And if you don't make phone-calls then you don't need to record them, do you?
I ask you, is my following conclusion at this time correct? The wanna-have device (N9) is incomplete, the immature WP7 device is targeted at the wrong crowd and the only device that seems to be usable in a home/small-business environment are current crop of Symbian devices.
E.g a Nokia C7 has proper USB-outlook syncing, usable LED-torch (without 3rd party apps), full 2-way call recording (even through BT headset) and the best smartphone navigation tool today (bar WM6.x versions of TomTom/iGO/Garmin whom are defunct nowadays).
Please feel free to correct this info. This would help me greatly into making a future decision. But as of now I guess I have no other choice than to stick with Symbian.
Perhaps a FULL and complete comparative list of what is possible on todays smartphones can be compiled fromt his info. I would certainly appreciate it.
Thanks.
Please don't flame me for the long-winded thread.
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