Almost perfect
Shame about the OS.
Nokia completed its Windows 8 range with two new models recently, including this midrange offering the 720. With a choice of five Lumias it's now clearer to see what Nokia hopes to achieve. The 720 strikes me as the Ford Cortina of the Lumias, a well made mass market compact. The 720 has everything going for it except, perhaps …
Down voted you for a couple of reasons.
First, clearly just an anti Microsoft knee jerk reaction (same as the first post) with little thought behind it - and no suggestion as to what would be better and why.
Second, it is a consumer device. Do you know any teenage kids that give a damn about the OS rather than the 'coolness' of the device? How many bought an iPhone for iOS? How many know what Android is based on? How many ever had a clue about the OS in the Nokia phones, Ericsson phones, Sony, Motorola? Did it make a damn of difference to the phone? Even if you decide that as a 'smart phone' the underlying OS might matter it doesn't to the end user, merely to the developer who is trying to sell you an application. In the case of that the development environment for windows is well known and pretty good.
I don't like Elop, I won't buy a single Nokia phone while they employ the guy. I don't like him because he closed down Symbian where I had worked and he closed down the team I did work for because after 2 years work by hundreds of dedicated engineers we were dismissed because he "didn't know" what we were doing... any CEO taking that much money and sinking a company as huge, profitable and forward thinking as Nokia deserves nothing in the way of respect or support.
As to the OS, well, it is ONLY there to provide basic services so who cares what it is really? No one.
I hate to say it - but you are right regarding the OS - no teenage kid/anyone cares. In my view that explains why people keep buying iOS phones (that is MY OPINION).
Phones look nice; spec sounds good etc but for reasons Dave 15 gives - I will not buy a Nokia while Elop is around. In addition the OS puts me off - my dislike of MS goes back to DR-DOS; Stacker; FoxPro, Sendo......
You may say I'm cutting my nose off to spite my face but in my book it's standing by my principles of not supporting such companies, (yes, Sky/Murdoch are in the same boat)
I'm gonna agree with the 'shame about the OS' post, but I'm going to give a little more reason behind it. I've liked nokia for many years, my first several phones were all nokia, the only reason I moved away from nokia was the price (when the massive mobe price drop came along, the nokia phones all seemed to keep their higher prices for a fair while)
But I just do not like windows phone OS. I have tried it, I have had family who have tried it, heck my sister bought a Windows phone 7 against my advice (which she regretted greatly) however even with the bells and whistles of Windows Phone 8, I just can't get along with that interface, I don't know what it is about it but I just don't like it.
For me the style just doesn't work on a mobile phone, the buttons are too big, and the devices too small. Now on a tablet, I've played with the metro interface and it was tollerable. There wer a few niggles here and there, but that's the same with any new product. But it just doesn't do it for me on a phone.
Now if somebody managed to port something like Go Launcher or another alternative interface then sure let me know and I'll be happy to buy one, depending on price that is. But for now the metro jsut kills it for me.
You're complaining about the UI not the OS - I know they are getting a bit confused these days.
The problem with ALL modern phones is that they've all gone for touch screens - these just do NOT work in mobile situations - walking, on a train, in a bus, in a car... you just can't tap the right part of the screen consistently enough.
Worse none of them protect the screen without buying some ugly awful and nasty piece of c*(** to wrap it up in.
What a lot of people want is something small, neat, with buttons, a clear display and perhaps something really old fashioned like a 'flip' - I had a Z5, the flip meant I did NOT need a lock/unlock thing, the buttons meant I could dial or message on the move, the jog dial meant I could navigate web pages with ease (the browser fitting every web page to screen width helped hugely here, as did its ability to start rendering before the whole page was downloaded enabling you to leap through many links without waiting days), and of course the flip could be set to answer/hang up calls when you opened and closed it. Last, but not least, the flip also protected the microphone from wind and other environmental noise so people could actually here what you were saying.
The problem with ALL modern phones is that they've all gone for touch screens - these just do NOT work in mobile situations - walking, on a train, in a bus, in a car... you just can't tap the right part of the screen consistently enough.
If you want to fiddle with your phone and you're walking, then stand still. If you're in a car, be the passenger. If you're on a bus or a train, no problem, it works fine.
Your brain can't deal with navigating and operating a phone simultaneously and do both well, so it's not the fault of the touch screen. Pedestrians have wandered into busy roads while looking at there mobile since well before the iPhone came along.
Smart phones are awesome, but there're plenty of dumb phones around if that's what you really want.
I don't want to 'stand still' - I want to keep walking when I answer the phone, when I dial someone to tell them I'm late etc.
And NO it does NOT work in the car, bus, train - the shaking and wobbling ensure you don't get the right places.
There were plenty of smart phones around with keyboards - and they were better. there were even some that managed to combine keyboards AND big screens.
My brain can cope with navigating, walking and so forth while operating the phone - and without getting run over.
Ah, my mistake. I thought when you said that you "just can't tap the right part of the screen consistently enough" you were referring to something more difficult than picking up a call, which requires a crude swipe across the screen on my phone. Dialling requires hitting a clearly marked area of about 10 square cm, so not too difficult, either.
And NO it does NOT work in the car, bus, train - the shaking and wobbling ensure you don't get the right places.
Maybe if the bus is the back of a ute heading down an Andean dirt track, otherwise you're making the tasks hundreds of millions of people do without thinking everyday seem extraordinary.
If all you need to do is place and answer calls and you can't do it on a touch-screen, then the problem lies with you. You're clearly unhappy with a tool that works for most people.
You do know that WP8 doesn't use Zune? That sort of casts a rather large shadow over the credibility of the rest of your post.
Yep, I didn't look into it as I know how bad it was. However, that also means to took another option away, no matter how bad. I apologize for jumping into conclusions.
Outlook is a client. Sync both Outlook and your phone with your email server. Job done. You can then easily edit contacts, etc....
So exactly how do I synchronize contacts and calendar over IMAP? Not that I wanted to do that, I have no intentions of providing access to my contact list to any online service if I can avoid it.
OS that can't even do everything Symbian did 10 years ago
Yep, my thoughts exactly.
@Aoyagi Aichou - They removed the ability to sync your phone with Zune at WP8, but they added the ability for you to sync anything to your phone - You can use Windows Media Play, you can just copy the files up there with it as a USB attached device or you can even use iTunes to sync all your old Apple stuff to a WP8. Hardly reducing choice.
Is there a "holding it wrong" joke in here somewhere?
I'm sorry but if you struggle to use a touch-screen : don't. The rest of us manage just fine. Car,bus,train on foot or otherwise. Cheap device? Buy a better one. Fat fingers? Don't go all touch screens, butyone of the millions of second hand blackberry or android "half and half" devices.
If that is what works for you then use it, but don't try and exclaim that touchscreen smartphones don't work in these situations. They do. Perfectly, in any situation one could reasonably expect to be able to use your hands.
And right there is one strength of Android, if you don't like something about Android or it's UI, there's a good chance ordinary users can install a replacement and change it. Very few phones run stock Android, whether it's a carrier mangled, OEM skinned (which many users like) or user hacked version.
Want to do that on WP,iOS or BB? Not an option. In the Android ecosystem users have direct influence on how Android evolves while others get to take what's given them and try to like it.
Over the years my Android phones have looked/behaved like iOS, WP7, HTC Sense, whatever Sony call their Xperia skin... and half a dozen 3rd party home replacements including truly different 3D launchers. Rarely lasts long before choosing something closer to stock Android.
I've drawn the line firmly at trying Facebook Home though and didn't like Go Launcher at all ;)
I felt the same way.
This is a part of a post I made before:
<quote>
After trying a WinPho8 again today I figured out why I don't like it
Trying to be fair I've had several tries on a WinPho 8 to evaluate it - and today I've worked out why I feel - umm.. - errr... - don't like it.
It's simple really - you don't seem to have multiple screens like you have on iOS and Android. All apps are on the front screen with the idea being that your most common ones are near the top. Then you swipe to the right and can see a full app list.
But I like to set up my screens for specific tasks - for example - nothing which costs money if accidentally touched on the main (middle) screen - so only tools like calculator, torch, camera etc as well as widgets for clock and calendar which I want to see straight away. Next screen is for messaging stuff; texts, twitter, mail, skype as well as a row for settings; mobile, wifi, hotspot etc.
So, MS seem to have decided how your phone should be used - whereas iOS and Android allow you to set up the phone for your own needs. And my guess is that there are as many setups as there are users!
Also, I think users like to personalise their phones - and large Android widgets are a nice and easy way to do that.
</quote>
"All apps are on the front screen"
Um, no, they're not. Apps are only on the start screen if you pin them there and there's nothing stopping you from removing and rearranging them. It's better to think of it as the area to keep apps that you want to get alerts from (weather, messages, facebook etc.) or need instant access to (maps, dialer etc.) All apps are on another screen (swipe right to left from the main screen).
The Android way definitely has it's pros & cons and I can understand why someone might prefer it. Personally I dislike the iOS grid of icons as it's unstructured and communicates little information, the worst of the three, in my experience.
@JC_ - I think I can see what bailey86 is saying: there's only one start screen. Yes, you can select what goes on there and what order, but there's still just the one screen. Unless there's new features on the WP8 that I've yet to look into.
But as far as I know, there's no way I could have (say) a screen which displays just my normal apps, then another which displays games that I've written when I want to demo them - I could list them one under the other, but not separate them from each other.
There's no way Elop or MS are going to make me buy a MS-toting Nokia. Even if the Fabulous Fred interface copes better with mobile phones, I do not want MS creep in my phones. I still have a BlackBerry because I dislike both the iOS walled garden and Android's Google Data Slurp.
And as other commenters have mentioned, I dislike MS for many reasons, especially being the Galactus of technologies: FoxPro, Sendo, Palm... either they kill those who enter strategic "alliances", or absorb them and *then* kill the tech (see FoxPro).
I only wish Elop is given the boot while Nokia is still alive...
"I hate to say it - but you are right regarding the OS - no teenage kid/anyone cares. In my view that explains why people keep buying iOS phones (that is MY OPINION)."
You're exactly wrong.
Many people buy iOS phones *because* of the OS, because it's the OS that runs the apps they want. If you have an iOS phone, chances are almost 100% that you can get whatever cool app that all your friends are running.
I've run into two younger people over the last year who felt like they were tricked by salespeople into buying Windows Phone phones and were furious because 9 times out of 10, when they wanted to run a particular app/game on their phone, it wasn't available. If that isn't caring deeply about choice of operating system, I don't know what is.
My dislike with closed OSes is that I can't customise them to meet my requirements. I'm locked into the software developer's "vision", and to hell with what I want.
Such is the path to useful features being removed and bugs going unfixed. That's why Maemo et al had me rooting for them...a phone with a chance to fix those annoying bugs myself? Yes please! Being forced into a crippled OS that can't even do everything Symbian did 10 years ago? Humbug.
That is true of almost every single thing in your life.
Have you built your own house and car? have you made your own kitchen from scratch out of wood?
Yes, being able to fully customise and bespoke something is nice, but you are one of the small number of people who actually care about that. Why? simple, being able to hack away at an OS requires the skill to do it, just like carpentry or bricklaying requires a skill.
Wow,
Your post explains a lot, I sell phones and always have repeat customers as I always manage to get people the phone that works best for them, and can you guess what this is based on? Yep that's right, the OS. I find it fascinating that someone who helped create a phone OS would believe the consumer has no interest in it, but i fully understand where you're coming from as I didn't have a single customer come in and say any positive words about Symbian, ever. I hate to say it but it was about time symbian was closed it was hugely flawed and un-intuitive and with staff with an attitude like yours it is no wonder.
Personally I thought the review was spot on going by my experience with the rest of the lumia range and this would undoubtedly become my 'go-to' first recommendation to anyone new to smartphones who wanted a fairly desirable bit of kit.
and just fyi to break it down into stereo-typical groups of who gets along with what OS
iOS - People already in the apple ecsystem
Android - chavs, geeks, kids
Win Pho - People new to smartphones, the elderly, professionals with cool jobs (designers, engineers)
Blackberry (pre 10) - Dumb "business women", people afraid to move away from BB, 13 year old girls, certain racial groups
symbian - builders "gimme your cheapest nokia, I'll break it next week"
... it is a consumer device. Do you know any teenage kids that give a damn about the OS rather than the 'coolness' of the device?
That's absolutely true, but SO not the point.
This phone could have been attractive to ME had it run Meego or perhaps Symbian skinned with Qt, or maybe Android, but I'm not interested in a Windows device. So, I agree with the OP -- shame about the OS.
That's a personal opinion, of course, but a perfectly valid comment.
What's wrong with the OS, BigYin?
I've had a Nokia 620 for a month now, and IMHO in terms of productivity and ease of use it is much better than Android or IOS and works well with Windows, Office and Skydrive.
If, however, you want a phone that works well with Linux or Apple, then I'd agree that you'd probably not want to go the Windows Phone route.
@Grail
I have already made so many posts stating what's wrong with WP8 that continuing this crusade would most likely permanently mark me as "the Microsoft hater". As for productivity, how do you explain that Microsoft's own operating system is unable to directly synchronize with one of the most used Microsoft's own software, that being Outlook? Why is it that I can't read/send messages, edit calendar entries, contacts, etc? I know my S60 phone can do all of that even though I have to install PC Suite. (no, don't even get me started on Zune, that's got to be the most useless program I've ever seen)
"I personally was disappointed that ActivSync was dropped because that was (for me) the biggest reason to go for WinPhone 5 & 6.. The fix was/is to sync the contacts and calendar with HoTMaiL.. Or sync directly with Exchange over the air."
It wasn't dropped. It still exists. It's called EAS - Exchange ActiveSync. The only difference is that there is now no need for a physical connection.
"Why would you sync a client with another client".. 'cus I started doing it in 1994 (HP 200LX) & WinPhone in 2003 (Motorola MX100).. I liked ActiveSync for the same reason I like QWERTY (I'm used tlo it).
These days there's better ways of doing it.. but I do chucke when iPhone users write new numbers on paper "just in case the contact is deleted"
" As for productivity, how do you explain that Microsoft's own operating system is unable to directly synchronize with one of the most used Microsoft's own software, that being Outlook?"
Outlook is a client. Sync both Outlook and your phone with your email server. Job done. You can then easily edit contacts, etc....
I have an Exchange server sat behind it, but on Windows Phone 8 you can send emails, edit calendar entries and contacts, and those changes show up in Outlook. If you set yourself up a Microsoft account when setting the phone up (I already had one for MSDN) you have a Hotmail calendar to sync Outlook and the phone with.
You don't need Zune - not sure that even came with my Lumia 620. The phone mounts the internal storage and Micro-SD in Windows 7's Explorer and you drag-and-drop things.
just picked up a Fiat 500 hire-car.. Love the economy, cost, look, performance and styling.. But as soon I saw the Windows logo on the controls, I thought exactly the same.. "almost perfect.. Except for the OS". I'd almost rather walk the fifty miles rather use a car with Windows.. everyone surely knows that QNX is the OS of choice when selecting a car...
... Oh no, wait a minute... that's just daft, nobody picks a car (or phone) for the OS
Ah, back in the days when Nokia was king.
the 6230 was probably my favourite phone going back about 8 years. Great form factor, great screen and great user experience.
I just wished Nokia had put the same amount of effort into this type of device, instead of making something like the 7280... But then again, I think only 3 people ended up buying one of those.
"After two decades of MS shenanigans and a clear drive to put monopoly profits above the customer's interests, they need to offer something exceptional for me to take notice. I wonder if I am the only one?"
You write of putting profits above the customer's interests - yet in any commercial relationship, long-run profits must on balance always be placed above customers' interests in an either-or scenario.
Yes MS have tried to behave monopolistically sometimes. They may even have done some good things too (gasp). And their old boss may be doing good things with his money, like trying to cure malaria. But ethics aside, the relative merits of their mobile browser should be what matters here. Sometimes bad people can make good things.
I disagree, in most commercial relationships both sides find a common interest. If that common interest would not exist, then there would no deal!
Only a company in a monopoly position or with a strong lock-in can afford to annoy their customers and MS did that extensively. They built their monopoly and then started to tax the world for access to office documents. I still run windows to retain access to a lot of legacy data -- and I don't ever want to have a similar lock-in for my phone. Google, on the other hand, liberated a lot of information and offers you daily choice whether you want to pay the Google tax (move over to Bing if you want).
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"Only a company in a monopoly position or with a strong lock-in can afford to annoy their customers and MS did that extensively."
Well that's a really good point about MS, at least their GUI problems suggest they've not focussed as hard on customer experience as Apple, and maybe that's because they've not been as pressured to compete. That said, if we consider whether Apple competes - maybe it doesn't, because it's in the luxury goods sector: people queue up to burn their dollars at the fruity altar. So it may be difficult to compare it properly with MS.
You've changed the point I made by omitting "long-run" and "in an either-or scenario". You're right about commercial relationships sides finding a common interest, but that doesn't address the point I made. Your previous post appeared to feature the premise that it was possible for companies to ultimately, i.e. in the long run, put the customer's interests above their own. That's fallacious.
There may be convergences of interests, as you say, but outside of the luxury goods sector, these are fought over fiercely in the marketplace and aren't defined until the customer / seller agree a price between them. The minute it is clear to a company that its activities must ultimately cost them more than they will get back, i.e. no longer be profitable, they're no longer a commercial entity. For this reason, the whole of their existence they must fight the customer to establish price points as favourable to themselves as possible. Likewise the customer.
Yes, because Google or Apple would never put profit before customer interests. Their altruism makes me weep. Sometimes. Silently. At night. Alone.
There hasn't been much innovation on iPhone since 2007, and while I do like Android it seems that Google and its OEMs are trying to set new standards in feature creep.
WinPhone8, at least, dares do something a bit different, and it works for me. Which does not make it perfect of course. There are a number of annoying aspects to it... browser navigation, volume controls, etc. come to mind.
Google's business model is vastly different that Microsoft's and in a way them being a company solely focused on bring ad verts to mass, innovation in different tech is their game. Their goal is to present you with something you want to stare at constantly, while not turning you away from the ad revenue.
Microsoft (and could be said of Apple), are (maybe more correctly *Should Be) focused on delivering useful software. Their issue that that shareholders are angry cause Microsoft is not Google and so try to make them into an Advertisement Biz.
What you get is a solid OS, topped by a second rate GUI, that achieves neither something people want to stare at nor is it useful in any manner reasonable. Google (and Apple) have solid OS's also, but they also have useful interfaces.
I feel Microsoft is hanging them selves with trying to be something the won't be and quite frankly i don't care, I won't be said to see them go, or at least take a major hit in the areas they once dominated.
Personally I'm pretty amazed I have these devices to choose from (iPhone, the various Android phones, Windows) but I don't think I can let the not much innovation on iPhone since 2007 sentence pass.
iPhone innovation does appear (to me) to be slowing but a lot has changed since 2007: when we had:
No app store, no retina display, wired-only backups/updates/synch, no push notification, no MMS, no copy-paste (the biggest reason I didn't buy an early iphone), totally non-existent multitasking (except I think, playing media on iTunes?), no airplay, no icon folders, no spotlight search, no FindMyPhone (and where would "Sherlock" be without that?), no iTunes purchases on phone, no support for Exchange, no tethering, no email attachments, etc.
In truth I wouldn't have thought claiming to be better than Android and iPhone was that much of a claim, can't see how it would be that easy to be worse!
Problem is that just like the two the tight fisted folk have gone on with the touch screen stupidity, I like real buttons to do real jobs.
It's simple management logic. "If we like it, everyone must like it"
If somebody up top has a stupid idea, no matter how many people say it's stupid they just won't hear it. There will be some easily swayed who fall for the hype and they'll like it. Those people will then advance because they're on the same wavelength as the managers. Others will see this and emulate them.
This is the start of the 'sheep' or 'yes men' infastructure. Management poses an idea, no matter how stupid "Oh great idea sir, absolutely fabulous, no wonder you earn quadrouple my pay while doing sweet FA"
And so we're punished with this utter shit, while the masses who made it keep the "Don't worry it'll grow on you. Admitadly more like a canerous tumour but still"
And eventually because Microsoft products are effectively forced adoption (office, visual studio, IE etc) no matter how much you protest to it, eventually you'll have to use it, and you'll eventually grow to tolerate it. Far different from loving it, but different enough to warrent buying it to upgrade from microsoft works. Microsoft make sales because you have no other choice and chalk it down to people loving the new ideas.
As a random note here, if a product succeeds microsoft are instantly there to champion their pioneering efforts and how amazeballs they are. The moment something goes wrong however. "Oh it's a downturn in the market, totally not because we threw in a new feature people hate"
Regarding the better the longer you use it as a WP7 user that would mostly be down to the fact it doesn't prescribe to the general consensus as to how users interact with their phone.
The WP7/8 OS is not app centric and services are far more integrated into the OS itself. For example the People's Hub is a one stop social media hub so whereas on iOS and Android (without setting up widgets) you would need to access your twitter,linkedIn, Facebook, etc apps individually so coming to WP that would be your first inclination into how its done. Once you get used to using the People's hub for reading all updates in one feed you then start trying out making customised lists that can be pinned to the start screen with their own live tiles.
WP7/8 has a load of features not on other OS that make life a hell of a lot easier but it can take some adjustment if you are coming over from other ecosystems.
The trouble with that approach is that it doesn't match what people really do.
Most people have a set of work contacts and a separate set of friends. They also often overlap.
I do not want to risk confusing replying to a FaceTweetSpace "Let's go out to XXX" with a work "We're meeting the customer at XXX".
A reply like "Cool, XXX is totes amazeballs" isn't suitable for one of those situations.
Perhaps the CxOs of such large companies as MS and Nokia don't ever have purely social engagements or socialise with colleagues, but most real people do.
For most people, keeping work email completely separate from social networking and personal email is a necessary function.
Ok, some do that by having two phones, but with the large physical size and short battery life of these things, that is becoming less practical.
To be honest, I don't really like that I have no way to properly separate my personal phonebook from my work contacts in the same phone, but at least that does have workarounds.
I'm struggling to see the issue here from any other phone I have had.
The people hub allows me to find a contact I am looking for - whether that be work, family or friends (I don't want to have three phone books with some overlap).
I have a tile for my work email. One for my home email. And one for my gmail. There is no way to confuse the three. If I see emails from colleagues then I know I am in the inbox for my work account. If I see mails from friends and family then I am in my home account, and if I see order confirmations and SPAM then I am in my gmail account.
Pretty much as it was on iOS and Android as well - in fact easier as it's three separate tiles by default (you can connect inboxes if you want, but by default each account appears as its own app. On the iPhone you had to open the mail client and then select the inbox you wanted, and on my Desire and Xperia Z it was similar (Gmail had their own app).
The point is that the social networking has been made easier in the hub, which would be the FaceTweetSpace you were talking about. It's not a case of accidentally emailing or texting everyone in your contact list from the social media hub - you want to mail it's still separate, as it should be!
And as I said in my post you can do that via customised contacts lists .
You also confuse how people work with how people have only been able to work. If you look at the iOS and Android GUI they are identical in style to those used by keypad phones such as the Blackberry QWERTY phones and Sony Erricsson dumb phones. Even the menus operate as if you were using a thumbstick. People use a phone a certain way because there's never been an alternative.
Most android phones can happily run 5 or 6 apps in 512 RAM (only the foreground one is usually active but they're in memory) and it's only about then that they start to get killed. How is it that Windows Phone 8 is so memory sensitive that switching away from an app and back again can cause it to be killed like this?
As I read the review he was talking about the browser app being in memory and dropping pages from the cache. There are often different reasons for this. Some pages have a tag in them to prevent them being cached - often true with pages that expect the data will change quickly. Other times the browser itself might be very 'hefty' and take up a lot of room, or sometimes tries to do something really dumb like keep the raw page in memory.
When I worked on Microsoft Mobile Explorer (not created by Microsoft but by STNC and then bought by them) the page was tokenised on the way into the browser, information we couldn't use was chucked, tags for things like font size changes because bits on the text data, as did bolds, italic and similar. End tags were discarded etc etc. This was done even more efficiently in the browser than it was by WAP (we could render both HTML and WML) - to the point where even compiled WAP pages were stored smaller in our browser memory than they had been delivered. This allowed us to keep far more web pages in memory than people expected.
"In truth I wouldn't have thought claiming to be better than Android and iPhone was that much of a claim, can't see how it would be that easy to be worse!"
Other than being the only two realistic options for mobile O/Ss these days... what is so bad about them? Neither are as bad as Windows Mobile 6.5 which totally ruined the whole Sony Xperia X1 device ownership thing for me.
I can't say that I find either android or iphone to be very user friendly - too many pages of stuff applications that aren't where I want, not always obvious and the touch screen really fails to work well with my fat little fingers. It doesn't make them better if they are the only ones out there, just sad that there isn't more choice. As for the development environment the iPhone one was horrendous the last time I tried it (all be it a couple of years back), for android I've not done a great deal but had a play and wasn't very impressed.
Personally I'd probably dig out an old S60 phone for a smart phone - does all the same stuff, generally good build (not always), range of form factors, decent cameras etc etc). Or if I couldn't find one that was still working in the box of old ones I'd get a blackberry so I could have the keyboard.
I'd be interested to know which android phones you have experience of Dave15.
" too many pages of stuff applications that aren't where I want"
On almost all android phones the apps are together, in one place and in alphabetical order.
I think you're dismissing some absolutely brilliant and functional devices with, in reality, no experience of them at all.
As a Nexus 4 user (trading it in this weekend) I have switched to a 720.
The Nexus is the closest you can get to minimalist Android and whilst it is clutter-free and smooth it remains, just like iOS, nothing more than a desktop with icons and phone plus other communications features. The WP phones are phones and communication devices that can also have apps. The emphasis is the opposite and the device much better for it.
It's a personal preference, but I want my phone to be a phone, not an old-fashioned desktop like the Windows/Mac/Linux ones the tech press keeps saying is dying a death. With WP I get that, but still have apps when I need them.
I could get a Sammy S3 contract free for that. Admittedly the newer S4 price hasn't yet come down from its launch premium, but with the N 620 currently £200 SIM free, the 720 isn't going to come down much below £250.
And the point isn't so much whch is the better phone, it is simply that when you take out the air time, we're talking about a £12 to £15 a month purchase, and for only the price of a couple of decent coffees a month (or a couple of beers, a packet of cigs or whatever) you can get a lot more phone for your money.
If you really only want a basic phone, then there's ten quid Alcatels and Nokia dumb phones kicking about. Once you're in the smartphone market, the marginal cost of trading up can be quite low (albeit not if you insist on a freshly minted S4 or latest iPhone). But given the often mediocre ownership experience of cheap smartphones (eg Wildfire S, Galaxy Ace, Orange San Diego and many others), why risk your investment, even on contract, by saving three quid a month to take a low end Microsoft offering? Will the desperados of Redmond give you free OS updates, as they struggle to offset declining PC revenues? Will they even issue updates for a low end phone?
About fourteen months ago I splashed out on our small fleet of household phones. Two SGS2s for the grown ups, and a Galaxy Ace for the oldest nipper. The Ace has always struggled with storage, with speed, with a low display resolution, a crummy camera - it's stuck on Gingerbread. The SGS2's have been and remain a joy to own and use. OK, they were more expensive to buy, but far more than offset by the satisfaction. I'll be very, very cautious in future about buying cheap or mid range handsets.
Fair call, but that's still £150 over twenty four months for a decent spec phone like an S3 (or for that matter a higher end WP if you so wish).
So at absolute most, five or six quid a month cheaper for something you'll always know isn't as good as you could have had. Maybe a Starbucks with trimmings every two weeks will take away the bitterness of user disappointment?
If you really want cheap, the answer is "not a smartphone", surely?
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worth mentioning that the 720 comes with the single country HERE satnav not the global HERE+ (which the cheaper 620 has). Apparently soon you will be able to upgrade the 620 to HERE+ but it will cost.
Despite the smaller screen (3.8 / 480 x 800) and smaller battery (1300mAh) I'd say that the 620 makes more sense thanks to a much lower price point (£150 v £300 on PAYG).
"Other than that Windows Phone lives up to its reputation as the most smooth, fast and functional smartphone OS."
It doesn't have that reputation - at least not in the world I know, or can reach through reviews, blogs, the world press and so on. Don't get me wrong, it has some very nice features indeed - Kinect aside, some of the best stuff from Microsoft for decades IMO - but i'm not sure where you get this 'fact' from. I'm willing to be educated, but until then i'll put it down to yet another little invention of yours.
...followed by a thumbs down but no evidence. Let me be clear - I don't care what OS in on the phone, neither am I flying the flag for any phone OS at all. Couldn't give a rats arse. As I said, I like a lot of what I see in Windows Phone but I have never seen it mentioned as having a reputation as "the most smooth, fast and functional smartphone OS" - until now. That must have been one hell of a quick reputation to gain, and i've missed it completely. Show me what i'm missing and where it's mentioned - that's all.
(Google Is Your Friend)
http://www.zdnet.com/blog/cell-phones/after-the-iphone-4s-windows-phone-7-5-still-feels-right/6751
"Speed and consistency has always been a hallmark of iOS, but Windows Phone 7.5 beats Apple here with an extremely snappy performance even on old hardware."
https://medium.com/adventures-in-consumer-technology/4b06dcbb98c9
"It’s really, really fast. One thing that most people who play with my phone say is “wow, it’s really fast” or “it’s super responsive,” and it is."
Took me all of 12 seconds to find these among dozens of others. Try searching for 'windows phone performance"
"Speed and consistency has always been a hallmark of iOS, but Windows Phone 7.5 beats Apple here with an extremely snappy performance even on old hardware."
Not to argue with anyone in particular here, but--
It's true that Windows Phone SEEMS fast/responsive since it's packed with animations that seem to be happening constantly.
I wonder if anybody has done much testing to see if it really is as fast as other platforms though. I notice that when a friend of mine launches an app, everything on the screen starts flying around except for that app's icon, which he usually taps 3-4 times out of boredom before it disappears and the app actually starts running.
I wouldn't be surprised to learn if Windows Phone is actually one of the slowest phone OSs... (Not saying that it is, it just wouldn't surprise me...)
"That must have been one hell of a quick reputation to gain, and i've missed it completely. Show me what i'm missing and where it's mentioned - that's all."
Seconded ! I was under the impression iOS still rules the GUI with the BB OS trying to innovate with much swiping of fingers and the Windows Phone not much discussed. Android of course as the established middle ground many people measure against due to sheer numbers.
I'm going to put this down as a reputation within the press not the public since I think I'd struggle to find anyone I know with a Windows Nokia.
As for myself I may move from my n900 to a BB Q10 but I'm not sure I like the keypad. Regarding a Nokia Win Phone well I'll think about it in 2 to 3 years time when it's stabilised... my golden rule for anything with "Windows" in the name.
It's a poor rhetorical device used by Mr Orlowski who obviously likes Windows Phone and elides his personal opinion into a general one. I'm not sure if he's aping Jane Austen's ironic style or classical realism.
I've not come across any such reviews in the press I read but I guess there might be a case to be made for the apparently service-centric Windows Phone approach. However, I also suspect that a "fast and functional smartphone OS" is probably an oxymoron. Feature phones with real buttons are functional.
".someone can find a way to port Android onto this. Nokia Hardware+Android OS= Bliss"
But that would defeat the design objectives of security and performance. Plus Windows Phone is so secure, to date that's simply not possible. This isn't Android where you can root a phone just by visiting a website...
Actually I was thinking that there was a lot of MS astroturf bullshit in the comments. Most people seem to have givien up slating Windows Phone, rather like Windows 8... it's just become part of the landscape. I really had hoped Nokia would do so much more and be let off the leash with Microsoft to make something awesome. But stock Windows Phone with a great nav app just doesn't do it.
The niggles with Wndows Phone are what'll get you in the end... that and an app store that looks like it was supplied by teenage boys who don't get out much. As an overall experience you get used to it, but when you leave and go to Android or iOS, you just feel like you're not a freak anymore and it all just generally feels better. Sorry.
No, really not. I can from an iPhone, HTC Desire and Sony Xperia Z before my 820 and in (almost) no way do I think that Windows Phone 8 is lacking. Quite the opposite in fact, it is the best phone I have owned since I got my first phone in 1996 (wow, 17 years ago... I feel old!).
I have only 1 niggle with the 820 after nearly a month owning it.
No separate volume controls for keypad, ringtone and headphones (I could live with the first two being combined, but where is the sense in combining the ringtone that you want loud to hear in your pocket / handbag and the headphones that you don't want to deafen you!).
But I just change the volume when plugging in the headphones. It's a pain that I hope they fix, but not the end of the world :)
I am sure lot of people would just cringe at the title. But there is a reason why I chose that. Does it really matter if I say it is the best phone? I like the phone and I think it is the best for me. Likewise, someone else doesn't like it and they go with android or ios because it suits them.
Why cannot we just like something or dislike something without caring a damn of what others think?
I agree with your comment, but look at who you're talking to. The readership of El Reg are not exactly known to be open the ideas or opinions of others when it comes to comments about any OS, be that desktop, server, mobile or whatever! you only have to read the ill-informed rants of a certain person here to realise that accepting someone else's opinion is never going to be on the cards!
Phones are rapidly mutating into lifestyle statements, which allows brand junkies to state their opinions as fact, in the belief that other brand junkies/haters will rally round the flag.
The "best" phone, until the next "best" phone comes out next week, is surely the one that meets your personal needs for form, function, and value. Beyond that, it's as silly as going to war over matters of taste. I'd rather waste my energy in the pub.
An Escort would might be called compact, and even a Fiesta is too large to be a sub-compact ... but a Cortina was a great big whale of a car. The best that might be said for it is that it was smaller than a Granada ... or a Transit.
But who'd buy a phone made by Ford?
Ford making phones would result in
+ Sturdy and with a decent milage
+ Unit being to wide to fit it the typical pocket
+ Unit being to low to the ground for the post 40 to enter/exit easily so a more costly "xMax" model is offered
+ Replacing user serviceable parts will require massive dismanteling and re-assembly/adjustment
Hmm, sounds a lot like a Samsung phone to me...
Use a phone for calling people any more?
Perhaps they should be called compact mobile workstations (CMWs). There, that's the ticket!
Not really a joke, but given how everyone thinks about them, it might be true. Of course, for me, I use a simple phone (an older StarTac if you must know).
Well written article with some very valid points. We love to "debate" what's best. The Lumia range of phones from a design point stand out above basically all others, the is is extremely fluid and very easy to use, the available apps while still behind android and IOS are coming more frequently than ever before with WP7, in due time the apps argument will be out the window then at that point it will come down to stability and usability where in my opinion at the low to mid price points wp8 destroys android (IOS doesn't seem to have a poor man's option unless you purchase old hw) at the high end of the spectrum only personal preference is the differentiator unless apple continues to forget about innovation so there its just up to the consumer. Long term I think things look good for Nokia especially in the lower end markets will expand its share once word gets around enough.
Windows Phone 8 have used it enough to actually give the feedback.
When I smashed the screen on my Xperia S about a month back (doh!) I needed a new phone, and rather quickly.
I've had an iPhone, two top end Android phones and so I thought maybe it was time to dip my toes into the Windows Phone 8 water. A colleague has a Lumia 710 (WP 7.5) and loves it (except the battery life) and all the reviews seemed positive enough for the 820.
I went to the shop and spoke to the assistant (who seemed to really know her stuff for a change!) spoke to me for 20 minutes of so about the relative merits of the different phones and OS's. For what I needed (calling, corporate email and occasional surfing) she recommended the Huwai (or how it's spelt) phone as it had the same specs as the 820 but was 200 euros cheaper. Unfortunately that would have mean waiting a week for it to come back into stock. A week I didn't have!
So I plumped for the 820. And have not regretted it for a second since. Easy to use, slick interface and one of the best soft typing experiences I have had.
One niggle is the volume control - whoever thought that one setting for both ringtone and headphones was enough was definitely on drugs.
And there is not a great choice in the app store. Yet. But what is there is really great - the best IMDB experience I have had.
The question with smartphones as with other computer is
+ Does it fit my style of usage (Stylus)
+ Does it integrate with my other systems (i.e Windows PC)
+ Does it run the necessary software (i.e Sync with Exchange - who cares about Outlook)
+ Does it provide the necessary services (i.e 3G/4G sharing over WLAN)
I.e WP8 currently fails on point 1 but the next two would fit better than iOS and the PenguBased system I am forced to use if I want a stylus. And the last works well.
For me the ultimate solution now is "drop the smartphone" and switching to a 3G equiped Win8 tablet pc and a featurephone. Found that whenever/whereever I could/need use the "smart" component - I had a tablet pc with me anyway (Car has a nav system build in)
As I keep saying with WP8 threads - I love the OS, especially in Lumia flavour. I still maintain that the reason 'the market' doesn't get it is because a) 90% of people walk into a phone shop already decided on what they're going to get, and b) you need to spend time with WP8 to appreciate it. That said, it isn't for everyone.
Anyway, here's two observations for Eadon based on my actually use of things;
1) The Lumia range is great, if you've bothered to use one before deriding it using the awesome power of Caps Lock. Arguably one of the best built things on the market at the moment.
2) Linux Mint is nice, but after an update last month it forgot my netbook has Bluetooth and onboard 3G. ndiswrapper isn't working (without a lot of mucking about) so I'm stuck without it. Windows, for all the trouble it has detecting and installing hardware, doesn't tend to forget things once you've finally coaxed into accepting it does have the driver
I have to ask, do you have a black & white telly?
Nokia aren't going anywhere; Elop has steadied the ship and they aren't bleeding cash anymore (see the latest quarterly results) so all they need now is to make a decent profit. Judging anecdotaley by what I am seeing and hearing around me, Windows Phone (and crucially mainly Nokia Windows Phone) seems to be gaining traction; in the past two weeks I have discovered that my 18yo cousin has a Lumia and her boyfriend has a HTC (although he is annoyed that he dropped his and it now needs repair, I laughed and said that the Nokia would not have done that). She said that they both love their Windows Phones, and can't understand why more people don't have them.
My partner has ordred a Lumia 920 as her main work phone (to replace her BlackBerry) and I have seen several Lumias out and about on public transport. Plus two colleagies of mine mentioned Lumias yesterday, one of them saw a mate use his at the weekend and now has his sights set firmly on upgrading to a new Nokia, and the other also saw a friend at the weekend who was waxing lyrical about how much he loved his WP Nokia and was pronouncing that the new range had turned Nokia's fortunes around. Perhaps slightly premature but there is definitely room for optimism.
I'm pleasd for Nokia - it's a real shame Symbian and Meego weren't taken on the path previosly set out (still love my N9 and N86, and Symbian Belle was very good), and many of the excellent hardware features are sadly missed in the current Lumias (Bluetooth file transfer/browsing, built in torch, USB OTG, sleeping screen OLED/AMOLED screen clock and message alert etc) but there is rumour that they will be bringing them to WP at some point so good luck to them. IN any case, as Andrew mentions in the article, these are far better value handsets than the shockingly awful cheapo HTC and Samsung Androids (there is an ongoing saga with the in-law's quite frankly shower-of-shit Galaxy Ace, still in contract).
I think Elop will be judged far more kindly in the future he pulls this off - for the Symbian apologists, read the Reg article about the Symbian politburo that was gradually killing the company through infighting; the burning memo was perhaps in hindsight a silly move but Elop had to do something. I hope he suceeds.
Exactly as I've said before - the only way that Nokia, Microsoft and Windows Phone is going to gain traction is by playing the long game. Unless you've got a complete game-changer, there's no fast track into an already well-populated market.
Since I started developing for mobile, I've become increasingly aware of what devices people have - especially so since I stopped driving. There may not be a huge number of WinPhones out there compared to the alternatives, but from my observations on public transport, that number is steadily building.
I'm waiting to see Eadon on the national news for a killing spree in central London because people are using Windows phones AND computers :) although he probably lives in a small cave away from sunlight and worships the moon,comes out only when the Linux gods have whispered in his ear..........he his bonkers, his diatribe makes me laugh, but it's getting a bit long in the tooth now.....and I have to do this, my fingers are typing it themselves
EPIC EADON FAIL :)
whoop whoop