Wednesday 24 April 2013

Me and Windows Phone?

Just to give you guys a heads up, about whats going on here ;)

While I am still answering comments and emails (mostly done with the comments), I didn't have time to work on something new... so far my 808 is still up and running, I don't really see a reason to hurry.

So I will take my time to think about future projects.

On the other hand, there have been some news here and on my twitter account that I am now using Windows Phone 8.
My youngest sister desperately wanted to have an iPhone... her contract was running out, but the iPhones were still too expensive for her. So I offered her my iPhone 4.
(Anyone remembers the iPhone 4 I used during the time my 808 was in repair?)

We renewed her contract anyway and and got a Lumia 820 for only 40.- CHF, since she is not interested in anything else but the iPhone, I got to keep the Lumia.

At the start of this week, I renewed the mobile phone contract for one of my other sisters.
After negotiating a while, her operator offered me the Lumia 820 or the Lumia 920 for 1.- CHF (plus a 50.- CHF discount on the next two months' subscription fee :)).

I will let her choose if she wants my Lumia 820 or the new Lumia 920.
She has small hands and therefore I expect her to take the Lumia 820, also because she can change the back cover to switch colours... So I probably end up with the 920.

Working in an IT department means, I have to stay up to date on new technology... that includes mobile operating systems, if employees want to use their phones for business purposes, I have to be able to help them out with the configuration and troubleshooting, etc.

I am trying to get to know it, so I don't look like an idiot at work... based on the hardware, the Lumia 820/920 is not what I have in mind to replace my Nokia 808.

The Nokia 808 is still my primary phone and I don't see it being replaced anytime soon!

Nevertheless, WP8 makes a nice impression and I see a lot of potential in it. I probably write a few articles about it here on my blog, I hope you guys are interested ;)

16 comments:

  1. Well, the Nokia E7 is a very nice device (if you like hardware keyboards).

    but holding on to symbian forever is not going to work... just enjoy it as long as you can, i will do the same with my 808 ;)

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  2. go ahead ... appreciate very much your view and impressions on wp8. Sooner or later I have to leave Symbian. Not sure if wp8 would be the choice right now. I'm thinking about WP8, Android or potentially what Jolla is going to offer.

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    1. Hi Selur,
      Thanks for your comment ;)

      I am seeing it like you, sooner or later we have to leave Symbian behind us.

      About a year ago, I would have gone for Android... nowadays, there are just too many devices in my opinion. I don't see how Samsung/HTC/etc. can keep up updating all their phones to the latest Android releases!!

      Jolla Sailfish sounds very interessting, but without the support of one of the major hardware suppliers, I don't see it catching on (I'd like to be proven wrong though ;)).

      I still like Nokia's hardware and especially their camera's... so I guess I will go for WP in the future. It also works very well with my Windows PC and MS Account. But I am still open for alternatives.

      Just ordered a Lumia 620 for my sister, looking forward to see how WP performs on low-end devices ;)

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  3. I'm still in a state of dreaming about Jolla teaming up with Nokia in the future [/fantasyworld]
    THE thing I love about Symbian is its power and freedom; it can do SO incredibly much, and so can its user - both with the system itself and with the phone it runs on. WP doesn't even get near to that freedom.
    I'm hoping (and counting on it, really) that Sailfish will at least be something closer to that. I don't see myself using Android or WP because of it. So my N8 will probably only ever leave active duty for Sailfish or Ubuntu Mobile.

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    1. The Nokia N900 and N9 offers far more freedom than the N8, and the N9 has quite fantastic hardware as well. So you should switch to the N9!

      Symbian does not really offer freedom, it's protection is just lousy, so you can adjust everything. The configuration changes offered in the CFW were never meant by Nokia, there a kind of "hack". Hacked Android phones offer the same amount of "freedom" (don't know about hacked WP8 phones).

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    2. Yes, you are right. That's why I set my hopes in Sailfish as the Maemo continuation.
      I forgot to add that Symbian, with its years of development, is a mature, stable and very efficient platform. Also, I love my N8 for its fantastic camera - that was the main reason why I bought one. The 808 is too expensive for me as of yet, so there isn't much choice.
      I do not want Android because of its insane fragmentation, its architecture (Dalvik), its owner (Google) and its insecurity (ever increasing reports of malware and virusses, and just recently the news of android virus scanners being easily circumvented).
      So to be a bit more precise: the only thing that can make me switch is Sailfish or Ubuntu on a smartphone with a camera of the likes of the N8. I doubt it will ever happen, though. But we'll see. Maybe Sony gets going at some point.

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  4. I'm waiting on the promised Nokia WP8 device that really has "pureview". The 920 has a decent camera, but it is comparable to the Samsung S3/S4, HTC One or the iPhone 5. However, it is not comparable to the Nokia 808 :-)

    I like the approach of the HTC One (stabilization and large pixels), but in the end it failed on image quality in good light. I would love to see Nokia following the same approach, the 808 has an excellent lens, which really is able to do the 20+MP right, but you never need that kind of resolution. I would happily trade to possibility to "zoom" for better dynamic range. Because the 808 is not more than average in that field.

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    1. I fully agree with your post.
      The 920 is a decent camera phone, compared to Nokia's competition. But it fails against the 808 and even the 2010 N8...

      (Though if you like WP8 it may be worth trading for the N8, when comparing the complete phone and not only the camera.)

      If Nokia want's me to switch from my 808, they really have to come up with more... for now I am happy with the 808, but I will keep my eyes open for a successor too.

      Btw. I would also prefer to see 20 large MP (e.g. like they used in the N8 or the HTC One), instead of 40 average sized MP's.

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  5. Congrats on your device mate.. :)

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    1. thanks :)

      how is android working out for you?

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  6. theOne1893, It seems hard to switch to WP after MS has eyed Nokia in order to break the tendency developping with N900 and N9.
    Namely, users tweaking more and more pure Linux on their mobile that would become dangerously potent Linux destkop users.
    If I was to swallow my pride and use a Nokia WP just for its camera, because all other phone manufacturers seem to be so incompetent or judge their user base very undemanding in terms of camera implementations, I would need it to be stripped from all joint Nokia / MS phone home "services" to feel at ease.

    I am not willing to pay for sending my personal data (and more importantly those of my contacts without without their consent) to MS corp.

    Please, can you find out what a MS Nokia does behind the scenes and strip the evil out of it or at least make it optional?

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    1. i understand that wp is not very popular in the eyes of symbian users.

      but i dont think it is not fair to blame microsoft, because nokia could not get it's shit together and deliver symbian and meego in time to make an impact on the market!
      nokia failed on its own, not because ms offered a deal on wp...

      as for the the ms/nokia servives, they are built-in deeply into the system, i doubt we can get rid of them!
      even if we could, there would be sacrifices in terms of functionality.

      e.g. how does the store work, without the ms account?
      how to access your ms account, without activating it fully on your phone?

      btw. how is Windows Phone worse than iOS and Aplle, or Android and Google, when it comes to the privacy of your personal data?

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  7. did u not planning to update cfw n8 now? hope nokia released soon the new pureview lumia

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    1. not right now...
      except for a few widgets and ota updates, i don't know what i could offer in a new cfw.

      since the ota updates and additional widgets can easily be installed by yourself via sis-installer, i don't think those small things are worth reflashing.

      if nokia gives us something new to play with, i am happy to work on something new!
      my n8 cfw project is not dead, there is just nothing new i can add...

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    2. You could think about providing packages yourself, such as a 'tuned' Microsoft Office Mobile installer, e.g. to exclude stuff like Lync.

      Btw, wasn't there some rumour of a Nokia fw update to come out in the weeks to come? Someone had a contact close to Nokia in some factory or high level service point.
      Also, the WLAN update could be included.

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    3. I hope the rumours are true and Symbian will get at least one more "big update"!
      I would be happy to work on that ;)

      as for seperate packages, I am willing to consider any requests.

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