Hi - potential switcher back to Microsoft from Apple

[crash1989]

I am not as Techo as you people, but i have had quite a number of Nokia phones over the years, and haven't ever had a problem till i bought this one in April. It is down as often as it is up and running.
• It took me weeks and a lot of help from the people i purchased from, the local Optus Shop, and various friends to be able to contact the internet.
• Each time I wrote a text message it would change to a variety of languages. The only way to cure that was to delete all the other languages.
• Any letters or symbols on the right side of the phone wouldn’t work easily, and still don’t.
• And now the camera won’t work.
* Plus the phone turned off as it ran out of battery very quickly, i charged it and it took three days before i was able to get it on again.
* I have some apps and they were quite fun, but now i can barely see them as they are covered with pop ups offerng to sell me vitamins and a better love life. HOW DO I GET RID OF THOSE.

Ohh god, that's terrible. Did you contact Nokia support regarding the device's condition. If camera, screen and charging aren't working correctly it might be a defective unit.

You should have it replaced by Nokia or your dealer. There are no ads covering the apps in Windows Phone, can you post a picture of what you see, maybe we can figure it out.

 

[Funky Cricket]

I didn't read every post, but in general I am 100% Microsoft. I've been a PC guy forever and have never owned an apple product. But when it comes to services, you need to pick the services that work for you best, not always try to force one into what you want.
I don't have an xbox, so I don't use that for any media (thought the xbox one sounds nice now that the Kinect is optional), but I have nokia music, hulu, Netflix, Pandora. I use skydrive and drop box heavily to sync from phone to PC's (work and home). I use exchange, outlook.com and gmail for emails. (work and personal).
I find most things work seamlessly across my L928 and various PC's (all win7 or newer) and I can get almost anything I want or need with maybe a few work-arounds here or there (converting videos with handbrake for my phone for example to .m4v from .mkv). Most of my music is ripped from CD, so I am not really tied to a music provider and when I do purchase mp3s they are from amazon or other not iTunes or Microsoft sources.

Really, I try to keep a lot of my services hardware independent, that way I'm not tied to one service. I found no issues coming from android to windows phone, other than losing saved games for angry birds, because most of my stuff was online or synced somewhere else.

 

[anon(5973126)]

I use all of the devices and services you mentioned.. here is my experience with them..

Outlook.com - got irritated with the spam and UI of gmail and completely switched to hotmail 2 years ago. I have no complaints at all it has less spam, great UI, Integration with facebook, Facebook, skype, gchat right from website, Skydrive, office Web Apps. security using Authenticator. Did I Mention the clean easy to use UI.

Xbox Video - used to buy stuff through Amazon but lack of Amazon Video apps got me looking for other options. Xbox Video seems like a good replacement but content is not available on Windows phone and it doesn?t have a web player.

Xbox Music - Replaced Slacker radio, Amazon music, definitely worth it. Syncs across devices very well.
Some features missing in phone but will be available in 8.1. The Music collection is ENORMOUS. Indian Music (3 Different languages) and English of course.

Surface RT- recently added this to my collection. Was skeptical at first but absolutely loved it especially the Network Home group, Office, touch keyboard, Integration, Multitasking and ohh.. FLASH in IE. No other TABLET comes even close.

Xbox 360 - games obviously but I own an older dumb tv so I use it for the apps too( Netflix, Amazon Video, Xbox Video...)

Lumia 1020 - A great phone overall and it is much cheaper compared to the other 32GB devices out there.

My switch to all Windows ecosystem started 2 years ago with hotmail and completed with recent Surface RT purchase.Somewhere along the line I switched from google to bing(dont know how that happened).

Hope this helped.

 

[evilrob]

Thanks, everyone - I'm sold!

I'm going to get all my Apple gear on eBay at the weekend, then see if any deals can be had after Microsoft's big announcement on the 23rd. So in the next 3-4 weeks I hope to be fully Microsoft'd up!

 

[evilrob]

So I was pretty fired up to make the switch, then Microsoft went and did this:

Wait... is that meant to be... Steve Jobs!? Oh wow... :facepalm:

iphone new parody A fly on the wall in Cupertino - YouTube (this is a mirror - the original videos on the windowsphone YouTube channel were pulled after the internet said "no")

Article about it:
Microsoft tries (and fails) to make fun of the new iPhones | TechHive

 

[stmav]

The opening of the ad says Cupertino 2013. So it was in no way meant to be Jobs. After all you've been told, don't let a poor ad influence you.

 

[12Danny123]

Dude. Like stmav said. Don't let a stupid as influence your decision in stuff. Doesn't do anything about your decision in things. But if you heard the rumours of WP8.1 having a cool as personal assistant cortana and also multi select tiles. Etc then I'm pretty sure those features are better influencing than an ad

 

[evilrob]

I'm still pumped about getting a Lumia 920, Surface RT and Xbox - I just wish Microsoft would sort their PR out. They have all these great products but really don't do themselves any favours with stunts like this!

 

[12Danny123]

I'm still pumped about getting a Lumia 920, Surface RT and Xbox - I just wish Microsoft would sort their PR out. They have all these great products but really don't do themselves any favours with stunts like this!

I think that's the reason why they purchased Nokia's hardware and services division. So they can fire there current ones and use Nokia's

 

[rdubmu]

Welcome to the forums and i see that the others have helped you along.

About the PR, don't worry about it, and there are some pretty funny ones like this one that should help you make the switch.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2vR4LeL0yzE Sorry about the Youtube...google link ;P


My current setup is: iMac 2011, Apple TV, iPad (i only use one app, security camera app for my restaurant) xbox 360 Surface Pro, Windows 8 Laptop and then for phones, I have a Lumia 920, and my wife has a iPhone 4s.

The best part I find about the Apple Ecosystem is Apple TV, I love how you can stream a video or desktop to my big screen tv. If I wanna watch a movie that is in Safari, i can stream via Apple TV and put it in full screen mode. I believe that you will beable to do this with Xbox One. I am also a fan of both MAC OS X and Windows.

For productivity I use my Surface Pro as I use mostly Microsoft Products for the cloud, Email, skydrive, calendar, Office 365 (university edition). Outlook 2013 I find as the best productivity app I have ever encountered.

My advice is that you can use both MAC, and Windows and be fine. We currently have about a 50% split. I do find that Windows 8 and Windows Phone is better than ios and MAC OS X. The only thing that IOS has going for it is top of the line devices like the 5s, and the app marketplace. I love how I have everything integrated on my Lumia 920.

I highly suggest for a tablet to get either a Surface Pro or regular Surface (RT)

 

[Fiona M]

I have switched from a Mac to Windows everything a PC, Outlook email account, Windows phone, xbox music and I am very satisfied. I actually prefer the xbox music experience over iTunes, visually it's so much richer and does the same job plus I get free streaming on my PC. I love Nokia Music with free streaming on my phone and offline storage of that service, I've had 3 Windows phones now and have no plans on using anything else. Love them! Plus on the email end I prefer not having Google interfere so heavily, their tracking and ads are quite annoying. I never really notice the minimal outlook ads, they are very background. I read somewhere that Google tracks your activity so well that individuals doing a google search will get different results based on your general activity. That is to say if I type in the very same search as someone else we will most likely get different results. Not so crazy about this fact. Maybe It's just wishful thinking but I have the impression that Microsoft respects my privacy more the Google does.

 

[evilrob]

And so it begins...

Nokia Lumia 920 in White ordered from Tesco for a bargainous ?230:
Buy SIM Free Unlocked Nokia Lumia 920 White from our SIM Free Phones range - Tesco.com

I had wanted a grey one, but the cheapest one I could find was ?100 more than the white, and no colour is worth paying ?100 more for!

A Nokia DT-900 Wireless Charging Plate for electric toothbrush-style no-need-to-plug-anything-into-the-phone charging:
Nokia DT-900 Wireless Charging Plate for Lumia 820: Amazon.co.uk: Electronics

A few official Nokia CC-1043 "back and sides" skins in various colours:
Amazon.co.uk: nokia cc-1043

And a cheap "total coverage" neoprene sleeve:
http://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B009AT78...ag=hawk-future-21&ascsubtag=UUwpUvbUpU2156533

I also bought a LAYEN i-DOCK dock-to-bluetooth-3.0 adaptor as an alternative to AirPlay to my speaker dock:
http://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B00CMBKR...ag=hawk-future-21&ascsubtag=UUwpUvbUpU2156533

Should all be here on Friday - I'll let you know first impressions etc. then next month will be time to get a Surface 2.

I've already switched my e-mail account over to Outlook.com in preparation - so far so good!

 

[AR2186]

I did the same switch last November when WP8 launched and couldn't be happier. Make sure you download the PlayTo app on your phone (go online to Nokia Beta labs and register). The integration is pretty good now, but will be a lot better in a few months with the 8.1 upgrades and XB1.

 

[justinhopaolo]

are 920 owners missing a lot when it comes to screen quality compared to the 925? how far is the black level of amoled 925 against 920 IPS LCD display? is it even noticeable?

 

[evilrob]

It's here!

First impressions:

• Looks and feels lovely
• Not as heavy as the reviews made it sound - it is about 50% heavier than my iPhone 5 but I quite like that; I was disappointed when I moved from iPhone 4 to iPhone 5 at how light the 5 was - heavier feels more premium in my opinion. I also won't have the "****wheresmyphone" panic with the 920!
• Not as big as the reviews made it sound - I like the bigger screen a lot
• Screen, while not "retina"/1080P is beautiful - resolution is more than adequate, viewing angles excellent, colours are lovely
• OS is *really* slick and responsive
• Setup was a doddle - all connected up to SkyDrive, Outlook e-mail, Twitter, Facebook etc in minutes

So far - very positive.

 

[Microsoftjunkie]

[]
Big, big difference in black levels from ips to amoled. amoled makes it really pitch black and makes the tiles seem to float more. ips black levels are more really dark grey.

 

[evilrob]

Updated to firmware 3047.0000.1326.2007 / OS 8.0.10328.78.

Annoyances so far:

• One volume setting applies to everything - I will miss the "Do Not Disturb" physical switch of the iPhone 5 to silence all notifications (calls, texts, emails etc). Also, if you're listening to music quietly, for instance - and don't remember to crank the volume back up before bed, the alarm will sound at the same volume you were playing your music at. Alternatively, if you crank your volume up for alarm purposes, if anyone rings you or you get a notification at stupid o'clock, you'll know about it! (Unless you manually go into settings and silence those notifications manually, or leave your notification settings alone and simply put the phone in Airplane Mode to prevent notifications from occurring in the first place).
• YouTube app is borked (can't really blame MS for this) - a shortcut to the website works fine, though so no biggie.
• Facebook app (latest version 5.1) is pants - but the built-in People hub satisfies most of my Facebook requirements (of just having a peek to see what people are talking about recently) nicely. Laggy as **** and can't opt out of Chat. Again, visiting the actual website is the better option.
• No way to close individual apps - you can repeatedly hit the back button to shut down everything that's running, or hold down the back button to see what's running but you can't choose a specific app to shut.
• No built-in way of having battery percentage shown anywhere either in the status bar at the top, on a live tile or on the lock screen. There are bonky third-party apps, but they can only update every 30 minutes (WP8 limitation) so not massively useful.
• No way of choosing which people you want to see updates from on the People hub - you can choose to get everything from all your Facebook/Twitter connections, or none at all. I'd like to be able to select a handful of people I actually want to be kept up to date with and filter out some of the noise.

Likes:

• Live Tiles - much more useful than static icons, although they can only update every 30 minutes; I imagine this is for battery conservation reasons. Realistically, half-hourly 'pull' updates is adequate for everything except battery which really needs to be realtime. 'Push' updates are instantaneous obviously (e-mail, for example).
• OneNote is all kinds of awesome if you like to get stuff out of your head and into a digital notebook of some sort, which is then accessible from anything with an internet connection.
• SkyDrive is genuinely brilliant; although I wish you could link directly to photos for embedding in forums rather than having to link through to the SkyDrive site or via a bonky <iframe> tag.
• Web browser is fast and responsive; lack of native apps is not a problem as the full websites are brilliant on the large screen.
• Built-in basic Office is a nice touch - can bosh up a quick Excel spreadsheet with graphs and all sorts, then pick up where you left off via SkyDrive on your PC.
• Daily Bing photo on lock screen - I use Bing Desktop on Windows to update my desktop wallpaper every day automatically; I like the synergy between WP8 and Windows 8 on the PC.
• Double-tap screen to wake phone.
• Flip to silence - you can silence an incoming call by placing the phone face down.
• Proper, dedicated two-stage camera shutter button.

So, 48-ish hours in - loving it overall.

 

[Cleavitt76]

For a YouTube app try MetroTube. It's better than any first party YouTube app I have ever seen.

For opting out of chat, I'm not sure if you mean the Facebook app or the People hub app. You can opt out of Facebook chat on the People hub by opening the messaging app (same app that SMS text messages go through) and swiping over to the "online" page.

Closing of individual apps is coming in the next couple months with the GDR3 update if I'm not mistaken.

 

[evilrob]

OK, having spent a few days living with Windows Phone, I have to say I love it.

Likes:

• Wireless charging - not sure how I lived without this. Plonk the phone down on a Qi-standard wireless charging pad and it charges up, no faffing about. The official Nokia wireless charging STAND (not the pad) is also NFC enabled so you can choose to perform a specific action or open a specific app when the phone detects it's been put on the charging mat.
• Facebook/Twitter/LinkedIn deep integration across the OS - really no need for separate apps. If you want to share a photo, including tagging people, you can do that straight from the built-in camera/photos app. If you want to update your status across multiple services, you can do so from the People hub in one hit. You can comment/like on other people's updates. The people hub is brilliant, all in all.
• Built-in camera app lets you do some pretty cool stuff like taking multiple shots in quick succession and choosing the best one, or swapping faces/picking the best smiles from multiple exposures, or even funky time-lapse effects and removing unwanted objects:
  Nokia Lumia: Take better photos with Smart Camera - YouTube
• So easy to get stuff on and off the phone. I've pulled my hair out trying to get stuff on/off iOS devices before - no such worries with Windows Phone; it's all drag and drop or boshed over via the cloud. You can even install apps remotely via the Windows App store. Find the app you want, push it to your device - sorted.
• Built-in (practically)-Global Sat Nav is more than enough for most; could do with speed camera alerts, traffic alerts and lane control - but it will get you from A to B pleasantly. I opted to download the UK maps to the device - around 230mb; not sure if this is mandatory - I got the impression it would work without downloading the whole map if you have a decent data connection (would definitely need to download beforehand if going abroad obviously). Seems pretty up-to-date. Works. Free of charge - comes with the phone.
• ALL apps from the Windows Phone App store are free to try for a period of time (typically 7-10 days) so you can try them out before deciding whether it's worth that quid or whatever.
• Insider Pro app - this addresses some of my previous niggles; allows you to put tile shortcuts on your home screen to display battery % or things like turn the LED flash on/off, bluetooth on/off, airplane mode, location services etc, and also has some really cool battery usage tracking and other geeky stuff, which you can also display on a tile:
  Insider Pro | Windows Phone Apps+Games Store (United Kingdom)
• MetroTube app is fantastic - as well as actually working, unlike the 'official' YouTube app, you can also queue/download videos for offline viewing; pretty cool:
  Metrotube | Windows Phone Apps+Games Store (United Kingdom)
• 2Day app is also fantastic - if you're into GTD, this is for you:
  2Day | Windows Phone Apps+Games Store (United Kingdom)
• NextGen RSS feed reader (via Feedly) does the job nicely:
  Nextgen Reader | Windows Phone Apps+Games Store (United Kingdom)
• 'Back' button from wherever you are in the OS - bit difficult to describe, this; but it's like the back button on your web browser but for the entire mobile OS. So if I open my e-mail, then drop back to the main screen and open the web browser then go into settings - I can hit the back button and it will take me back to the web browser, then if I hit back again it will take me back to the e-mail app, exactly where I was when I closed it. Very cool.
• 'Search' button from wherever you are in the OS - it's pretty awesome being able to do a web search from wherever you are in the OS. The information returned from Bing (you can choose other search engines) is pretty cool too.
• Call quality is excellent - both in normal and speakerphone mode. People sound beautifully clear and they can hear me well too.
• Nokia Music app is a nice touch - free music; you can't really choose what gets played, but you can download predefined 'mixes' for offline playing, free of charge. I imagine if you pay the ?3.99 a month to upgrade, you get a bit more control.
• Nokia 'Transfer My Data' app - pulled in all my contact information from the iPhone via bluetooth quickly, and spot-on first time.

App availability/alternatives:

• Skype - official
• WhatsApp - official
• Facebook - official
• Twitter - official
• Instagram - no official app, 6tag is supposedly the best; seems to work nicely:
  6tag | Windows Phone Apps+Games Store (United Kingdom)
• Foursquare - official
• LinkedIn - official
• Netflix - official
• Spotify - official
• YouTube - official but borked; MetroTube trounces all other YouTube apps I've seen:
  Metrotube | Windows Phone Apps+Games Store (United Kingdom)
• TV Catchup - official
• BBC Radio - official
• BBC iPlayer - official
• Amazon Kindle - official
• Amazon Mobile - official
• eBay - official
• PayPal - official
• Tapatalk - official
• TripAdvisor - official
• Groupon - official

Dislikes:

• Built-in speaker doesn't sound as refined as the iPhone for music, but works marvellously for speakerphone. It's clearly been tuned for typical speech frequencies rather than bangin' choons. Not really an issue for me, but thought I'd mention it.
• Having become accustomed and spoilt by the iPhone 5 lightning connector, actually having to look at the orientation of the micro-USB cable before plugging it in to transfer files over or whatever seems a bit of a faff. Of course, it's not a faff at all - I've just become lazy. Wireless charging/ability to get stuff on/off the phone via SkyDrive means I won't have to plug anything in very often anyway. Just as well as the Micro-USB socket doesn't feel all that sturdy, certainly not as satisfying as the lightning connector, probably won't stand the test of time.
• No built-in countdown timer - I often used Siri on the iPhone to set a countdown timer for, say 5 minutes or whatever. I've found a workable solution with Insider Pro, which can put a countdown timer tile on your home screen - works fine. Better than what I was using before, actually - as you can have voice prompts every minute of the countdown while the phone is locked and the screen is off, which is handy.
• Xbox Music service is horrific; it's got a great selection, looks pretty, plays music fine - but its playlist implementation is completely borked. You can make playlists on the Win8 Music app, or via the Xbox Music website, but they don't get synced between each other (well, the playlist name appears, but the songs don't make it across) - it's just hugely frustrating. Luckily, there's a native Spotify app, so it's not the end of the world. Does kind of break my 'all Microsoft' experiment - but Xbox Music is broken such that I can't use it at this time.
• There are some gems on the app store, but trying to find them is a chore on the phone itself. Much easier via the Windows Phone App Store website. Slightly redeemed by the fact that when you find something that fits the bill you can push it to your phone via the website, and everything is free to try for a period of time meaning it doesn't cost you to try out and discard the lemons.

 

[James8561]

Updated to firmware 3047.0000.1326.2007 / OS 8.0.10328.78.

Annoyances so far:
[list[*]No way of choosing which people you want to see updates from on the People hub - you can choose to get everything from all your Facebook/Twitter connections, or none at all. I'd like to be able to select a handful of people I actually want to be kept up to date with and filter out some of the noise.[/list]
So, 48-ish hours in - loving it overall.

Make a group in people's hub (swipe around). then add those people to the group. then you should be able to go into the group and swipe to what's new? and get info only from them.