30 Day Challenge: From Galaxy S3 to Nokia Lumia 822

[BygSii]

Hi everyone, I will be updating this post with new information from time to time. I wanted to try my own Windows Phone 30 Day Challenge.

Background Story: I work at a Connection Center where my job is to activate phones for people. Both contract and pre-paid. I have used Android for the past 3 years, Blackberry for another year, I'm very familiar with IOS and the iPhone, and I know nothing about Windows Phone 8.

I went searching on eBay for used cellphones one day because my contract is coming up and I want a new phone without using my upgrade since I still have unlimited data. I came across the Nokia Lumia 822. Bought one, had it shipped, and switched over to it.

First week of my 30 day challenge with WP8 and the Nokia 822:
1. Having an Xbox 360, Xbox Live integration with player game notification is really cool to have. I get a notification message every time someone gets online and starts playing a game.
2. Hands free texting with supported headphones. I like how it reads me my text, and i can respond and answer back, all hands free.
3. Automatically converts videos when sending them via MMS text message. My Samsung Galaxy S3 doesn't even do this without the help of apps for cutting and shrinking the video.
4. Videos automatically play in landscape. Because who watches videos in portrait mode?
5. Camera quick shot unlock. From a sleep state, you can press and hold the camera button, and it turns on and is ready to take pics in less than three seconds. Better than lock shortcut on Android.
6. Everything is buttery smooth. From the menus all the way to Facebook. Loads fast and doesn't lag or miss swipes like my Galaxy S3 does every so often.

There you go. Six things I love about my Nokia Lumia 822 in the first week of my 30 day challenge coming from a Samsung Galaxy S3 android user. I'll post again next week with even more things I find out about WP8! So far it's pretty awesome!

 

[Laura Knotek]

Welcome to WPCentral. I'm glad you are liking your 822 so far. :smile:

 

[elyodeel]

My brother has an 822 and his battery life is excellent. I would be interested to hear how the 822 compares to the S3 in battery life.

 

[danj210]

I hope to see more of what you think. If you have any questions or want to know some of the must see apps and games that wp8 has to offer... Post here and I'm sure we will have some good ones for ya!

 

[BygSii]

My brother has an 822 and his battery life is excellent. I would be interested to hear how the 822 compares to the S3 in battery life.

I can tell you what my experience is with the 822 so far with the battery life compared to the S3. The 822 definitely last longer when burning through a battery, lasting about 5 hours. That's with brightness at low with no power saver, and what I mean by burning through a battery is browsing the web, watching youtube, playing games, texting, and calling all without taking a break.The Galaxy S3 on the other hand last around 4 hours on low brightness with no power saver. Nokia has a smaller screen with a lower resolution and a 1800mah battery, so i had no trouble getting a full day out of it with normal use at about 16 hours. The S3 has a half inch bigger screen and higher resolution, but I can get around 16 hours on a normal day from it's 2100mah battery when not using the screen as much. And honestly, the lower resolution on the Nokia 822 doesn't bother me. My S3 last days without using it at all, but I have yet to try that on the Nokia 822. So for screen time i would give the winner to the Noika 822. For usage throughout the day, I would say that they are about the same.

 

[cwbcpa71]

I am interested to see how your 30 day challenge goes. I decided to do the same think this last Monday. I began using the 822 on Monday after picking one up on Ebay. I have used every other OS pretty extensively. This is my first go around with any WP. I have used a S4, Note 2, iPhone 5 and S3 in the last year. I have been very interested in WP 8 since it came out last year, but for some reason I was nervous about trying it. So far my experience has been similar to yours. Very positive so far after only a couple days. It is definitely taking some adjusting to though. I could be playing with these live tiles for a while to get them the way I want. Not a negative. It's actually fun.

 

[pankaj981]

My S3 last days without using it at all, but I have yet to try that on the Nokia 822.

My 822 lasted for 7 days without a charge on standby

 

[BygSii]

I hope to see more of what you think. If you have any questions or want to know some of the must see apps and games that wp8 has to offer... Post here and I'm sure we will have some good ones for ya!

Right now I'm thinking that I really like pinning websites to the home screen. I like how you can zoom into the page before pinning, and it pins the image that you zoomed into. Unlike Apple, where the icon is the entire website. Android is hit or miss, sometimes like on ESPN.com the icon it saves for the bookmark is a giant red ESPN Logo.

I like that you brought up suggestions for apps. There are a ton of YouTube Apps, I've been using MetroTube, visually I like it, but its difficult getting to show the complete list of channel subscriptions I have. If you have a better app for me to try let me know. Also, I love Nokia drive, and im interested if there is a better turn by turn navigation app out there.

Also, would like to know if there is a wireless tether app avalible through infrastructure so I can connect the Nokia 822 to say my iPad or 3ds if I need to. So far I've only seen ones that kinda work for laptops only.

For games, recently released UNO with Friends is a blast. I want more suggestions for online multiplayer games, since I am already missing having a few from android; Free Mini Golf, Song Pop, Bike Race, games like that.

Edit: Just checked and it has Bike Race. Awesome!

 

[kingbobyjr]

2. Hands free texting with supported headphones. I like how it reads me my text, and i can respond and answer back, all hands free.

I had my 822 since the day it came out and didn't even know it could do this. How did you get this to work?

 

[kingbobyjr]

I had my 822 since the day it came out and didn't even know it could do this. How did you get this to work?

Never mind...I just realized I didn't have voice recognition turned on.

 

[greedo_greedy]

Glad you're liking Windows Phone 8 BygSii, the buttery smooth interface is really addictive and tile arranging is fun

 

[snowmutt]

Interesting how you went from flagships of Android and experience with Apple (aren't they all flagships with the iPhone???) to what is considered a very mid range, though not underpowered, Nokia WP. I am absolutely keeping up with this thread. As a matter of a fact, these are my favorite types of threads!! Thanks for doing this!!

 

[cwbcpa71]

Interesting how you went from flagships of Android and experience with Apple (aren't they all flagships with the iPhone???) to what is considered a very mid range, though not underpowered, Nokia WP. I am absolutely keeping up with this thread. As a matter of a fact, these are my favorite types of threads!! Thanks for doing this!!

I thought the same thing as I was activating my 822. Every phone I have had in the last few years has been a "flagship" phone. That is why I was so happy to see someone else also trying out WP for the first time and using the same "mid-range" phone that I am trying.

What is amazing is that there has not been one time where I have seen the phone freeze or stutter or transition slowly. Everything has been super smooth and spot on. About the only thing that I really notice a difference in is the screen quality when reading or watching some videos. Even those things are not bad. I would imagine that had I opted for the 928 those things would not be issues either.

If I end up sticking with windows phone I will probably pick up the 928 in a month or so. I won't have an upgrade available until November of 2014.

I like these threads too. It's good to see people at least giving WP a shot. I never thought I would like it as much as I do. I am impressed, but disappointed that more people are not giving it a fair shot. Hopefully that will change.

 

[danj210]

I thought the same thing as I was activating my 822. Every phone I have had in the last few years has been a "flagship" phone. That is why I was so happy to see someone else also trying out WP for the first time and using the same "mid-range" phone that I am trying.

What is amazing is that there has not been one time where I have seen the phone freeze or stutter or transition slowly. Everything has been super smooth and spot on. About the only thing that I really notice a difference in is the screen quality when reading or watching some videos. Even those things are not bad. I would imagine that had I opted for the 928 those things would not be issues either.

If I end up sticking with windows phone I will probably pick up the 928 in a month or so. I won't have an upgrade available until November of 2014.

I like these threads too. It's good to see people at least giving WP a shot. I never thought I would like it as much as I do. I am impressed, but disappointed that more people are not giving it a fair shot. Hopefully that will change.

I'd recommend waiting until the next model comes out which is rumored to be at the end of this year I thought. Otherwise I'm seeing that the 1020 is an amazing piece of technology, same device as the 928 but obviously the 41 mp camera is the tech.

 

[BygSii]

Week Two of my 30 day challenge with the Nokia Lumia 822 Windows Phone 8. This is coming only five days after my first weeks impression, but keep in mind I had it for nine days when I talked to you all the first time, and five days later, I have now had the Nokia 822 for two full weeks. So lets jump into things!

1. First thing I've noticed since last week that I truly love about the Nokia 822 is the button free notification view. Now I'm going to try to explain this the best I can. When ever I receive a message, wether it's a text message, news alert, Xbox live event, anything, the phone uses its proximity sensor and/or light sensor to display that notification message to you, when you want it to. So for example, I'm making a sandwich, my hands are dirty, I get a new text, I wash my hands, dry them off, a minute later I pull my Nokia from my pants pocket to look at the screen, and without pushing any buttons, without having to unlock it, the phone will automatically turn it its screen and display my notification. This is really the coolest thing I have found about my Nokia. I'm still trying to get the timing window down but I think it is set to one to two minutes, so if you try this trick after two minutes I don't think it will work. But I can't express how cool it is to just have my phones screen turn on automatically when I want it to without pushing any buttons to view my new notifications.

2. Power saver. Works really well despite not updating tiles. I have ran power saver for an entire day and I achieved a 24 hour battery life with moderate to heavy use. Without the battery saver, I can achieve about a 10 hour day with my moderate to heavy use. With power saver on, the tiles don't update, and the only notifications you receive are text, voicemail, and missed calls, bit it's nice to know that if I am going to be using my phone all day for work or on a weekend, that I can easily last all day with the power saver turned on.

3. Messaging Hub. I like that no matter who I'm messaging, someone on their phone, or someone on Facebook, the phone combines everything into the messaging app. I like it a lot better than android. On android, I would have to go to Facebook, wait for it to upload, click on messages, click on my friend who just messages me... Creating so many steps just to check a message! On Windows phone, it's just click on messaging, and BOOM! There it is with all my other messages. Very nicely done.

4. Nokias Creative Studio. Rivals Instagram. There is no Instagram on Windows phone yet, but there doesn't need to be. Nokia Creative Studio has it all, lighting effects, radical blurs, color pops, balance shifters, and my favorite, ability to have sharp looking collages of up to (I think) ten different photos laid out nicely into one photo.

5. Mobile Internet Explorer. Although its not the best I have used (HTC with there automatically shifting text feature when zooming in) Internet Explore mobile does a great job at everything. No problems loading up any sites, or playing videos, or anything. I just wish that in future updates, it would include app integration. for example, allow me to click on a YouTube link and have it open my YouTube app, like on android, instead of taking me to YouTube.com.

6. Nokia's Ringtones and Text Alerts. Of all the phones in all the Universe, I am starting to like Nokia for their sound design of their notifications and ringtones. Everyone knows what an iPhone sounds like when it receives a phone call or message. Everyone knows what a galaxy sounds like when it gets a message with its whistle sound. The simple xylophone Nokia message is easy to hear and doesn't get annoying like others do. The Ahh Glitch ring tone is the perfect "Better pick up your phone before its too late!" sound.

There you go, another six things I like about my Nokia 822 after having it for another week. Will I have enough new findings for you to share for next time? Will I go over the five things I miss about Android? Stayed tuned for next week to find out!

 

[cwbcpa71]

Thanks for the update. I agree with all of your points. The one thing you touched on that bothers me about the notifications is that in some cases once they are gone, they are gone for good. If I am away from my phone and return to turn it on I can immediately see if I have texts, missed calls or emails. The notifications that I am referring to are related to things like ESPN or Ebay. For example, I have the ESPN app set to alert me to when a Indians game starts and then update me on the score. It does that, but if I am not near my phone that alert seems to disappear and I don't see it again. The only reason I know this is that the other night I heard an alert, but was busy and didn't look at it. When I went to my phone about 10 min later the alert was gone. I had no idea what it was. About a hour later I got the update for the score at the end of the 3rd inning. I then assumed that the missed notification was for the start of the game. Now missing this notification had zero impact on my life. My concern would be that this could happen with something else that's more important. Anyone else have a similar issue or am I concerned for no reason?

 

[BygSii]

Your right. I've had it happen to me when watching an item on eBay. When it was about to end soon, I received an alert. At the time I didn't know that the alert was for, and when I checked ten minutes later it was gone. About five hours later, I check eBay for an item, (good thing I just wanted to see how much it was selling for rather than bid on it) and someone had won and the bidding was closed. So I do think that it is a problem, a Microsoft should look into it and fix something about it for a future update.

 

[cwbcpa71]

Your right. I've had it happen to me when watching an item on eBay. When it was about to end soon, I received an alert. At the time I didn't know that the alert was for, and when I checked ten minutes later it was gone. About five hours later, I check eBay for an item, (good thing I just wanted to see how much it was selling for rather than bid on it) and someone had won and the bidding was closed. So I do think that it is a problem, a Microsoft should look into it and fix something about it for a future update.

That exact scenario happened to me. Same as you, I was not looking to buy, but I could have been and that would have sucked. The good definitely outweighs the bad with WP8 though. It's only been a week and I have been able to find solutions to any issues I have come across. Well, except the pdf file issue. I cannot understand why you can't save a pdf to the phone or to the cloud and then attach it to an email and resend it. The best I can come up with is to open it with MS PDF Reader and save it to the SkyDrive. I can then share the link to the file. This is not a good solution for me, but it's all I have been able to figure out so far. With any other OS I have been able to save the file somewhere and send it as an attachment at a later time with an email. Hopefully this is resolved as I work with pdf files quite a bit.

 

[BygSii]

Whats up everyone! Week three of my 30 day challenge with the Nokia Lumia 822! Ive had the phone for 22 days now. Things are starting to get interesting! This week I've got some more information to share with you, both positive and negative, so lets get started!

1. Voice quality is top notch. I had a friend call me on his S3 and I called him on my Nokia 822. We then switched phones. After both talking on each phone for a little while, we both agreed that the Nokia 822 had better sound quality and was louder than the S3.

2. Speaker phone. It is garbage! Don't ever listen to music on this phone in public! You may get made fun of or laughed at. It's probably the worst built in speaker I've ever used on any smartphone. It sounds weak and airy and tinny and distorted all together into one.

3. Facebook. Why do I keep getting notifications on Facebook that I already received a day ago? I'll post a comment, check replies through the Facebook app. Then the next day, I'll get a notification "so and so commented on your post". Yes.... I knew about this yesterday... Not trying to be mean or anything, I just find it a little annoying.

4. Bike ride. So I had to go on a bike ride Saturday and I had to use my Galaxy S3 for an hour because it has Map My Ride. Now before you say, "Well you just broke your 30 day challenge!" No I didn't. Look at it this way: I challenge myself to make salads for thirty days. One day, the grocery store is out of my favorite lettuce. So I had to buy the off brand. No biggie, I still used my Nokia for 23 hours that day.

5. Galaxy S3. What I did get from having my Galaxy S3 turned on for one hour is.... Oh my! Look at all that LAG! Menus Lag! Messages lag! Everything lags! Oh, and hey apps.... It's been a long time, I'll get back to you all in about a week. Haha.

6. Messaging. The subject I want to talk about the most. Microsoft did a really great job on the messaging app for Windows Phone 8 and I truly feel like they nailed it. The keyboard feels fantastic. Messaging threads look top notch. Texting bubbles are classy and sophisticated. "Threads" and "People" pages look really professional. Built in Emoji emoticons are a plus. Going back to texting on a Galaxy S3, and it feels like I'm on a dang child's toy! Text messaging on a Windows Phone 8... I've gotta say, it gets a perfect 10 out of 10.

There ya go. I talked about a lot of things I wanted to share with everyone this week. One more week left to go! Haha! If you like this, post a quick reply letting me know. If you have any questions, post the question below and I'll answer them when I can. So far, after three weeks of the Windows Phone 8, it's still a sexy phone to me.

 

[jmk1127]

You should check out "Cyclometer" on the App Store for WP. Pretty good app, I use it all the time when I go on bike rides