Hi, I have my 920 for 3 days now, my previous phone was a Nokia N9. The N9 was near perfect, but is a dead end and apps are missing.
Still betting on Jolla, but I could not resist to buy the beautiful 920 with its good display and low light camera. I like the live tile concept, but found many shortcomings that gives me the impression that WP8 is still in its infancy.
Here is a list of what I found. Maybe I am just too stupid to do it right, or there are workarounds or apps to mitigate those things. Therefore I welcome all comments! Thanks!
- Turning down or even muting the music player, mutes the ringer volume as well! Danger of missing calls!
- Limited email settings: port, authentication method etc.
- No SIP client (even the Asha 311 has one build-in)
- No charging indicator (N9 has a notification LED), need to unlock to check for progress or if the plugs are connected
- Facebook integration: Not possible to share shotos directly from the camera roll
- "Update available, waiting for WiFi": It does not say which update, also the phone WAS connected to WiFi! Totally confusing and unclear message!
- Too often restart necessary: Installing an additional keyboard needs a restart plus "data migration". There were two other restarts during my initial setup.
- Power consumption: Not very energy efficient! Even with simple web browsing, the phone gets slightly warm, which wasn't the case on my N9.
- Power consumption: It would be good to identify the energy hogs. There was a N9 app that showed the percentage of energy consumption per app. is there anythking like this for WP? I assume there is no open API.
- Status bar at the top: why does it disappear? Is it possible to lock it there? Because the clock is there anyway, this space is not fully usable. I like to see which my current connection is and my battery status. Its even not avaliable at all if IE is running.
- If there is not internet connection at all (cellular disabled and no WiFi) IE give a strange error message like "the website has problems". WP should identify this problem and give an appropriate error message. Obviously IE is not much integrated into WP.
- It takes long before the phone detects my home WLAN when returning into the coverage area (need to measure this, just impression, N9 seems to be faster)
- Difficult to see (see above) and switch internet connectivity (select between WLANs or chose 3G). N9 needs only a tap on the status bar.
- No haptic feedback for the keyboard
- "send" button to close to "thumb move area", resulting in accidental sending of unfinished text. should be above keyboard (N9)
- Bluetooth name and visibility: Have not found any settings for this, just on and off.
- Data privacy: quite many apps require the permission to send location data, although the service would not require this. If not agreed, apps can not be installed!
- Nokia Music: Offline mixes should be available offline. I found that the mix does not play, if no internet connection. Probably it needs to report usage, location and I don't know what. But it appears to be not fully "offline" availabe. Any other experience?
- The back button seems not so logical to me. Sometimes it's a back in the app menu structure, sometimes it exits the app to go back on OS level.
- Lame "Multitasking". E.g. map installation does not happen in the background, have to watch and wait, can not do anything else
- Difficult to close running (or suspended) apps. A lot of juggling with the back key to close all unwanted apps. Not sure if this is necessary at all, but I want to keep the list small because I suspect some apps to consume too much power.
- Not possible to group the less frequently used apps (kind of folders)
- USB should appear as normal thumb drive. I have problems to use the 920 with Linux as Microsoft's MTP protocol is used. Not sure what's the benefit of MTP. N9 appears as normal thumb drive and any OS can be used to drag and drop any media files.
This is a long list. I hope there will be improvements coming with Apollo+/Portico. Many things seem to be trivial and it's a shame that MS did not get this right.
I hope that new WP users, attracted by the Lumia HW, don't get disappointed too quickly and turn their backs to WP too fast. Nokia had practically all the above issues solved on Meego/Harmattan (e.g. N9). It's a pity that so many shortcomings are now imposed on the Lumias by the MS OS.
Still betting on Jolla, but I could not resist to buy the beautiful 920 with its good display and low light camera. I like the live tile concept, but found many shortcomings that gives me the impression that WP8 is still in its infancy.
Here is a list of what I found. Maybe I am just too stupid to do it right, or there are workarounds or apps to mitigate those things. Therefore I welcome all comments! Thanks!
- Turning down or even muting the music player, mutes the ringer volume as well! Danger of missing calls!
- Limited email settings: port, authentication method etc.
- No SIP client (even the Asha 311 has one build-in)
- No charging indicator (N9 has a notification LED), need to unlock to check for progress or if the plugs are connected
- Facebook integration: Not possible to share shotos directly from the camera roll
- "Update available, waiting for WiFi": It does not say which update, also the phone WAS connected to WiFi! Totally confusing and unclear message!
- Too often restart necessary: Installing an additional keyboard needs a restart plus "data migration". There were two other restarts during my initial setup.
- Power consumption: Not very energy efficient! Even with simple web browsing, the phone gets slightly warm, which wasn't the case on my N9.
- Power consumption: It would be good to identify the energy hogs. There was a N9 app that showed the percentage of energy consumption per app. is there anythking like this for WP? I assume there is no open API.
- Status bar at the top: why does it disappear? Is it possible to lock it there? Because the clock is there anyway, this space is not fully usable. I like to see which my current connection is and my battery status. Its even not avaliable at all if IE is running.
- If there is not internet connection at all (cellular disabled and no WiFi) IE give a strange error message like "the website has problems". WP should identify this problem and give an appropriate error message. Obviously IE is not much integrated into WP.
- It takes long before the phone detects my home WLAN when returning into the coverage area (need to measure this, just impression, N9 seems to be faster)
- Difficult to see (see above) and switch internet connectivity (select between WLANs or chose 3G). N9 needs only a tap on the status bar.
- No haptic feedback for the keyboard
- "send" button to close to "thumb move area", resulting in accidental sending of unfinished text. should be above keyboard (N9)
- Bluetooth name and visibility: Have not found any settings for this, just on and off.
- Data privacy: quite many apps require the permission to send location data, although the service would not require this. If not agreed, apps can not be installed!
- Nokia Music: Offline mixes should be available offline. I found that the mix does not play, if no internet connection. Probably it needs to report usage, location and I don't know what. But it appears to be not fully "offline" availabe. Any other experience?
- The back button seems not so logical to me. Sometimes it's a back in the app menu structure, sometimes it exits the app to go back on OS level.
- Lame "Multitasking". E.g. map installation does not happen in the background, have to watch and wait, can not do anything else
- Difficult to close running (or suspended) apps. A lot of juggling with the back key to close all unwanted apps. Not sure if this is necessary at all, but I want to keep the list small because I suspect some apps to consume too much power.
- Not possible to group the less frequently used apps (kind of folders)
- USB should appear as normal thumb drive. I have problems to use the 920 with Linux as Microsoft's MTP protocol is used. Not sure what's the benefit of MTP. N9 appears as normal thumb drive and any OS can be used to drag and drop any media files.
This is a long list. I hope there will be improvements coming with Apollo+/Portico. Many things seem to be trivial and it's a shame that MS did not get this right.
I hope that new WP users, attracted by the Lumia HW, don't get disappointed too quickly and turn their backs to WP too fast. Nokia had practically all the above issues solved on Meego/Harmattan (e.g. N9). It's a pity that so many shortcomings are now imposed on the Lumias by the MS OS.