L 920 or iPhone 4s?

[Par_T]

Trying to decide between the Lumia 920 and iphone 4s. Planning to buy off-contract.

Those that have had the L920 for a while (esp. if you came from 4s) are the problems posted on the threads in the 920 forums as prevalent as they seem? I've been lurking over on iMore, and it seems 4s owners don't seem to have as many complaints as those with L920. (Apps don't matter as much to me--checked my ipod, and only have about 20 apps on there).

Your input is appreciated.

 

[Laura Knotek]

Do you have LTE where you live/work? The iPhone 4S is not capable of getting LTE, but the Lumia 920 is an LTE device.

 

[Bicpug]

Ive had lumia920 and iphone4, the iphone 4 is easier to use if playing music is a big thing for you cos the system remembers what you were watching/playing for each app...lumia seems to only remember 1 thing at a time; the lumia does allow you to just drag music folders onto the phone though and appears to play divx without needing it recoded for the phone.
I've had no hardware issues.

 

[dgr_874]

Yup, music on wp8 is horrible beyond belief. It drive me back to my iPhone till its fixed

 

[Jnbs]

L920 hands down.. Couple,of reasons.. Great display, better camera, WP8, more recent hardware (dual core, RAM).. Built like a Tank!! If you drop the 4S chances are you are going to break it.. LTE, NFC, and other goodies..

 

[ItsLogan]

I would definitely get the 920. The problems aren't as prevalent as they seem and the phone is great! Not to mention it is a year newer and Microsoft has stated it will support it for at least another year and a half.

 

[Par_T]

yes, I do have LTE where I live.
That is a nice feature, but I don't surf the web too much on my phone unless I am without wi-fi. I'm trying to decide how important LTE is to me.
How do the cameras on the two phones compare? I likely won't be taking a lot of low light pics (and if I know I will be, we have a Sony Cybershoot that has low light capabilities which we would take with us).
Thanks.

 

[Laura Knotek]

yes, I do have LTE where I live.
That is a nice feature, but I don't surf the web too much on my phone unless I am without wi-fi. I'm trying to decide how important LTE is to me.
How do the cameras on the two phones compare? I likely won't be taking a lot of low light pics (and if I know I will be, we have a Sony Cybershoot that has low light capabilities which we would take with us).
Thanks.

LTE is a lot faster. I usually disable WiFi, since WiFi is slow as a snail compared to LTE at public places. Even my cable Internet at home has slower upstream speeds than LTE.

 

[anon(5370748)]

I have both the 920 and the 4S. The core functionality (calls, emails, texting, camera, etc) I find to be a lot better on the 920. I also like using WP8's interface a lot more. I'd get dropped calls on AT&T with the 4S all the time, haven't had one on AT&T with the 920. Voice quality is clearer also, especially through BT in my car. The 920 is noticeably larger and heavier, but fits my hand better and makes for a larger keyboard that I find easier to type on. I #$%@ing HATE iOS' autocorrect, but I love WP8s - it's not too intrusive and usually ends up correcting the right things. The 920 is also sturdier (I dropped mine yesterday from 3ft onto concrete and it's fine except for a few chips in the polycarbonate). I've had zero hardware issues with my 920 (no overheating, no camera wonkiness, no reboots, nothing), and I'd consider it my favorite phone I've ever owned. Oh yeah, and the color choices are really nice. I got black because I'm into photography and wanted the phone to be as low-key as possible, but I love the Cyan and Yellow.

That being said, the 4S has some advantages. iOS is a lot more mature, so you'll get things like a notification center and separate volume controls for ringers, music, etc. The stock music player on the iPhone is a lot better, but I use Spotify (now available on WP8), and that works well enough (still better on iOS, though). There are far more high-quality apps written for it (especially games), and just about anyone writing an app nowadays will write it for iOS and Android first, and then, y'know, maybe get around to a WP8 version at some point. We'll see. This is changing, but slowly. iOS has Google apps including Maps and G+. WP8 does not, and probably will not... like ever. Office is the only "app" on WP8 that's better and more functional than anything you can find on iOS. You're still considered an early adopter if you get a WP8 device right now. The iPhone also has a lot of accessories made for it if you care about that sort of thing. Every bag you buy that has a phone slot will fit an iPhone... some may not fit the Nokia.

The 4S is more versatile and supported, for sure, but the 920 is a better phone IMHO. I'd go to an AT&T store and handle both of them and play around w/ the OS a bit to get a feel for it.

 

[anon(5370748)]

LTE is a lot faster. I usually disable WiFi, since WiFi is slow as a snail compared to LTE at public places. Even my cable Internet at home has slower upstream speeds than LTE.

I hate LTE. The battery on my 920 lasts two days in my area (3G only), and I only get like 8 hours tops on LTE when I'm traveling. I don't stream movies or use the phone as a hotspot much, so loading a FB page a bit faster is not worth the battery hit. Not sure about the unlocked version, but the AT&T version doesn't allow you to turn off LTE in the options which is infuriating. You can go into the service menu and do it that way, though, which I guess will have to do for now.

Oh yeah, I did forget to mention the battery thing in my comparison, didn't I. Two days on 3G where the iPhone gave me one with roughly the same usage pattern

 

[Par_T]

I have both the 920 and the 4S. The core functionality (calls, emails, texting, camera, etc) I find to be a lot better on the 920. I also like using WP8's interface a lot more. I'd get dropped calls on AT&T with the 4S all the time, haven't had one on AT&T with the 920. Voice quality is clearer also, especially through BT in my car. The 920 is noticeably larger and heavier, but fits my hand better and makes for a larger keyboard that I find easier to type on. I #$%@ing HATE iOS' autocorrect, but I love WP8s - it's not too intrusive and usually ends up correcting the right things. The 920 is also sturdier (I dropped mine yesterday from 3ft onto concrete and it's fine except for a few chips in the polycarbonate). I've had zero hardware issues with my 920 (no overheating, no camera wonkiness, no reboots, nothing), and I'd consider it my favorite phone I've ever owned. Oh yeah, and the color choices are really nice. I got black because I'm into photography and wanted the phone to be as low-key as possible, but I love the Cyan and Yellow.

That being said, the 4S has some advantages. iOS is a lot more mature, so you'll get things like a notification center and separate volume controls for ringers, music, etc. The stock music player on the iPhone is a lot better, but I use Spotify (now available on WP8), and that works well enough (still better on iOS, though). There are far more high-quality apps written for it (especially games), and just about anyone writing an app nowadays will write it for iOS and Android first, and then, y'know, maybe get around to a WP8 version at some point. We'll see. This is changing, but slowly. iOS has Google apps including Maps and G+. WP8 does not, and probably will not... like ever. Office is the only "app" on WP8 that's better and more functional than anything you can find on iOS. You're still considered an early adopter if you get a WP8 device right now. The iPhone also has a lot of accessories made for it if you care about that sort of thing. Every bag you buy that has a phone slot will fit an iPhone... some may not fit the Nokia.

The 4S is more versatile and supported, for sure, but the 920 is a better phone IMHO. I'd go to an AT&T store and handle both of them and play around w/ the OS a bit to get a feel for it.

Thank for all the input. Since you have both phones, which one is better for taking "in the moment" pictures and videos? I have two kids and sometimes, I just don't have my camera with me when those "moments" happen.
Call quality is a big thing for me because I had to give up my HTC Titan due to call quality issues, as in, people could not hear me at all on the phone (they thought I had hung up on them!). So, nice to hear that call quality is pretty good.

 

[Par_T]

Better to buy at Microsoft Store with Assure plan or just go with AT&T (off contract)?

 

[anon(5370748)]

Thank for all the input. Since you have both phones, which one is better for taking "in the moment" pictures and videos? I have two kids and sometimes, I just don't have my camera with me when those "moments" happen.
Call quality is a big thing for me because I had to give up my HTC Titan due to call quality issues, as in, people could not hear me at all on the phone (they thought I had hung up on them!). So, nice to hear that call quality is pretty good.

Video, hands-down, is so much better on the 920 than the iPhone that it's absurd. The 920 has optical image stabilization, so every video looks smooth, even if you have kind of shaky hands. It could probably replace most point-and-shoot cameras for video.

Photos are another story. Neither phone is as good as a camera for capturing children or pets in indoor lighting without the flash. With the flash, it looks like flash photography... flat. It also irritates everyone in the room No phone at the moment replaces a good dedicated camera. If the kids are relatively still, the Nokia is better, because it handles low-light much better than the iPhone. I've shot some really nice indoor portraits of my dog with the 920, but have only ever achieved a blurry mess with the iPhone. It's actually amazing what you can capture with the Nokia indoors and even in dim restaurant lighting if you hold it still . The iPhone is totally useless in that situation unless you're using the flash. Outside in the sun, it's kind of a wash. The Nokia is better at avoiding lens flare than the iPhone, but both take really good photos in good light. Both phones have very fast access to the camera, even if they are locked. On the Nokia, you hold the hard camera button for a couple of seconds and it pops up, ready to shoot. you can then look back through the photos you took only during that session unless you unlock the phone. On the iPhone, you wake it using the hard button, and then swipe up from the camera icon on the lockscreen and you're ready to shoot. Same deal where you can scroll back through the photos you shot during that session unless you unlock it.

I personally like the images the Nokia captures a lot more than the iPhone for what I tend to shoot. The Zeiss lens gives them a more unique feel and I like the wider angle (24mm as opposed to 28mm). I also find the images to be less grainy and have nicer bokeh, and this phone opened up the world of indoor shots to me.

Here are a bunch of cherry-picked unedited shots from my 920: https://skydrive.live.com/pagenotfounderror
I don't have the same thing w/ the 4S because I didn't really like the photos enough (for what I like to shoot) to use it as a camera much. I do like the 920, so I use it a lot.

 

[Ridlah]

Depends on what your looking for the L920 will have several apps in the next few months and its hardware features far exceed the iphone 4S, Siri gets borning after a while so try not to get to excited over that particular feature. If you ask me I always wish i had the camera hardware and software packed in the 920 to get those great snapshots and nokia supports their older phones for a very long time regarless of microsofts 2014 timeline.

 

[rdubmu]

I would buy it at the Microsoft store. I had a 3gs in 2009, then a HD7, titan 2, and now a Lumia 920... my wife has a 4s, the Lumia 920 is by far a better phone. The camera is great and phone calls are very clear. LTE, is faster than my home WiFi, via Ethernet, my home internet is faster. I get about 20megs down... Very fast. I also like the bigger screen, one last thing to remember, the 4s was released in 2011, the L920 was released one year later. If you can wait, I would wait for the next thing. IPhone (7 version) will be coming out soon, as well as the next windowsphone.
Sent from my Nokia Lumia 920 using Board Express

 

[Fumetsu]

If you can live without LTE and don't mind the display size, the 4S is the better choice. Contrary to what is said here, the camera is fairly exceptional and the app ecosystem far outstrips WP. Web browsing is also better as most sites have optimized for WebKit whereas mobile IE looks like garbage and has all sorts of issues.

If you're OK with Android, the Nexus 4 offers a larger display, better customization, but is a bit lacking as a camera. The hardware and software are solid though and is unlocked by default.

Sent from my Nexus 4 using Tapatalk 2

 

[MFmonster]

The comment I prefer to the topic is to choose the device and OS that works for you. I prefer WP and IOS and even though I like the galaxy SIII hardware and my wife loves the device, I am not a fan of google nor the OS.

My opinion which means nothing to anyone as it is relates to my presonal preference, feelings, and needs. Out of all our devices past and current I prefer WP8. It fits my needs and I love the OS and built in features. My only annoyance on WP8 is Xbox Music/video, and I hear an update will resolve but we will see. Having other devices I can honestly say out of thousands of applications on ios and android we use maybe a few consistently. Having options and applications are nice don't get me wrong, and are a positive for any OS.

Also, the internet is full of people with an agenda. My friend has apple stock. Spreads the word of Apple and tells everyone the "Bill Gates Machine" is the devil. He knows zero of WP, W8, etc. He has an agenda. People lie and create issues to further "their" cause. "People are Strange"...

In other words. Depending on what you use your phone for and your likes/needs will determine if WP or any other OS is for you. Don't let anyone tell you different and remember if they are so passionate about telling you something is one way they have an agenda. I disagree with Fumetsu's comment the iphone is the better choice for you without knowing you or your tastes. It probably is correct that it is the better choice for him, but only you will know what is the better choice after you identify your needs and wants and play with the OS's.

Regardless both are great devices in their respective ways and neither is a bad choice!

 

[anon(5370748)]

If you can live without LTE and don't mind the display size, the 4S is the better choice. Contrary to what is said here, the camera is fairly exceptional and the app ecosystem far outstrips WP. Web browsing is also better as most sites have optimized for WebKit whereas mobile IE looks like garbage and has all sorts of issues.

If you're OK with Android, the Nexus 4 offers a larger display, better customization, but is a bit lacking as a camera. The hardware and software are solid though and is unlocked by default.

Sent from my Nexus 4 using Tapatalk 2

So strange - what would cause you to come to a WP8 board?

The camera in the 4S is good (as mentioned), but it's not as good at indoor photography as the 920 which was one of the things the OP specifically asked about.

 

[retyler]

I have both the 920 and the 4S. The core functionality (calls, emails, texting, camera, etc) I find to be a lot better on the 920. I also like using WP8's interface a lot more. I'd get dropped calls on AT&T with the 4S all the time, haven't had one on AT&T with the 920. Voice quality is clearer also, especially through BT in my car. The 920 is noticeably larger and heavier, but fits my hand better and makes for a larger keyboard that I find easier to type on. I #$%@ing HATE iOS' autocorrect, but I love WP8s - it's not too intrusive and usually ends up correcting the right things. The 920 is also sturdier (I dropped mine yesterday from 3ft onto concrete and it's fine except for a few chips in the polycarbonate). I've had zero hardware issues with my 920 (no overheating, no camera wonkiness, no reboots, nothing), and I'd consider it my favorite phone I've ever owned. Oh yeah, and the color choices are really nice. I got black because I'm into photography and wanted the phone to be as low-key as possible, but I love the Cyan and Yellow.

That being said, the 4S has some advantages. iOS is a lot more mature, so you'll get things like a notification center and separate volume controls for ringers, music, etc. The stock music player on the iPhone is a lot better, but I use Spotify (now available on WP8), and that works well enough (still better on iOS, though). There are far more high-quality apps written for it (especially games), and just about anyone writing an app nowadays will write it for iOS and Android first, and then, y'know, maybe get around to a WP8 version at some point. We'll see. This is changing, but slowly. iOS has Google apps including Maps and G+. WP8 does not, and probably will not... like ever. Office is the only "app" on WP8 that's better and more functional than anything you can find on iOS. You're still considered an early adopter if you get a WP8 device right now. The iPhone also has a lot of accessories made for it if you care about that sort of thing. Every bag you buy that has a phone slot will fit an iPhone... some may not fit the Nokia.

The 4S is more versatile and supported, for sure, but the 920 is a better phone IMHO. I'd go to an AT&T store and handle both of them and play around w/ the OS a bit to get a feel for it.

This is a very nice summary of comparing the two, but where the iPhone now has Google Maps the WP8 has Nokia's Here which is a far superior mapping system then Google Maps.

 

[anon(5370748)]

This is a very nice summary of comparing the two, but where the iPhone now has Google Maps the WP8 has Nokia's Here which is a far superior mapping system then Google Maps.

Google Maps still has a lot more current and accurate data for more locations. If you're in an area that Nokia has covered well, then Here does a great job. If you're in an area like mine, Here still doesn't have updated points of interest (restaurants that closed years ago still show as current, stores that have been here for two years don't come up in search), and isn't on top of new routes and construction (there's an underpass near my house that's been there for a year that has shown on Google Maps for the last 6-7 months, but still isn't on Here). Here also does some strange things like if it can't find a specific address, it will route you to the dead center of the road, even if that road is 20 miles long, which is stressful when driving. It has come a long way since launch (it used to tell you to get on and off a freeway 25 times during the same stretch of road), and it really feels like Nokia is putting a lot of effort into making it better every day, but it's still not as mature or trustworthy as Google Maps. Luckily I don't drive much, and most of the time I'm not going to new places, so it's not that big of a deal, but if you do, don't give up your Garmin/Tom Tom quite yet