Is WP8 for me?

[foolishfocus]

Hi,

I have been doing some serious reading here on WPCentral and am having trouble pulling the trigger on a WP8 purchase. I have bounced from OS to OS (Palm Pre, iPhone 4, iPhone 4S, HTC One X, and Nexus 4) but haven't really been satisfied with any of them. I have no interest in going back to Apple for a variety of reasons and I am relatively happy with my Nexus 4 running the nightly CM10 rom. I am wanting to try out the WP8 OS, potentially on a Lumia 521 as a media device for the cheap price, a 920 or 1020/EOS with AT&T (current provider), or the 925 when it comes to T-Mobile. I understand the app selection is smaller and some of the big name items are missing. Based upon the feedback of individuals like yourselves who use this software day in and day out, I was hoping you could fill me in on whether or not it seems like a reasonable decision to make the jump. My wife is also needing a new phone in the near future, so a switch from iPhone for her is a possibility.We pretty much use our phones for the same thing but she is more of the photo taker.

My daily use:
-Checking a personal Gmail e-mail account
-Checking school Outlook e-mail account
-Viewing and posting status updates, photos on Facebook or Instagram
-Catching up on news with Pulse app
-Checking bank account (PNC) or 401K info (Fidelity)
-Use of Google Maps for navigation purposes
-Watching videos on YouTube

Thanks for the feedback, I understand that every persons experience is different but I appreciate it!

 

[mase123987]

PNC doesn't have an app (I don't think) but Fidelity does. I haven't used it so I can't tell you how good it is.
Your email should be fine.
As far as news, there are plenty of options (I use news360 because it is on just about every device)
Here Drive and Maps work great for navigation. GMaps is a great third party Google maps app that I would look into if you wanted.
MetroTube is GREAT for youtube. It is better than anything I have used on Android.

 

[mase123987]

Facebook stuff can be done from within the OS itself or with the Facebook app. Instance is a very good Instagram third party app.

 

[AR2186]

Hi,

I have been doing some serious reading here on WPCentral and am having trouble pulling the trigger on a WP8 purchase. I have bounced from OS to OS (Palm Pre, iPhone 4, iPhone 4S, HTC One X, and Nexus 4) but haven't really been satisfied with any of them. I have no interest in going back to Apple for a variety of reasons and I am relatively happy with my Nexus 4 running the nightly CM10 rom. I am wanting to try out the WP8 OS, potentially on a Lumia 521 as a media device for the cheap price, a 920 or 1020/EOS with AT&T (current provider), or the 925 when it comes to T-Mobile. I understand the app selection is smaller and some of the big name items are missing. Based upon the feedback of individuals like yourselves who use this software day in and day out, I was hoping you could fill me in on whether or not it seems like a reasonable decision to make the jump. My wife is also needing a new phone in the near future, so a switch from iPhone for her is a possibility.We pretty much use our phones for the same thing but she is more of the photo taker.

My daily use:
-Checking a personal Gmail e-mail account
-Checking school Outlook e-mail account
-Viewing and posting status updates, photos on Facebook or Instagram
-Catching up on news with Pulse app
-Checking bank account (PNC) or 401K info (Fidelity)
-Use of Google Maps for navigation purposes
-Watching videos on YouTube

Thanks for the feedback, I understand that every persons experience is different but I appreciate it!

I'll take a shot at this. To give you some perspective, I have a good computer background, build my own computers and look to push the limits (jailbreak,root,etc) on my phones the moment I get them. Up until last fall I was using a combination of iPad/iPhone/Macbook Pro (w/ W7 bootcamp) and briefly picked up a GS3 to see what the fuss was all about. I quickly got sick of TouchWiz and running CM10.1 and the monthly builds, but still wasn't too happy with it (granted, it was my backup phone at the time, so I wasn't too worried about it). I've always really liked Microsoft, but Vista was a disaster so I went to Apple for a time but found myself missing the customizability of Windows (registry tweaks, etc). Fast forward to fall 2012, and I decided to go long Microsoft: new desktop, new htpc, Surface RT, WP8 and MSFT stock (always wishing for it to do better). It was a rough stretch in the beginning, the app store was pretty barren, but it's really picked up steam, and with the exception of one highly specialized professional application I use, I could not be happier with the decision. The only thing I now use my iPad for is to order seamless (when not close to a computer) and I haven't used my GS3 for anything other than downloading Jay-Z's new album in months.

With that said, here's my attempt to answer you particular questions


1. Gmail: Just know google has pretty much done whatever they can to screw WP over, but you can still use gmail. For the time being, you probably can't get push notifications due to Google taking away support for exchange active sync on free gmail accounts, but you will get the emails. This is how i had it set up until May, before biting the bullet and switching to Outlook.com (which I highly recommend). All email to my gmail now auto forwards to outlook, so I don't miss anything as I switch over.
2. School outlook: I assume this means your school uses Exchange Server for their email, if so you shouldn't have any problems.
3. Facebook / Instagram: Facebook completely redid the program and is now out of beta, and it works great. Instagram is a no-go at this point, but only because they refuse to develop for WP (founder hated his internship at MSFT apparently). That said, the Instance application is awesome, I use it all the time and it has nearly all the functionality of Instagram.
4. Pulse App: I don't believe it is on WP, but I don't use it so am not certain. That said, you can usually find great third party alternatives to whatever you were originally looking for.
5. PNC / Fidelity: Fidelity has an application (Fidelity Investments), PNC does not appear to offer an application. I dont have PNC so I can't really try the functionality of the mobile website. Chase and BofA have apps, so if either of those are convenient for you, you could always start to move over to one of those.
6. Google Maps: No support from Google, but gMaps Pro has google maps, turn by turn and latitude. Here Drive+ (for L92x/L810/L82x/L620) and Here Drive (L52x/L720/non-nokia phones) works great as Nokia owns the mapping company behind a significant number of gps handsets. Here Drive+ will be available as a paid upgrade soon for all windows phone
7. Youtube: Metrotube is arguably a better youtube app than anything google has put out. That said, if you like official apps, Microsoft and Google are working on a truly official app and it should be out soon (Microsoft released their own earlier this year, and it was great, but Google sued them).

Overall, I think you'll find yourself pretty satisfied with WP. With the W8.1, RT8.1, WP8.1 and Xbox One launches, you should see all the platforms come even closer together with a common link through Skydrive and Azure.

Hope this helped

 

[a5cent]

Potential problems:

There is a WPC article describing the ever more frosty relationship between Microsoft and Google. It describes the current state of affairs, particularly in regard to Gmail. Personally, I wouldn't trust Google to keep my Gmail running properly on WP. If I had to rely on it for business purposes it would make me a bit nervous. I dropped Gmail entirely (for privacy reasons), but that may be impractical for you. The suggestion to configure Gmail to forward your e-mails to a www.outlook.com account or alias (and sync from there) is a good one. It's the only solution I'd trust if I didn't have the freedom to dump Gmail entirely.

Otherwise I'd recommend not getting to stuck up on a specific app name. Pulse still hasn't re-released their app for WP, but there are many alternatives that are just as good. NewsSpot may be to your liking. A name is just a name. It's the features and functionality that you need and they exist for any general smartphone activity. The same applies to Google Maps. I find Nokia Here Drive a superior alternative, primarily due to the offline maps feature.

Banking apps is the other potential issue I see, but I can't add anything to what has already been mentioned.

 

[DBDev]

Hi and Welcome to WPCentral! The answers above are very good, but like they said Pulse is not available. You can read about other alternative RSS readers here.

 

[BIGPADDY]

Welcome to the forum most your question have be answered by the other members above, I think you should just buy the 521 anyway just because it a ridiculous cheap price!