Another Windows convert - with a few issues...

[Mister K]

Hi all.

I have just spent my first week with a shiny black Lumia 1020. This is my first Windows phone, after years of iOS and Android (iPhone 3G, HTC Desire S and a Galaxy Note 2). Since I am looking at Windows Phone 8 from the viewpoint of an experienced smartphone user, but a Windows novice, I thought I would share my initial impressions.

My post may come across as overly negative, but that is not really my intention. Some of the "issues" I have may well have solutions suggested by the community, or be addressed in the upcoming 8.1 release. There are a few "biggies" mind.

First, let me start with the positive.
The Lumia hardware is gorgeous. The camera is, of course, fantastic. Furthermore, unlike my Samsung, the Nokia actually works well as a phone. It can pick up my lousy service at home, unlike either of my Androids. This is a MAJOR plus. Windows is a beautifully smooth OS, and I love how it looks. The app store isn't great, but it has what I need in the main (with a couple of exceptions). Oh, and I like Glance too.

Now the not-so-positive.
Sound and settings profiles. I know that this is probably going to be addressed to a degree by 8.1, but coming from Android where you can have different profiles which adjust ringer volume, media volume, vibration, notifications, lockscreen settings, and have them activated based on different criteria (time, location etc), the Windows uber-simplistic approach is hard to take. I'm certainly not expecting MS to allow location based anything on Windows, but time based profile switching (involving all settings) would be really great. In the meatime, is there any way to switch vibration on and off without going into the settings (i.e. via a shortcut?)

Error handling. I have noticed that Windows phone is not great at reacting or reconnecting when something goes wrong. Last night I had a momentary WiFi outage. My wife's S3 and my son's iPod both reconnected seamlessly once it came back. My Lumia could not reconnect to the WiFi, and would not reconnect until I rebooted. Similarly today Outlook would not sync until I toggled WiFi off and then back on. This was very annoying since I missed an important email (and I don't get many!!) Closing the mail client via the app switcher did not seem to work either, although again I suspect the problem was with the WiFi radio on the phone. What's more, because Windows gives you so little info as to what is going on it is hard to trace the fault. Talking of lack of info...

Battery. More specifically, info as to what is using the battery. Generally battery life on the Lumia has been decent - today for instance in 9 hours I have used 43% of the battery with a bit of web browsing, 15 minutes of gaming, 3 phone calls, and plenty of music listening (streaming via Gooroovster). That ain't bad IMO. However last night the phone lost 35% overnight whilst doing nowt except sitting there waiting to wake me up. Obviously some app was draining the battery, but, as far as I can see, there is no way of finding out which app or process it may have been.

Music. On Android (and on iOS before) I was an avid Spotify user - mainly because Spotify streamed music at 360Kbps. On Windows phone it only streams at 160Kbps, and sounds vile. I have tried Xbox music - it didn't sound that good to me. I am hoping that Beats music will be available in the UK soon, since it promises a decent Windows app and 320Kbps streaming. For now I am trying out Deezer, but I am not that enamoured with it.

There are a few more minor niggles, but these are the main things. So to sum up, beautiful phone, camera and OS. With a bit more stability, flexibility, information and, hopefully, Beats music and I would be a very happy man.

Oh, and finally, those Nokia Purity Pro Bluetooth headphones are fabulous, but how much? It is such a shame as I want them so badly. Oh well..

 

[borasar]

Hey Mister K,

Sound and setting profiles - absolutely valid criticism and we've been waiting for this to be addressed for a while. Luckily sound profiles are coming in W8.1 and the Cortana might be able to help with the rest of the gap (I'm speculating on this one however)

Error Handling - not sure on this one, I've had similar scenarios, but my phone reconnects all the time without any restarts required.

Battery - this has been a heated discussion all over these forums. Can you elaborate more on the drain. I know you weren't using the phone at the time, but do you recall leaving any apps open, also what do you have enabled in background tasks?

Music - I personally don't use Spotify, but I know they've recently announced that an update is coming in spring to bring it in line with ios and android. I use Xbox music and haven't had any sound issues, could be just my hearing though.

Apps - you also mentioned that the app store isn't great. Are there any particular apps that you are lacking?

Hope this helps

 

[Mister K]

Hi - thanks for your response.

Battery - unfortunately I cannot elaborate much I'm afraid. Regarding background tasks, other than email I am not sure if there was anything else enabled. Is there a setting or option screen where I can check this? On a happier note, the battery only lost 5% overnight last night, which is much more as I'd expect. I have no idea as to what was different to the night before, though. This is where more usage info would be helpful.

Apps and music - well Spotify - to be honest I am dubious about their ability (and will) to deliver a stable windows app. We'll see...
The app I am missing most from Android at the moment is a decent, stable internet radio player. TuneIn Radio Pro on Android was robust and reliable. I've tried TuneIn (a cut down version) and an app called Radioplayer on my 1020 and quite honestly they are flaky - at best. I'll have another look for an alternative later.

Cheers.

 

[borasar]

Battery- go to Settings then swipe right to see applications and open background tasks. That allows you to limit what runs in the background. If you don't need it, block it. Also if you long press the back button you'll see if you have any apps actually open as well. Btw in the Settings menu do you have tap+send, internet sharing, bluetooth turned off? If you don't use any of these I suggest you turn them off as they eat up a fair bit of battery (I only turn on Bluetooth when I need it for example). The other thing I can suggest if you don't need it is to turn off Connect to Xbox (in applications>games) and Connect to Xbox Music (in applications>music+videos)

Apps and music - Your Lumia has a built in radio that works once you plug in the headphones (in the music hub), however that will only work with the local radio stations. I don't use radio apps, so can't comment on any alternatives. Maybe also try iHeartRadio?

 

[radmanvr]

Nokia Music and play with the equalizer for best sound

 

[Kebero]

A lot of these issues are said to be addressed in WP8.1, which I'm looking forward to.

WRT music, I mainly use Nokia Mix Radio. I've found it to have a very good selection of genres, and it handles most of my needs. I also have DI and RockRadio.com installed for listening to genres that would otherwise be difficult to accurately dial in with another service (e.g.chill hop or symphonic metal).

 

[Olav Vincent Ronning]

Battery problem can be a bad CPU.
in my case this was the whole problem.
Before I got this fixed tel drew about 6% with everything turned off and only 2G.
after i got it fixed, it uses less than 1%

So get it checked thoroughly before the warranty is out.

 

[Mister K]

Thanks for the response, guys. Unfortunately things have taken a turn for the worse with my Windows phone experience, so much so that I am very close to sending the thing back. This makes me sad, since I can't think of a single Android phone that I want, but I am utterly fed up with this Lumia now. This is what happened...

At approx 12.30 I noticed my phone had closed down. I tried to power it up again. Nothing! Dead as you like.

I then thought I'd plug a charger in to see if it would start up. It did. As it powered up I noticed the battery was showing as 0%! It had been 68% half an hour earlier.

Once the phone booted up I went into the Battery Sense app to see what the heck happened. Battery sense was showing the battery at something like 48221456%!! I unplugged the charger. It went down to 0%. I plugged the charger back in. Another (or possibly the same) 8 digit percentage. Time for a hard reset.

The phone booted back up. Battery showed 65%. Phew! It was weird that the phone wouldn't power up because it "thought" it had no battery, despite the fact that it obviously did. Still, the fun wasn't over...

...I then noticed I had no Vodafone signal. Went into the settings and could not pick up a single network. Powered down and tested the sim in another phone - it was fine! Reinserted the sim and went onto the Nokia website for help. Tried everything short of a factory reset and still no signal. Time for a backup and factory reset.

The factory reset worked. I got my 3G signal back. Of course I lost all my carefully laid out homescreen tiles, my app set-up for news, music and the like. I have wasted a load of time, Gooroovster doesn't seem to work properly now, and, most importantly, I have lost faith in the device - will it be there when I need it?

This phone is turning out to be rather like my old Lancia Coupe - beautiful to look at, fabulous to drive when it worked, but also a cause of massive frustration and grief. The Lancia is long gone, replaced by something far less individual but more reliable. Will the Lumia go the same way?

 

[DBDev]

Welcome to WPCentral and Windows Phone! Fortunately, as you said, most of your issues will be fixed with 8.1 :wink:

 

[borasar]

I think you have a defective battery, I'd try to send it back and get a replacement device. It is very frustrating, but I recommend giving it another shot

 

[Erick Rmz]

I think you should wait to get WP 8.1 update and see if this kind of weird issues have been solved. I'm in similar position as yours, 'cause I've been battery erratic behavior in the past. Seems clear for me that is a firmware problem, courtesy of our friends of microsoft (remember of patches in theirs OS very often). At least for me, if these issues are not solved, time to switch to other OS... I hope not as I like WP interface and stability.

Sent from my Nokia Lumia using Tapatalk

 

[borasar]

I think you should wait to get WP 8.1 update and see if this kind of weird issues have been solved. I'm in similar position as yours, 'cause I've been battery erratic behavior in the past. Seems clear for me that is a firmware problem, courtesy of our friends of microsoft (remember of patches in theirs OS very often). At least for me, if these issues are not solved, time to switch to other OS... I hope not as I like WP interface and stability.

Sent from my Nokia Lumia using Tapatalk

Firmware is done by Nokia, not Microsoft. Microsoft is responsible for the OS updates. Given the erratic behaviour of his battery it might just be a faulty battery and not firmware or OS. It doesn't look like anything is clear to you.

 

[Infamy79]

Sounds like a faulty device to me, definitely return it
Most of the general usability issues you have will be addressed with WP8.1 and I expect the Icon & 1520 to be the first to get the update pushed out to it

 

[kyriacou48]

Mister K, I think your phone has packed up for the most part

I would definitely take it back for a new 1020, 1520 or Icon.

 

[Mister K]

Good morning.

Since the aggravation of yesterday, the phone seems to have settled down (fingers crossed). Battery seems to be acting like it should, connectivity is solid on both WiFi and 2G/3G. Even Deezer is now smooth, and it sounds better too(!?). Since I have got plenty of time left on the warranty I may give the Lumia a chance.

I must admit, the issues yesterday didn't really strike me as a hardware failure (and I've had a few over the years). It felt like a software glitch - albeit a pretty major one , but hey, we've all had those with desktop Windows, right? Maybe it was because I was trying out lots of similar apps (radio, music, battery monitoring apps etc) and some setting got really messed up. I just wish Microsoft trusted users a bit more with regards to providing info on what your phone is doing. Still, the first sign of trouble and it's going back!

I'll be honest I did have a look at alternatives last night, but there is nothing out there that matches my needs like the 1020. I am platform agnostic - whatever does the job is fine - but the Lumia 1020 hardware is pretty compelling. I've had enough of Phablets (hence no 1520 - have you seen the size of that thing?) and I wanted reliable connectivity plus a great camera with a dedicated camera button (a really big deal if you are a great clumsy oaf like me). Can't think of an alternative - can you?

Anyway I am going to test the camera out properly at the cup final at Wembley at the weekend, so I will see if it is as good as everyone says!

 

[WanderingTraveler]

Well, let's just tell you this:
For the first time in forever, I can tell you that WP8.1 will fix most of your problems, hopefully for good.

Let's just hope for the best with your new phone.
(Oh, and welcome to the forums!)

 

[AndyCalling]

Apps and music - Your Lumia has a built in radio that works once you plug in the headphones (in the music hub), however that will only work with the local radio stations. I don't use radio apps, so can't comment on any alternatives. Maybe also try iHeartRadio?

The built in radio works fine with national stations as well as local stations. I get the full range of FM stations from the BBC. It doesn't do DAB though, come on MS/Nokia, move us out of the 20th century please...

 

[borasar]

I'd stay away from battery monitoring apps, personally the ones I've used drain battery and as a habit, every time you install an app, check background tasks, to make sure that something you don't need isn't enabled in the background.

 

[Mister K]

I'd stay away from battery monitoring apps....

I think you may well be right there. Anyway I had another reboot after losing 2G signal (train went into a tunnel), so something is not right. After a 40 minute moan to Vodafone, they have agreed to swap the handset - a new one is being delivered tomorrow. Let's hope the new one is less flaky!

 

[Mister K]

The built in radio works fine with national stations as well as local stations. I get the full range of FM stations from the BBC. It doesn't do DAB though, come on MS/Nokia, move us out of the 20th century please...

Hi Andy - I always forget the FM radio - I will try that later. I tend to listen to 6 music quite a bit, which is DAB only, sadly, so an app is needed.