Using the 1520 in 2017 - My Experience

[meattray]

I'm one of the lucky ones. My yellow beast so has excellent battery life. I take it off the charger at 5 am. Use it throughout the day. I'm not a hardcore user, but I do constantly check emails, reply to various texts, listen to music on my commutes, etc. No gaming. When I go to bed at around 10:30 or so, I still have around 35% left. Not awesome. But not bad for such an old phone.

And was it that way from the start? Have you tweaked any settings or just run out of the box?

 

[meattray]

Hoping to do some more looking into the camera during this long weekend. I hope to get a few nice shots I can show you guys.

 

[RumoredNow]

Curious what kind of battery life you guys get or any tweaks you make?

W10M is weird. It takes a few days to "settle in" before you can see what your battery stamina will really be. If you haven't driven the phone daily for a week you may actually see it suddenly come into its own battery wise.

 

[meattray]

Very good. We'll see how it goes. It was always similar with BB10 as well. Took a couple of days to settle.

 

[Scienceguy Labs]

And was it that way from the start? Have you tweaked any settings or just run out of the box?

I don't remember actual battery life numbers from my original 1520s running WP8/8.1, so I can't compare what I'm getting now to what I was getting then. As far as my current one, I didn't do any tweaks. Just running out of the box after upgrading to W10M. Well, I did hurry and install the Creator's Update via the Insiders Program a few days ago before support is officially pulled. I've been using it on and off for the past three weeks. I think RumoredNow is correct, though. I might need to use it as my daily for a number of consecutive days in order to get a more realistic battery life assessment. Using it ever other day or once every couple of days probably isn't a thorough enough field test.

 

[meattray]

That's exactly it. I haven't really been dedicated to it as my main driver yet but i am a pretty heavy user and just haven't found it being able to meet my daily demands (plus miss my fast charging)

 

[meattray]

Any app recommendations? What should I throw on here?

 

[RumoredNow]

Start shooting JPG + DNG.

Get Rawer, Camera360 Sight, ProShot and whatever other camera app and editors you want. Fantasia Painter gets high marks from users, though I haven't touched it often. Hyperlapse for video... Load up on that stuff and snap away.

Fotor on desktop will convert your DNG to JPG as well as Rawer on the phone when you post process.

@meattray, hurry - Polarr Pro is on sale again in the Store. Great post process editor for PC.

https://forums.windowscentral.com/e...itor-pro-polarr%2F9nblggh1npnc&token=uEaaeg8Z

 

[libra89]

Any app recommendations? What should I throw on here?

What do you use? I love AudioCloud for SoundCloud. If you use your phones as an alarm, realarm is pretty cool.

 

[meattray]

I honestly don't seem to ever end up with a ton of apps I keep or use. I just like to test them out and see if any end up making the list.

 

[libra89]

I honestly don't seem to ever end up with a ton of apps I keep or use. I just like to test them out and see if any end up making the list.

Ah okay, I see. Going to offer some randoms to you.

-Transparent Tile+/Start Perfect (one is the free one, the other one is the paid version) for making popular apps have a transparent tile and also blank tiles to copy those cool layouts you see.
-Monument Browser is a nice alternative to Edge and it also has dark mode
-MyTube is so nice as a YouTube alternative.
-GroupMe (official app) is nice here, Slack (official too) is alright but a decent app.
-The official Twitter app is pretty decent too.

I just learned about App It! which basically makes the mobile site look like an app, but I haven't tried that yet.

 

[meattray]

Thanks! I'll give them a go today.

 

[greedo_greedy]

Here are some suggestions.

The best YouTube client for Windows 10 hands down
https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/store/p/mytube-beta/9wzdncrdt29j?tduid=(34c8e23409c97a0c47f1cbff326f731a)(263915)(2775081)()()

Sick and Tired of slow Facebook and Messenger? Try SlimSocial
https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/store/p/slimsocial-for-facebook/9nblggh4vmr8?ocid=9nblggh4vmr8_ORSEARCH_Bing

Camera & Photography
- Sight Camera360
- ProShot
- Fotor
- Rawr

Social
- Facebook
- Messenger
- Viber
- Instagram

Media
- VLC

Misc.
- mrRemote for Kodi if you use Kodi for your media consumption

Games
- Hitman Go, Lara Croft Go or Deus Ex Go (On sale right now)

 

[meattray]

More great suggestions thank you!

 

[meattray]

Been using as my daily driver for the weekend.

1. Battery life seems fairly subpar compared to my previous BlackBerry and Android devices.
2. Really like the camera. Seem to be getting some good shots of the kids. It's been crappy outside and raining so haven't been able to venture out for many other shots.

3. The Apps. I'm not sure but it doesn't really seem like a lot of the apps are optimized very well that I've downloaded from the store. Some just seem to hang or go a little slower.

4. I like Edge as a browser but it doesn't seem to work the best with all sites. Doesn't give me the drop down and whatnot for some sites. Also it just chugs that battery that can't really use for any extended period.

Otherwise I am enjoying the phone so far. I'd kind of been going back to smaller phones but have to say I really like this extra real estate.

 

[libra89]

Been using as my daily driver for the weekend.

1. Battery life seems fairly subpar compared to my previous BlackBerry and Android devices.
2. Really like the camera. Seem to be getting some good shots of the kids. It's been crappy outside and raining so haven't been able to venture out for many other shots.

3. The Apps. I'm not sure but it doesn't really seem like a lot of the apps are optimized very well that I've downloaded from the store. Some just seem to hang or go a little slower.

4. I like Edge as a browser but it doesn't seem to work the best with all sites. Doesn't give me the drop down and whatnot for some sites. Also it just chugs that battery that can't really use for any extended period.

Otherwise I am enjoying the phone so far. I'd kind of been going back to smaller phones but have to say I really like this extra real estate.

Thank you for reporting back and sharing your experience!

3. You have a good point there. Apps designed for Windows 10 seem to work better but not always.
4. Yeah I can agree with this. Edge is an unfortunate battery drain and I hate that it is. It would be nice if MS could find a way to improve that. For me, extended uses are reading ebooks and this drain still happens on a 950, regardless of if I disabled it from running in the background.

 

[meattray]

Thank you for reporting back and sharing your experience!

3. You have a good point there. Apps designed for Windows 10 seem to work better but not always.
4. Yeah I can agree with this. Edge is an unfortunate battery drain and I hate that it is. It would be nice if MS could find a way to improve that. For me, extended uses are reading ebooks and this drain still happens on a 950, regardless of if I disabled it from running in the background.

Yeah it's been interesting. I've tried really hard to really love this device because it has several features I love but there's just a few things I struggle with.

If they could optimize Edge so I could use it instead of apps without ridiculous drain I'd have no problem using this as one of my drivers. Until then... Not sure.

 

[libra89]

Yeah it's been interesting. I've tried really hard to really love this device because it has several features I love but there's just a few things I struggle with.

If they could optimize Edge so I could use it instead of apps without ridiculous drain I'd have no problem using this as one of my drivers. Until then... Not sure.

Considering what you're dealing with, I can actually somewhat relate to how you feel with the struggles.

The Edge thing really annoys me so at this point, I'm with you. I can't imagine dealing with it and meh battery life together (on my 950) when I have other phones that have better battery life and way less of a drain.

You have to do what works best for you, whether it is just using this as a camera and wifi device or using it part-time or both even. To me, it makes no sense to sacrifice crucial things that will affect your day to day usage in a way that is noticeable.

 

[meattray]

Considering what you're dealing with, I can actually somewhat relate to how you feel with the struggles.

The Edge thing really annoys me so at this point, I'm with you. I can't imagine dealing with it and meh battery life together (on my 950) when I have other phones that have better battery life and way less of a drain.

You have to do what works best for you, whether it is just using this as a camera and wifi device or using it part-time or both even. To me, it makes no sense to sacrifice crucial things that will affect your day to day usage in a way that is noticeable.

Yup exactly. I'm going to give it a go for a couple more days to say I've given it an honest go and will decide from there. Thanks for following along.

 

[Captain_Eric]

Guys and gals, Uh oh. 1520 is off the Creator Update list. Without, re-litigating if that was a good idea, (after all it's done), how does this change things for us?

Specifically, I'm on Creators Update (from Insiders Fast Ring), so what happens going forward? I'll stay on Release Preview, so maybe will pick up some updates, right? And, if my 1520 becomes unworkable on Creators Update, what are my options? Roll back to Windows 8 and rebuild from there to Anniversary Update? Can I roll back? Anyone have some informed insights?