So is the Lumia any good?

[podsnap]

My girlfriend is looking for a new smart phone. Her current iPhone 3G is very much past it best.

I've been suggesting the Lumia and she really likes the way it looks and feels.

The problem for me is the battery life issues. I'm worried it won't last as long as her iPhone 3G or her new work phone (iPhone 4S).

It wouldn't be so bad if you could change the battery...

So what are your thoughts? Would you recommend it?

 

[Rallicat]

I've only had the Lumia 800 for 24 hours, and I can report that I've been dissapointed with the battery life. Having said that, I have already loaded it up with a few apps that run in the background, including lattitude, so maybe I'm being premature in declaring it a 'problem' - the situation may well improve after a few charges, and I'm going to try turning lattitude off to see if that helps.

Nokia are promising updates in early December, and more in January to improve power efficiency, but they are not yet saying whether they have identified a specific problem.

In every other way I'm extremely pleased with the phone - it's a great handset, with great software running on it. As with all phones, the battery life will -to a large degree- vary depending on what you do with it.

Heavier users will always want to look at carrying around a spare battery, and in the case of handsets like the iPhone or Lumia 800, that means buying an external spare battery that can be plugged into the handset to provide some extra juice when necessary.

If you are concerned about battery issues, my advice would be to wait and see. The forthcoming updates may well solve the issues and make the product more efficient. Alternatively, there are other WP7 handsets out there worth looking at, including some with comparable specs to the Lumia.

 

[Pronk]

As posted in the battery thread, I'm a fairly light user as far as "push" apps and live tiles are concerned - I'm more about overall longevity than getting every single message the second it arrives. Life of 1.5 days seems to be achievable right now, and hopefully with the January update that'll unlock the battery to 1450 mAh 2 days should be realistic.

If your g/f is the sort that hammers her phone and is texting and tweeting 24/7 then it'll run down fast as almost any smartphone would, but she might want to look at something that can have swappable batteries/extended life batteries. If she's more restrained and is more about calls and texting and having lots of functionality available but not using it all constantly, all the time, she should definitely check it out.

Bear in mind that Nokia had a reputation for incredible battery life in the past, so even though the 800's battery life is fair for today's smartphones, some people may have had unrealistic expectations.

 

[mkr10001]

It's not all of them with the battery issues and to be honest I'm not sure how nokia plan on fixing it with an update. Surely all phones were loaded with the same software version (obvious country and network variations though) so I fail to see how it is a software problem. Either all or none would be suffering.

 

[Pronk]

Can be localised software, revisions where a model ships with earlier firmware, slightly different components from different suppliers. They could all be amended with a software fix.

 

[mkr10001]

Can be localised software, revisions where a model ships with earlier firmware, slightly different components from different suppliers. They could all be amended with a software fix.

I hope so. I'm not sure if it's worth getting a replacement from my network or just stick it out until the first update and see how that goes