I wanted to add my comments on the Nokia Lumia 810 since I have been trying to use this phone for about a week and am beginning to like it. My focus is business usage, so I tend to not fill up my devices with apps, and I use the Microsoft Office apps which render spreadsheets and complex PowerPoint presentations better than the non-Microsoft equivalents.
My reference device is not a phone but a 9-year-old Garmin iQue 3600 PDA/GPS based on the old Palm OS. This product has gone with me nearly everywhere I've gone since I got it in 2003. I use it to track appointments, contact information, and to navigate to clients.using the built-in GPS. That device had most if not all of the features I needed except being able to phone someone. The Palm OS was quite mature and developers were able and willing to tweak it to work even better. Some of the comments here remind me of back then. When we were out of main memory, but had room on the SD Card, the answer was an app that replaced the app with a stub app which pointed to and decompressed the real app that had been compressed and stored on the memory card and then put it back when the app closed. I have tried to replace it with the HTC MDA Vario II, the HTC Wing, and the HTC HD2. I never went with the HD7 since it lacked the storage card feature of the HD2. On the HD2, I had the ability to install movies on the memory card which made this device a good companion on long airline flights. Movies on the Garmin PDA were watchable but not particularly good quality and its screen washed out severely in bright sunlight.
The phones above all provided good service, but it was not until CoPilot on the HD2 that I had as many features on a phone as I had on the iQue 3600. However, CoPilot was not a replacement for a Garmin GPS. The Garmin "learned" how I drive. It's estimates of time improved over time since it recorded my actual drive speed by highway and knew which were slower than posted and which were higher. This allowed it to improve directions when taking me on roads I frequently traverse. It also would use its data to inform me whether I was arriving at my destination "on the left" or "on the right" which helped especially on rural roads with poor street lighting. The one feature I liked most was the complete integration of the GPS with its address book. I could store more than just an address in the entry. I could set the actual physical location which is important on roads where street numbers are garbled or mapping information is inaccurate.
So let's fast forward to the Lumia 810. I am not going to compare it to the 920or HTC 8X since I did not consider those phones once I learned that the 810 had a replaceable battery and external memory. I was also not sure that I wanted to go much larger than my HD2. While I do not understand the need for the larger housing than the HD2, since the screen size is similar, I like the size of the Lumia 810. It feels good in the hand and is of solid construction. Like the HD2, it offers two things that I consider very important, additional memory and a replaceable battery (though I cannot find a replacement yet). These are important since sometimes I want to bring tons of documentation with me and I have had times where I wanted to carry a spare battery, especially if I am out walking and using the GPS to track my location. The battery life seems to be exceptional and I will not likely have three batteries as I do for the HD2, but I will likely want a second.
The home screen of Windows Phone 8 is an excellent design both from a visual appeal and from an information standpoint. I can have apps displaying date and appointment information as well as RSS feeds, news, weather, and have direct access to a large number of apps. The app list is well thought out and, like the contacts list, can be compressed into alphabetic tiles for quicker access to the far reaches of the alphabet. I find it interesting that we have returned to the alphabet for categorizing things since I will likely be ready for my next phone before I remember what MetroTalk does from the name (I have already memorized its icon symbol).
The apps are limited but generally of better quality than what was available for the HD2. One interesting omission is the Barnes & Noble Nook application which came with the HD2 but apparently was never made for any other Windows phone before or since. Also interesting is the lack of support from news outlets who are constantly tweaking their Android and IOS apps. Also, such developers as Cerulean Studios (Trillian) and LogMeIn are still taking a "wait and see" attitude. My last discussion with LogMeIn who had an earlier Windows Mobile App was that they would NEVER support a Windows phone again. Hopefully they will change their mind.
The responsiveness of the screen is what I would have expected based on the reviews and videos, so there are no surprises there. What is surprising is the overall architecture of Windows Phone 8 which appears to be far more controlled than any other Windows Operating System. I commented to a friend today that I expect there to be a lawsuit from Apple since Windows apparently copied much of their restricted functionality. I feel uncomfortable without a file manager and nervous without an antivirus program. Specifically, I spent hours trying to get Outlook on my PC to synch with the phone via Hotmail. I tried quite a few "suggestions" but none of them worked. Apparently, leaving the whole thing to "cook" in the background for two nights caused everything to work. Likewise, the phone could not find the movies I ported over from the HD2 on the card. Without a File Manager, I could not invoke them directly and had no idea how to tell the phone to look for them. The same day my calendar synched, the movies appeared in the list of available titles. Spooky and out of my control, just like Apple.
Installing apps seems to work cleanly as I would expect from an operating system that they have been working on for several years. I like the interaction with the home screen and the lock screen and how the live tiles work. I have spent a lot of time putting junk on the home screen and will likely now start spending time removing things. The one thing I miss from the HD2 is the animated weather that would windshield wipe my home screen or put frost along the edges depending on the weather. I thought I would tire of those animations but never did.
I took this device out for a few trips using both the Nokia Drive app and the Garmin StreetPilot app. Both were competent and it would be a personal choice as to which one is preferable. I do think the Nokia app has a lot more room to grow and that Nokia may have a greater incentive to improve it than Garmin might. I prefer the way I set a destination in the Garmin app since it gives me the ability to search my contacts for an address. Plus, it is integrated with Foursquare. Of course, for those clients whose physical location and NavTeq address do not match, I have no way to store their real location. However, I also find the global search feature of the Nokia to be extremely useful. I will probably use both depending on what I know about my destination. I have not yet tried adding stops after setting up a route so I cannot comment there, but finding food or lodging "along the route" or "near the destination" of a long trip and then adding it as "via point" with the old iQue 3600 was a no-brainer. It is likely that I will continue to bring that old toy with me until it dies even though the maps are getting a bit out-of-date.
I was surprised at the feeble attempt at a calendar in Windows Phone 8. Good grief! This is pitiful compared to even the Palm OS from 9 years ago. Even Windows Mobile was better. Luckily there are calendar apps that offer a weekly and monthly view. I just need to spend a bit of time to decide which alternative I need to use.
Call quality is good and it seems to have reasonably good sound. It took a while to find the built-in equalizer, but it is there and it suitably adjusted the sound using Nokia Purity earbuds I have. I have not challenged the camera too much but the pictures it has taken are more than acceptable and quite superior to the HD2's.
Well, those are my thoughts. For the reasons mentioned, I am not encumbered by the 8GB limitation on internal storage and am thrilled with the ability to replace the battery and add external storage. I am quite impressed with the look and feel of the hardware and the software and I am content that there are sufficient apps to keep me satisfied for a while. I feel it is a reasonable upgrade from the HD2, but is not perfect. I am hopeful that the support from Nokia will be better than what I got from HTC (You could put movies on the Micro SD card but there was no "player" software for them).
I always felt that the HD2 was better than its iPhone peers and was not sure that the Windows 7 phones were. This phone, with its larger screen, replaceable battery, external storage, and Microsoft Office apps, blows away the latest iPhone in the areas i care about. I still want to try some of the other features of this phone (like NFC), but expect those to work as expected.
Overall, I am happy with this phone, but a little annoyed that vendors have been slow to support it (Ghost Armor put their screen protectors up online only last Friday and PDAir indicates that they will not be making cases for it [how rude]).
That's my 2?.
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