Long time iPhone user trying Lumia 900. Good and Bad

[rotobadger]

New here and thought I'd share some initial impressions on the Lumia 900.

I've used iPhone exclusively since it came out in 2007 and have had every version. Last week I got an itch for something new so, I purchased a black Lumia 900 from Ebay (I can switch my sim card into it).

Well, after playing with it for a day I found this so far:

Good stuff:

Beautiful huge screen!
Very fluid and fun UI
Like the "back" button
Ease of setup

The bad:

No screenshot function (I use this way more than one would expect on my iPhone)
No google option without having to actually nav to google.com (or am I missing something?
It seems that there is no ear piece isolation. Even at low volume, people near me could hear my caller speaking to me. That is NOT good.
No iTunes (I know, I know )

That's it for now. I'm sure after a few days of real-world use I have some more goods and bads. It's just weird getting used to a new UI after all these years. Like having a new girlfriend: Fun and exciting and refreshing but missing the comfort of knowing someone so well after a long time!

Thanks for reading!

 

[dtboos]

for # 2 on bad list:

Go go www.google.com (not m.google.com)

Pin site to your homescreen (hit menu buttons "..." in IE and click pin to start) now you have quick access to their search functions. Hope you enjoy the phone as much as I have

On the 20th, they will be outlining many features coming with the next big update, so stay tuned. I imagine native screenshot will be one of the many that are coming.

TIP: When pining websites to your homescreen, you can actually choose how it looks by zooming in/out. For instance, you could zoom IN on the "google" name before pining to make that the prominent part of the tile.

 

[sinime]

Not sure what you are saying about speaker isolation. When you lug in head phones, you can still hear audio from the phone? If so, your head phone jack may not be all the way in. On my Samsung focus, the head phone felt like i was breaking something when plugging it in all the way.

 

[rotobadger]

Thanks for the replies guys.

dtboos:Thanks, that helps but it still doesn't give me a google search box when I'm browsing the web (Safari has it available at all times while browsing). In order to google something I would have to go to google.com or back to my home page to hit the pinned google tile.

sinime: Sorry if I wasn't clear (I have that problem sometimes :lol. What I meant was, while on a normal phone conversation, the caller can be heard by people in close proximity to me. In other words, people in the same room with me can hear both sides of a phone conversation.

Thanks again guys! Looking forward to more tinkering!

 

[rutvik19]

Thanks for the replies guys.

dtboos:Thanks, that helps but it still doesn't give me a google search box when I'm browsing the web (Safari has it available at all times while browsing). In order to google something I would have to go to google.com or back to my home page to hit the pinned google tile.

WP OS has the URL box and Search box combined in to one. The search will be performed on Bing though. Hope that helps.

 

[J4rrod]

Honestly, try Bing for a week. I promise you, you won't look back to Google. I know I didn't. Their results you to be inferior to Google's, now oftentimes they're better. Plus, on your PC, Bing.com has a much better UI and is now fully Facebook integrated, so you can get results based on your friends' likes, get your friends to help you decide something, etc. Let me know if you try it out!

Sent from my Lumia 900 using Board Express

 

[texantony]

Like chrome, IE uses the same box for URLs and search. Then there's the search button on the phone, as well. You could also use UC browser app.

Sent from my Lumia 900 using Board Express

 

[dtboos]

Yah unfortunately if you need to use Google instead of Bing (which is built into the address bar of IE, you'll just need to make it a favorite. MS isn't about to stop using their own service in favor of Google's.


Sent from my Lumia 900 using Board Express

 

[blehblehbleh]

I concur j4rrod, rotobadger, try out bing see if you like it. Have fun playing with your new phone. Hope to hear your thoughts after about a month.

 

[emirozmen]

iTunes store and 32GB storage option would be sweet for this phone...

 

[apoelin]

Honest question: why would someone prefer iTunes over Zune Music? As far as I'm concerned, I don't want to buy my music since I want to go through as many songs as possible in a month. So renting the songs makes more sense to me, thus Zune wins. Even if you want to buy songs though, you can still do that in Zune. And the desktop app interface is sleek. So why?

 

[freestaterocker]

Honest question: why would someone prefer iTunes over Zune Music? As far as I'm concerned, I don't want to buy my music since I want to go through as many songs as possible in a month. So renting the songs makes more sense to me, thus Zune wins. Even if you want to buy songs though, you can still do that in Zune. And the desktop app interface is sleek. So why?

Because they've been using it since 2007... I prefer Zune personally, but different strokes and all that.

 

[oldpueblo]

Thanks for the replies guys.

dtboos:Thanks, that helps but it still doesn't give me a google search box when I'm browsing the web (Safari has it available at all times while browsing). In order to google something I would have to go to google.com or back to my home page to hit the pinned google tile.

sinime: Sorry if I wasn't clear (I have that problem sometimes :lol. What I meant was, while on a normal phone conversation, the caller can be heard by people in close proximity to me. In other words, people in the same room with me can hear both sides of a phone conversation.

Thanks again guys! Looking forward to more tinkering!

I guess I still don't get this. Turn down your volume? I mean what other setting could this be where others can't hear your caller? Is it just that the volume doesn't go down far enough?

As for Google, as far as I know Android is the same way. All of its search fields use only Google. Honestly, I just use Bing and haven't had any issues finding anything. I make a favorite for the times I want to try different search results with Google.

 

[doublebullout]

Because they've been using it since 2007... I prefer Zune personally, but different strokes and all that.

Exactly. I've been using iTunes since 2004, and my library of media has close to 10,000 items in it. For me, the claimed benefits of switching to Zune do not in any way come close to outweighing the hassle involved. (And honestly, iTunes is not as bad as the "conventional wisdom" makes it out to be.)


Sent from my The New iPad using Tapatalk

 

[doublebullout]

Honestly, try Bing for a week. I promise you, you won't look back to Google. I know I didn't. Their results you to be inferior to Google's, now oftentimes they're better. Plus, on your PC, Bing.com has a much better UI and is now fully Facebook integrated, so you can get results based on your friends' likes, get your friends to help you decide something, etc. Let me know if you try it out!

Sent from my Lumia 900 using Board Express

This + 1. The built-in search function with Bing is very good. I don't miss Google search at all. In fact, I use the Bing app on my iPhone and iPad, and changed my default search engine to Bing on all my devices as well.


Sent from my The New iPad using Tapatalk

 

[mhans311]

Honest question: why would someone prefer iTunes over Zune Music? As far as I'm concerned, I don't want to buy my music since I want to go through as many songs as possible in a month. So renting the songs makes more sense to me, thus Zune wins. Even if you want to buy songs though, you can still do that in Zune. And the desktop app interface is sleek. So why?

Does zune allow you to store "rented" songs on the phone? I ask because I usually don't stream my music to my phone. I like to store it on the phone to conserve battery and to be able to play music when I can't be connected to the internet.

 

[HeyCori]

Does zune allow you to store "rented" songs on the phone?

Yes. You can also purchase songs which will remove the DRM and open them up for use on any device.

 

[sting7k]

Google has a search app in the market place.

 

[dtboos]

You can still use iTunes btw. Add your iTunes library to the Zune desktop client and it will sync it to your phone. It just won't also transfer your playlists ect.

So if you still want to use iTunes for the place to get your music thats fine, but use it just as a storefront. Use Zune for making playlists and setting up what you want transfered.

 

[rotobadger]

Thanks for all the replies and advice so far!

J4rrod: I have to admit that I hate...HATE Bing! I've always been partial to Google but, to be fair, have not given Bing a real chance. I'll take your advice and try it for a week or so and see what I think then.

The reason it's so hard for me to let go of iTunes is that I watch a ton of movies and TV shows on my iPhone (I travel quite a bit for work). I usually download movies and convert to MP4 from various...*cough*...sources (or rip them from DVD) but a fair amount of the time it's just easier to download from iTunes, especially when I'm on the go.

I just downloaded SurfCube and that seems to be an answer to IE so far.

Again, after 5 years on iOS exclusively, it's hard to let go...even temporarily. I have my comfort zone of all my apps, I know where everything is and how to use it best. But every time I turn on the Lumia 900 I'm amazed at how nice it is! This week I'm going to try to go Lumia all the time *gulp* but it should be fun.

I need to get an LTE sim for it. Everything I read tells me I should be able to have a sim provisioned for LTE on my current contract and should be able to then switch back and forth between the iPhone 4 and the Lumia 900.

Ah, modern times!