Hi There,
This is my first post on WPCentral. Since I got my Lumia 920 back in Feb 2013, I am greatly satisfied with everything about Windows Phone 8: The Modern UI is awesome, the apps are obviously catching up with those from iOS and Android, the Microsoft Services (Mail, People, SkyDrive etc.) are quite neat. In short, I believe Windows Phone OS can rise to a top spot, even outmatches the other 2 giants.
However, some issues had seriously affected my experience on the phone, or rather the OS. I purchase, setup, and use the phone in Malaysia (my Microsoft account is definitely set in Malaysia too since I use the local address in the profile). So here comes these issues:
1) The Portico firmware update is not yet available in Malaysia via OTA! (while some countries had even got their GDR2...). Now Nokia Malaysia had announced that we can bring our phone to its Care Center for manual upgrade, but still that's troublesome, man.
2) Some gorgeous apps are not available in Windows Phone Store in Malaysia For example, Wikipedia, Weave News Reader, Jack of Tools Pro and so on. Okay, quite a number of major apps is available here (at least Malaysia Store is much better than some other countries, if I'm not wrong), but still a lot of other nice apps are not published here still.
3) Xbox Live Membership Gold, Xbox Music + Videos, Local Scout are all off too... (but I don't bear too much grunt on this one, because Microsoft had openly declared that these are not supported in Malaysia. Still, I'm looking to spend money here, man...)
I thought that there is no solution to these issues until yesterday, after I read a post about changing phone region. That looks totally like A SALVATION to me! So I'm pretty sure that changing the region would allow me to go to US Store and download all those apps (not sure whether my AmEx and Citibank credit card are accepted or not). From there, several questions arise:
1) Would the switch actually connect me to Phone Update Server in USA, thus allow me to upgrade the firmware to Portico/GDR2? But I'm worry that updating to firmware destined for US region may crash my phone if I switch back to Malaysia region. Seriously don't want to reset my precious phone because of this.
2) How about I switch to US region and never switch back? Obviously Date and Time would need manual setup, currency would be shown in USD instead of MYR, but any other critical effect if I continue using the phone in Malaysia??? How about the local carrier I'm using (particularly calling and cellular data connection, since the SIM is obviously localised one)?
These are my serious questions now. Looking forward for any concrete advises, and really sorry for this freaking long post
This is my first post on WPCentral. Since I got my Lumia 920 back in Feb 2013, I am greatly satisfied with everything about Windows Phone 8: The Modern UI is awesome, the apps are obviously catching up with those from iOS and Android, the Microsoft Services (Mail, People, SkyDrive etc.) are quite neat. In short, I believe Windows Phone OS can rise to a top spot, even outmatches the other 2 giants.
However, some issues had seriously affected my experience on the phone, or rather the OS. I purchase, setup, and use the phone in Malaysia (my Microsoft account is definitely set in Malaysia too since I use the local address in the profile). So here comes these issues:
1) The Portico firmware update is not yet available in Malaysia via OTA! (while some countries had even got their GDR2...). Now Nokia Malaysia had announced that we can bring our phone to its Care Center for manual upgrade, but still that's troublesome, man.
2) Some gorgeous apps are not available in Windows Phone Store in Malaysia For example, Wikipedia, Weave News Reader, Jack of Tools Pro and so on. Okay, quite a number of major apps is available here (at least Malaysia Store is much better than some other countries, if I'm not wrong), but still a lot of other nice apps are not published here still.
3) Xbox Live Membership Gold, Xbox Music + Videos, Local Scout are all off too... (but I don't bear too much grunt on this one, because Microsoft had openly declared that these are not supported in Malaysia. Still, I'm looking to spend money here, man...)
I thought that there is no solution to these issues until yesterday, after I read a post about changing phone region. That looks totally like A SALVATION to me! So I'm pretty sure that changing the region would allow me to go to US Store and download all those apps (not sure whether my AmEx and Citibank credit card are accepted or not). From there, several questions arise:
1) Would the switch actually connect me to Phone Update Server in USA, thus allow me to upgrade the firmware to Portico/GDR2? But I'm worry that updating to firmware destined for US region may crash my phone if I switch back to Malaysia region. Seriously don't want to reset my precious phone because of this.
2) How about I switch to US region and never switch back? Obviously Date and Time would need manual setup, currency would be shown in USD instead of MYR, but any other critical effect if I continue using the phone in Malaysia??? How about the local carrier I'm using (particularly calling and cellular data connection, since the SIM is obviously localised one)?
These are my serious questions now. Looking forward for any concrete advises, and really sorry for this freaking long post