How's the 925 holding up for everyone as of 2015?

[Ukyo]

I'm somewhat of a tech toy geek or at least someone who likes playing with tech toys. I've been on smartphones since the HTC Hero (circa 2009?). I currently have a iPhone 6+ from work and a personal One Plus One. I had a 1020 before but sold it. My next Winmo phone was a 635 when it was practically free but it's bricked now and I couldn't get it fixed (stuck at red background with Nokia word at boot up; tried the lumia recovery tool, didn't work). I'm telling all this because I don't want anyone to think I'm a noob and reply with "well it depends on what you're going to use it for...", etc, etc.

That being said, I'm looking to pick up a used 925 on the cheap to play with on Tmo. I'm curious as to how the phone is holding up to the newest official update (denim I think?) as well as the W10 preview. How's the lag? Please don't tell me there's no lag. The phone is pretty old. I know Windows phones don't need as much resource overhead as Android phones do but the 635 was pretty bad. I'm not here to dis the 925, I just wanted to know if it's bearable and should I even bother or get a newer Lumia phone. I'm not looking for top of the line, just something I can play with in the windows phone ecosystem. Not looking to spend a lot. I want people's genuine opinions on how they think they're 925 is holding up as of this right now.

Thanks in advance for sharing. All non constructive replies will be ignored cuz you know stick and stones....

*edit, decided to try and fix my 635 again and this time it worked! I'm still looking to get a better windows phone though...

 

[Mahmoud Hussein]

I have the 925 since September 2013 it has been my primary and only device ever since. As of now the device still performing good, sometimes some apps crash out of nowhere sometimes you get that resuming thing for a couple of seconds but it's not really a problem. What's really terrible now is the battery life!

 

[Ukyo]

Wow, I'm impressed you're still using it but as you said, doesn't sound too bad to me. It's about what I expected. Thanks for sharing your thoughts.

 

[EMitchell]

I'm using my 925 for my work phone, and have been since it was released. Occasionally it shuts off, and I have to soft reset it, but over all, it's been a sturdy phone. No complaints about the battery life, I plug it in every night and it usually has plenty of life left at the end of the day. The only time the battery runs down is when I use it for a GPS while driving. Other than that, I really like it. I don't have Denim, it's an AT&T phone, so I'm stuck on Cyan.

 

[chris_gt]

I used mine until march this year and it still worked ok, some resuming screens here and there depending on the app but nothing major. Battery barely lasted a day.

Compared to the 635 it's faster, runs almost like an 830 but the battery life is much worse.

 

[Ukyo]

Thanks guys for all your input. Much appreciated! Think I'm going to bite and get a used one as it seems to be ok. It won't be a daily driver or only phone so I don't think the battery life will matter too much to me.

 

[Musicman247]

I know you've made your decision already, but I wanted to chime in, too, because why not.

Got the T-mobile 925 at launch and have been using it ever since (just passed 2 years! woohoo!). The only problems I've ever had with the device are random app crashes that I believe can be attributed to some bad RAM or something. Also, the power and volume down buttons have crapped out on me. The power button was always a little squishier than the other buttons, but now it has completely stopped working unless I press the button all the way into the phone in just the right way (which takes about two minutes to figure out). Other than that, the device is amazing. Great camera, still runs smoothly on the Win 10 preview. I was going to replace it with the 640 when it came out, but now I'm waiting for more Cityman details.

 

[Ukyo]

I was thinking of the cityman also and the more I read up on it the more I want to just save my money and get that since I got my 635 back working again. Not going to be cheap buying off contract but that's why I rather save the money for it instead of buying the 925. Unless the 925 is $25 or something Lol

 

[BrownieSanFrijolTaco]

I was thinking of the cityman also and the more I read up on it the more I want to just save my money and get that since I got my 635 back working again.

How did you manage to fix that, by the way?

 

[Ukyo]

Honestly, I just used the Lumia recovery tool again and this time it actually worked. I'm not sure why. Previously I've did it multiple times and it never worked. I was on the verge of throwing it again but thought I'd try one more time and I'm glad I did. Hahaha, worked fine then.

 

[BrownieSanFrijolTaco]

Honestly, I just used the Lumia recovery tool again and this time it actually worked. I'm not sure why. Previously I've did it multiple times and it never worked. I was on the verge of throwing it again but thought I'd try one more time and I'm glad I did. Hahaha, worked fine then.

Well, I'm glad for you. My 925 recently died in a similar fashion and shows no sign of recovering as WPRT crashed while it was in the bootloader. I'm now quite happily using a 640, but I wouldn't mind having the 925 working again just to have as a backup.

 

[vsmh96]

When and if you do get it. Do run a full reset for best experience with the recovery tool. Also make sure the device is from a country that you want. I had a 920 that came from UGANDA where they dont even have Denim update yet (last i checked).

 

[dronkula]

Just to add my feedback on here. I'm coming towards the end of my 2 year contract on my 925 and it's been my main (and only) phone - I don't even have a landline phone.

Once I've had to send it back to (Nokia)Microsoft because the headphone socket just stopped working - I checked and there was nothing jammed in there, but if you plugged in headphones it wouldn't recognise that anything was plugged in there.

I tend to notice the music player is now starting to struggle and getting quite slow and laggy - but I'm not sure if it's because my music collection is quite large on it. I've got a sneaky suspicion though that it starting getting slow around the time they introduced the Onedrive music locker so it might be tied to that.

Another annoying music player bug is that sometimes the volume keys don't actually do anything. So, you'll hit volume up or down, you'll see on the screen the volume go up or down, but actually as you're listening to it it doesn't actually change at all. If you skip a track though, that seems to fix it. So, that's pretty weird.

Other stuff though its fine. I use it a lot for wifi tethering of my other devices and I've never had an issue with that and the 'Here' apps are still probably the best free navigation apps you can get.

However, saying all that, when my contract is up in Oct I'm not committed to staying with WP - and that's purely down to the lack of support from app developers now (although NFC payment would also be nice like Apple Pay/Samsung Pay which MS should be working on)

 

[EMitchell]

Another annoying music player bug is that sometimes the volume keys don't actually do anything. So, you'll hit volume up or down, you'll see on the screen the volume go up or down, but actually as you're listening to it it doesn't actually change at all. If you skip a track though, that seems to fix it.

I've had this happen as well, but have been able to track it to something I was doing. If I just pull the headphones to stop the music player, the volume control doesn't work anymore, unless I skip a track. This happens both on my 925 and my 830. I don't know if that's related to your situation or not.

 

[Koen6500]

I'm still using my lumia 925 as my one and only phone since I bought it new in april 2014 and I love it. It's slick, sexy and is standing out!
It has dropped out of my hand multiple times, and besides the aluminium corners not being so clean anymore, the device is still completely functional. Battery life is still just enough for most days (wifi on all day, few hours of 4G and few hours of Bluetooth on, I'm a heavy phone user ;-) )
The last time, my screen is coming up a little in one corner. I really think it's time for a new handset, but I'm waiting for the newest flagship models (940/950) to launch. I do hope they launch the same time in Europe/Belgium as they will in the States. I'm eager to buy a new one before the end of the year, and not later than that. If they are late or no good, I might buy a Lumia 830 or 930 instead since they dropped in price recently.

 

[Ukyo]

I ended up just using my 635 since it was fixed. Still want a better one though. Was thinking of the 930 also but still too pricey for me.

 

[X0LARIUM]

@Ukyo: We are in the same boat. I have an Xperia Z Ultra. It became so laggy, I had to take a decision. I too thought of the 925. Saw practically all the videos of YouTube (Even the ones that were other language), and decided, "NO! LOOKS GORGEOUS! NEED TO GET ONE TODAY" heh..sorry for the caps. But I LOVED it.

Now the price, I bought it for AED650 which is about $175. Not a bad deal considering the following:

1. It's a 9XX series.
2. Robust Build
3. Looks WAYYY better than 920
4. Perfect Size (I use Z Ultra so you can understand my plight)
5. GORGEOUS AMOLED screen

And of course, there are drawbacks too, let's be fair.

1. 16 GB Internal storage, which is just about enough if you intelligently use it.
2. No SD Card slot

And that's it. I personally don't know how my experience will be, I've just ordered it yesterday, not come yet.

Overall, I hope it comes in a great form and blows me away in terms of performance.

BTW: Guys, can we have a color poll? I picked white cause it looks GORGEOUS. What do you guys think?

 

[Guytronic]

I have a T-mo 925 with 8.1 update2 on it bought new March 7 2014 from Newegg.com here in the US.
The 925 went into stasis when I bought the T-Mo 640.

Just this evening I got my 925 out and restarted it.
Still running fine in a minimalist fashion.
Beautiful device!

Thought about selling mine a number of times.
I just can't part with it...so glad I have one.

 

[bushido94]

My lumia 925 just dead on 29/7/2015.Im so sad,it just suddenly.Im woke up and i find the phone doesnt want to turn on.It was great phone and im proud of it.The design,camera,& experience with it just amazin.. sometimes it battery,wifi and signal turn so bad.Ive just sent my phone for repair and sadly having problem with the motherboard.. RIP my beloved NOKIA LUMIA 925..

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[patcherd]

Good phones overall. I have had several 925s since they came out. The one I have currently has the 8.1 update one.
What I don't like is that you can't watch a YouTube video without it freezing up and kicking back to the start screen, even with metro tube it is doing this.
I did a hard reset on the phone and lost my here drive apps. The replacement map system is horrible.
I drive for a living and depend on a good navigation system.

Replaced it with a 640 which still has the Here navigation system. I can also watch YouTube or metro tube without a problem. Other than the metal edging and better camera of the 925. I think the 640 holds its own very well against the 925.
Going to keep the 925 as a backup. I still think the 925 is probably the most elegant windows phone Nokia ever released.