Terrible review from TechRadar

[Karthik Naik]

I find myself fanboying far too much. Yes 8.1 is a fantastic update, but lets take a few steps back and analyze this a little more broader. This update contains features that other os's had a very long time ago. Nothing really eye opening or jaw dropping. I love Windows Phone, I really do, but when you step back and look at it, 8.1 is becoming a little bit bloated for what it is actually going to bring. If I was the CEO of a major corporation trying to make a mobile os compete with other top contenders, I would make sure something like 8.1 was finished and released as soon as physically possible. Take ios for example, I don't like it, but just look at it. Ios 7 brought a load of bigger and better features to make it appeal to a larger crowd. Still, I think even though they are slightly knocking on my phone, it is the bare truth. The app gap, the slightly outdated hardware, and the lack of the Lumias ability to stand out is hurting the appeal to the larger crowd. To me, this was an unbiased truthful review and even though I don't like it, I have to accept it. And so does everyone. I still think windows phone is the best os IN MY OPINION, but on the fact sheet it is still lagging behind and that is very disappointing.

ios 7 was a joke and a failure compared to ios 6
it looks and performs terrible,one of the reasons i didnt update my idevices above 6.1.3 except for my ipad 3(ios 7.1)

 

[Karthik Naik]

Spot on, and is exactly why the press quote 64bit as a means of making the iPhone comparable to quad core droid devices.

When review sites go for the easy job and compare cores and megapixels to highlight a good phone, the Apple product suddenly doesn't stack up, so they have to change their stance and bang on about 64bit "future proofing" so as not to bash the Apple product as seeming under powered (which it isn't)

Trouble is, the 930 is unwittingly drawn in to the Core battle and with the S5, G3 and new Xiaomi Mi4 available with 805 CPU's, it only makes the Lumia look worse on paper to the consumer.

while i agree with your points,i must say xiaomi will be a flop thanks to its poor build,reception,camera and display
just because they have snapdragon stuff for cheap doesnt mean they are perfect in every way or something(im not saying you said that,but thats my friends reaction,who ditched their samsungs for a xiaomi and found it to be sub par in reality)

 

[amdybg40]

while i agree with your points,i must say xiaomi will be a flop thanks to its poor build,reception,camera and display
just because they have snapdragon stuff for cheap doesnt mean they are perfect in every way or something(im not saying you said that,but thats my friends reaction,who ditched their samsungs for a xiaomi and found it to be sub par in reality)

For sure, the quality wont be there, but it's spec talk that the lazy review sites will tout repeatedly even without having one to test. One thing I absolutely hate about review channels is the vs features they make on products without even having used it! It's purely down to speculation of how the device will perform based on it's internals. Trouble is, this gets the average consumer excited and in to making rash purchases on pre-orders.

CPW must hate me by now, as I always exercise my 14day right on distance selling with handsets. I use the phone for a few days, decide if it works for me or not, if not I return it. SIimple! I make my own choice's, I don't rely on reviews!

 

[a5cent]

If 930 would've remained dual core, I think in some ways it would've gotten to "Apple's level" of "it doesn't need quad core" and they wouldnt have made much of a fuss about it.

Except with the "it doesn't need quad core" statement, you've already fallen into the Android mindset. Most people will understand that to imply that for WP (or iOS) there exists an amount of computational performance that is enough. A point beyond which nobody NEEDS a better performing CPU. Despite its popularity in the WP community, that argument is utterly wrong and sure to put the person using it on the losing side of any performance related argument. As long as battery life remains acceptable, there is no such thing as "enough performance".

When I (and Apple) say that two cores is enough, that isn't a statement about performance. It's a statement about software and CPU architecture and design. The point is, as long as users perceive a notable performance improvement, it doesn't matter if it is achieved with 1 or 100 cores.

The fact that core-count is NOT a relevant metric for pushing iPhone sales, allows Apple to concentrate on building the technically best possible CPU to run iOS software, whereas Android OEMs, and hence also Qualcomm, must often prioritize marketing affects over the best possible CPU design.

 

[Coreldan]

Except with the "it doesn't need quad core" statement, you've already fallen into the Android mindset. Most people will understand that to imply that for WP (or iOS) there exists an amount of computational performance that is enough. A point beyond which nobody NEEDS a better performing CPU. Despite its popularity in the WP community, that argument is utterly wrong and sure to put the person using it on the losing side of any performance related argument. As long as battery life remains acceptable, there is no such thing as "enough performance".

When I (and Apple) say that two cores is enough, that isn't a statement about performance. It's a statement about software and CPU architecture and design. The point is, as long as users perceive a notable performance improvement, it doesn't matter if it is achieved with 1 or 100 cores.

The fact that core-count is NOT a relevant metric for pushing iPhone sales, allows Apple to concentrate on building the technically best possible CPU to run iOS software, whereas Android OEMs, and hence also Qualcomm, must often prioritize marketing affects over the best possible CPU design.

And I agree.

It's a recurring theme though. Right now it's about QHD screens I guess. I have no problems with that one day becoming the standard when both display and battery technology advance enough that it's not just a novelty that is more or less an inconvenience for the benefit it gives you. I guess there is always that "one feature" that is sort of ahead of it's time for it's own good. I never really cared much for the spec race in general, but at least to me it seemed quad cores where that at certain point, but now have more or less become the standard already.

 

[a5cent]

And I agree.

It's a recurring theme though. Right now it's about QHD screens I guess. I have no problems with that one day becoming the standard when both display and battery technology advance enough that it's not just a novelty that is more or less an inconvenience for the benefit it gives you. I guess there is always that "one feature" that is sort of ahead of it's time for it's own good. I never really cared much for the spec race in general, but at least to me it seemed quad cores where that at certain point, but now have more or less become the standard already.

Yeah, guess so... they've become the standard at the expense of CPUs that could have given us even better performance on WP devices (in terms of calculations per watt).

 

[StuBeck]

Ignore! That's what i can say!

Exactly! No reason to get up in arms about someone being silly about a review.

 

[Chregu]

ios 7 was a joke and a failure compared to ios 6
it looks and performs terrible,one of the reasons i didnt update my idevices above 6.1.3 except for my ipad 3(ios 7.1)

I much prefer the iOS 7 look to that of iOS 6, actually, before iOS 7 I could not have imagined buying an iOS device. With iOS 7 on my iPad Air I'm very happy and it performs very well. It might be worse on older hardware, but on the current generation it seems great to me.

 

[Dave Bhullar]

Not really an unbelievably awful review. The guy on the left is slightly biased but still both of them did their research and they know the capabilities of the phone and it's limitations. A review is unbelievably awful in my opinion if the reviewer has no idea about the phone, never used it before, but still makes it sound like they know what they are saying when clearly they don't. They also made some positive comments. I agree with about 90% of whatever both of them said about the phone and windows phone as an OS. Most of the points made were valid. You need to see from someone's perspective who is happy with android/iOS when you watch these kind of reviews.

 

[Coreldan]

A review is unbelievably awful in my opinion if the reviewer has no idea about the phone, never used it before, but still makes it sound like they know what they are saying when clearly they don't.

Like that one lady from.. CNET I think? Anyways, she made an all professional seeming review about some Lumia while she didnt have a clue about half the basic features of the phone. Luckily she "moved on" somewhere else, I hope she got fired due to all the terrible feedback she got.

 

[Benjboi]

The IOS/Android/WP argument is a bit pointless now because to be frank the phones as in what they do aren't all that dissimilar from one another now. They are not even altogether different in how they do something. Coming from someone who's not particularly techy and has owned all 3 (I've had 3, 4s, wife has 5. daughter got google nexus tab and I've had Samsung galaxy) I feel I'm ideally placed to offer an opinion and the fact is that now it's only personal preference as to which phone you'd buy. The one thing that sticks in my throat about Android and IOS is the constant talk about how much better the app stores are on both but lets be frank 90% of what's on the app store anyway is absolute garbage.

I personally chose the windows phone for 3 reasons, 1) I liked the interface and the way to access apps, this was always my biggest gripe with IOS. The second I'd got a couple of dozen apps I struggled to remember which screen I'd got them on or which folder I'd put them in. 2) The addition of office was a massive plus for me and the integration is great, someone sends me a document, I can read it, in the format it's supposed to be read and upload it to my OneDrive for someone in the office to work on in about 3 clicks. Again I found that whilst IOS and Android could do this it was always clunky and don't even get me started on outlook tasks. They were worryingly bad at syncing tasks between outlook and the phone. 3)The XBOX Music app was a much better concept for me than ITunes as I'd end up blowing a fortune on ITunes just downloading a few songs.

So those are my reasons plus I hate the ITunes desktop app with a passion. Coupled with running 8.1 in the office it was a no brainer for me. However, if I wasn't so heavily reliant on my phone for work would I have bought a WP? I'm not so sure, it would have been a far closer choice then between WP and another Samsung.

WP has a great concept and if they can nail the integration element they really could obliterate the market, certainly on the business user side of the market. Don't listen to the fanboys

 

[anony_mouse]

It really is sad how pervasive Android and iPhone fanboys are in the industry. They're at every level. My boss and a few of our programmers went for sales force training and they told me one of the presenters went out of his way to trash WP. Like an out of left field trashing, and his gripe was that "their updates break it". I wish I was joking but that was his actual reasoning behind trashing the platform. That's the part that really annoys me. The majority of them have never even used a Windows Phone and if they have they picked one up, looked at it and put it down. It's always evident in their comments. They range from shortsighted, to stupid, to outright untrue.

Maybe I'm missing something but I don't get your point. If indeed "their updates break it" (at least, in this individual's experience), isn't that a valid reason for him to complain?

 

[Dave Bhullar]

Like that one lady from.. CNET I think? Anyways, she made an all professional seeming review about some Lumia while she didnt have a clue about half the basic features of the phone. Luckily she "moved on" somewhere else, I hope she got fired due to all the terrible feedback she got.

Yeah I forgot her name too, she was reviewing the 1020, after the review I literally felt sorry for her for being so close minded. I don't think she had any other option besides "moving on" lol

 

[thatuxguy]

Love the comment
"2GB RAM will do, its not until we hit 64bit that we need to look at 3-4GB RAM"

Seriously? iPhone 5S... doesn't that only have 1GB RAM? These guys know naff all. This is simply an Android Advert.

 

[anony_mouse]

Love the comment
"2GB RAM will do, its not until we hit 64bit that we need to look at 3-4GB RAM"

Seriously? iPhone 5S... doesn't that only have 1GB RAM? These guys know naff all. This is simply an Android Advert.

Please explain your last comment.

 

[thatuxguy]

Please explain your last comment.

The iPhone 5S has a 64bit CPU, and only runs on 1GB RAM. And runs pretty well if you ask me. Maybe android would need more RAM, and it would still lag!! "naff all" is just English slang for nothing.

Its an android Advert cause they mention the M8 quite a few times along with other specific Android devices, in fact they spoke more about Android devices than they did the Lumia 930. Even the bit before aka "the news" was Android focused!

 

[anony_mouse]

The iPhone 5S has a 64bit CPU, and only runs on 1GB RAM. And runs pretty well if you ask me. Maybe android would need more RAM, and it would still lag!! "naff all" is just English slang for nothing.

Its an android Advert cause they mention the M8 quite a few times along with other specific Android devices, in fact they spoke more about Android devices than they did the Lumia 930. Even the bit before aka "the news" was Android focused!

I haven't watched the video (obviously) so I'll take your word for it. I still don't understand why you're unhappy about them saying "2GB will do". Isn't that a positive comment?

Btw, I know I mention this every time, but my 1GB Moto G doesn't lag at all. It's very very fast compared to WP phones at a similar price, or in fact, at any price. Just time a few app start ups. This side by side comparison in the shop was a factor in my choice of it over a Lumia.

 

[broar94]

And also memory management in WP sucks. Keeps unloading pages off the browser if you go to Whatsapp/some other app. Or takes longer resume time for Multitasking. Compared to Android. Will the 2GB 1520|1020|930 keep up memory for longer time? and stay alive? Obviouy, the app gap is way too large for anyone to recommend WP. except those who are not app junkies or want a fast OS with minimal lag.

 

[thatuxguy]

I haven't watched the video (obviously) so I'll take your word for it. I still don't understand why you're unhappy about them saying "2GB will do". Isn't that a positive comment?

Btw, I know I mention this every time, but my 1GB Moto G doesn't lag at all. It's very very fast compared to WP phones at a similar price, or in fact, at any price. Just time a few app start ups. This side by side comparison in the shop was a factor in my choice of it over a Lumia.

I'm not unhappy? I'm just commenting they say it wont do for 64bit.

Its more than enough for wp

 

[a5cent]

Please explain your last comment.

I don't remember exactly how it was stated in the video, but assuming thatuxguy's quote is correct, you've got to admit that specifying required RAM capacity to be a function of bit'ness is at least very suspicious.

Being generous, I'd say the statement is too vague to mean anything. If you want to be strict about it, it's just downright wrong.