Ditched Lumia 900 for a Galaxy Nexus after WP8 Announcement

[oldpueblo]

I traded my spare Lumia 900 for a Galaxy Nexus with JB, just to see what the new Android was all about. The guy said he wanted to go back to WP, hence the trade. I decided to try it for a month and I lasted a week. Android is great, but for me it's great on a tablet. It's a subpar phone OS and I found just about everything I did on the GN took longer than on my 900. Sure it had more apps, but it couldn't hold a candle to the 900 for what a phone is really used for. Communicating with people. Android and iOS phones are just bad laptops. Tons of apps on a tiny screen. I have JB on my Nexus 7 tablet and it's a better fit there.

It was also wayyy too thin, hard to hold it well. For me it was a hundred little things too. When I typed in my code to unlock I had to hit enter, it didn't just do it automatically, etc. I was surprised at how reliant I am on Metro now. Zune gone pass as well, the keyboard was worse, flipping back to active call, I should've cataloged them all in some kind of blog.

 

[fisci]

just ignore all the hate!!

The galaxy nexus is an aweome phone, especially with jellybean

 

[I'mHAL-9000]

Android, MAC, WM7. BB...We all have a favorite..and we all have are not so favorites, I think we are all entitled an opinion on what OS suits are needs better right?..and since we are all pro WM7 here, there should always be an expectation for responses to be in the favor of WM7.

That being said..Flaming someone is not cool...right?? debates are what make these communities alive IMO. If we lose someone to Android...we all know they will come back

 

[Rich Edmonds]

--snippet--

Sorry to hear you're leaving. Ignore all the hate in the thread. You're obviously more than welcome to discuss issues you have with the platform, as well as returning when you wish to do so. I just upgraded my younger sibling's contract and he now has a Sony Xperia P, which replaced his trusty Samsung Omnia 7 - I quite enjoy Android. I miss all platform sI don't use (much like Windows, OS X and Linux, etc.) but it's all down to personal preference :happy:

 

[CDG]

I tried a Galaxy Nexus with JB as well and posted my two cents here:

http://forums.wirelessadvisor.com/general-wireless-discussion/82262-my-gsm-galaxy-nexus-saga.html

 

[fisci]

The nexus with jellybean is insanely fast and smooth So much hate for android in these forums, I feel like people either make up things or were using a different phone

 

[snowmutt]

Truth: Android has improved by leaps and bounds in the smoothness and response with multi-core optimization and with the ICS update (haven't used Jellybean yet, heard it is good though not really a huge step up from ICS).

Truth: It still has all the advantages of Android, which is mature and had years to iron out problems.

Also Truth: Android does not sell close to a billion handsets a year in spite of blowing chunks. It is a very good OS.

Also truth: Most UI's slow it down and add to the "bugginess" that Android just can't totally rid itself of.

The Nexus is a great Android phone. No shame or dishonor using one. I love WP, but truly if WP 8 disappoints, I would not loose sleep over moving to Android.

Opinion: WP 7 is better, I love it, and I expect WP 8 to be the Angel Food cake with fresh fruit on top. Freaking yummy AND good for you.

Please keep posting, danygandhi. I like opinions that keep me honest.

 

[scottcraft]

Truth: Android has improved by leaps and bounds in the smoothness and response with multi-core optimization and with the ICS update (haven't used Jellybean yet, heard it is good though not really a huge step up from ICS).

Truth: It still has all the advantages of Android, which is mature and had years to iron out problems.

Also Truth: Android does not sell close to a billion handsets a year in spite of blowing chunks. It is a very good OS.

Also truth: Most UI's slow it down and add to the "bugginess" that Android just can't totally rid itself of.

The Nexus is a great Android phone. No shame or dishonor using one. I love WP, but truly if WP 8 disappoints, I would not loose sleep over moving to Android.

Opinion: WP 7 is better, I love it, and I expect WP 8 to be the Angel Food cake with fresh fruit on top. Freaking yummy AND good for you.

Please keep posting, danygandhi. I like opinions that keep me honest.

Be careful saying anything positive about android, these guys will try to send you to android central!

I like hearing about other operating systems too. I used to have a motorola droid and it was a horrible experience. I'm currently using an HTC Rezound because every update my Trophy gets fixes one set of bugs and gives it another. I'm not having the horrid experience so many posters on here are having. I'm actually having a more bug-free experience than with my Trophy. I will probably end up with a Nokia WP8, but I'm going to compare all the available phones before I lay out my money.

 

[doublebullout]

I traded my spare Lumia 900 for a Galaxy Nexus with JB, just to see what the new Android was all about. The guy said he wanted to go back to WP, hence the trade. I decided to try it for a month and I lasted a week. Android is great, but for me it's great on a tablet. It's a subpar phone OS and I found just about everything I did on the GN took longer than on my 900. Sure it had more apps, but it couldn't hold a candle to the 900 for what a phone is really used for. Communicating with people. Android and iOS phones are just bad laptops. Tons of apps on a tiny screen. I have JB on my Nexus 7 tablet and it's a better fit there.

I think this is an excellent point. Since the iPad was released two years ago, I've mostly enjoyed using the combination of an iPhone 4 and an iPad. iOS on an iPad is fantastic; the use cases for tablets are almost identical to the use cases for small laptops. An app-centric OS is not a hindrance for a tablet. And for most users, it's not much of a hindrance for a phone either. But iOS is occasionally frustrating for phone use because it takes too many steps to do tasks that a smartphone should be able to do quickly. WP7/8 offers users more efficiency and speed than iOS on a phone.

 

[cckgz4]

I hope you enjoy your device. That's all that matters. As far as you leaving over the update, I find it to be childish.

 

[Tnviv58]

Whenever I buy a smartphone, I buy it for what it does now, now for what might or might not be coming.

I purchased my Nokia Lumia 900 the first day it was available in my carrier's shop. I have no complaints about its current features. Beside, I got it for free after receiving the rebate from Nokia.

Therefore, I will continue to use it, since I'm happy with it. Any OS updates I get are nice but not necessary.

If there is some killer feature in WP8 that WP7.8 does not offer, I'll be able to easily upgrade by paying full retail for a new device, since I saved money by getting the Nokia Lumia 900 free following rebate.

It does have some awesome features and I love mine. I can not get mine to come back on with any of the suggestions made here on the post. I is absolutely dead. It came on once and said "scroll down to shut off" so I tried to scan the other way....it shut off and will not come back on. I don't know what else to do except take to At&T since that's where we got it.

 

[Guidos Dad]

Good for you trying out another ecosystem. It is all about choice and the only way to be informed is to give a fair shot to a couple different platforms. Plus competition is good for everybody in the long run.

I did just this recently. I had (my wife is actually using it now) in use a Verizon Trophy for about a year. Liked it, still do, still like WP. But I decided since I'm off contract and not that overall optimistic that Verizon is going to greatly embrace WP8 any time real soon even after it's released, that I would pick up a Verizon Galaxy Nexus off ebay and try out android for the first time myself instead of just reading whatever (some good, some not) everyone else has to say about android. I like it, both the phone and the OS. It runs smooth for me, has a lot of good features. The Nexus is a really nice phone. I'll probably us it at least for a few months till I see what shakes out with VZ and WP8. In the mean time I'm enjoying the "android experience", and feel good that I've tried it myself and not just Not try it because of what others say. WP has feature suited to certain users (including myself) and android has things others suite as does iOS.

 

[scottcraft]

I did just this recently. I had (my wife is actually using it now) in use a Verizon Trophy for about a year. Liked it, still do, still like WP. But I decided since I'm off contract and not that overall optimistic that Verizon is going to greatly embrace WP8 any time real soon even after it's released, that I would pick up a Verizon Galaxy Nexus off ebay and try out android for the first time myself instead of just reading whatever (some good, some not) everyone else has to say about android. I like it, both the phone and the OS. It runs smooth for me, has a lot of good features. The Nexus is a really nice phone. I'll probably us it at least for a few months till I see what shakes out with VZ and WP8. In the mean time I'm enjoying the "android experience", and feel good that I've tried it myself and not just Not try it because of what others say. WP has feature suited to certain users (including myself) and android has things others suite as does iOS.

Glad you're enjoying it. There's nothing like owning something for yourself to find out the good or bad.

 

[cp2_4eva]

Glad you're enjoying it. There's nothing like owning something for yourself to find out the good or bad.

This is exactly what I did with the WP. Before the Lumia 900 came out I had a Rezound on Verizon. I loved it, but got sick of the micromanaging of system resourced and ICONS. I dig the tiles. Especially functional tiles. With the new start screen you will be able to get much more data with the re-size feature and the deletion of the gutter. Have you tried that WP8 emulator app? It's cool. I mean, I already like my WP7 device. WP8 will be that much cooler. I just hope they have some serious gap closing advances. Still....Android isn't a bad choice either. I'm just happy to live in an era where no Smartphone choice is a bad choice unless they bug it and they ruin my life with security related issues. lol.

 

[scottcraft]

This is exactly what I did with the WP. Before the Lumia 900 came out I had a Rezound on Verizon. I loved it, but got sick of the micromanaging of system resourced and ICONS. I dig the tiles. Especially functional tiles. With the new start screen you will be able to get much more data with the re-size feature and the deletion of the gutter. Have you tried that WP8 emulator app? It's cool. I mean, I already like my WP7 device. WP8 will be that much cooler. I just hope they have some serious gap closing advances. Still....Android isn't a bad choice either. I'm just happy to live in an era where no Smartphone choice is a bad choice unless they bug it and they ruin my life with security related issues. lol.

I have a WP8 start screen app on my Trophy, it's pretty neat. I think switching to another platform for a while allows you to really appreciate certain features. I'm using a Rezound right now and it's pretty nice, but there are things about my Trophy I miss. Like you said though, there are really no bad choices in smartphones today. Most of them are capable of way more than we use them for.

 

[weetigo]

Here are my impressions of Galaxy Nexus after a one Month use.

Things i like...

1. Better Yahoo mail support (server search)
2. Media controls available on lock screen just like WP7
3. Notification center is awesome(media controls, weather, email previews,deep app linking thru notifications)
4. Got Jelly Bean update 15 days after announcement.
5. More frequent app updates, on parity with ios.
6. Google Now is very useful and available from lock screen.
7. More feature rich music apps (Songza, spotify with free radio(pandora) like option, slacker radio app that works)
8. Better Skype app which actually runs in the background
9. Nokia Purity in-ear headset works with galaxy nexus, volume control button works as skip button on all audio apps.
10. zynga games!!!, i can go back and forth between ipad and galaxy nexus and the games are always in sync.


Things i miss from wp7

1. Pinnable email folders.
2. Deep app linking.

I still use the lumia 900 for daily alarm and listening to music for its loud speaker. I check it everyday to see if it has any app updates and plug it into zune and check for Tango update only to be disappointed.

Having never used an Android smartphone, Im curious what your experience is like between UI's. Was it easy to make the transition?

I've been happy swiping screen to screen in Metro, so I never tried anything other than an ICS tablet (Samsung Galaxy Tab 2) and was horrified by the experience. I also tried a Blackberry Playbook and loved the UI and guestures, but couldnt keep it due to lack of Netflix.

When I made my first choice of smartphones back in 2010, I had 0 smartphone experience, so after a 5 minutes on the iPhone, Android and then Windows Phone, and some basic research on each platform, I chose the latter. I found it a refreshing take on operating systems, and i was instantly smitten with the minimalistic look of it.

 

[scottcraft]

Having never used an Android smartphone, Im curious what your experience is like between UI's. Was it easy to make the transition?

I've been happy swiping screen to screen in Metro, so I never tried anything other than an ICS tablet (Samsung Galaxy Tab 2) and was horrified by the experience. I also tried a Blackberry Playbook and loved the UI and guestures, but couldnt keep it due to lack of Netflix.

When I made my first choice of smartphones back in 2010, I had 0 smartphone experience, so after a 5 minutes on the iPhone, Android and then Windows Phone, and some basic research on each platform, I chose the latter. I found it a refreshing take on operating systems, and i was instantly smitten with the minimalistic look of it.

It's different. I had a Motorola droid prior to WP and now alternate between WP and android. Setting an android up is more difficult, but actually using them isn't that much more difficult. You just have to try them out and see which you prefer. If you are pleased with your WP stick with it, it's a great platform.

 

[snowmutt]

Having never used an Android smartphone, Im curious what your experience is like between UI's.

Amazingly, I find the UI experience may be the most overrated portion of Android. I understand that UI's tend to make getting a new device seem like a new device. But I totally agree with @scottcraft- after the set-up, it is just a start screen, widgits, and basic Android. I like Mobile, but I am not geek enough to root, overclock, or any of that other stuff. Which means you have to trudge through the UI to find what you want and find a place to hid all the bloat you don't want.

UI's tend to actually bring down the experience after a while or stick a manufacturer with a bad rep. For instance:

-HTC Sense is great looking, but adds many layers to process commands. I think Sense went from being a strength to a weakness on HTC.

-Touch-Wiz is a Like it/hate it UI. It seems to work decently with Android, not slowing it down. But does anyone LOVE it? Haven't found anyone going that far, so why does Sammy need it?

-Motorola went overboard with Blur with it's buggy performence and it's cartoonish look when they launched it about the Droid 2 era. They dialed it back to being one of the better ones in the last year of devices. But the rep stuck.

-Lg's UI is still buggy, even on ICS, and was misreable on Gingerbread.

-Sony's just feels incomplete to me. Eager to see their new offerings, but if they are sticking to the "cards" style UI, it feels like that has been done before.

-Pantech, Casio, and any other number of Android OEM's keep plugging away, but none of their UI's (I like Casio's, by the way) make you want to grab the devices. These devices sell due to a special price point or a unique need is filled.

My long winded point: How many of these beat the Nexus lines stock Android experince? In my opinion- zero, none, nada. UI is just fluff. Android is the experience.

Overrated. Or just me?

Geez, very long winded. Sorry..........

 

[scottcraft]

Well said snowmutt. I prefer HTC sense out of the overlays. Motoblur on ics is supposed to be very toned down, haven't played with one of those phones to see. The thing I like is you can get a different launcher from the play store if you don't like the overlay on the phone. I've tried a couple on this rezound I'm using, but I keep coming back to stock sense. Naturally plain android like a nexus is preferred, at least for me.

 

[MrBurrrns]

The WP UI with the Metro (I refuse to stop using that word, love it too much ) design is light years ahead of any Android skins, or even the stock UI. You won't have a problem using Android, it's not rocket science. It just does not have the elegance, slickness and fluidity of Metro.