I finally made the jump (or fall--not sure at this point) to Windows Phone 8 with the Nokia Lumia 928 on Verizon Wireless. The move has been a long time coming as I've been lusting after a Nokia flagship on Verizon's network since the Lumia 900 was released. I'll summarize my experience thus far.
Why did I make the switch?
I switched from an iPhone 4. The iPhone wasn't my first, second or third choice (a work hand-me-down), but it's really the standard by which all smartphones should be judged. But I won't do a feature by feature comparison because that wouldn't be fair. It took time for Apple to get iOS to the point that it is now and it would be unfair to judge WP8 based on bells and whistles. I switched simply because iOS is boring and the iPhone is boring. It's the Toyota Camry of phones. You buy it because you want a quality smartphone that's easy to use. I hate the Android philosophy. It seems to be aimed at techies and tinkerers, and while I'm both of those, I don't want it to get in the way of my user experience. What I do love about Android is the variety of devices that support it. So I was kind of stuck in the middle. I wanted the simplicity and cleanness of the walled-garden but with some exciting, sexy hardware. iPhone was sexy a few years ago, but in the age of Galaxy S and Lumia, it just doesn't hold a candle. I like Verizon and wanted something different, so I went with the Nokia Lumia 928.
Windows Phone 8:
I'll try to be as fair as possible, but it's been a jarring experience for me. It seems that with Windows Phone 8, Microsoft opted for distinguishing features over parity with the competition. While Kid's Corner is a great idea, I would really have liked to have different alert tones for different e-mail accounts so I'm not running to my phone every time it buzzes. Then the notification system isn't as good as I thought it would be. I use Twitter a lot for traffic alerts and was surprised to see that I don't get alerted when someone tweets. Hell, the Twitter "Live" Tile doesn't even work. That leads me to another point: All "Live Tiles" aren't actually LIVE. Microsoft's own Weather app is just an icon and apparently so is Twitter. So Microsoft isn't even enforcing this distinguishing feature that is supposed to set it apart from the competition. Yeah, Android and iOS may just be a "grid of icons" but at least the icons look pretty. Nothing is worse than a flat, ugly icon that doesn't do squat. Why the hell is it taking up valuable real-estate on my start screen? The biggest offender is the Mail live tile. Give me a break, Microsoft, because this works fine in Windows 8 RT and Pro. I don't want the mail tile to tell me how many new messages I have, show me a preview of the first couple of messages when I have the full tile.
I fully expect MS to make up the feature parity gap but it's definitely a head-scratcher for them to ditch features that were even present in Windows Mobile in favor of flash and pomp. I think the marketing people care more about the stuff that works great for a commercial, but not the other stuff. At the end of the day, we want to be productive with the phones. And, oh yeah, the phone part works great.
But my advice for anyone looking to make the jump is to wait until a couple more revisions. Windows Phone 8 still seems like a beta test that's taking forever to wrap up.
Why did I make the switch?
I switched from an iPhone 4. The iPhone wasn't my first, second or third choice (a work hand-me-down), but it's really the standard by which all smartphones should be judged. But I won't do a feature by feature comparison because that wouldn't be fair. It took time for Apple to get iOS to the point that it is now and it would be unfair to judge WP8 based on bells and whistles. I switched simply because iOS is boring and the iPhone is boring. It's the Toyota Camry of phones. You buy it because you want a quality smartphone that's easy to use. I hate the Android philosophy. It seems to be aimed at techies and tinkerers, and while I'm both of those, I don't want it to get in the way of my user experience. What I do love about Android is the variety of devices that support it. So I was kind of stuck in the middle. I wanted the simplicity and cleanness of the walled-garden but with some exciting, sexy hardware. iPhone was sexy a few years ago, but in the age of Galaxy S and Lumia, it just doesn't hold a candle. I like Verizon and wanted something different, so I went with the Nokia Lumia 928.
Windows Phone 8:
I'll try to be as fair as possible, but it's been a jarring experience for me. It seems that with Windows Phone 8, Microsoft opted for distinguishing features over parity with the competition. While Kid's Corner is a great idea, I would really have liked to have different alert tones for different e-mail accounts so I'm not running to my phone every time it buzzes. Then the notification system isn't as good as I thought it would be. I use Twitter a lot for traffic alerts and was surprised to see that I don't get alerted when someone tweets. Hell, the Twitter "Live" Tile doesn't even work. That leads me to another point: All "Live Tiles" aren't actually LIVE. Microsoft's own Weather app is just an icon and apparently so is Twitter. So Microsoft isn't even enforcing this distinguishing feature that is supposed to set it apart from the competition. Yeah, Android and iOS may just be a "grid of icons" but at least the icons look pretty. Nothing is worse than a flat, ugly icon that doesn't do squat. Why the hell is it taking up valuable real-estate on my start screen? The biggest offender is the Mail live tile. Give me a break, Microsoft, because this works fine in Windows 8 RT and Pro. I don't want the mail tile to tell me how many new messages I have, show me a preview of the first couple of messages when I have the full tile.
I fully expect MS to make up the feature parity gap but it's definitely a head-scratcher for them to ditch features that were even present in Windows Mobile in favor of flash and pomp. I think the marketing people care more about the stuff that works great for a commercial, but not the other stuff. At the end of the day, we want to be productive with the phones. And, oh yeah, the phone part works great.
But my advice for anyone looking to make the jump is to wait until a couple more revisions. Windows Phone 8 still seems like a beta test that's taking forever to wrap up.
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