Finally managed to get an Ativ S off contract yesterday over lunchtime (called up a local Roger store in Calgary and they had literally just opened up their first shipment of 5 phones). Bought off contract, flew down to San Diego that afternoon, and surprised my husband with the early Xmas gift (my phone is the Lumia920, but he wanted a lighter phone and was willing to compromise on the wireless charging / floating camera / super-sensitive touch screen aspects). Took over an hour on the phone with Rogers (because they didn't see the phone on my account yet) but finally got them to release the unlock code (they 'do' have them) and it's now unlocked and running on T-Mobile! The odd thing is that it is showing a 4G signal - as far as I know, Tmobile hasn't refarmed 1900MHz in our part of San Diego yet (at last not as of last night) so I'm not sure how he's picking up 4G (unless Tmobile literally refarmed it this morning). The Ativ S isn't supposed to be pentaband.. .wish there was a way I could figure out if it actually does have the 1700MHz band.
Only had a few hours to play with it unlocked side by side with my Lumia920 - the low light no-flash photos are definitely uncomparable to the brighter shots on the Lumia920. However, the Ativ S is SO light in comparison.. and running flawlessly so far. The screen is crisp and the slightly larger screensize on the AtivS is noticeable (and welcome). I think we will both definitely like our respective phones and the advantages each has. Happy to finally see Samsung in the WP8 family! It's a nice complement to HTC and Nokia's offering.. i like the AtivS a lot more than I thought I would.
Only had a few hours to play with it unlocked side by side with my Lumia920 - the low light no-flash photos are definitely uncomparable to the brighter shots on the Lumia920. However, the Ativ S is SO light in comparison.. and running flawlessly so far. The screen is crisp and the slightly larger screensize on the AtivS is noticeable (and welcome). I think we will both definitely like our respective phones and the advantages each has. Happy to finally see Samsung in the WP8 family! It's a nice complement to HTC and Nokia's offering.. i like the AtivS a lot more than I thought I would.