And here's my review. It's hastily written, so stick with me here...
First, a little background. I was one of the first to get the original iPhone when it launched back in 2007 and have stuck with the iDevice since then. Being in the design industry where a lot of studios and artists use Apple hardware, I was pretty ensconced in the entire ecosystem. iTunes this, AirPlay that, Mac Pro whatever. Blah blah blah. I loved how Apple was doing things differently and made the experience of buying, activating, and owning a cell phone so easily. I remember feeling like a piece of tomorrow was finally in my hands after the promises of tomorrow never materialized. I didn't have my hoverboard, my flying car, or my sexbot... but damn, I had a touchscreen camera/computer/phone in my pocket! And so it developed from there, this torrid love affair of technolustic (Don't worry, I know that isn't a word, either.) infatuation.
Then five years blurs by. The iPhone OS is branded iOS, the platform matures, and various competitors come and go. Now we have the major players everyone is familiar with. There's Apple, who rules with an iron fist. It's cohesive because it's one singular, insular vision. When they do things right, it's succinct, it flows, it works--- but when they get it wrong, there's little chance for change or compromise. There's Google, with their open platform. The promise of democratizing the smartphone experience and ecosystem. The place for innovation and tinkerers. But now the promise seems to be laden with fragmentation and an OS seemingly so inefficient that the hardware needs to push so much extra horsepower to make even the simplest maneuvers tolerable. Then, there's Microsoft. Most commonly the whipping boy of the hip, cool technophiles. A lumbering megaship with so much momentum that any effort to change course is met with the density of corporate bureaucracy seemingly bounded only by Redmond city limits. The new kid--- Windows Phone.
I grew tired of Apple's unwillingness to correct their mistakes. I disliked how they handled criticism. (Antennagate, flash, copy/paste, etc.) Their arbitrary and overbearing app approval process that bordered on censorship. (Shi t, I'd say it probably was. Say what you want about sexual content for apps or eBooks, but Apple makes Safari--- a veritable WINDOW to a twisted world of sex, violence, and subversive material.) iOS grew stale. Lion is a broken metaphor. Innovation seems to be on the backburner. So I started looking for other options.
Android was too bloated and, frankly, too similar. The geek-obsessive brother to Apple's too-cool-for-school iDevice.
Windows Phone? Now here's something interesting. So I preordered the Lumia 900 and picked it up on launch day. After using it for a while I realized something: Windows Phone is the Lotus Cars of the smartphone world. It stressed lightness and simplicity over horsepower and complicated doodads. Light overhead requires less power to make it move quickly. (I actually own a Lotus myself, so this philosophy really speaks to me.)
In short, I love WP7 Mango. It is not without it's faults, for sure. But I love how different it is. How integrated the social services are even though I don't even have a Twitter or Facebook account. I just like that it's there, on a matter of principal. Really, a few tweaks here and there and this platform will honestly be on equal footing.
But enough about the OS. The phone. To make a long story short, after owning the 900 for a week, I returned it and bought myself an 800. Why?
Here's a scattershot of thoughts. Well, for one, it was too big. I've got small hands. And the larger screen doesn't net you any more resolution since all WP7 phones are mandated to be 800x480. In fact, all the major specs across all WP7 phones are largely the same. Camera sensors and optics may be different. But I came from an iPhone 4S, widely regarded as one of the best camera phones on the market. I work in digital media for a living (motion graphic artist, visual effects, compositing, photography.) and the iPhone 4S camera and screen were great. The 900's camera and screen are sub-par to say the least. The screen, while bright, contrasty, and saturated, was poor. The dynamic range was garbage, you lost all the subtlety in the shadows--- shadow details would just clip to black. It was like walking into Best Buy and seeing all the plasma screens pumped up to 11 to sell Average Joe on "wow, look how colorful and bright and punchy this TV is!". Colors were not true--- the creamy orange hues of a sunset turned into burnt browns. And that "rattling vibrate function" that reviewers complain about? It's not that it rattles or is loose, it's just weak and short in duration. Pick up an HTC handset and press the home button, then do the same with a Lumia handset, you'll see what I mean. The volume, lock and camera buttons on the side do not have a positive engagement or click. Not like the Titan2 or iPhone 4S. LTE is a big selling point for the 900 but AT&T hasn't rolled it out in my area and won't for a while. By the time they do, Windows Phone 8 will be out along with a slew of new devices which will probably replace whatever device I have now anyway. Internet tethering is BS in that I have to pay for seperate, special, tethering data? Thanks, AT&T, here's some more lube, f uck us harder would you please?
So I returned it for a refund and bought myself a Lumia 800. Smaller form factor. Feels nicer in hand and pocket. Side buttons have a more positive feel. It has the cool curved screen. Specs are basically exactly the same. Doesn't have LTE but I can't get it here anyway. Pentile screen doesn't bother me. I would rather have this than a large screen with the same resolution. I do wish the 800 didn't have the fragile trap door for the micro USB port, but whatever, I can live with that. Camera is still garbage but the camera has stopped being a factor for me at this point.
Basically, the 900 wasn't different enough from the 800 to warrant having a giant slab of polycarbonite in my pocket. Seriously, look at a comparison chart between the two.
Nokia Lumia 900 vs Lumia 800 ?€“ Specs Comparison Table - SymbianTweet
The differences are minor. Where it does differ, I don't want/need or downright can't use the "upgrades" on the 900.
Plus, the 800 is unlocked.
I do miss my iPhone 4S. I used it as a point and shoot. (It was awesome.) I used it to run diagnostics on my car through the OBD-II port. (Through the Rev app.) And it's just a sweet little piece of industrial design. But I'm tired of Apple. So now, as my girlfriend joked, my iDevice has multiplied into three different devices. I now have a separate digital cam, a Lumia 800, and an iPod touch to interface with my car. (I installed a supercharger and need to monitor various metrics for tuning, as well running diagnostics, clearing codes, etc. and those apps are only available for iOS.) But, you know what? I like this whole Windows Phone concept. Looking at the bigger picture of Windows 8, their touch interface commitment/gamble, how everything will integrate with WP8 and Xbox.... I am beginning to sense a cohesive vision here.
Maybe it's not here right now, but I can see the potential future Microsoft is building. And I'm very excited.
Sorry for the long post. I know it's not organized, but it's most everything I could think of.
First, a little background. I was one of the first to get the original iPhone when it launched back in 2007 and have stuck with the iDevice since then. Being in the design industry where a lot of studios and artists use Apple hardware, I was pretty ensconced in the entire ecosystem. iTunes this, AirPlay that, Mac Pro whatever. Blah blah blah. I loved how Apple was doing things differently and made the experience of buying, activating, and owning a cell phone so easily. I remember feeling like a piece of tomorrow was finally in my hands after the promises of tomorrow never materialized. I didn't have my hoverboard, my flying car, or my sexbot... but damn, I had a touchscreen camera/computer/phone in my pocket! And so it developed from there, this torrid love affair of technolustic (Don't worry, I know that isn't a word, either.) infatuation.
Then five years blurs by. The iPhone OS is branded iOS, the platform matures, and various competitors come and go. Now we have the major players everyone is familiar with. There's Apple, who rules with an iron fist. It's cohesive because it's one singular, insular vision. When they do things right, it's succinct, it flows, it works--- but when they get it wrong, there's little chance for change or compromise. There's Google, with their open platform. The promise of democratizing the smartphone experience and ecosystem. The place for innovation and tinkerers. But now the promise seems to be laden with fragmentation and an OS seemingly so inefficient that the hardware needs to push so much extra horsepower to make even the simplest maneuvers tolerable. Then, there's Microsoft. Most commonly the whipping boy of the hip, cool technophiles. A lumbering megaship with so much momentum that any effort to change course is met with the density of corporate bureaucracy seemingly bounded only by Redmond city limits. The new kid--- Windows Phone.
I grew tired of Apple's unwillingness to correct their mistakes. I disliked how they handled criticism. (Antennagate, flash, copy/paste, etc.) Their arbitrary and overbearing app approval process that bordered on censorship. (Shi t, I'd say it probably was. Say what you want about sexual content for apps or eBooks, but Apple makes Safari--- a veritable WINDOW to a twisted world of sex, violence, and subversive material.) iOS grew stale. Lion is a broken metaphor. Innovation seems to be on the backburner. So I started looking for other options.
Android was too bloated and, frankly, too similar. The geek-obsessive brother to Apple's too-cool-for-school iDevice.
Windows Phone? Now here's something interesting. So I preordered the Lumia 900 and picked it up on launch day. After using it for a while I realized something: Windows Phone is the Lotus Cars of the smartphone world. It stressed lightness and simplicity over horsepower and complicated doodads. Light overhead requires less power to make it move quickly. (I actually own a Lotus myself, so this philosophy really speaks to me.)
In short, I love WP7 Mango. It is not without it's faults, for sure. But I love how different it is. How integrated the social services are even though I don't even have a Twitter or Facebook account. I just like that it's there, on a matter of principal. Really, a few tweaks here and there and this platform will honestly be on equal footing.
But enough about the OS. The phone. To make a long story short, after owning the 900 for a week, I returned it and bought myself an 800. Why?
Here's a scattershot of thoughts. Well, for one, it was too big. I've got small hands. And the larger screen doesn't net you any more resolution since all WP7 phones are mandated to be 800x480. In fact, all the major specs across all WP7 phones are largely the same. Camera sensors and optics may be different. But I came from an iPhone 4S, widely regarded as one of the best camera phones on the market. I work in digital media for a living (motion graphic artist, visual effects, compositing, photography.) and the iPhone 4S camera and screen were great. The 900's camera and screen are sub-par to say the least. The screen, while bright, contrasty, and saturated, was poor. The dynamic range was garbage, you lost all the subtlety in the shadows--- shadow details would just clip to black. It was like walking into Best Buy and seeing all the plasma screens pumped up to 11 to sell Average Joe on "wow, look how colorful and bright and punchy this TV is!". Colors were not true--- the creamy orange hues of a sunset turned into burnt browns. And that "rattling vibrate function" that reviewers complain about? It's not that it rattles or is loose, it's just weak and short in duration. Pick up an HTC handset and press the home button, then do the same with a Lumia handset, you'll see what I mean. The volume, lock and camera buttons on the side do not have a positive engagement or click. Not like the Titan2 or iPhone 4S. LTE is a big selling point for the 900 but AT&T hasn't rolled it out in my area and won't for a while. By the time they do, Windows Phone 8 will be out along with a slew of new devices which will probably replace whatever device I have now anyway. Internet tethering is BS in that I have to pay for seperate, special, tethering data? Thanks, AT&T, here's some more lube, f uck us harder would you please?
So I returned it for a refund and bought myself a Lumia 800. Smaller form factor. Feels nicer in hand and pocket. Side buttons have a more positive feel. It has the cool curved screen. Specs are basically exactly the same. Doesn't have LTE but I can't get it here anyway. Pentile screen doesn't bother me. I would rather have this than a large screen with the same resolution. I do wish the 800 didn't have the fragile trap door for the micro USB port, but whatever, I can live with that. Camera is still garbage but the camera has stopped being a factor for me at this point.
Basically, the 900 wasn't different enough from the 800 to warrant having a giant slab of polycarbonite in my pocket. Seriously, look at a comparison chart between the two.
Nokia Lumia 900 vs Lumia 800 ?€“ Specs Comparison Table - SymbianTweet
The differences are minor. Where it does differ, I don't want/need or downright can't use the "upgrades" on the 900.
Plus, the 800 is unlocked.
I do miss my iPhone 4S. I used it as a point and shoot. (It was awesome.) I used it to run diagnostics on my car through the OBD-II port. (Through the Rev app.) And it's just a sweet little piece of industrial design. But I'm tired of Apple. So now, as my girlfriend joked, my iDevice has multiplied into three different devices. I now have a separate digital cam, a Lumia 800, and an iPod touch to interface with my car. (I installed a supercharger and need to monitor various metrics for tuning, as well running diagnostics, clearing codes, etc. and those apps are only available for iOS.) But, you know what? I like this whole Windows Phone concept. Looking at the bigger picture of Windows 8, their touch interface commitment/gamble, how everything will integrate with WP8 and Xbox.... I am beginning to sense a cohesive vision here.
Maybe it's not here right now, but I can see the potential future Microsoft is building. And I'm very excited.
Sorry for the long post. I know it's not organized, but it's most everything I could think of.
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