When I got this phone I expected a lot out of it. I tracked this phone when the lumia icon first appeared. I really liked the solid and yet simple look. But now I regret buying it for reasons I will say bellow.
Firstly this phone is really fragile. I am used to dropping my previous phones which were made out of plastic and only getting minor scratches. But this phone is prone to scratches especially the aluminum rim. I was listening to music waiting for the bus and when I got up a child grabbed my headphones cable and pulled the phone right out my hands. It went down really fast and I ended up with scratches all over the left side of the aluminum rim from just one drop. I am talking like 7 or 8 scratches from one drop. Aluminum is especially weak against rugged cement or at least on this phone is seems so.
Next I got a casing for it. It covered most of the aluminum rim but left the bottom and top sides mostly open. And that's where I got more scratches. I do not know of I got them, I did not put the phone along with my keys or anything else. Now I have a complete big casing that covers most of the phone and there is absolutely no difference in terms of looks between my phone and a crappy 150 dollar phone.
Secondly, the bad cover is prone to scratches too. Put the phone on the desk or pretty much any other surface that is not extremely soft and you will get more scratches. I even got scratches on the back of the phone from applying the casing. The casing was clean and so the back of the phone when I applied it.
Thirdly, I tried 4 screen covers and none of them actually fit the screen. I am left with quite some space around the edges that usually get full of grease and becomes easily noticeable. I found just one screen cover on the internet that I ordered that fits the entire screen.
This is actually just the beginning. Now I learned that amoled is prone to burn in and I do not even want to imagine how this phone will look in 2-3 years when the blue leds will fade. This especially becomes noticeable on windows phone because it has the sharp tiles that constantly stay the same. Putting on the blue tile theme is a sure way to get all sorts of artifacts on the screen after one or two years of usage. I do not believe this phone is designed to be used more than 2 years.
The hardware cause me a lot of trouble too. The phone gets really hot when I play a game and the battery drains like crazy. I play 10 minutes of despicable me: minion rush and I lose 10% of the battery already. So that's around one hour and a half playing a game. So much for battery life. I constantly keep this phone with battery saving mode. This in turn really dims the screen and limits some functionality like getting notifications when you receive mail. The battery is smaller than any other direct competitor to it with similar hardware.
And a lot of that heat probably comes from the battery being drained fast. Guess what this means? More damage to the battery and shorter battery life after a while. Also, you have to be careful when charging this phone to perfectly put the plug in and not scratch the aluminum around the jack.
Next on my list is the support for developing applications. I am a programmer and I was tempted to make applications. Well, the api was recently changed again and there is little documentation on it. I tried something and spent 4 days trying to solve it with no success. I even asked on official forums and got no answers.
Plus, for some people 32 gb is not that big. I have a lot of movies that I want to watch while I go to work and move around the city and 32 gb easily get filled. I could of course get a lower quality version but then I am no different from a simple mobile phone with an 800x480 screen.
And not to mention the general build of the phone. To replace the aluminum rims you have to replace half the phone. That costs you 300 dollars. Better get a new one if you scratch the aluminum rims. Not to mention the fact that this is not a very popular phone and it's quite hard to find quality casings.
Not to mention the fact that a couple of times I nearly got late to work because for some reason the phones battery drained from 100% to 0 while I was sleeping. This happened 3 times now. And sometimes it used to hang when unlocking the phone. This was probably because some applications with live tiles crashed hanging the entire system. so you have to be careful here.
All in all, what does this phone have that is better from a 200 dollar phone? The camera looks quite good indeed. The phone looks nice but most of the time you will have a heavy casing on it so you will never notice any differences here. The screen is good but drains the battery really fast so I have to keep it dim which actually makes it harder to use that the 800 by 480 screen on a 200 dollar phone. The 32gb is good for most people but for me, an sd card of at least 64gb is a must for me which I can use with a 200 dollar phone. Battery life is a lot worse than my previous 200 dollar phone. Just playing a bit of games drains it fast and because I have to constantly keep in in battery saving mode, the quad core processor works about as much as a normal dual core processor. The live tiles are really nice too, but again this functionality is limited by the battery life and having too many live tiles can drain your battery.
So was it worth buying this phone. Certainly not. I plan to sell it at the first occasion and get a 200 dollar phone with better battery life, better grip, more resistant housing, an microsd card expansion slot and a screen that can actually accept a screen cover. My advice is to stay away from this phone. Not worth the effort and money. Get something more serious like a lumia 1520.
Do I have something against windows phone? No, no at all. I really like it simple and neat. The live tiles are really useful.
Firstly this phone is really fragile. I am used to dropping my previous phones which were made out of plastic and only getting minor scratches. But this phone is prone to scratches especially the aluminum rim. I was listening to music waiting for the bus and when I got up a child grabbed my headphones cable and pulled the phone right out my hands. It went down really fast and I ended up with scratches all over the left side of the aluminum rim from just one drop. I am talking like 7 or 8 scratches from one drop. Aluminum is especially weak against rugged cement or at least on this phone is seems so.
Next I got a casing for it. It covered most of the aluminum rim but left the bottom and top sides mostly open. And that's where I got more scratches. I do not know of I got them, I did not put the phone along with my keys or anything else. Now I have a complete big casing that covers most of the phone and there is absolutely no difference in terms of looks between my phone and a crappy 150 dollar phone.
Secondly, the bad cover is prone to scratches too. Put the phone on the desk or pretty much any other surface that is not extremely soft and you will get more scratches. I even got scratches on the back of the phone from applying the casing. The casing was clean and so the back of the phone when I applied it.
Thirdly, I tried 4 screen covers and none of them actually fit the screen. I am left with quite some space around the edges that usually get full of grease and becomes easily noticeable. I found just one screen cover on the internet that I ordered that fits the entire screen.
This is actually just the beginning. Now I learned that amoled is prone to burn in and I do not even want to imagine how this phone will look in 2-3 years when the blue leds will fade. This especially becomes noticeable on windows phone because it has the sharp tiles that constantly stay the same. Putting on the blue tile theme is a sure way to get all sorts of artifacts on the screen after one or two years of usage. I do not believe this phone is designed to be used more than 2 years.
The hardware cause me a lot of trouble too. The phone gets really hot when I play a game and the battery drains like crazy. I play 10 minutes of despicable me: minion rush and I lose 10% of the battery already. So that's around one hour and a half playing a game. So much for battery life. I constantly keep this phone with battery saving mode. This in turn really dims the screen and limits some functionality like getting notifications when you receive mail. The battery is smaller than any other direct competitor to it with similar hardware.
And a lot of that heat probably comes from the battery being drained fast. Guess what this means? More damage to the battery and shorter battery life after a while. Also, you have to be careful when charging this phone to perfectly put the plug in and not scratch the aluminum around the jack.
Next on my list is the support for developing applications. I am a programmer and I was tempted to make applications. Well, the api was recently changed again and there is little documentation on it. I tried something and spent 4 days trying to solve it with no success. I even asked on official forums and got no answers.
Plus, for some people 32 gb is not that big. I have a lot of movies that I want to watch while I go to work and move around the city and 32 gb easily get filled. I could of course get a lower quality version but then I am no different from a simple mobile phone with an 800x480 screen.
And not to mention the general build of the phone. To replace the aluminum rims you have to replace half the phone. That costs you 300 dollars. Better get a new one if you scratch the aluminum rims. Not to mention the fact that this is not a very popular phone and it's quite hard to find quality casings.
Not to mention the fact that a couple of times I nearly got late to work because for some reason the phones battery drained from 100% to 0 while I was sleeping. This happened 3 times now. And sometimes it used to hang when unlocking the phone. This was probably because some applications with live tiles crashed hanging the entire system. so you have to be careful here.
All in all, what does this phone have that is better from a 200 dollar phone? The camera looks quite good indeed. The phone looks nice but most of the time you will have a heavy casing on it so you will never notice any differences here. The screen is good but drains the battery really fast so I have to keep it dim which actually makes it harder to use that the 800 by 480 screen on a 200 dollar phone. The 32gb is good for most people but for me, an sd card of at least 64gb is a must for me which I can use with a 200 dollar phone. Battery life is a lot worse than my previous 200 dollar phone. Just playing a bit of games drains it fast and because I have to constantly keep in in battery saving mode, the quad core processor works about as much as a normal dual core processor. The live tiles are really nice too, but again this functionality is limited by the battery life and having too many live tiles can drain your battery.
So was it worth buying this phone. Certainly not. I plan to sell it at the first occasion and get a 200 dollar phone with better battery life, better grip, more resistant housing, an microsd card expansion slot and a screen that can actually accept a screen cover. My advice is to stay away from this phone. Not worth the effort and money. Get something more serious like a lumia 1520.
Do I have something against windows phone? No, no at all. I really like it simple and neat. The live tiles are really useful.
Facebook
Twitter
Instagram