Nokia Lumia 928 : User Reviews

[carajean]

Ok. I got mine. I am SO happy to be back on Windows Phone. I ended up grabbing the blue gel case that the VZ store has. I hate to cover this beautiful thing up, but I am too scared not too. (especially after losing my Trophy so tragically). I am loving it so far, though I am a little overwhelmed with setting everything back up.

Now here is the interesting part. I went into the store to get this phone, but the sales guy didn't know that. He asked me a few questions (What do you do on your current phone, do you want to stick with Android, etc...) and then he said "I think you should take a look at this new Nokia phone". I was expecting him to push the iPhone or Galaxy S3 but he went straight to the 928. Maybe because it was new, or maybe he is a WP guy too, but I'd like to think that maybe the stores will push this a little harder than they had in the past.

Yeah I am extremely happy with this phone so far. I am also going to get some sort of case for this phone it is too pretty to hit the ground. I got the white one and find it kinda slippery from time to time.

 

[lisainsf]

Ok. I got mine. I am SO happy to be back on Windows Phone. I ended up grabbing the blue gel case that the VZ store has. I hate to cover this beautiful thing up, but I am too scared not too. (especially after losing my Trophy so tragically). I am loving it so far, though I am a little overwhelmed with setting everything back up.

Now here is the interesting part. I went into the store to get this phone, but the sales guy didn't know that. He asked me a few questions (What do you do on your current phone, do you want to stick with Android, etc...) and then he said "I think you should take a look at this new Nokia phone". I was expecting him to push the iPhone or Galaxy S3 but he went straight to the 928. Maybe because it was new, or maybe he is a WP guy too, but I'd like to think that maybe the stores will push this a little harder than they had in the past.

Funny the guys at my local store were really intrigued by this phone as well..though it was clear they had not had training on it yet as I had to tell I'm where the SIM card went lol

 

[hopmedic]

Funny the guys at my local store were really intrigued by this phone as well..though it was clear they had not had training on it yet as I had to tell I'm where the SIM card went lol

LOL - the guy at the Microsoft store started to use a tool to pry, and I stopped him and said, "pull that tab." LOL

 

[nooaah]

Just got home from a long business trip/flight but wanted to post before hitting the sack: When I first bought the Samsung S3 last June, my opinion after the first day was, "I could probably learn to like this if I mess around with the settings enough." With the 928, I already love it. The screen is beautiful. The touch is more responsive than the S3 (still not at the level of the iPhone). The headphone sound quality destroys the iPhone 5 and is probably a step ahead of the iPhone 4S. WP8 is just beautiful and intuitive. My girlfriend says it's ugly, so that was full confirmation that it's a great phone.

App selection is pretty miserable. But, the same was true about Android a couple years ago before lots of people started jumping onboard. From what I can tell, the quality and quantity of apps is starting to pick up. I miss iMessage and the Podcast apps. I miss SiriusXM a bit. Yes, I know how to get podcasts on the 928 and I've already downloaded a couple at the airport; I just like the way iTunes can be searched. The App Store also is way better than what we have both in responsiveness and the way apps are categorized. MS really needs to work on that.

Overall, I'm leaning more towards keeping the 928 and selling the 5. I have another long business trip on the west coast starting Sunday, so this'll be another test. Nokia Drive is awesome. And Nokia Maps actually works while the plane is in the air and in airplane mode. I was able to track my progress in real time over the Atlantic Ocean with surprising accuracy. This. Phone. Is. Great. And I haven't even used the camera yet!

BTW, I had to VZW sales reps help me when buying the phone this morning. The first guy greeted me with, "So, you want a Windows Phone??" and started pointing to Android. I held up my iPhone and then just pointed to the 928 and said my decision is made. They had a HUGE banner for the 928. More signage for Nokia than any other brand at this store. The second guy who processed the sale and got me setup is an Android and WP8 user. He owns the HTC. He ran me through Skydrive and gave me a brief crash course on basic functionality (holding down back button for multitasking, app list, resize tiles, etc). Very good experience with him.

8.5/10 - App store and no iMessage hurt me personally. Everyone I know iMessages. I'll be the "green bubble guy". Oh well.

 

[ryan.kruger]

Just got home from a long business trip/flight but wanted to post before hitting the sack: When I first bought the Samsung S3 last June, my opinion after the first day was, "I could probably learn to like this if I mess around with the settings enough." With the 928, I already love it. The screen is beautiful. The touch is more responsive than the S3 (still not at the level of the iPhone). The headphone sound quality destroys the iPhone 5 and is probably a step ahead of the iPhone 4S. WP8 is just beautiful and intuitive. My girlfriend says it's ugly, so that was full confirmation that it's a great phone.

App selection is pretty miserable. But, the same was true about Android a couple years ago before lots of people started jumping onboard. From what I can tell, the quality and quantity of apps is starting to pick up. I miss iMessage and the Podcast apps. I miss SiriusXM a bit. Yes, I know how to get podcasts on the 928 and I've already downloaded a couple at the airport; I just like the way iTunes can be searched. The App Store also is way better than what we have both in responsiveness and the way apps are categorized. MS really needs to work on that.

Overall, I'm leaning more towards keeping the 928 and selling the 5. I have another long business trip on the west coast starting Sunday, so this'll be another test. Nokia Drive is awesome. And Nokia Maps actually works while the plane is in the air and in airplane mode. I was able to track my progress in real time over the Atlantic Ocean with surprising accuracy. This. Phone. Is. Great. And I haven't even used the camera yet!

BTW, I had to VZW sales reps help me when buying the phone this morning. The first guy greeted me with, "So, you want a Windows Phone??" and started pointing to Android. I held up my iPhone and then just pointed to the 928 and said my decision is made. They had a HUGE banner for the 928. More signage for Nokia than any other brand at this store. The second guy who processed the sale and got me setup is an Android and WP8 user. He owns the HTC. He ran me through Skydrive and gave me a brief crash course on basic functionality (holding down back button for multitasking, app list, resize tiles, etc). Very good experience with him.

8.5/10 - App store and no iMessage hurt me personally. Everyone I know iMessages. I'll be the "green bubble guy". Oh well.

And until we get group messaging, it will kind of be a pain in the *** to reply to any mass text. That really is the only downside to this phone. You've hit it all on the head.

 

[hopmedic]

My girlfriend says it's ugly, so that was full confirmation that it's a great phone.

THIS! ROFL!

And until we get group messaging, it will kind of be a pain in the *** to reply to any mass text. That really is the only downside to this phone. You've hit it all on the head.

I only wish there were a way to block mass texts. It gets old quick when people you don't know reply in the middle of the night becuase they can't (or can't figure out) turn off replying to people who are asleep.

 

[bdball]

OK, so keep in mind that this is my first experience with a Windows Phone. I have been a long time iPhone user. I picked up my Lumia 928 from the Verizon store yesterday and had it activated and number ported before leaving. I got my work email set up and the first thing I got was a voicemail from my work phone emailed to me. Went to play it and was told that the phone won't play .wav files! Not a good start. I get support calls this way! I've been able to play these on my iPhone and before that Palm's for years. So I find a work around where I have to forward the email to a online site that coverts it and emails it back. We will see how this works out. Still it was kind of a jaw dropper moment for me.

The phone itself is very nice. Big screen that is very readable and the web browsing is much more enjoyable then any phone I have used to date. Took most of the evening to get the settings and apps I needed installed and of course contacts and datebook imported. Only took one picture to see how the camera was and it turned out very nice.

I've tried several times to redeem my $25 Microsoft store redemption but it keeps failing. This is kind of annoying! I had ordered a black model but when I went to pick it up they only had the white. The rep said he called all the stores in the area and no one had any black models. I did get a wireless charging pad and I liked that very much!

I have 13 more days to decide if I'm going to keep this or go back to iPhone. So far it's been a little culture shock for me but I'll wait a few more days to see what I think then.

 

[jasqid]

My girlfriend says it's ugly, so that was full confirmation that it's a great phone.

I spit up my coffee with THIS! My Wife said the same thing when I went to WP.

 

[McSlappy]

Got mine yesterday before going to work. So I went in grabbed the unit at full retail and went home. Initial unscientific trials are the camera is way better then my Galaxy Nexus. It is hit or miss if you can get voice recognition. I guess on WP is is an option that needs to be enabled on an app by app basis instead of built in to the keyboard like on most android phones, so that kinda sucks. After an extensive use period the phone didn't really heat up and only used about 10% of it's power. At work when I walk around the building my Nexus would drop connection literally all the time swap to 4G and then back again to wifi. Yesterday I walked to the farthest place in the building away from all WAPs and still had 4 bars. Normally my Nexus would have 0-1. I'd have thought that it wasn't displaying signal strength however I started to see the residential networks show up and 1-4 bars so I know it was working. It just has awesome wifi radio's I guess. We'll have to see how the 4G radios work. The Nexus would drop out to 3G a lot in the area so we'll see.

Now that I have left it on the charger over night and have moved over my SIM and service we'll see how the batter performs today. I got most of the things over that I used on my Nexus however there are a few things that I don't use a lot the I still haven't found a WP version of. I'm going to later install IM+ for the gchat compatibility. I wish this phone had the ability to see what services are working in the background. It says my Skype isn't running so if I get a ............OMG well never mind. As typing this a Skype message came in and the notification went off. Clicked on it and the app loaded right up to the message. Okay that is neat.

I have two other main critiques so far one with Gmail one with the over all phone. The Gmail one when setting it to constant updates I get my email pushes in real time. All my devices computer and now this phone get the emails in unison. Same with changing to read status. However if I delete something on the phone it doesn't seem to delete it on Google's server until I press the manual refresh button. I can't seem to find a way to do that automatically. I am hoping with the new OS upgrade that supports the new Google protocols this will be improved. Not as nice as my Nexus but not a huge deal.

This is a very subjective opinion however I just don't feel that I know what's going on with the phone. Am I in LTE or CDMA? Can I lock the phone in to one or the other. Am I in Wifi or not. What are my signal strengths. I have to constantly try and swipe down the top of the screen to find out. What apps are actually running vs what daemons are running in the background. What's my battery like. Simple bar at the top not really good enough. On the Nexus I got a % over time graph with breakdowns of what power was doing what. Are there any apps that do any of the above with live tiles by any chance?

So far like the phone and the platform but could definitely use a lot of works on the subtle things.

 

[stwall]

So I got mine yesterday right after work. Like a lot of people, my $25 redemption isn't working at all. So that's annoying.

So on to the phone. It is one beautiful piece of tech in my opinion. I'm coming from an HTC Arrive, so this phone is actually lighter than my last phone. The white gloss is a little bit slippery, but I am getting used to it. The quick camera shots I have taken have been great quality. I will say that with the xenon flash enabled, the shots get a slight yellowish tint on my phone, but that wasn't in a very low light situation, so in the dark I imagine it will be less pronounced. The phone is extremely fluid and snappy and my 4G service on Verizon (coming from Sprint) has been like going from dial up to broadband. Voice recognition has been great thus far and the Indigo personal assistant app I have found to be useful, though not as much so as Siri or Google Now. On either of the other platforms, I could ask what the baseball score is and BAM! there it would be, but Indigo just does a Google search for the team's website. Here's to hoping that the Windows Blue update gives us a native personal assistant.

The AMOLED screen looks fantastic. The colors pop and are vibrant as hell. I'm loving the new Facebook beta app as well, which I was shut out of on WP7.8. I will say one thing though. The 8x still felt better in my hand than the 928. I had no intention of getting it, given the storage comparisons and Nokia exclusive apps and support, but man the 8x form factor fits more comfortably in the hand. It actually made me think for a bit, but the fact that the 8x is the same price as the 928 with less memory really pushed me over the edge. The speaker on the back is very loud. Which is a good thing. It amazed me when I cranked it up to 30 and set it on a table. Filled the room easily. I don't have the Nokia storage checker app pre-installed either, but should be able to find it in the market or from Nokia's site somewhere.

Short story? Great phone, eye popping display, slightly slippery gloss finish, great camera phone, loud speaker, snappy response time, great 4G coverage (St. Louis).

 

[theefman]

BTW, I had to VZW sales reps help me when buying the phone this morning. The first guy greeted me with, "So, you want a Windows Phone??" and started pointing to Android. I held up my iPhone and then just pointed to the 928 and said my decision is made. They had a HUGE banner for the 928. More signage for Nokia than any other brand at this store.

So even with that huge banner these VZW employees are still trying to push people away from WP? Do these morons run the company or shouldnt they at least pretend to try and promote the option their company is clearly pushing with that huge sign? No wonder WP sales are non-existent in the US.

 

[elpedrogrande]

Oh one more thing I should add. I get LTE at my house! This is Shocking, as I live in the middle of nowhere. I can't even get Cable or DSL and LTE is there. The speeds are very impressive. If it wasn't for the Data limit I might ditch my current ISP and get a verizon setup, but I blast through WAY too much data for that. My current ISP while slowish at 4Mb/s is unimited.

 

[ealexand#CB]

the group text issue is ridiculous. I've been twitter bombing nokia, verizon, windows phone execs to no avail

 

[jleebiker]

Voice call quality? I just had my first call and am somewhat concerned. Other side was also on 928. Is there some sort of active background noise cancellation going on? If so, that may have been a factor and I am trying to get used to the volume rocker. Anyone else can comment on voice calls?

I used it as a handset and it was better than my Trophy. Where I thought it was much better was while it was BT connected to my car. I usually talk to someone that I uually have to use the Trophy as a handset or wired earphones. Yesterday, it was crystal clear through my car's BT, it was AWESOME!

 

[hopmedic]

OK, so keep in mind that this is my first experience with a Windows Phone. I have been a long time iPhone user. I picked up my Lumia 928 from the Verizon store yesterday and had it activated and number ported before leaving. I got my work email set up and the first thing I got was a voicemail from my work phone emailed to me. Went to play it and was told that the phone won't play .wav files! Not a good start. I get support calls this way! I've been able to play these on my iPhone and before that Palm's for years. So I find a work around where I have to forward the email to a online site that coverts it and emails it back. We will see how this works out. Still it was kind of a jaw dropper moment for me.

Not to make an excuse, as I agree that it should play wav files, but I'm kind of surprised that work would send your files as wav instead of mp3, if for no other reason than to compress the file and save data. Interesting.

I've tried several times to redeem my $25 Microsoft store redemption but it keeps failing. This is kind of annoying! I had ordered a black model but when I went to pick it up they only had the white. The rep said he called all the stores in the area and no one had any black models. I did get a wireless charging pad and I liked that very much!

Look in this thread - there was an email address to contact given in the thread.

I have 13 more days to decide if I'm going to keep this or go back to iPhone. So far it's been a little culture shock for me but I'll wait a few more days to see what I think then.

Let us know what you decide. And welcome to WP!

Got mine yesterday before going to work. So I went in grabbed the unit at full retail and went home. Initial unscientific trials are the camera is way better then my Galaxy Nexus. It is hit or miss if you can get voice recognition. I guess on WP is is an option that needs to be enabled on an app by app basis instead of built in to the keyboard like on most android phones, so that kinda sucks. After an extensive use period the phone didn't really heat up and only used about 10% of it's power. At work when I walk around the building my Nexus would drop connection literally all the time swap to 4G and then back again to wifi. Yesterday I walked to the farthest place in the building away from all WAPs and still had 4 bars. Normally my Nexus would have 0-1. I'd have thought that it wasn't displaying signal strength however I started to see the residential networks show up and 1-4 bars so I know it was working. It just has awesome wifi radio's I guess. We'll have to see how the 4G radios work. The Nexus would drop out to 3G a lot in the area so we'll see.

Check this link for Windows Phone Suggestions.
I found Have Voice option for most apps and improve accuracy with voice dictation software
Add a button to allow voice dictation to any textbox via the keyboard

I have two other main critiques so far one with Gmail one with the over all phone. The Gmail one when setting it to constant updates I get my email pushes in real time. All my devices computer and now this phone get the emails in unison. Same with changing to read status. However if I delete something on the phone it doesn't seem to delete it on Google's server until I press the manual refresh button. I can't seem to find a way to do that automatically. I am hoping with the new OS upgrade that supports the new Google protocols this will be improved. Not as nice as my Nexus but not a huge deal.

While I agree that there should be an option, their reasoning is to save the data required by the refresh.

This is a very subjective opinion however I just don't feel that I know what's going on with the phone. Am I in LTE or CDMA? Can I lock the phone in to one or the other. Am I in Wifi or not. What are my signal strengths. I have to constantly try and swipe down the top of the screen to find out. What apps are actually running vs what daemons are running in the background. What's my battery like. Simple bar at the top not really good enough. On the Nexus I got a % over time graph with breakdowns of what power was doing what. Are there any apps that do any of the above with live tiles by any chance?

Settings | Cellular - most recommend switching to Roam, CDMA and LTE, for battery life. LTE is for data, CDMA is for voice, so you can't go with one or the other. You don't have to swipe at the top - just a tap will do it.

Apps running in the background? None, with the exceptions of location tracking apps (if you have any - like Drive +) or background music playing (Pandora, for example). Other than that, even apps that have background agents do not run constantly. Their run frequency is roughly every half an hour or so, but it is not scheduled finer than that. Background agents have to meet certain requirements - execute in less than 15 seconds, use less than 50 MB (I think) of memory while running.... I don't know them all off the top of my head. The restrictions are designed to save battery and data use.

You do not have to manage apps like on Android, because when you hit the start button and switch out of the app, it is deactivated. At that point the app is still in memory, but it is not executing anything. No CPU cycles. There can be up to 7 apps in the back stack (the "stack" of apps running when you tap/hold the back button), and if you open another app, the oldest one will drop off the stack. Additionally, if the OS determines that it needs more memory, it will tombstone apps in the back stack. Tombstone means that the app is removed from memory, and left in the back stack. This triggers an event in the app, and if the developer has done his job, the app will save its state, so when you do go back to it, you won't know the difference - it will reload that saved state data and return to the page in the app that it was at.

It's more detailed than that, but that gives you the high-level view, which is probably what you need. It shows why you do not need to manage running apps - the OS does it for you. Does that help?

So far like the phone and the platform but could definitely use a lot of works on the subtle things.

http://forums.windowscentral.com/windows-phone-8/204483-wp8-newbie-tips.html
http://forums.windowscentral.com/windows-phone-8-guides-how-tos/

I used it as a handset and it was better than my Trophy. Where I thought it was much better was while it was BT connected to my car. I usually talk to someone that I uually have to use the Trophy as a handset or wired earphones. Yesterday, it was crystal clear through my car's BT, it was AWESOME!

I found this to be the case with my 822 vs Trophy as well. And likewise now that I have a 928. :grin:

 

[zerotheloner]

Hey comrades! New here, so I finally have my Lumia this morning but the thing is...they could't transfer my old number to the Lumia so I have to wait 24 hours for that to happen. Meanwhile I'lve been playing with it and what not and I really love this phone!

 

[explosive0]

the group text issue is ridiculous. I've been twitter bombing nokia, verizon, windows phone execs to no avail

I actually had to switch back to my iPhone 5 last night. I get a lot of group texts from family. I'll still keep the 928 though. Hopefully the issue gets fixed soon.

 

[McSlappy]

It's more detailed than that, but that gives you the high-level view, which is probably what you need. It shows why you do not need to manage running apps - the OS does it for you. Does that help?

Awesome reply thx a ton for the info. So then to keep my Skype up so that I can receive Skype messages what do I need to do? Launch the app and then hit the windows key to leave it open while I do other things?

 

[hopmedic]

I haven't used skype, so I can't say for sure, but IIRC voip is one of the kinds of apps that can run in the background, so I don't believe you have to leave it in the back stack.

 

[GolferChris68]

I picked up my Lumia 928 from the Verizon store yesterday and had it activated and number ported before leaving. I got my work email set up and the first thing I got was a voicemail from my work phone emailed to me. Went to play it and was told that the phone won't play .wav files! Not a good start. I get support calls this way! I've been able to play these on my iPhone and before that Palm's for years. So I find a work around where I have to forward the email to a online site that coverts it and emails it back. We will see how this works out. Still it was kind of a jaw dropper moment for me.

It doesn't play .wav files??? That's a deal-breaker for me. I also get .wav files for missed phone messages emailed through our Exchange server, so not being able to play them is a problem. My iPhone and Androids could play these, why can't a Windows Phone? It's a standard audio format.