Mostly it took LUCK. I can not stress that enough. But I did do it and I'll tell you how I did (but you probably know), but it really came down to meeting the right people and a dedication to Craigslist.
To start, I had been a 10 year Sprint customer. For whatever reason, after moving from Seattle to OKC the data on both of our phones (wife and I) were ridiculously slow. I've talked about this here before I believe but the short and dirty is we were peaking at 65K down. She had an HTC EVO and I had the only Windows Phone device Sprint offered, the excellent HTC Arrive. A friend who also had an Evo could get 800k plus and we would only get a few kilobytes when we did a side by side download test. Anyway, after long talks with Sprint customer support, tech support and having the devices swapped out with no improvement Sprint let us out of our contracts and we went to AT&T.
I wanted a new Windows Phone for sure, but I didn't want to get a Focus or a Titan, I wanted the Lumia 900 which was two weeks away. So I settled on a Samsung Galaxy S2 Skyrocket. Two weeks later I took the Skyrocket back and swapped it free of charge for a 900 on launch day. (I also got the $100 promotion *and* the $100 data credit for early adopters, so I pretty much got paid to own the phone. Oh and I got a Cyan 900.)
A quick detour - I really liked the Skyrocket. I had a Samsung Moment previous to the Arrive, a device which was featured on Android Central's "top worst android devices ever" list, and I was quite pleased with how far Android had come since I had been on Windows Phone 7. The phone was fast, really fast, had great signal and was really beautiful. But I did miss Windows Phone - I did and DO believe it's a great system, and the right one for me.
Coming back to the Lumia 900. I understood when I got the 900 that it would not be upgraded to Windows Phone 8. I even understood the reasons (I'm a tech professional, the techno-babble made sense to me). I enjoyed using the 900, the camera was excellent and Nokia really put a lot of programming power behind it. What I wasn't really ready for was how quickly I was going to lose developer support for WP7 in general.
This part may be a little off for a couple reasons. 1. I upgraded to Windows 8 and really felt let down at how little WP7 integrated with it. WP8 users seemed to be having all the fun with Windows8 and a WP8 handset. This also may have been magnified by my investment in technology as a whole. I wanted to develop for Windows Phone 8, but the version of Visual Studio only runs on Windows 8 and the whole thing just stank of "you've been left". 2. It seemed like any new app I read about and therefore became excited about was "Windows Phone 8 only", with the exception of th excellent Nokia Collection.
Disillusioned about my six month old phone, I followed the advice of many people on this very site, talking with AT&T about early upgrades, working the angle of how I felt tricked on the 900 and if I "had known" I would have stuck with my GS2. Of course, none of this worked. At one point at an AT&T store, while I was fondling an HTC 8X (gorgeous phone btw, props to HTC and to anyone who owns one), Chris Hanson came out from behind the counter and said "why don't you have a seat".
Okay, that part about Chris Hanson isn't true. In spirit it is however.
I gave up on AT&T helping me out. Since I've been a customer they've been good to me, but I get it, they're a business.
So one night, after drinking some booze, I got on that great interweb listing site by Craig, and posted an ad asking to trade the 900 for a Galaxy S2 Skyrocket or HTC One X. I felt defeted, a little let down by AT&T, Microsoft and Nokia for my consumerism and their capitalist ways. Or did I? What I had launched was a loophole scheme. If they wouldn't sell me a WP8 device for a subsidized price (the nerve!) I was going to sell or trade until I had enough cash to get it on my on.
I am not a very smart man.
Well, I am, but I'm... you get it. Anyway.
It took awhile but two months ago I finally got a bite. A girl in my Metro area (well the city and surrounding farms) had a skyrocket and had read that the Lumia phones were great, so she offered to swap. (To be honest, I really think she thought it was a 920, and I stressed that this was the Windows Phone 7.8 Lumia 900, but she didn't bat an eye.) So we met up at an AT&T store, swapped SIM cards and I had a black Skyrocket (I really wanted another white one) again, free of charge.
For the last two months I watched Craigslist weekly, looking for posts about Galaxy S2's or Skyrockets. Last night I found it.
What I really thinking I would do was trade over to an iPhone 4s and from there either sell or trade to a Galaxy S3. From an S3 (or possibly even the iPhone) I figured I could get an 8X or possibly a 920, but I was a little iffy. I'm not much of an iDevice person so I figured the S3 was the best I was going to do. Maybe a DNA but honestly, I would have stuck with the S3 at that point. I like Samsung for the most part, but I am a fan of HTC and Nokia at heart, but I do believe the S3 is a better deal than a DNA. Sorry, I ramble sometimes.
So I kept reading posts for Galaxy S2 or Skyrockets, trying to figure out what my move was going to be. On a whim I looked at the posts for Lumia 920 and there was one, with pictures, from a guy looking to swap his two month old 920 for a Galaxy S4, S3 or S2. I couldn't believe it. Thinking nothing of it I emailed him and asked if he would be interested in a Galaxy S2 Skyrocket.
I had a response almost immediately. He didn't know what a Skyrocket was and explained to him that the original S2 didn't have LTE support, so the "Skyrocket" was made when AT&T launched their LTE service which was basically a slightly bigger, slightly faster Galaxy S2 with LTE and more RAM.
He went for it, and we made arrangements to meet up at AT&T again, to swap the SIM cards out, look over the devices and make a final decision.
I still cannot believe the condition this 920 is in. It literally doesn't have a scratch on it. It is red, which I preferred either yellow, white or another Cyan (honestly I like the matte finish), but hey, I can do red. Boxes were included as was the Nokia wireless charging plate. :smile:
Anyway, I can't believe my luck. The 920 is an excellent phone, as we all know, but actually having one and getting it for pretty much free is just killer. I really wanted to share this with you guys because, I'm kind of excited about it but really, if you've got a 900 and are kind of bummed that the Windows Phone 8 phones get all the chicks, this might also work for you if you're willing to put up with dealing with other people. :smile:
All of that aside, I did enjoy the Skyrocket. When I got it from the girl, it has ICS on it, and recently updated officially to 4.1.2 Jellybean. I rooted and installed 4.2.2 Cyanogenmod on it and honestly it ran flawlessly. These are solid devices. Like I said, I just really like Windows Phone and it works best for me personally.
I did, however, get to play around with an HTC One while I was in the store, and I have to admit, that is a beautifully well designed phone. Maybe in a year.... :devil:
To start, I had been a 10 year Sprint customer. For whatever reason, after moving from Seattle to OKC the data on both of our phones (wife and I) were ridiculously slow. I've talked about this here before I believe but the short and dirty is we were peaking at 65K down. She had an HTC EVO and I had the only Windows Phone device Sprint offered, the excellent HTC Arrive. A friend who also had an Evo could get 800k plus and we would only get a few kilobytes when we did a side by side download test. Anyway, after long talks with Sprint customer support, tech support and having the devices swapped out with no improvement Sprint let us out of our contracts and we went to AT&T.
I wanted a new Windows Phone for sure, but I didn't want to get a Focus or a Titan, I wanted the Lumia 900 which was two weeks away. So I settled on a Samsung Galaxy S2 Skyrocket. Two weeks later I took the Skyrocket back and swapped it free of charge for a 900 on launch day. (I also got the $100 promotion *and* the $100 data credit for early adopters, so I pretty much got paid to own the phone. Oh and I got a Cyan 900.)
A quick detour - I really liked the Skyrocket. I had a Samsung Moment previous to the Arrive, a device which was featured on Android Central's "top worst android devices ever" list, and I was quite pleased with how far Android had come since I had been on Windows Phone 7. The phone was fast, really fast, had great signal and was really beautiful. But I did miss Windows Phone - I did and DO believe it's a great system, and the right one for me.
Coming back to the Lumia 900. I understood when I got the 900 that it would not be upgraded to Windows Phone 8. I even understood the reasons (I'm a tech professional, the techno-babble made sense to me). I enjoyed using the 900, the camera was excellent and Nokia really put a lot of programming power behind it. What I wasn't really ready for was how quickly I was going to lose developer support for WP7 in general.
This part may be a little off for a couple reasons. 1. I upgraded to Windows 8 and really felt let down at how little WP7 integrated with it. WP8 users seemed to be having all the fun with Windows8 and a WP8 handset. This also may have been magnified by my investment in technology as a whole. I wanted to develop for Windows Phone 8, but the version of Visual Studio only runs on Windows 8 and the whole thing just stank of "you've been left". 2. It seemed like any new app I read about and therefore became excited about was "Windows Phone 8 only", with the exception of th excellent Nokia Collection.
Disillusioned about my six month old phone, I followed the advice of many people on this very site, talking with AT&T about early upgrades, working the angle of how I felt tricked on the 900 and if I "had known" I would have stuck with my GS2. Of course, none of this worked. At one point at an AT&T store, while I was fondling an HTC 8X (gorgeous phone btw, props to HTC and to anyone who owns one), Chris Hanson came out from behind the counter and said "why don't you have a seat".
Okay, that part about Chris Hanson isn't true. In spirit it is however.
I gave up on AT&T helping me out. Since I've been a customer they've been good to me, but I get it, they're a business.
So one night, after drinking some booze, I got on that great interweb listing site by Craig, and posted an ad asking to trade the 900 for a Galaxy S2 Skyrocket or HTC One X. I felt defeted, a little let down by AT&T, Microsoft and Nokia for my consumerism and their capitalist ways. Or did I? What I had launched was a loophole scheme. If they wouldn't sell me a WP8 device for a subsidized price (the nerve!) I was going to sell or trade until I had enough cash to get it on my on.
I am not a very smart man.
Well, I am, but I'm... you get it. Anyway.
It took awhile but two months ago I finally got a bite. A girl in my Metro area (well the city and surrounding farms) had a skyrocket and had read that the Lumia phones were great, so she offered to swap. (To be honest, I really think she thought it was a 920, and I stressed that this was the Windows Phone 7.8 Lumia 900, but she didn't bat an eye.) So we met up at an AT&T store, swapped SIM cards and I had a black Skyrocket (I really wanted another white one) again, free of charge.
For the last two months I watched Craigslist weekly, looking for posts about Galaxy S2's or Skyrockets. Last night I found it.
What I really thinking I would do was trade over to an iPhone 4s and from there either sell or trade to a Galaxy S3. From an S3 (or possibly even the iPhone) I figured I could get an 8X or possibly a 920, but I was a little iffy. I'm not much of an iDevice person so I figured the S3 was the best I was going to do. Maybe a DNA but honestly, I would have stuck with the S3 at that point. I like Samsung for the most part, but I am a fan of HTC and Nokia at heart, but I do believe the S3 is a better deal than a DNA. Sorry, I ramble sometimes.
So I kept reading posts for Galaxy S2 or Skyrockets, trying to figure out what my move was going to be. On a whim I looked at the posts for Lumia 920 and there was one, with pictures, from a guy looking to swap his two month old 920 for a Galaxy S4, S3 or S2. I couldn't believe it. Thinking nothing of it I emailed him and asked if he would be interested in a Galaxy S2 Skyrocket.
I had a response almost immediately. He didn't know what a Skyrocket was and explained to him that the original S2 didn't have LTE support, so the "Skyrocket" was made when AT&T launched their LTE service which was basically a slightly bigger, slightly faster Galaxy S2 with LTE and more RAM.
He went for it, and we made arrangements to meet up at AT&T again, to swap the SIM cards out, look over the devices and make a final decision.
I still cannot believe the condition this 920 is in. It literally doesn't have a scratch on it. It is red, which I preferred either yellow, white or another Cyan (honestly I like the matte finish), but hey, I can do red. Boxes were included as was the Nokia wireless charging plate. :smile:
Anyway, I can't believe my luck. The 920 is an excellent phone, as we all know, but actually having one and getting it for pretty much free is just killer. I really wanted to share this with you guys because, I'm kind of excited about it but really, if you've got a 900 and are kind of bummed that the Windows Phone 8 phones get all the chicks, this might also work for you if you're willing to put up with dealing with other people. :smile:
All of that aside, I did enjoy the Skyrocket. When I got it from the girl, it has ICS on it, and recently updated officially to 4.1.2 Jellybean. I rooted and installed 4.2.2 Cyanogenmod on it and honestly it ran flawlessly. These are solid devices. Like I said, I just really like Windows Phone and it works best for me personally.
I did, however, get to play around with an HTC One while I was in the store, and I have to admit, that is a beautifully well designed phone. Maybe in a year.... :devil:
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