Please talk me into a Lumia over Apple

[LucasLumia]

Bought the 1520, it takes a awesome pictures. You get a 16 (16:9) or 19 (4:3) mpx picture and a 5mpx oversampled one. You can also save the photo in DNG for later editing. About security, Windows Phone is really safe. You can lock your phone with a pin code remotely and display a message, make it sound if you lose it and you can wipe all your data. About viruses, Windows Phone doesn't "share" viruses with Windows Phone. Up to now, not many people target Windows Phone and the architecture is supposed to keep undesired apps from running in the background.

 

[Angry_Mushroom]

Just to address a few points.

The security of the Mac OS has been called into serious doubt after Kaspersky unveiled several loopholes that would make even Microsoft blush. So at this point I'd say that the desktop OSes are pretty much on par in terms of security. As for mobile security? I haven't heard of any major issues on either iOS or WP yet.

I'm still stuck on my 8MP shooter on the Lumia 810, and that already has some wonderful shots. I'd have to see the 1020 or 1520 for myself to believe it, but I'm assuming they're much better.

Apps? I can't say I've ever had an issue with apps on my phone. Only apps I'm really missing is a dedicated Steam app and a few credit card apps.

 

[sd173]

This is going to be a tough decision. I may wait another month or so to see if it drops from $200 to $100 and then pounce.

It would also be nice if Otterbox comes out with a Defender series for this. I will say I attribute my iPhone's complete lack of cracks or scratches to having it in that case and not to my own coordination LOL.

You could always contact Nokia Connect via email or Twitter to trial a lumia for free for either two or three weeks.

If there is no series of some otterbox case for any Nokia Windows Phone you don't have anything to worry about at all. I am writing this from my first phone, a Lumia 900, which is almost two years old. In less than the first minute that I had my phone in my hands, from not being used to holding a phone at all, I dropped it from around four feet, face-first (screen-first) onto the floor. It made a pretty scary thud, but it was completely fine, as if nothing had even happened - that was a pretty good unintentional drop test. If the Nokia Lumia 900 is that sturdy, I expect newer phones are even more durable with almost two years of improvements.

 

[Green Onion]

Everyone's already covered the app situation (i.e., depends on your needs, you might not notice, you might tear your hair out), but really I'd recommend getting the 520 or another low-end Lumia and just give the OS itself a spin. There will be some apps that don't work on devices with 512mb, but it'll give you a good feel for what you can do. The 520 makes a good backup phone or you could give it to a member of your family that's new to smartphones once you're done. I think there's also a deal with Xbox music going on in the United States as well.

 

[falconeight]

Buy the iPhone. Chances are that if you don't you will be disappointed. I purchased the 1020 because of the camera and the ease of the OS. I have two kids and needed a camera that can take pictures that will last a lifetime. Other than that I would have stuck with the iPhone. The 1520 should not be compared to other phones because of its size. It is a really big phone and you either know if you want it or not.

 

[David Fleetwood]

Suggestion about securing photos: Store photos in the local memory and have the phone autosync your pictures with your Skydrive/OneDrive account. When you are low on space you can simply delete the local copies and they will still exist online for you. Taking it a step further, you can set up your laptop, desktop or tablet to autosync those pictures locally so they will be waiting for you at home without any need to manually copy them over.

 

[anon(5339784)]

I won't try to talk you into a Windows Phone from your iPhone, because I believe that you should stay with your (or a new) iPhone. Windows Phone would only give you feelings of frustration, remorse and anger. I have been a WP user since 2011, first Wp7 and now Wp8, and couldn't recommend it to someone who has an iPhone, or anyone for that matter. I only use it because, at each time of purchasing, it has been the cheapest not-****ty smartphone available. But that is now also over and there are plenty of good cheaper android phones.

I will give you the reasons why WP would make you, personally (based on what you wrote in your post is important to you), shoot yourself in the face if you started using it:

1. You like Words with Friends and similar games that you can play with your friends (like QuizDuel or whatever is hip right now?) - You won't have that on WP. They don't come at all, or if they come, it's a year after everyone has been playing them and no one is playing any more. Same goes for any good solo games. There is no variety and new games come out very few and very long after their iOS counterparts.

2. If you are a real high end photographer who works profesionally, the smartphone cameras in the Lumias are going to be pretty much irrelevant to you, as you won't earn one dollar with them, but only with your main camera. So they are a complete non-issue for you. Nice to use for private shooting with your higher standard to quality, sure, but not for work. And the new iPhones have good cameras as well for that purpose.

3. Getting a larger phone to show off your work to clients... just get an iPad Air or if that's too bulky, and iPad mini. Or some other tablet if you prefer it. But if I were you, I wouldn't switch my phone, that my whole life is based around, just for a larger screen. There is so much more to your phone usage that should be considered: browser speed, ease of use, syncing if you do that, battery life, familiarity, peripherals, typing, texting, behaviour of apps, functionality of apps. All of that is better on the iPhone (especially for an already iPhone user) than Windows Phone. Windows Phone is always at least 6, if not 12, months behind in key areas: browser speed (where is IE11? We're still on IE10 which is 1 1/2 years old - iOS and Android already have the latest browsers. They are not only faster to load but also to fluidly navigate and scroll complex websites, not to mention all the improved protocols and webstuff that has come out in almost 2 years. IE10 on WP is slow and choppy on complex websites and often can't display them properly. There are literally at least 100 things you'll have problems with that are worth mentioning here just to make you aware of all the things that people overlook when using a smartphone every day, which they take for granted or forget even exist because their phone can't do them. Compatibility is abysmal, a lot of features on websites don't work properly.

3. The iPhone is more secure. It simply is. Especially if you would be using an SD card on the WP. Apple, because of their large userbase and the high price of their product is constantly under watch - they can't screw anything up because the same second millions of high profile people would smash them, they are always at the helm of the game. Windows Phone meanwhile, doesn't even give a fck if they are a year or two late with a security feature or some feature or support for something in general. They aren't even rushing to get their OS into a 100% done state, and a thousand things are missing, even compared to the older version of Wp7 the new Wp8 hasn't achieved parity. It's like they made the underlying OS kernel and added the important stuff like phone texting etc, but only rudimentary. It's like a house where the walls have been put up, and water and electricity drawn, but there is no shower head, there is no toiled seat or toiled, there is no oven, no floors, no drapes, no carpet, no sofa, nothing. The iPhone also has MUCH better backup and Cloud security options. I don't even know if WP even has those, I know I've never used, seen or been offered them.

4. Apps - iPhone. There is not even a question about it. I don't think I even need to explain this any further. iOS has ALL apps, ALWAYS first, ALWAYS with the most features, ALWAYS up to date, ALWAYS working fully. WP has jack sht. It doesn't get official apps, if it gets them then years later, and only in some stripped down beta form. "But there's rudy!!!!!" - "But there's this or that alternativy!!!" I already hear them saying. All due respect to rudys work (i have bought one of his apps, but not a social-network one), but there is nothing that goes over an official app. No one should have to think of puns to find the name of the alternative app in the store or recognize it as such. That also opens the floodgates for profiteers with shtty apps, and to exploits who make fake "alternative" apps that really just steal user login data when they input it.

5. Picture quality. The new iPhones have very good cameras with high pixel size and sensors. Also, the camera app probably works perfectly fluidly without hickups. Watch a video of Nokia's smartcam app that is required to get the best use out of those Lumia cameras. It's not smooth and pretty slow.

6. Future proof - iPhone hands down. You'll get every OS update, with the newest browser version and all the newest programs and versions and standards and support etc. You may not get the new gimmick feature of the new phone, but you'll get everything else. Windows phone used to be "Android never updates, Windows Phones will always get updates!", and just a few months later they told us that we won't get any updates except for one, which took them about a year to make and introduced nothing but more colors and a new homescreen layout. That's the story of windows phone. Updates that add 1-2 bullsht features take them FOREVER to make. We usually know about the next 1-2 updates half a year in advance, if not more. Everything is slow. I just received the GDR 3 and Lumia Black update yesterday. Those were released in October, but not-new phones are only getting them now, 5 months later. That's almost a quarter of a regular carrier contract. And it's like that every time, you get a WP, and you'll spend most of your contract time waiting for your phone to get to a usable and well finished level, and before it ever reaches that, you'll be eligible for an upgrade. What does GDR 3 and Lumia Black add? Nothing, really. GDR adds a small x in the app-switcher so you can "close" them (throw them out of it so when you open them anew, you don't get carried to your last point but get in fresh), and a rotation lock that I don't even know where to activate, because there's no quickly accessible toggle thing. It's probably in the settings, and how much sense does that make when you're inside an app? Exactly. Lumia Black adds nothing but updates on Nokia Apps. See, and that's what I waited over half a year for (the update was announced well before it was released, so you're waiting from that point on). The update doesn't even include a browser update to IE11 so the browser finally leaves the year 2012 and arrives in 2013. Meanwhile, it's already 2014 and the Update that'll bring a browser Update, WP 8.1, will probably not come out before June. So....great, right? By then it has been roughly a year since the current Update has been announced, and all the user has gotten was something that they should've had included at the original WP8 release 2 years ago, and that could've been made in less than one work-day by any developer, if the OS was open like Android. Meanwhile, there is still no notification center, no quick settings toggle bar, no folders (No, I don't count Nokias App that acts like a folder, because it takes you into an app and isn't on the homescreen), and a hundred other things that are missing since WP's original introduction in 2010 and which Microsoft still hasn't bothered to add. 4 Years (really 5 if we include the original work before the release of WP7) and they are still haven't added seperate volume controls, so your phone ringer doesnt turn silent if you don't want some youtube video to scream out on the train. Meanwhile, what has iPhone gotten in the same time? A million things. From iPhone 4 to iPhone 5s it went, and there's a lot of changes and new stuff added between them. Apple even managed to recognize fields in which the WP had superior design, admit it to themselves, copy it, program a new OS around it and include it, and publish it. In the time in which WP hasn't added proper memory management so apps don't crash, or something as simple as a close button in the multitasking view. People like to make fun of apple for "copying", but at least they recognize a superior function that they don't have, and include it into their os instead of ignoring it for 5 years. When Androids notification bar showed it's usefullness, Apple included it into iOS very quickly. WP STILL hasn't. The Internet Explorer Browser is still crippled and less functional than when it was first released. You only get ONE button, and it can either be tabs, or bookmarks, or stop/refresh. Instead of having all three, you have to pick. Also, you're limited to 6 tabs, and if you add one more by accident, the first one gets pushed out. It's very minimal and stripped down, and while that may have been fine years ago when phones and 3G were slower, and it's minimalism served a purpose to quickly look something up on the internet, it's out of place today when you need to navigate and browse complex websites, where it simply isn't good enough. The tabs are also a joke, because they loose their content, so even though you think you opened things in tabs and can then quickly swithc thorugh them, they haven't loaded in the background, and once you leave one and get back, it loads again instead of keeping the page in memory. This post is already way too long so I'll quit here, but don't come back in a month wining and saying that you haven't been warned. Why all these other people are pushing you and basically lying to you, I don't know, but it's probably 99% for themselves, to validate their own choice by converting someone to the mistake they've made, and 1% with your interest in mind. My post is 100% with your interest in mind, because I don't have a stake in which phone you use, and simply don't give a fck either way. I am just letting the man that is happy with the high priced luxury car that fit's his lifestyle and he already has, to not convert to a lemon just because very few people are very load.

Now everyone here will attack me on all sorts of levels and with all sorts of reasonings, saying how I don't own one, or how I am stupid because I don't know *this* obvious thing, or how I am lying because this or that is different then how they feel, or that I am some secret apple ninja infiltrator (because apple needs someone to go around to sell their product...). I just glanced over the thread, but I already see them providing you with plenty of hickhack advice on how to do things. That's so WP. "You can't do that in this simple and obvious way you are accustomed to - BUT, you can do it if you do this, and then this, and then that, and in the end you can do that, and then you'll have almost what you're looking for - not exactly, but, you know...you would have done something with the file you wanted to do something with, even if it isn't what your goal was".... all those workarounds and alternative apps and help yourself and patchy solutions by users - what if not those things are showing of the finishedness and quality of the OS? That alone should be enough to turn any serious user off of the products with that OS.

And before anyone asks why I even use a WP if it's so bad: Because my phone broke and at that time there was no decent Android phone in the price range of the Lumia I bought, and it was between the Lumia and one of those Nokia Asha 501 basic as it gets phones. I decided that the lowend smartphone was better than the 2008-level touchscreen-feature phone. and it is, it has a higher browsing speed than feature phones, it has better apps etc. etc... From that perspective, it's a good smartphone, when you look up at it from the feature phones. But when you look from the position of an iOS7 device, and the possibility to get the newest iPhone 5S, it's absolute sht and not to be recommended unless you hate that person and want to see him suffering.

So to sum it up, given your real world needs, absolutely ALL indicators are in favor of a new iPhone and completely against any Windows Phone. You might want to look into getting a larger device that properly syncs/connects to your iPhone's content for your business needs, but that's up to you what you feel you need or not.

 

[undulose]

I'm really confused as to why you haven't mentioned the features of "Find my iPhone" or the Microsoft equivalent: Find a lost phone | Windows Phone How-to (United States)

But anyways,

I've owned several phones:
1) LG Optimus 7 16GB (Windows Phone 7)
2) Samsung Galaxy S2 16GB (Running Android 2.3)
3) Google Nexus 16GB (Original, running Android 4)
4) iPhone 4S (16GB)
5) Nokia Lumia 920 (16GB)
6) iPhone 5S (16GB)

I come from an IT background, where I also dabble in photography and gaming. So this means that I also use several email services, and I tend to get a pretty broad experience of a phone and the app ecosystem.

Using a windows phone can be one of the best experiences you will ever have, with the fast transitions and snappy interface, I often would enjoy seeing things pop up on the home screen, and sometimes catch myself just moving through options without actually looking for anything. It can be that nice.

But, when you're looking for features that you're used to, or an app feature that doesn't exist on this platform, it can be frustrating. If you rely on google services, you might have to stay away from this phone. Google has pretty much blacklisted it. They blocked Microsoft from being able to develop a feature full app, making the youtube experience on Windows Phone less than average between the other platforms.

The same used to be said for Facebook, but since Windows 8.1 (not the phone, but the desktop) they released updates to the facebook app that bring it a lot closer to the iPhone and Android apps. It's still behind though.

I noticed you said you game with Words with Friends. Be aware that some games don't exist on Windows Phone. A popular game such as Candy Crush or Matching with Friends​ does not exist (yet).

About Google apps, yes, Google isn't very nice on MS, while Android even has licensed MS apps like OneNote and Sky/OneDrive.

I didn't installed the FB app (and even Twitter) on my phone because I find the People Hub to be sufficient for updates, but I go to the mobile browser if there's anything I can't do with People Hub or use my Android tablet.

In terms of photography, I also get around 300 ppi for full-res. images on my Nokia Lumia 1520. I'm just beginning to study photography and Camera Raw and I find my phone to be a good medium of learning, since my workmates even tease me positively that I am a pro when I handled our company's Nikon D700! ) I think no one else in this forum mentioned Nokia Camera, which has SmartCamera mode that can has an effect of placing multiple copies of a moving figure(s) on a single photo and background! It's awesome and I think it still has no Android or iOS counterpart!

In terms of OS, I find WP to have a high learning curve when you are a first-time user. I had an iPhone 5 before, and it's intuitively easier to use on the first time, but once you get the hang of it, you'll find WP to be very efficient, especially since it has the Live Tiles.

 

[Jason Ward]

Hi. The Following is long. It is my blog post entitled "My Road to the Lumia 1520" In it I share how I arrived at picking up this incredible device that I am writing this and wrote the entire blog post on. Take a walk with me...
My Road to the Nokia Lumia 1520 | Tech Word - Wards Word on Tech

My Road to the Nokia Lumia 1520

The Nokia Lumia 1520 AWESOME!
Full disclosure: I have been using Windows based smartphones since 2006. I started with the Cingular 2125 (Windows Mobile 5.0), then the ATT Tilt(8525)(Windows Mobile 6.0), then ATT Tilt 2(8925)(Windows Mobile 6.5), then HTC Titan(Windows PHONE 7.5), then Lumia 1020(Windows Phone 8) and now Lumia 1520 ( Windows Phone 8).
I?m an enthusiast! So the Titan was my first Windows PHONE device since Microsoft changed the OS. I skipped the first generation Windows Phones. Honestly the live tiles didn?t appeal to me (at first, my how things changed). I was accustomed to hacking, loading, changing (abusing ) my previous phones with the Windows Mobile OS since it was open, and the look and file management of a PC-like interface really appealed to me then.

In 2011 I started looking for a new phone. My contract was ended, ATT was courting me with deals to renew my contract. But I needed to do my research. A smartphone is a 2 year investment. You have to like what you get. So there were some hot devices in the market and (coming to market) as I discovered through my research. Forgive me for what I?m about to say but, the Samsung?s Galaxy S2 with its bright colors, and big clear display, caught my eye. Remember I was RESEARCHING and currently using the 3.5″ screen, slide-out keyboard equipped Tilt 2. (Note I had previously subscribed to the desire to ALWAYS have a phone with a keyboard since I used it to write.) Anyway a couple of other phones came into view, the massive 4.7″ HTC Titan was one. Now remember, phones had not yet gone huge. So this baby was big. Go ahead. Search the web for some of the old reviews and ads. You?ll see. But wait a minute. Though the S2 had drifted from view, Samsung wouldn?t leave me alone. They went and one-upped HTC and started tempting me with the 5.3″ Galaxy Note. 5.3 INCHES. FIVE-POINT-THREE INCHES! That was HUGE. And it had a pen, and could do all this cutting and pasting and drawing stuff with that pen. Dilemma, Dilemma, Dilemma.
I thought about it.
Two big phones. The note was launching in the US little later. Reviewers weren?t sure who the target was. It was thought by at least one I read that it was targeted for women due to its size. Maybe it would be safely tucked into a purse when not in use. I?m not a woman. But the large screen had its appeal.


But I also started reading about Windows Phone and what Microsoft was doing with the OS, the deep social network integration. Live Tiles that deliver live updates. Microsoft Office integration. Xbox Games integration. The whole glance an go philosophy. And the Me tile.(Really cool, its like a command center for your phone.) Pre -Siri Voice interaction. The Hubs. PEOPLE HUB-Contacts on steroids-nicely connected and integrated with social networks. MESSAGING HUB-One place with seamless communication via text, Messager and Facebook Chat. THE PICTURES HUB-All my photos that I?ve taken nicely arranged on my device AND all my Photos seamlessly integrated from Facebook and Skydrive AND my Social Network friends photos integrated as well AND a LIVE FEED of photos from social networks like Facebook and Twitter. Awesome. The Windows Phone OS created a seamless portal to the web. Though some data was online, you could view and interact with it as if it was on the device. Awesome. GAME HUB- Xbox gaming integration, achievements, Xbox Avatar. Nuff? said. MUSIC and VIDEO Hub- All my music that I load. Plus with the Music Pass I could listen to as much streaming music as I want. Watch and listen to Podcasts, etc.
OFFICE HUB-Word, Excel, PowerPoint (One Note then) all in one place. Create documents and save to the device or seamlessly to Skydrive to access from anywhere, from any device later. BING- And that awesome Bing button that gives you quick built in options for doing Shazaam Style music identification, various forms of optical scanning(barcode, book cover, language translation, etc). LOCAL SCOUT- Suggestions based upon my location for places to eat and things to do.(Note some of the finer points I discovered in use though most of this I discovered via research).
So after all this I set my eyes on the HTC Titan, with its 4.7″ display 8 megapixel csmera and shipping with Windows Phone 7.5(Mango) and its 500 modifications to the Windows Phone OS. I got it. It was BIG. I was happy.
Maybe a couple of months later the Titan 2 came out with a 16 megapixel camera. Really HTC?
We won?t go there. But we will go here. Windows Phone 8 was announced. ?Hope I can upgrade, hope I can upgrade, hope I can upgrade.?
Microsoft: Windows Phone 7.5 devices won?t be able to upgrade to Windows Phone 8.
?Bummer.?
Microsoft: But you can get Windows Phone 7.8 with the new Start Screen.
?I love the Start Screen with the resizable tiles. COOL!?
Months pass. More months pass. Turns out HTC passed on providing the 7.8 upgrade. ?Bummer.?

Nokia. They were doing great things. Getting great exclusive apps to the platform. Building awesome phones. Camera technology was, (excuse my slang), off the hook. I bought my wife the 920 for Christmas 2012. I wanted one. I was still in contract with my Titan. (Which I still liked by the way).
Started hearing some rumors(I?m a tech head, I follow tech news). I liked my big screen and hoped Nokia would make a big screen device. Heard and read some rumors of that possibly happening. But something else happened first. They went big another way. 41 megapixels big.
Early August 2013 so did I. I got the Nokia Lumia 1020. I LOVE THIS PHONE(Hold on I haven?t forgotten this is a 1520 review). Awesome photos, great Amoled clear black display. Did I mention AWESOME PHOTOS? Oh yeah, I did.
Anyway I bought this device after yearning for Windows Phone 8, and liking what the reviews were showing about the camera. I fancy myself an amateur, amateur mobile photographer. The 1020 is a great tool.
All that said. It had not satiated my desire for a large screen device. The 1020 at 4.5″ was .2″ smaller than my Titan. There were rumors if a 6″ Lumia. I saw pictures of part of it via the rumor mill on the web. It was HUGE. I wanted it.
I read about it. Followed its development. Noted its entry in the market. And then I SAW IT. I was in an ATT store. It wasn?t supposed to be available for a week or so. So when I looked over to the Windows Phone section and saw this BIG SCREEN device that towered over all of the other devices on the display I was drawn in. It was ?it?. The Nokia Lumia 1520 in black. I picked it up. ?HOLY COW? this thing was light. And THIN! The matte finish was smoothe, the edges were tapered. This smoothe black slate, was SURPRISINGLY sleek. Svelte. I turned it on. The 1080p HD screen was absolutely beautiful. The additional rolls of tiles on the large display did more for the home screen than I thought it could do. Its hard to put into words. But it seems to optimize the Windows Phone experience and OS. It looks like that?s the arrangement WP was meant for. You have to see it.
Then I opened Word. I Write. Word on the large display and the large keys was, beautiful. If I wasn?t sold before I was sold now. I needed(well actually I need food, clothes and shelter. And air. I need air). I wanted this phone.

Microsoft?s 12 days of deals before Christmas 2013. The first 20 customers at the Microsoft store get the 1520 free on contract. I follow the tech rumor mill, I saw the leak. I had a heads up about a week or so ahead. But how did it work? Did I have to camp out? Drive all the way there then find that the first 20 in line got the deal? I wasn?t camping out. I didn?t want it THAT bad.
So the day of the deal, I called the store, (paraphrased) ?Hi do you have any more 1520′s available under the free on contract deal.?
?No?
?Bummer?
Guess I wasn?t getting the 1520.
Then I remembered. There?s another Microsoft store in my area. I called them.(paraprased)
?Hi do you have any more 1520′s available under the free on contract deal??
?Yes?
?My name is?..I?ll be right there.?

I own the 16 gig version with expandable micro SD up to 64 GB and as I described above the build and display are awesome. Videos are beautiful. The photos I take with the 1020 and transfer to the 1520 look incredible on the 1520 HD display. The 1520′s camera is great in it?s own right,and if I owned exclusively the 1520, I would likely be more or less satisfied with the camera. But the 1020 takes the cake with photography and I use both devices as tools.
The 1520 is also great for surfing the web due to the large and beautiful display.
The Home Screens setup which allows for more Tiles- AWESOME. I think Microsoft with the Live Tiles is ahead of its time. The live data dynamically updating on, flipping, colorful, customizable, live tiles, observable at a glance on a 6 inch ?portable computer? that I can stick in my pocket giving me weather, email, social network updates, messages, pictures etc. is like something out of sci-fiction. IOS and Android(even with widgets) seem dull in comparison. -

You really have to see it. Play around with it in the store, arrange the tile as you would like to see them if it was your device to get a feel. Yes I think Microsoft is ahead of the time with Windows Phones 8 live tiles. And on this device they really shine. If you?ve never tried it, its different than iOS and Android but when you learn the OS, which is a cinch, WOW, its AWESOME! Also you often hear Window Phone doesn?t have a notification center like iOS and Android , and though there is no comprehensive centralized notification center as found on Android and iOS, as I mentioned Live Tiles provide updated info and notifications, but also the ?Me? Tile which is like your command center on Windows Phone and displays your image it also brings notifications to the surface by providing alerts/notifications from the OS level integrated Social networks of Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn by displaying notifications on the live ?Me? tile itself allowing you to see those at a glance. But the ?Me? tile takes things further allowing you to see your (Facebook, Twitter LinkedIn) notifications by clicking the ?Me? tile, and swiping left you reach the NOTIFICATIONS page and can view all of your Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn notifications(mentions, likes, comments, retweets, LinkedIn requests, etc.) located in that one centralized location/center. So Windows Phone DOES have a notification center just not as comprehensive as the one coming in the Windows Phone 8.1 update this Spring or that found on the two leading platforms. But to fail to communicate that there is a degree of centralized notification accessible on WP and leave an impression that such functionality is completely absent from the platform would not fairly communicate the scope of what one DOES get with the 1520 or any Windows Phone 8 device.
?
It probably doesn?t need to be mentioned that gaming on such a great screen is simply awesome. But I?ll say it. It?s simply awesome.
Now the Windows Phone OS has never needed bleeding edge specs because the OS is optimized for running on low spec hardware. Windows Phone even on low end devices is smooth, fast and zippy. So adding a quad core chip with 2 gigs of RAM adds a tad more zip,and enables the device to handle more intensive programs like graphics intensive games. Mostly because the OS didn?t really NEED high specs(though again there are some noticeable improvement) it future proofs the device for requirements that may be dictated by later upgrades to the OS and it puts it on par spec for spec with many Android devices on the market (which DO need high specs to run as smooth as WP). Bragging rights.

So, yeah and this thing is FAST. It has the latest cutting edge hardware. And if you didnt know Windows Phone is a ?light? OS and is designed to run buttery smooth on low and midrange hardware -which it does! Unlike Android, which (until Kit Kat which is on less than 5% Android devices) requires high end specs to run smoothly and still stutters and hangs, Windows Phone is swift and smooth and on the 1520 with its quad-core innards and 2gigs of RAM, an OS which ran great on less, is like a race car with nitro on the 1520.

The other functions like ?ROOMs? which allow you to have a private chat room experience with other WP8 users, which I use with my family and wife is AWESOME. The ?SHARED NOTE? aspect is VERY useful when grocery shopping with my wife, we split up and using a shared shopping list which we can update and sync as we get or add items is super handy and efficient. It cuts grocery shopping time down DRAMATICALLY! The ?SHARED CALENDAR? helps to keep the family on top of events. I have to say this ROOM functionality, using CHAT and the SHARED NOTE and CALENDAR was an AWESOME tool for my family and I as we planned my mother in laws surprise 60th birthday party!
Now I don?t have kids yet, but sis-in-laws do. Kid Zone is an understated little miracle on WP. It allows you to create a separate profile for your little one to play around with only games and apps YOU specify. Yep, all of your stuff and settings are locked away safely behind your profile.
The only cons I have is that as a phablet(I don?t like this word) the OS should have a couple of tweaks to utilize the extra screen real estate. Multiple apps simultaneously on screen. It is a ?Windows? Phone. A pen would be cool too. Even my Windows Mobile devices of old had handwriting recognition. Some modernizing of that application(digitizer) would be nice. Come on don?t get mad, everything can get better.
The phone is a delight. Its fun. Its useful. Its Awesome. All said I love the 1520 and I highly recommend it. Go get one now.

My Road to the Nokia Lumia 1520 | Tech Word - Wards Word on Tech

 

[Andri Triyono]

if you lose your nokia device :

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V_xQK8QBnT8&feature=c4-overview&list=UUMdtv1z_kXj7Wd97MA7BjXA

 

[Jason Ward]

"My Road to the Lumia 1520"
Tech Word - Wards Word on Tech | It's Deeper Than the Specs

 

[Tom_900]

I'm also a photographer (using a canon), I use the Lumia 920 and absolutely love it! I love the excellent manual camera controls (ISO, shutter speed, WB, focus and exposure (more controls such as RAW support on 1520 & 1020)). I love the fluidity of the OS. The app selection is pretty good now but not on par with iOS yet. I whole heartedly recommend a Lumia device! Don't be fooled by the number of Windows Phone users, it's a fantastic OS...

 

[anon(5333135)]

I found my way over here after reading the story on the main news feed of the site.

I can only speak for myself as I type this because I know some people have different opinions. I had a samsung omnia 7 with windows phone 7. Loved it.
Took it into the place where I work. (A college that is entirely Apple Mac, from the computers all the way down to the phones and tablets) Now I can't say that people were blown away by the phone but curiosity certainly started to creep in and I was getting people coming to me asking to see this new OS that no one had really seen before

After 2 years of working here I finally gave into peer pressure and got an iPhone 4s, the best iPhone at the time and it was the biggest mistake I have ever made.
There were some features of the iPhone that I liked. Loved the hardware, and the range of apps is fantastic, but iOS is stale. Its boring. (IMO)

So anyway, I suffered with it for 3 months and sold it, got myself a lovely HTC 8S (bottom of the range windows phone) and struggled with that for about a year.
Then something magical happened. I discovered the Lumia Range. At the time I could only afford the 520 (Bottom of the Range Lumia) but wow what a difference compared to the 8S.
I knew from then that I would not change OS again for a long time

I now own a 1520 and having such a big phone has made me realise that it is the way forward. The screen is phenomenal. I can comfortably write emails, documents and spreadsheets. Switch up and watch a 1080p movie. The 32 GB is enough for me, but for the hell of it, i Popped in a 64GB Micro SD and I don't think I will ever run out of space.

The thing that I love most about windows phone is the home screen. I can customise that to my hearts content to show what I want it to show. Also the social integration into the OS is phenomenal.

If you are an app lover, I would say not to worry, there is a very strong set of developers for WP and some of the "indie" apps are far far better than the official ones!

I hope this gave a little insight for you

 

[Usman Mubashir]

Your best bet will be Lumia 1520. Let me show you how and why:

1. It is always better to store apps and photos in the phone and not the sd card as it gets slow and as you said, someone can get your work. in this prespective, the Lumia 1020 won't be a bad choice either as it does not has sd card support. On a 1520, you can store everything but apps and -if you decide so- your photos to the sd card.

2. Let me clear one thing for you. Mac is not more secure than Windows only because it has less attacks. Windows has 92% market in the world so it seems beneficial to any hacker to attack windows rather than macs. in smart phones, you know WP has 8% market, that makes it the most secure system then as hackers will be focusing on android and ios. But I believe MS has a lot of experience tackling these hackers on Windows so they will at least show more resistance on their WP.

If anyone wants to hack you, he/she will hack you no matter which system you use or what security you have. That is decided.

3. Apps, now we have a little head scratch here. but at least they are coming and/or coming soon. Windows Phone has picked up steam and it is the only large collection of apps besides ios and android stores. all the rest can only think of allowing android apps to run on their OSs. And the best thing is the apps on WP look and perform far better than their counterparts on other platforms. Google may soon launch official youtube app, but many people will use metro tube because the experience is so awesome, it is not found anywhere else. Even other platforms are trying to copy the way WP is designed in order to get more downloads of their apps.

4. I adored the picture quality of the iPhone, but that was before i held a lumia 720. the 1520 blows the floor off the iphone and My god dear friend Lumia 1020 is THE god of camera phones. If you go to extreme is showing your love to your photos (as you did when you explained you watermark your photos) look no further than the 1020. There is a whole new world out in the 1020 man.!

5. MS launched windows XP in 2002, now after several kill dates it has finally been discontinued support after 12 long years! still even they gave us several schemes and compensations if we upgraded from xp. I believe that after MS's Nokia purchase, people from Nokia will work for Microsoft. And its no secret that Nokia has best customer support! SO there you go, two companies who gave their customers great priority are together, do you still doubt you will not be supported 2, 3 or 12 years after your purchase

If I were you and if I really had to get a phone today, I'd settle with 1520. Its fast, its big and has a beefy battery. only thing to lose; that gorgeous AMOLED screen and some 20 million pixels
Or if the purchase could wait, I'd probably wait for the next big thing, the 1020's successor. It will be faster no doubt, It will have WP8.1 and with some luck it might include a sd card crucial for those 40mbyte photos!

See you soon

 

[TheNet Avenger]

1) WP is more cloud centric, you won't need as much on device space. Photos get uploaded at full resolution when you hit a WiFi spot, or low resolution over cellular. You can keep your Camera Roll empty and STILL have access to all your photos, in fact your entire collection of photos, as they all appear in the Photo Hub via SkyDrive. So the only space you 'consume' is what you are taking before they get uploaded. (I have over 100,000 full resolution photos that I can preview and access on my phone, use virtually no device space.)

2) Security. WP was designed with a new security model that iOS/Android and no other OS currently has. It isn't just that it has a low user base, it is Apps cannot bypass the isolation layers to touch the OS or other Apps EVER. (Read the recent NSA documents, they haven't found a way to malware to monitor/track WP users.) - There has been ZERO malware on WP7/WP8.

3) Apps - WP8 has caught up. With regard to games, this last year companies have ported over their gaming engines since they have full DirectX (not a mobile API like OpenGL ES). This is why Nov/Dec/Jan there have been a huge release of current games on WP8, and newer games are releasing at the same time on all platforms. They are also often 'more' featured as DirectX offers more graphical features than Android or iOS .

4) Picture Quality - Even a 925/928 Nokia with 8mp is going to beat the new iPhone 5s. They have OIS and perform better in low light than the iPhone by a huge magnitude. Using the Nokia Camera App, you can achieve shots no other Camera Phone can. As for the 1020/1520 - 41mp/20mp - For use on the phone and general use, they do resample down to 5mp. However, you still have access to the FULL resolution image. So if you send a photo by Text/Email it isn't going to jam a 41mp image as it would eat bandwidth and the other users couldn't view it anyway, that is why it makes incredible looking 5mp versions for you to use from the phone. The full 20mp and 41mp images are still there and can be transferred to your Mac/PC, and yes their quality is worth it. (So if you go with an 8mp phone like the Nokia 925/928 you will be upgrading from the iPhone, and if you pick a 1520/1020 or the upcoming Verizon 929, you will have a real 20mp or 41mp camera.)

5) Microsoft has committed a lot of money to WP with plans to support it for several years. The future is also bright, as Microsoft plans to fully merge WP and Windows Apps, with WP8.1 coming in a couple months, this gets closer, and by WP9/Windows9, they should be running the same Apps. Microsoft would have to let Windows itself die and they won't, as it is still the most used OS in the world even counting mobile devices.

Other things you might like is the Hub concepts, the People Hub integration, where you can flip it open and read twitter, facebook, etc without even using the specific Apps. A lot of information is available really fast.

The People hub is also smart by integrating with Twitter/Facebook/etc. It also keeps track of all your emails, conversations, calls, messages. Open a person's contact and flip to History to see everything you have ever said or done with the person. (Handy when remembering an Email from 2001 while on the phone with them.)

As I said it is 'cloud' centric, so you can even have your entire Inbox with 500,000 messages going back to 1995 all on your phone and searchable. It can handle HUGE data sets without any performance penalty.

The Office is also 'cloud' centric, so all your SkyDrive Office files are always available.

WP8 smart 'caches' everything you have on SkyDrive. So if you open a document, it puts it on the phone for fast local access, and also keeps it in sync with the SkyDrive copy. This way you get the speed of local access of content, but can have literally 200gb of documents available to you on your phone at any time.

(I have my entire document collection on SkyDrive, and thus on my WP, it has access to all of them as well. So if I want to review a contract from 1993, I can search for it and open it natively from anywhere in the OS, like Office.)

Even your Music collection can be both local and cloud hosted, so you don't have to worry about bandwidth, but also don't have to ever be without a song. (If you move up to Xbox Music Pass, you have virtually any song ever made available at anytime as well, but that is an additional luxury.)


Good luck and hope you at least give it a try...

 

[MicrosoftWinPho]

I've got both the 1020 and the 1520. The SD card is formatted as FAT32 in mine but I've heard rumours that once WP8.1 comes out you'll be able to bitlock your SD card. I don't know if it would accept a SD card in NTFS or exFAT. Also the card can't be pulled out with fingers from a 1520, you'd need a needle to remove it.

 

[Planet X]

The iPhone only has on button on the buttom of the screen. I could not live with just one option and no back button anymore. The second part is that the screen of the iPhone just looks static with all the icons everywhere. I could not live with that either. Don't talk about Photo's...

 

[Miska Hietala]

Well, for me the deal breaker will be the nokia phones feature to use them with gloves on. As I live in a country which has most time of the year very cold(Finland). Been iPhone user first and then android tinkerer for a 3 years now. Grew bored of android as a platform (yes, it does lag even with 4.4.1). And as I have followed wp for a couple of months, it seems they are trying something unique here which is very nice within the current smartphone market. Will wait for next gen wp phones which will be announced this month. Was first thinking 1020 but as I heard the time to take a picture with is is too long (4-7sec from pocket to picture). 925 would be nice but will wait if it gets a updated version soon. I know hardware shouldn't matter much on wp...I guess I cheat myself to think if I have moar processor power or full HD screen it stands better against time.

 

[Moaske]

Since the thread has grown so long already this might have been answered already: but regarding the DPI's I'd like to point out that ANY digital camera outputs 72dpi images. Just check the jpg's of your Nikon shooter and you'll see they open in 72dpi. The dpi resolution is however totally irrelevant: the only thing you can read from this is how many pixels get put in one inch. To give an example: if you have 7200 pixels wide image, that 72dpi only means you can print it up to 100 inches with a 'sharpness' of 72 image dots to the inch.
Roughly you could state that 72dpi translates to displaying an image on an electronic display (however these days the displays get so much higher). Inkjet printers are roughly comparable (hardwarewise!, without al the oversample tricks!) to 150dpi and the human eye is on average capable of discerning around 300dpi on which resolution a chemicaly developed photo is being printed usually.
So the actual thing of interest is still only the absolute amount of pixels any given camera produces. The dpi's you can set to whatever you'd like in Photoshop for instance and it will only tell you what printed size you can reach on given resolution (dpi's).

Having said that: the Lumia Pureview camera's are unique so far in being able to produce DNG files (RAW image data) just like your Nikon does, which I supspect are being set to 300dpi already. The enormous amount of surplus pixels however is being used very smartly to eliminate noise and increase sharpness for the downsampled JPG's. This is not applicable to the DNG's ofcourse which are fullsize.
Hope this helps

 

[Jason Ward]

***READ THIS POST***READ THIS POST***READ THIS POST***
First I would like to say that I have influenced several people into switching to Windows Phone
1. Mother - Samsung Focus
2. Wife - Samsung Focus then Lumia 920
3. Brother- Huwai(He was trying to decide between WP and Android that he could buy no contract.
4. Sister-in-Law (L.E)- Lumia 520
5. Sister-in-Law(M.E)-Lumia 928
6. Sister-in-Law(S.A) -Lumia 928
7.Father-in-Law -Lumia 920(which got stolen and replaced with) Lumia 925.(Father in Law actually prefers weight of 920)
8.Friend from Church- Lumia 520
9. Another Friend from Church -Lumia 920

***Me Lumia 1020 and Lumia 1520 ****
Since you are considering both of these devices I encourage you, in addition to all of the great advice here, to check out my blog posts where I have written about each.

The Nokia Lumia 1020 a True Cameraphone
Nokia Lumia 1020 ? A True Cameraphone by Jason L Ward | Tech Word - Wards Word on Tech...

My Road to the Lumia 1520
My Road to the Nokia Lumia 1520 | Tech Word - Wards Word on Tech

You may also find interesting this totally speculative piece regarding a possible strategy by Nokia/Microsoft that may add hundreds or thousands more developers, over time, to the already growing developer pool for the Windows Phone ecosystem that you are considering buying into.
Nokia Normandy Nokia's/Microsoft's Trojan Phone
The Nokia Normandy: Nokia’s (Microsoft’s?) Trojan Phone by Jason L Ward | Tech Word - Wards Word on Tech...