Should I switch to WP8?

[Vectraat]

Hello all..

As the title suggests I'm wondering if I should switch to WP8 or stick with what I have.
I've used an iPhone 3GS and I now have a Samsung Galaxy S3, but I have to say I've been disappointed with the Android experience.

I really like the look of the WP8 UI, the speed and fluidity of the OS.(Granted this is only from a total of 30 minutes on-hands experience at stores.)
I'm disappointed that 4 applications I use are absent, but I think I can live with that. I'm mainly looking for a good stock experience. (I do not use many apps nor care about apps in general.)
I care about functionality out of the box.

But after conducting my own research I'm not sure if It's a good idea to switch? I've read a lot of negative things about WP8 devices.
I really wanted to get a Nokia Lumia 920, but I see a lot of people complaining even after a software update. (Portico)

1.) Camera issues (even after update)
2.) Very hot near the top.
3.) Rebooting issues (maybe on all WP8 devices) ?

Maybe I should wait for Catwalk, EOS, or Laser?

I could have written more here, but just wanted to give a general overview so people actually read. ;o

 

[DaveGx]

If I were still on Android now, I would wait until the next WP8 update to see how much MS is actually putting into WP and see their dedication.
There are several basic things missing still. At least with Android, you know there is next to nothing you can't do. You also have a lot more choice in features and basic apps. Many things on WP are limited and you have 1 option in some cases like keyboard, email app for example.

No notifications as of now, no file explorer, OS is extremely locked down, no advanced sound options.

I'd really think about it if I were you and think about what you do with your Android phone. No matter how basic it may seem, there's a good chance you wont be able to do it with a WP. Get more detailed in your next post and ask what you may initially not think to ask.

 

[Axefield]

I would wait for the Lumia with monster camera from PureView 808.

 

[FinancialP]

You'll need more like a month to see if you really like it. Make the switch. At least you know how Android is, now find out what Windows Phone is like.

 

[Vectraat]

If I were still on Android now, I would wait until the next WP8 update to see how much MS is actually putting into WP and see their dedication.
There are several basic things missing still. At least with Android, you know there is next to nothing you can't do. You also have a lot more choice in features and basic apps. Many things on WP are limited and you have 1 option in some cases like keyboard, email app for example.

No notifications as of now, no file explorer, OS is extremely locked down, no advanced sound options.

I'd really think about it if I were you and think about what you do with your Android phone. No matter how basic it may seem, there's a good chance you wont be able to do it with a WP. Get more detailed in your next post and ask what you may initially not think to ask.

1.) Any idea when the next WP8 update will hit?
2.) Are there still rebooting issues with WP8 devices?
3.) Are there still camera woes with the 920 after the update or is this issue exaggerated?
4.) Does the top of the phone still heat up like crazy?
5.) Battery life issues even after update?
6.) Does the UI and overall speed of WP8 slow down after a few months or does it always stay fluid?
7.) I realize there's no notifications center like there is in Android, but from what I'm aware if you're sent an SMS/E-mail etc - it will display at the top of the phone and eventually fade. Messages show on the lock screen as well as on the applications themselves at the home screen, so how is this not good enough?
8.) No file explorer? So are you telling me I can't drop files (Photos/Video) in respective folders on the phone and have them show up on the device? Sorry that comment is a bit confusing to me.

I don't like the keyboard experience on Android. I much preferred the iOS keyboard. I currently use Swiftkey from the app store which I think is better than stock, but I still don't care for it that much.

I guess what I mostly care about in a phone are these things:

1.) Speed/Fluidity of the OS (WP8 seems to excel in that area.) Actually WP8 seems more fluid than my S3. My S3 tends to show dropped frames every now and then when exiting applications and sometimes some sluggishness when texting (Not often) Even when I load up SMS it seems kinda sluggish. (When it comes to displaying the contacts.) Coming from a 3GS it just seems like Android is kinda glitchy at times. The experience doesn't seem as polished as iOS and it hurts me to say that 'cause I hate Apple and wanted Android to be my savior lol.

2.) The look of the OS. (Ya, if I'm going to use it every damn day I want it to look great, and I think Android is ugly.) I know I can change the lock screen and launcher which I've done, but SMS still looks like some Windows 95 ****. I'm not digging the customization of Android like I thought I would. 3rd party SMS apps etc seem flakey. I do not want to root and spend forever trying to customize, test and get things to work, I just want a fresh aesthetically pleasing experience out of the box. I want the default applications/experience of the phone to WORK.

3.) A good keyboard (I guess that's subjective.) But if I hate the stock Android keyboard am I going to hate the Windows keyboard? It's difficult for me to tell being that all the WP8 devices I've tried are always locked down to prevent theft and I can't grip the phone proper.

4.) Good note taking experience.

5.) Good Calendar. I hate the Android / Samsung Calendars. Liked the iOS calendar better.

6.) Stable OS without random glitchy **** happening. Sometimes when I text on my S3 I'll see some distortion on screen like a blink/flash of lines and this is my second S3, so it isn't a hardware issue. I just don't like random glitchy stuff like that.

7.) Good camera experience.

8.) Good maps experience. (Nokia maps on WP8 seem faster than Google maps on my S3.)

9.) Good SMS experience.

I dunno I guess when it comes down to it I really don't NEED my phone to do that much, I just want it to do basic things very WELL and look good in the process.

If there was some way to test the device for a week or two I'd know for sure, but there's no way for me to do that so all I can do is ask questions and play around with WP8 devices from time-to-time in the store.

I'm almost considering going back to iOS after this Android experience, but I don't want to do that 'cause I don't like Apple and I find the UI terribly boring/stale at this point, but hey **** worked and the aesthetics are more appealing to me than Android. (Seems more refined)

 

[explosive0]

I switched from iOS to Windows Phone 8, and I can tell you this - the OS is fluid and smooth. That said, I ended up going back to iOS because of the lack of apps and little annoyances that Microsoft has blatantly ignored. I even got a Surface Pro to keep me in the MS ecosystem, that didn't help much. The issues I had are:

1. Lack of apps: Many people on here claim they don't need apps and can always find third-party replacements. I went that route for a while, but found out I was lying to myself. Just the other day, Mint came out to say they have no plans for a WP8 app. The list goes on.

2. Music player: It's plain abysmal, and the fact that there's no gapless playback just leaves me speechless.

3. Little annoyances: Phone bricking when you try to reset, restarts, bluetooth issues etc.

I'll give Windows Phone another try in maybe a year or two. For now, it's back to iOS for me.

 

[Vectraat]

I switched from iOS to Windows Phone 8, and I can tell you this - the OS is fluid and smooth. That said, I ended up going back to iOS because of the lack of apps and little annoyances that Microsoft has blatantly ignored. I even got a Surface Pro to keep me in the MS ecosystem, that didn't help much. The issues I had are:

1. Lack of apps: Many people on here claim they don't need apps and can always find third-party replacements. I went that route for a while, but found out I was lying to myself. Just the other day, Mint came out to say they have no plans for a WP8 app. The list goes on.

2. Music player: It's plain abysmal, and the fact that there's no gapless playback just leaves me speechless.

3. Little annoyances: Phone bricking when you try to reset, restarts, bluetooth issues etc.

I'll give Windows Phone another try in maybe a year or two. For now, it's back to iOS for me.

2.) Gapless playback? I find it kinda silly how there's no slider to progress or rewind the track. But I don't use my phones for music playback so I'm not that concerned.

3.) What Windows Phone did you have wherein it restarted and how often did it restart? Your phone really corrupted/bricked when you tried to reset?

 

[Jaskys]

If I were still on Android now, I would wait until the next WP8 update to see how much MS is actually putting into WP and see their dedication.
There are several basic things missing still. At least with Android, you know there is next to nothing you can't do. You also have a lot more choice in features and basic apps. Many things on WP are limited and you have 1 option in some cases like keyboard, email app for example.

No notifications as of now, no file explorer, OS is extremely locked down, no advanced sound options.

I'd really think about it if I were you and think about what you do with your Android phone. No matter how basic it may seem, there's a good chance you wont be able to do it with a WP. Get more detailed in your next post and ask what you may initially not think to ask.

OS locked for security and fluidity purposes.
There's notifications.
And if you want a toy you need to get android, if you need more mature phone get Windows phone 8 or iOS.

 

[Keith Wallace]

To progress a track on Windows Phone, you press and hold the Skip button. The same goes for rewinding a track using the Previous button.

To try to cover some of this, I'll star with the simple answer: I would wait until the next hardware refresh. As you already see, Android is in the process of refreshing its hardware with the HTC One, and the new Galaxy device from Samsung is due to be announced in about 2 weeks. If this was November, I'd say get the 920, but if you get the 920 NOW, you might see it replaced with a better device in a couple of months (seeing as it's not uncommon for devices to have 6-month life cycles, and the Lumia 900 was refreshed after about 6 months, to the 920).

To cover those 9 points you had previously:

1. Fluidity: For the most part, the OS is VERY fluid. Some apps might not be at times, but I've never had an issue of hiccups or slowdowns with the actual OS.

2. I cannot offer anything on this. Aesthetics are 100% personal. I like the look of the OS as a whole, but that's me. I prefer using an image as my lock screen over my wallpaper like on Android, where the icons cover the image. However, it's really just something you have to figure out for yourself. My only complaint is that they need a color wheel for live tiles, rather than only giving you about 20 options to choose the live tile colors from.

3. I tried texting a little on my brother-in-law's Galaxy S III, but only once (he left the phone at my house and my sister texted him). I hated the keyboard myself, and I felt that the spacebar was WAY too small. I still feel like Windows Phone would benefit from a bigger one (I hit the lower row of letters quite frequently while trying to hit the spacebar). As a whole, I'd say that the Windows Phone keyboard is MUCH better than the stock Android one (I had an HTC Droid Incredible for 2 years, so I have extensive experience using it), both in typing experience and predictive texting. I will say that I think SwiftKey (pretty much the top third-party keyboard on Android) had better predictive texting than Windows Phone's keyboard, in my opinion. SwiftKey seemed to really catch on to my vocabulary quickly, where as Windows Phone STILL misses a lot of what I want to say.

4. I cannot help on that one, as I don't do this. OneNote is allegedly good and built into the OS, so that might be good for you.

5. I actually hate the calendar. It defaults to opening on a current day, not the month. It also seems to put the text in calendar view in another language or something, which is annoying. I don't use my calendar, but I was just trying it out a little, and noticed that. So, again, it might work for you, but I don't use it, so I don't know if it's good. There is likely an app available that will provide you a good calendar on Windows Phone AND Android, though.

6. That's something I never had on my Droid Incredible OR my Lumia 920, so you needn't worry about having that happen. I have had the browser act up a little on occasion, though. It'll kind-of lock up if I try to rapidly press Back to close the browser, which requires pressing back until you get to the page you had opened initially.

7. I LOVE the camera on my 920. For starters, the camera button is a great thing. You don't need to open the phone and find the camera application, then make sure you don't accidentally hit the wrong icon (sounds like a silly hypothetical, but I've done it many times--open the wrong application). The Lumia 920's got the BEST camera on a smartphone (outside of the 808 PureView), no question. I've compared mine to my brother-in-law's Galaxy S III a couple of times, and the low-light performance wasn't close AT ALL. I don't do any photo editing or anything, but there are some basic settings to help you out with getting a decent picture (for example, I've taken pictures of my TV, and turned down the exposure to make what was on the screen reasonably readable). Oh, and I like opening the camera, then having a button to switch to video, rather than Android's preference to have separate applications to start picture and video.

8. This depends on your desired use. Google Maps is more detailed and has StreetView, which Nokia Maps (now called HERE Maps) has nothing to counter. However, the nice upside to HERE Maps (I hate the rebranding, I really do) is the offline maps usage. My brother-in-law said that Android only allows the downloading of 88 MB of map info to his Galaxy S III for offline use. It covers about 2 hours of driving, I think. However, Nokia allows you to download an entire country (or multiple countries, I guess). The United States is about 2.5 GB. In December, we had a bachelor party for my brother-in-law, and so I downloaded Illinois and Missouri to my phone so we could find where to go without data usage. IT was about 250 MB of storage to get both states, but it was nice to not be using data.

9. This really isn't something I can say is better or worse than Android. It's texting, and the only thing that'll make one better than the other is your keyboard preference.

 

[explosive0]

I can't count how many times it restarted. Search the forums, you'll see a **** load of people complaining about their phones bricking when they perform a hard reset.

 

[tgp]

if you need more mature phone get Windows phone 8 or iOS.

Sorry, but "mature" and "Windows phone" do not belong in the same sentence!

 

[summer600]

Short answer: Yes. Forums tend to attact complainers and fanboys so you get a skewed view of how the Phone actually is. From what you explained about your type of usage I would say there is not that much chance that you run into problems. Just do it.

 

[clbarker10]

Listen, if your not app crazy (like me) WP8 has a specific strength. WP8 along with blackberry, in my opinion are not app based experiences. What I mean is basically if you strip all the apps from android and apple you have a lesser core phone experience in comparison to WP8 and Blackberry. Mind you, I do enjoy them all when It comes to the basics but the experience is just different for me. a minimalist, It just comes down to simple UX functionality with me...an operating system that is very functional and fluid in a barebones perspective.

 

[pulkit10]

Just by looking at your list, I can tell that a Windows Phone device will serve you well. Your only gripe might be that there are certain functions that Microsoft hasn't put into the OS yet and hence, cannot be performed. I personally have no such issues with the OS but I realize that other people do so to keep it short, I'd recommend going for a WP device. Just wait a little longer to see if new devices are coming out...(even though the Lumia 920 is a fine device).

 

[ninjaap]

Stop waiting. Switch now. The sooner you switch the sooner you can upgrade to the next one (be it another WP, Android or iOS).

 

[spizzlee]

I've had mine for about a month now, had to put a down payment of $500 since I haven't bothered to build up credit. I started with the Galaxy S Fascinate on Verizon and saw the HTC EVO 4G LTE and wanted that, so i payed the early termination fee and made the jump. I always wanted a Windows phone but didn't have the money to make that kind of jump again. At some point i decided i could and threw my cash at AT&T for the Lumia 920. So glad I made the jump. I experienced maybe 1 or 2 random resets but thats it. Never had any other problems, I even convinced my mom to get the 822 on Verizon so she could have her first "smartphone" and shes very happy with it. I do wish we had proper Instagram but thats really the only app I care for. Soon i feel like we will have the notifications system a lot of people here are longing for along with some other new things. I say go for it!

 

[Daylife]

Mine has never frozen or reset on me.

WP8 has the best keyboard hands down, most fluid hands down. Nokia built the best phone hardware hands down. I say try it out and if you don't like it go iOS or the galaxy s4.
Sent from my Nokia Lumia 920 using Board Express

 

[Nimdock]

Yes.

 

[failed1234]

Mine has never frozen or reset on me.

WP8 has the best keyboard hands down, most fluid hands down. Nokia built the best phone hardware hands down. I say try it out and if you don't like it go iOS or the galaxy s4.
Sent from my Nokia Lumia 920 using Board Express

Yeah, get the S IV with a starting price of $200+ on contract.

 

[Midnight City]

Yes, you will like the fresh & fluid OS.

Mine has never frozen or reset on me.

WP8 has the best keyboard hands down, most fluid hands down. Nokia built the best phone hardware hands down. I say try it out and if you don't like it go iOS or the galaxy s4.
Sent from my Nokia Lumia 920 using Board Express

That title belongs to BlackBerry Z10.