Some general questions about Lumia 920/ W8 phone

[avoidconfusion]

Hi all,

First of all, I realize that these questions are possibly questions about W8 phones in general but since I am looking the Lumia 920 specifically I thought I'd ask them here.
Second, I have never had a Windows Phone before. My last phones were iPhone 3, 4, 4S and about 2 months ago I bought a Samsung Galaxy S3 LTE on Orange and unlocked it to use Three.

Now I have to say I quite like the Android OS , certainly prefer it over the iPhones for sure, but I have had a SERIOUS itch for a Lumia 920 for a while... in fact if the Lumia had not been released that late, I would have bought a 920 instead of the S3.

But I have some questions which are quite basic:

1. On the S3 (or I suppose any Android device), when I film a video I can then share it via Youtube (or email it if it isnt too big) immediately from the Gallery/Camera. Is that possible with the Lumia 920/W8 phones?
2. Similarly for pictures, with the S3 I can share them with Facbook, email them, tweet them etc etc. Does that work on the Lumia?
3. Can you run other browsers other than IE on the phone? Obviously there is a multitude of browsers on Android... not that I need that if IE works fine...
4. Can I do tethering on the Lumia?
5. When I get an Email/ SMS/ Facebook comment/ miss a phone call etc... will I be notified?

At the moment I am thinking about putting my S3 on eBay and hopefully getting a decent amount of money for it still since it is only like less than 2 months old.

... and I want to get a Lumia 920... on Orange, and then I want to unlock it... now I realize that unlocking the 920s is apparently still not really possible in the UK, at least I have not heard anything back from the people who tried UnlockFrog and Funfoneshop etc yet in other threads here to say otherwise.


Thanks for your feedback!

 

[karmamule]

Yes it's very easy to share photos or videos from the gallery right to e-mail (it even shows the various accounts you could choose from if you have multiple), bluetooth, tap & send, facebook, linked in, twitter, and any other app that cares to register itself as "photo receptive".

The phone is capable of tethering if your plan allows it (I do it all the time).

There are alternative browsers. I've used SurfCube, which is gimmicky but fun. You won't find Chrome or Safari or Firefox on there though...

EDIT: forgot to mention that you can set up live tiles to show you new emails, sms, etc, so that's very easy too. You can also see that sort of thing integrated into the OS all over the place, e.g. in individual's tiles, or on your own tiles notifications etc.. Windows Phone tries to minimize "app hopping" for these sorts of common activities, so for example it provides "person-centric" ways to do things. Pin a tile for your best friend to the screen and all his/her e-mails, SMS messages, tweets, facebook rants, etc. are all centralized in that one tile. I love it! (Past IOS and android user too)

 

[avoidconfusion]

Hi Karmamule,

Thanks for your answer, much appreciated!

You mentioned Email, Facebook, Twitter etc... what about YouTube? Does the W8 version of the YouTube App (I assume there is one?) allow you to share videos immediately as well?

 

[Dane4188]

Hi mate, your doing exactly same thing i did this week, i sold my S3 on ebay and bought the lumia 920. and i also need to unlock it.

with regards to you questions, yes to all of them. except i dont think you can upload to youtube natively like in android. and there is no notification center on wp8, but its not sorely mised with live tiles, your start streen is kind of like your notification center and home screen all in one.

i spent years on iPhone, then got bored of the os, overpriced new iphones with little new features, so i decided to move to android on the s3, which was cool, the android os lets you do anything you can think of, but genrally i found it too buggy, and kind of cheap and unpolished. i found the S3 to be really plastic and felt awful to hold in one hand, and paying ?500 i felt like i had been ripped off with a second rate phone, i wish i had gone with the one x tbh.

my s3 was 6 months old, generally it was in great condition, apart from a few very light scratches on the screen. i chose to sell it for ?300 'buy it now' on ebay for a quick sale, it sold in like 20 mins. i definitely could have got more for it though and if yours is only 2 months old and in as good as new condition, i would look at listing it ?350-400.

so i decided to make the jump to windows phone, and debated which phone to get. it came down to the nokia's since they have the best maps and turn by turn nav built, and the nokia music app is amazing for streaming and downloading good mix's, i seriously debated wether i evan need put any of my own music on.

i bought the sim free 920 red from phones4u, which is locked to EE, orange and tmobile, and i would really like to use it on giffgaff, so have been searching around for the best unlock option.

the unlock seems pretty rare, and like you ive seen many people talking about unlocks from unlockfrog (?54) and fonefunshop (?30) but havnt heard any results yet. im sure if they say they can do it, then im sure they can. i paid fonefunshop yesterday, but it can take up to 10 days to receive the code.

a part from the hiccup of unlocking the phone, the lumia 920 is an amazing phone in its self. it feels solid, premium, the screen is amazing, and my favourite part is the camera and its dedicated button. having been quite anti microsoft in the past, im really impressed and love the windows phone os. it looks stunning, and generally is just a massive breath of fresh air from the standard outdated pages of apps in ios and android. ive had a few problems with not finding some apps i use to use a lot, like viber and whatsapp, but i know the devs are bringing them to wp soon. i think wp8 is really catching on especially with the great selection of phones to run it, and over the next year theres gona be a big increase in size of the app store to catch up to the ios and android stores. certainly microsoft and nokia are putting in alot of effort developing more apps, and so i hear the windows phone app store is actually one of the most profitable for developers at the moment.

hope this helps

 

[sugarsmax321]

I purchased my unlocked Lumia 920 from GSM Nation. They only sell unlocked, carrier free phones. Mine came from Poland, and says "Orange" when I turn it on. Idk if that's what you're looking for, but I run mine on Straight Talk unlimited everything plan for $45 a month. WiFi is prevalent where I live, so I hardly touch my data plan. Couldn't be happier with my phone or my plan, since I would have easily paid well over $100 a month with Verizon.