Switching from Android to Windows Phone.

[JoseAngelMuyoz]

Hello to everyone.
Ok, first, thank you to all of you who will help me.
As I said before, I want to move to Windows Phone, but there are some key aspects that put me off. I mean, I want to buy a Nokia Lumia 1520 but I have some questions.

1) The number of apps. In Android i use everyday an app called "Weather and News" by Samsung. Do I have a news app with content in spanish where i can decide which type of news i want to read, e.g, just Technological news?

2) The keyboard. I love the new Android?s L Keyboard its gorgeous and really useful, but I find the Windows Phone horrible, its really ugly. But OK, leaving this aside. Is the WP8.1 useful and better than Android ?

3) The games. I play several games during the day. Plants vs Zombies, Springfield... Could I find really good games at the Windows Phone Store? E.g, shoter games, addictive games?

Ok, now just referring to the 1520.

1) The outdoor visibility of the screen. Is it good?

2) The camera. Does it take awesome photos and record great videos with a clear audio?

3) Google Drive. I write everyday documents in google docs while i use my computer. There is any WP app to write on the Lumia on google docs? Or any way to do it? If I move all my documents to Skydrive and start using Word, could I start writing a document on my laptop and then continue wrting on my Lumia?

Thank you and if you want please correct all my mistakes :smile:

 

[enzom09]

I'll answer as many questions as I can.

1. I'm sorry I don't know of any news apps with content in Spanish, mainly because I don't speak Spanish. You might see if you can maybe look it up on the windowsphone website?

2. I personally love the keyboard on my windows phone. Aside from it i can only compare it to the iphone and blackberry keyboard. The new wordflow features is amazing in 8.1 and it holds the record for fastest text (beating android's swype).

3. Plants vs zombies is on there, however the second one is not. I don't know what springfield is and I looked it up and I don't see it, so my guess is no. There are good games available on the platform. Plenty of shooter games (Halo SA, MC4, Mass Effect, and many other indie ones) I just don't play them on my phone. There are a lot of games on the platform, ones i would call addicting, but to each their own.

As to the phone itself:

1. I can speak on behalf of the 925, but i believe all the high end Lumias have the sunlight readabilty feature and it is amazing. I can literally walk outside in bright sunlight and see the screen perfectly.
2. Again speaking for the 925 and I can only assume the 1520 is even better, but the cameras are great, and you get RAW image support with the 1520. They also added more mics for video recording so again I can assume its better. My friends always mock but yet ask me to take pictures/videos when we go out (I'm the only one with a WP) because my camera destroys their iphone/android phones.
3. I don't think there is a google drive. You're in luck however because there is skydrive and MS Word is much better than the google docs. You can write a document on your laptop and have it on your phone in seconds once it gets saved to the cloud. You can then edit or view it on the go. Same with excel. And just view i believe with powerpoint, which came in handy when i had presentations and wanted to look over it while on the bus on the way to class.

 

[cesarg]

I'd say for the news there are several but I have found Bing apps to be among the best, specifically Bing Weather and Bing News.
Not only do they are also in Spanish and allow you to select sources and topics but they'll also get you push notifications if there's a weather warning you should be aware of and, in case of the Bing News app, you will get notified on really breaking news.


About the keyboard, there's a reason why the WP keys are chromeless and out of those sort of "led" indicators or any shadows and that stuff, you'll notice after some time that it's way easier to type mostly, I'd say, because of the space you'll have, the simpler looks and the new swype like functionality.

 

[xandros9]

Hello to everyone.
Ok, first, thank you to all of you who will help me.
As I said before, I want to move to Windows Phone, but there are some key aspects that put me off. I mean, I want to buy a Nokia Lumia 1520 but I have some questions.

1) The number of apps. In Android i use everyday an app called "Weather and News" by Samsung. Do I have a news app with content in spanish where i can decide which type of news i want to read, e.g, just Technological news?

2) The keyboard. I love the new Android?s L Keyboard its gorgeous and really useful, but I find the Windows Phone horrible, its really ugly. But OK, leaving this aside. Is the WP8.1 useful and better than Android ?

3) The games. I play several games during the day. Plants vs Zombies, Springfield... Could I find really good games at the Windows Phone Store? E.g, shoter games, addictive games?

Ok, now just referring to the 1520.

1) The outdoor visibility of the screen. Is it good?

2) The camera. Does it take awesome photos and record great videos with a clear audio?

3) Google Drive. I write everyday documents in google docs while i use my computer. There is any WP app to write on the Lumia on google docs? Or any way to do it? If I move all my documents to Skydrive and start using Word, could I start writing a document on my laptop and then continue wrting on my Lumia?

Thank you and if you want please correct all my mistakes :smile:

1) News is customizable, there are different options. I don't know about Spanish, but you can set up Cortana (on 8.1) to give you news linked to certain topics such as "world cup" or "microsoft." As for the Bing News app, I'm not sure.

2) I can't say for sure, having only used the stock Android keyboard, but I personally prefer Windows Phone's text prediction and in 8.1, the swype functionality. (ok fine, I like it in looks too)
can't really compare 1 on 1, but WP's is solid, and does its job well, thats all I need it to do.

3) check out windowsphone.com to see what's in the store.
There aren't some of the new flash-in-the-pan kind of games, like those fad ones. (a la Temple Run, though we do have that, as well as its sequel.) There are good games, from small casual ones, to the Gameloft fancy ones, but it won't always line up to whats popular at that exact time though.

-
1) The outdoor visibility is supposed to be excellent. My 920 does well, Nokia has an outdoor readability mode which kicks in automatically. It's quite nice.

2) You are talking about what high-end Nokia's are known for. Yup.

3) No Google Drive. There are third party options, but nothing great. I would ditch Google Drive for OneDrive because Google just doesn't give WP anything. No official app, no decent webapp. Look into some third parties if you must.

If you move all your documents to OneDrive (SkyDrive's new name), make sure they're all in the Office format (the 2007+ one) and yup, the Office app, while not amazing, it will hook into OneDrive and sync your recent documents.
Example: I'm writing a short essay for something in Word. I stop on my laptop (which syncs to OneDrive) and open Office on my phone. I'm greeted with the recent documents I worked on. I download and open one, hit edit, do my thing, save, and move on. I return to my laptop and my edits have been pushed there.
There's also Office Online, making it a worthy Google Drive rival.