Two months with my 920

[rider2040]

It has been two months since I got my Lumia 920 on launch weekend and I have to say that I love it. It has taken me a while to get to this point, and the phone is far from perfect, but there is no other phone that I would rather be carrying right now.

Highlights:

1. The screen is fantastic. Great size, color, resolution, brightness. I am finding that I am using my laptop less because the large screen allows me to do more with my phone. And it looks great!

2. Windows Phone 8 is a beautiful, smooth, and efficient UI. The organization of my home screen gives instant glance and go information. Apps that have proper implementation of live tiles really add to the experience.

3. SkyDrive integration keeps everything synced with my laptop and tablet. When I get home from a trip, all of my photos are pushed down to my computer before I am even unpacked. Plus, I have access to my entire work documents library.

4. Office integration means I can actually be productive on my phone. Word, Excel, and OneNote make up about 50% of my workflow and now I can do most of that on my phone.

5. The form factor of the 920 is beautiful. It looks great and feels great in the hand. The curved screen melts into the round edges. The buttons are feel great and are perfectly placed.

6. Wireless charging is an incredible convenience. I am waiting for my wife to upgrade her phone to one with wireless charging so I can justify having a couple more chargers around the house.

Areas for Improvement

1. The calendar app is barely passable. The lack of a week view frustrates me, and it feels like they made a lot of compromises to force a calendar into a metro design.

2. I would love to be able to attach any file in my SkyDrive to an email. The current functionality is better than why I had with my iPhone, but it's not quite enough for me. I often get requests from customers for forms (usually PDFs) and I have to wait until I get to my laptop to be able to respond.

3. The phone dialer app needs a favorite list and quick contact search. It takes too many taps to get from the home screen to dialing a number.

4. Bing Maps and Nokia Drive are OK apps, but the database behind them is weak (in the US). There are many times that I search for a destination and can't find it.

When I first got my phone, I definitely had quite a few frustrations, but most of those were just me getting used to a new phone. I'm not having any of the issues that others have described with lockups or battery drain and all of the issues that I have can be fixed with future updates - and I hope they will. But, even in its current state, I wouldn't trade my 920 for anything currently on the market.

 

[James8561]

solutions for areas of improvement:
1. you can certainly search for other calendar apps in the marketplace. i've seen many people run appointile or something like that.
2. this seriously is needed. skydrive email attachment now!
3. try RapDialer Paid in marketplace. it's the only phone app i use.

 

[rider2040]

3. try RapDialer Paid in marketplace. it's the only phone app i use.

Thanks for the tip. There's a ton of customization in rapdialer and I think that I have it setup in a way that will work for me. It doesn't seem quite perfect at first glance, but I'll give it some time and see if I get used to it.

 

[Dimi7287]

It has been two months since I got my Lumia 920 on launch weekend and I have to say that I love it. It has taken me a while to get to this point, and the phone is far from perfect, but there is no other phone that I would rather be carrying right now.

Highlights:

1. The screen is fantastic. Great size, color, resolution, brightness. I am finding that I am using my laptop less because the large screen allows me to do more with my phone. And it looks great!

2. Windows Phone 8 is a beautiful, smooth, and efficient UI. The organization of my home screen gives instant glance and go information. Apps that have proper implementation of live tiles really add to the experience.

3. SkyDrive integration keeps everything synced with my laptop and tablet. When I get home from a trip, all of my photos are pushed down to my computer before I am even unpacked. Plus, I have access to my entire work documents library.

4. Office integration means I can actually be productive on my phone. Word, Excel, and OneNote make up about 50% of my workflow and now I can do most of that on my phone.

5. The form factor of the 920 is beautiful. It looks great and feels great in the hand. The curved screen melts into the round edges. The buttons are feel great and are perfectly placed.

6. Wireless charging is an incredible convenience. I am waiting for my wife to upgrade her phone to one with wireless charging so I can justify having a couple more chargers around the house.

Areas for Improvement

1. The calendar app is barely passable. The lack of a week view frustrates me, and it feels like they made a lot of compromises to force a calendar into a metro design.

2. I would love to be able to attach any file in my SkyDrive to an email. The current functionality is better than why I had with my iPhone, but it's not quite enough for me. I often get requests from customers for forms (usually PDFs) and I have to wait until I get to my laptop to be able to respond.

3. The phone dialer app needs a favorite list and quick contact search. It takes too many taps to get from the home screen to dialing a number.

4. Bing Maps and Nokia Drive are OK apps, but the database behind them is weak (in the US). There are many times that I search for a destination and can't find it.

When I first got my phone, I definitely had quite a few frustrations, but most of those were just me getting used to a new phone. I'm not having any of the issues that others have described with lockups or battery drain and all of the issues that I have can be fixed with future updates - and I hope they will. But, even in its current state, I wouldn't trade my 920 for anything currently on the market.

As for a Solution for Problem # 2, would this be appropriate?

Mail Plus app for Windows Phone lets you send multiple SkyDrive attachments | WMPoweruser

 

[Mr Manson]

for number3. Try "People Search" app-. its free and is the one I use. Its so cool. For exam?ple you can set up your favorite shortcuts to dial/sms to a number and it works flawlessly.

 

[yojoebosolo]

For number 3.

You could create a "Group" in the people app and pin it to your task bar - this is the same as a selection of favourites, i think.

 

[maverick786us]

Smart dial is the best solution and somethnig I am missing in WP8

 

[Coreldan]

My conclusion after a few months is mostly the same - there are definitely downsides/cons, but there's no other phone currently on the market I would consider replacing my 920 with. Not that I'd even want to replace it, though.

 

[maverick786us]

Me either. Even before purchase 920 I knew that the only thing that can take 920's place is its successor

 

[U_SAF]

solutions for areas of improvement:
1. you can certainly search for other calendar apps in the marketplace. i've seen many people run appointile or something like that.
2. this seriously is needed. skydrive email attachment now!
3. try RapDialer Paid in marketplace. it's the only phone app i use.

and he can press n hold windows button and say.. "Call James" and no tap will be required.

 

[U_SAF]

did u get any scratches on the screen?

 

[nishant6]

Yes l got scratches with 15 days but very minor but what Nokia marketed was absolutely bad that the screen don't get scratches.

 

[maverick786us]

I ordered a wallet case that uses magnetic stripe. Does magnetic field damage the components of even powerful device like Lumia 920?

 

[johninsj]

1. The calendar app is barely passable. The lack of a week view frustrates me, and it feels like they made a lot of compromises to force a calendar into a metro design.

It's unchanged from WP7x - it's fine for a REMINDER/TODAY view, though. Agenda view is your friend.

2. I would love to be able to attach any file in my SkyDrive to an email. The current functionality is better than why I had with my iPhone, but it's not quite enough for me. I often get requests from customers for forms (usually PDFs) and I have to wait until I get to my laptop to be able to respond.

can you not share a link from skydrive?

3. The phone dialer app needs a favorite list and quick contact search. It takes too many taps to get from the home screen to dialing a number.

"call bob at home" - voice reco is actually the way to go... just long press that windows button.

4. Bing Maps and Nokia Drive are OK apps, but the database behind them is weak (in the US). There are many times that I search for a destination and can't find it.

Yeah, nokia maps data is fantastic. If you live in Finland.

 

[vlad0]

2. I would love to be able to attach any file in my SkyDrive to an email. The current functionality is better than why I had with my iPhone, but it's not quite enough for me. I often get requests from customers for forms (usually PDFs) and I have to wait until I get to my laptop to be able to respond..

Is there no way to download the file onto the phone, and then attach to your e-mail ? If not from the app, the browser should work for sure...that is how I do it on mine non-win phone.

4. Bing Maps and Nokia Drive are OK apps, but the database behind them is weak (in the US). There are many times that I search for a destination and can't find it.

I can confirm this. Google maps has better indexing for the USA for now.. it has been like that for 3-4 years now, but hopefully Nokia/MS can catch up soon. I often have to have Nokia maps/drive and gmaps open at the same time just to make sure I am going to the right place.

 

[rider2040]

Thanks to everyone for the tips. Here's where I'm at now:

1. I downloaded WP Calendar to get a week view. Unfortunately, I can't enter or edit appointments in this app. I'll try to use it for a while and see if it actually helps or not.

2. I know that there are several ways to work around this issue (for instance, I could email each important document to myself, keep all of them in a specific folder, and then forward those emails as necessary), but it is important to me that the documents be sent as replies within the existing email chain. I want to be able to hit reply, then attach file, and attach any document that I have downloaded. Anything less than this solution is just patchwork.

3. I downloaded Rapdialer and I'm giving it a try. I would probably be just as happy if I could set a default so that every time I hit my people tile it opened to an all contacts search.

4. Really no good answer for maps at this point. Hopefully the integrated apps improve quickly.

But, the key point of my original post is that despite these things, I love my phone! If they can fix the list of 4 items that I have, I would call it perfect!

 

[rider2040]

It has now been three months with my 920 and I thought I would give another update.

I still love my phone and I still feel that I like it a little more each day. I recently had a battery drain issue caused by the Amazon Kindle app, but that was fixed by another update just a couple days later.

Now that I am using the phone more normally (ie, I'm not playing with it all of the time) I find I am getting excellent battery life and usually end up at 60-70% when I finish work for the day. That leaves me plenty of power to browse the internet or play a few games in the evening.

My phone has allowed me to do more and more with out picking up my laptop and I find that I don't use my iPad at all anymore.

A couple of notes on my previous issues:

1. I found that WP Calendar wasn't really doing anything for me, so I uninstalled it. I have gotten used to the core Calendar app and it will do until MS (hopefully) releases an update.

2. Still waiting for MS to allow access to the file system for email attachments.

3. Rap Dialer has been a great replacement for the default phone app. I would still be happier with a global search function that would allow me to search for phone numbers from the capacitive search button.

4. Updates to the Maps app, Nokia Drive, and the data base behind them has improved the overall maps experience on my phone. Still far behind google maps on iPhone or Android, but the recent improvements give me hope that maps on WP8 will be an acceptable alternative in the near future.