Unhappy WP newbie

[Saffady]

Hi, i'm new on this forum so i hope im in the right section for asking questions.

Iv'e been using Android phones for years but recently decided to give WP a go. I bought the Nokia Lumia 1020 since it has gotten very good reviews pretty much everywhere and i have used Nokia phones in the past. After less then one week i'm thinking of switching back to Android in frustration over how fenced in, neglected and restricted WP feels.

To start with, Nokia brags about how good the camera is and one reason i bought the phone is that they finally came to their senses and installed a xenon flash. By doing so the phone is good for photographs but they really traded down on the video light LED which shines way less brighter than any phone i ever owned. Its dimmed down yellow light is more or less useless, especially as a flashlight which i use frequently.

As for WP 8.1 there are several issues i haven't managed to work out. First of all there is no Word flow available for swedish language. Im used to having Swype installed as my standard keyboard in Android, and cant find an alternative for WP. And i cant seem to find a way to add words to my swedish dictionary. If i choose english as my input language and enter a unfamiliar word it allows me to add the word by pressing the +"word". When i choose swedish though this option disappears. Also the word prediction does not always work/show up. If i for example write text in a text field in the web browser, for example when i enter my user name for a website, it does not suggest anything and i always have to type the whole user name or email address. If i on the other hand do a google search och simply write a regular mail or sms it works fine. Still no option to add words to my swedish dictionary though.

The stock browser has serious need for improvements and WP won't let me change my default browser or use other then Bing as my overall search application. I can use Google as my default search engine from within the IE browser but as i type something in the address/search field Google usually gives me suggestions as i type. This is not the case for IE in WP. I have installed UC browser which let me do all these things that i want but then WP won't let me set UC as my default browser. So every time i click a link somewhere in for example an email och sms it opens the link i IE.

Another issue i had is the notification field which can be swiped down from above. Look very similar to what i'm used from Android. But the notifications disappears after one look. In android the notifications stay there until i decide to reset/delete them one at a time or all at once. This is convenient when you need to remember something for later and don't want to put it in the calendar or put in in a "to do" list as a reminder.

The only thing that has worked better on this new phone is the stock email app which syncs much better with hotmail then my K9-mail app for Android even though its much more restricted. But for now is there any fixes to what iv'e mentioned above or am i doomed to switch back to Android? I'm no indoctrinated Android ****** and I'm am truly interested in finding out why so many people like WP, but as for now WP feels crippled and dated in comparison.

 

[xandros9]

Hi, i'm new on this forum so i hope im in the right section for asking questions.

Iv'e been using Android phones for years but recently decided to give WP a go. I bought the Nokia Lumia 1020 since it has gotten very good reviews pretty much everywhere and i have used Nokia phones in the past. After less then one week i'm thinking of switching back to Android in frustration over how fenced in, neglected and restricted WP feels.

To start with, Nokia brags about how good the camera is and one reason i bought the phone is that they finally came to their senses and installed a xenon flash. By doing so the phone is good for photographs but they really traded down on the video light LED which shines way less brighter than any phone i ever owned. Its dimmed down yellow light is more or less useless, especially as a flashlight which i use frequently. Can't really comment on this.

As for WP 8.1 there are several issues i haven't managed to work out. First of all there is no Word flow available for swedish language. Im used to having Swype installed as my standard keyboard in Android, and cant find an alternative for WP. And i cant seem to find a way to add words to my swedish dictionary. If i choose english as my input language and enter a unfamiliar word it allows me to add the word by pressing the +"word". When i choose swedish though this option disappears. Also the word prediction does not always work/show up. If i for example write text in a text field in the web browser, for example when i enter my user name for a website, it does not suggest anything and i always have to type the whole user name or email address. If i on the other hand do a google search och simply write a regular mail or sms it works fine. Still no option to add words to my swedish dictionary though. Yea, no word flow and stuff for some languages

The stock browser has serious need for improvements and WP won't let me change my default browser or use other then Bing as my overall search application. I can use Google as my default search engine from within the IE browser but as i type something in the address/search field Google usually gives me suggestions as i type. This is not the case for IE in WP. I have installed UC browser which let me do all these things that i want but then WP won't let me set UC as my default browser. So every time i click a link somewhere in for example an email och sms it opens the link i IE. Yea like iOS, you can't really change defaults. (weirdly, you can change defaults for mapping, PDFs...) I just use Bing to mess with normal people, since it also works fine for me. Probably not for Swedish, but have you used Cortana? Makes the search button a lot more useful.

Another issue i had is the notification field which can be swiped down from above. Look very similar to what i'm used from Android. But the notifications disappears after one look. In android the notifications stay there until i decide to reset/delete them one at a time or all at once. This is convenient when you need to remember something for later and don't want to put it in the calendar or put in in a "to do" list as a reminder. Notifications don't go away if you dont touch them. You can look, but touching them makes them go away. (the app name does it with all of them, just the line does that one line I think)

The only thing that has worked better on this new phone is the stock email app which syncs much better with hotmail then my K9-mail app for Android even though its much more restricted. But for now is there any fixes to what iv'e mentioned above or am i doomed to switch back to Android? I'm no indoctrinated Android ****** and I'm am truly interested in finding out why so many people like WP, but as for now WP feels crippled and dated in comparison.

My two cents are in bold above.
Ultimately, while many of those aren't a problem to some people, some others see other faults, but if those matter as much to you as it seems, this platform might not be the one for you.

 

[Saffady]

Thanks for taking your time to reply. You are right about the fact that notifications don't go away. What i meant is that if you take one look at them the notification icon at the top disappears, the notifications are still there however if you swipe down but there are no icon to remind you.

The thing with word flow and not being able to add words to dictionary seems to be a big issue for a lot of people. Its works with English and some other languages and according to other sources Microsoft have been aware of this for some time now and still haven't managed to fix it.

I'll give this system another week and then i'm switching back. It's a shame though since WP looks really nice, runs smoothly and the phones hardware is pretty good apart from the video light LED.

Thanks again

 

[StevePT]

I'm not really sure why you don't like the way the notification system works. The icon is there if there's new notifications since you last opened the notification center. You can "swipe" them away or leave them there. When you go back to your start screen you're right the icon disappears, but why would you want it to stay there? If it did stay there and new notifications came in since the last time you looked, you wouldn't know because they icon is still there. If the icon stays there until you clear out all notifications, but there's some notifications you don't want to clear, how are you ever going to know when new ones come in? Seems like you'd be doing a lot of unnecessary opening center to see if there's anything new.

If these are your only complaints, I think you should stick with the platform for a bit longer. Let yourself get acclimated to it and all of the other things it does better than Android instead of giving up on it over a few minor issues.

 

[Ghassan Westen]

Hey guys
I bought a 920 a year ago and there's only one problem I need your help with
I can't update the system from phone updates unless I take it down to the store
I can't do it from home even though I got a WI fi network with no limited data usage or anything
it downloads till a certain percentage then stops
showing me the code : (801882cb) like there's a problem with my network or somethin
I dunno what's the problem is it too slow ?
maybe cuz. I live in Syria
any help is really appreciated
thanks guys

 

[Saffady]

I'm not really sure why you don't like the way the notification system works. The icon is there if there's new notifications since you last opened the notification center. You can "swipe" them away or leave them there. When you go back to your start screen you're right the icon disappears, but why would you want it to stay there? If it did stay there and new notifications came in since the last time you looked, you wouldn't know because they icon is still there. If the icon stays there until you clear out all notifications, but there's some notifications you don't want to clear, how are you ever going to know when new ones come in? Seems like you'd be doing a lot of unnecessary opening center to see if there's anything new.

If these are your only complaints, I think you should stick with the platform for a bit longer. Let yourself get acclimated to it and all of the other things it does better than Android instead of giving up on it over a few minor issues.

Thanks. I guess your right. I think my problem is that i constantly compare to Android where the apps/widgets gets the job done and more whereas WP simply just gets the job done without any bonus functions or extras. Cleaner so to say but also more limited. An example of what i'm talking about. On WP i get a notification, regardless what app is making the notification i get the same icon at the top of my screen and the icon goes away as soon as i look at the notification/action center. With Android each app has its own notification icon, i can see right away in the status bar at the top of the screen which app is calling for my attention and the notification icon specific for that app will stay in the top part of the screen until i choose to reset it. And yes this can unfortunately make the status bar cluttered with icons. The shortcuts for example wifi and bluetooth in the action center should in my opinion turn the function on and off but instead they bring me to the settings for each function and there i can choose to turn it off or on.

Another thing i have encountered is the lack of apps and especially fully functioning ones. When you enter the "Store" and download regular apps like a better internet browser, a half decent app for Youtube ( i know issues with this is mostly Googles fault) and my frequently used app for internet banking none of these works remotely as smooth as they do on Android because they have not been properly developed and prioritized. For example my app for internet banking is full of bugs and it will eventually be fixed but not prioritized due to lack of customers using WP. This is likely a WP 8.1 update related issue. If i click a link to a Youtube clip it opens up in the stock browser and not in the designated Youtube app or even the downloaded browser i want to use as my default one. If i perform a search in Google and click the tab "pictures" i'm shown a bunch of miniature thumbnails and if i click on one to see it better it brings up a larger preview of the picture which is so low resolution its hard to make out any details at all. If i enter any given webpage and start scrolling down to early the browser often jumps back up to the top of the page and i have to scroll back down once again. This happens randomly regardless of which browser i'm using and it bugs the hell out of me. I still haven't managed to find a solution to my problem regarding the fact that i cannot add words to a non english dictionary and im still looking for a nice substitute Swype app until Microsoft manages to launch word flow properly to all languages. In the phones settings menu i would love to see designated icons attached to each category of settings because when everything is in plain text it just looks messy and there is absolutely no logical order in which the categories are sorted. I can wake the phone up by double tapping on the screen or press the power button briefly. Double tapping is super convenient but only works sometimes and i haven't figured out when and when not.

I'm not trying to trash WP here but all these little problems wouldn't be a big deal on their own but combined i find it impossible to just accept it for what it is. But i'm still gonna give it a go and see if the feeling changes. And please if you have any solutions or input on any of the things iv'e complained about above do reply.

 

[Techno-guy]

OP makes some fair points. New 1520 for me too as of yesterday and the proximity sensor issues are driving me crazy. Phone screen turns off on a call since the phone doesn't know it's not near my ear. Really annoying.

Double tap works randomly (more often not) and Glance (a key feature for me) is sporadic as well. Really ruining my experience and opinion of WP 8.1 because I like so much else about the phone.

Had to perform a full reset today with the Nokia Software Tool to see if it can fix these issues. Own phones from all the major brands (Apple, Android, Blackberry and now Windows Phone) and never have seen this many issues out of the gate for a new phone.