Questions from an Android user

[Gino Guillermo]

Hi there.

I am currently studying the possibility of getting a Windows Phone 8 smartphone. As someone who owned Android phones for 4 years my criteria (and standards) for getting a phone are build quality, camera quality, battery life, customisations, multitasking, music and audio quality & performance. These issues are very important to me especially in my present age/job/needs/likes.

I would like to ask about:

1. Photos - Now i heard photos are stored in the Albums folder is that correct? Is there a basic editing tool from within Windows Phone 8 (WP8)? Can i share my photos to Twitter, Instagram, Google+, Email, Dropbox, Evernote, etc. on-the-fly or do i still have to go to the app then look/upload the photo like what iOS is about?

2. Camera - Is there a quick camera icon toggle thingy in the lock screen (similar to iOS7.1 & Android 4.4.2) where i just swipe up to quickly launch the camera? How fast does the camera load up? Is it in an instant? I have heard about the Nokia Pro Camera with it's pseudo burst mode option but does WP8 has that very quick shutter button with zero lag when taking shots (in-between) much like the iPhone 5 & Galaxy S3?

3. Keyboard - Can i install 3rd-party keyboard apps in place of or on top of the standard WP8 keyboard? Are there emoji icons built-in to the standard WP8 keyboard? Is there a 1st-party or third-party app wherein you can swipe or slide your fingers on the keyboard for an even faster typing?

4. Customisations - Are there any customisations options of the lock screen and home screen where i choose what wallpaper i can put in there? Or customise the tiles colours, transparency or size?

5. Live Tiles - Live tiles are very unique to the Windows Phone OS. But i fear its a battery & resource hog. Can i stop it from "moving" to save battery?

6. Running apps & Multitasking - Now i heard about pressing the back button to bring up the last 8 apps (or tasks) that you did. If i press the "X" button does it closes & stops the app from running in the background?

7. Notifications - I like to have that option to swipe down from the top of the screen and see all my notifications, click them to go to that notification or swiping the notification left or right to disregard it just like Android. Now, i have seen and read that WP8 has notifications but not like iOS or Android. Is it better? or just different? Is there a third-party app where i can check all my notifications?

8. Quick Settings - I would also like quick settings toggle built-in to the Notifications Centre (like Android) to toggle on or off things such as wifi, bluetooth, etc. Does WP8 has this setting? Or is there an app for that?

9. Updates - The one that annoys me with Android is the fragmentation. Google releases the Android OS, forwards them to OEMs (for skinning & putting bloatware) thus resulting to issues such as poor performance, battery life eventually phones receiving late updates. How confident can i be certain updates for WP8 will be timely, early or more often than `Android or iOS?

10. Documents - I have a PC. So when i edit and save a document in Office on my Windows Phone can i access them on my PC as well?

11. Transferring files - Now i'm aware the easiest way to do this is via wires and thru this Windows Phone app that i download is that correct? I also understand that its easy as drag n' drop BUT where exactly (i.e. which folder) of the phone do i drag the files to?

12. Battery life - Very important to me. I can to to GSMarena and see how they rate each phone's battery life; Of course battery life are sometimes improved with software updates and turning off stuff. But like audio usage is very subjective & dependent on each user. As WP8 is a closed platform like iOS how confident should i be in terms of battery life? Is there a battery saving option on all WP8 phones?


Please advice. Thanks.

 

[oditius]

Lots of question, lets see if I can answer a few..

1) You can share with places like facebook, twitter, email, message and such with no problems. I do.

2) 99.99999% of all WP8 phones have a dedicated camera button, but that will change with the coming of 8.1 and new manufactures. But you can always put a camera icon on the home screen too.

3) No 3rd party keyboards, but 8.1 will have the Swype feature available.

4) In 8.1 you can put a picture on the main screen, but instead of icons sitting on top of the picture like androids, the background is still plain (Can't see much of it anyway with tiles) but the background of the tiles (Most tiles, not 100%) will have a part of the picture you set depending on where it is placed.

5) I believe in the app you can deactivate live tiles, but they do not burn as much or even near what a widget would burn, I always keep my active...

6) I always thought that did the trick, but some believe the only way to shut it off entirely is to back out of it.

7) The notification bar is coming in 8.1

8) That is tied to #7 question... coming in 8.1

9) MS does the same, forwards them to the carrier. The problem is the carrier, not MS. You can sign up for the Developer edition, witch will get the OS to you sooner, but the filmware still is up to the carrier.

10) If you store it on the cloud, then yes. But if it is on your laptop/desktop the answer is no. I have my laptop and WP sync with the cloud, so I can access my docs anywhere I want.

11) Not sure of this one, I transfer from PC to WP via the cloud, but sometimes it is also easy to plug it into the laptop to do so. Not to mention pulling out the sd card and putting it in the laptop and transferring it that way.

12) There is a battery saver option in WP, I have the Nokia 1520 and don't use it. Because I only require my battery to last at least the whole day, and I haven't had any problems in that area.

Hope some of this is useful...

 

[oditius]

Choose you new WP carefully, as not all have a sd slot, not all have the ability to change batteries. But I have found that WP manages its power usage a lot better than Android.

 

[anon(7900571)]

In which windows phone are you most interested / or looking for ? windows phone 8.1 is around the corner
I will answer them in sequence
1.yes they are stored in gallery(captured images in camera roll , 3rd parts apps save photo in saved pictures folder , screenshots in screenshots , whatsapp images and videos in whatsapp folder and so on) , yes there is a very basic photo editor in windows phone8\8.1 where you can crop, rotate and auto-fix tool.
2.you have camera shutter button which is the easiest way to open camera , it also bypasses the lock screen passcode(don't worry no one will be able to get access to photo library until you type in the passcode). It takes 2-3 sec(for pro cam ) and the stock camera is somewhat more faster in opening. Nokia cam is little slow in focusing and saving images but you get all the manual controls which includes manual focus ,shutter speed , etc. stock camera is fast. for burst mode you can use 3rd party apps like blink(from Microsoft research team but in wp8.1 update the stock camera has a burst mode (zero shutter lag ).
3.no you can not install any 3rd party keyboard , yes it does have emoji support , with wp8.1 you will get word flow (or swipe ) keyboard and you don't need to do anything , it will also predict emoji.
4.yes you can customize lock screen in windows phone 8 with your fav. wallpaper , adjust the size of live tiles on your home screen , 20 colour accents with black or white theme on your phone . With windows phone 8.1 you will get more freedom , set image on live tiles and get parallax effect while your scroll through.
5.they don't impact much on battery life , windows phone is very well optimized so you will get great battery life. yes you can easily un-pin tile from your start screen.
6.yes the 'X' buttons close the app , but with windows phone 8.1 you will be able to swipe down to close the app , 8.1 will now suspend the app in background.
7.windows phone 8 lacks a proper notification centre , but with windows phone 8.1 you will be to get notification centre in similar way you access on ios and android , you will also get 4-5 user customizable quick shortcuts in notification centre (action centre n windows phone 8.1). All your emails, apps notifications will be grouped in action centre , with just a simple right swipe will clear them from action centre. also you can disable notifications , vibration enable/disable and custom sound for each app will be available in action centre settings.
8.answered in 7th point :smile:
9.microsoft is very good in seeding updates , windows phone 8.1 is set to be available tomorrow (one can get early access to updates directly from Microsoft , kicking careers via developer preview program free of cost ) , though if you need firmware update , your carrier need to approve it first (for instance nokia black update on Microsoft GDR3 update , once can get GDR3 update via dev preview program and later nokia black update when it is approved )
10.yes with OneDrive you can access them anywhere , if you use Microsoft office , it automatically saves your documents on OneDrive so you can edit them on Pc or on your mobile(windows phone has office and one note built in , so you can edit , create presentations , write a letter or edit your chart on the go )
11.you can use windows phone app for windows or the easiest one is just drag and drop (which I always prefer ) , just connect your windows phone (if there is a passcode just unlock it once) and it will be shown in windows explorer , open windows phone and drag/drop or copy paste method works great. music files go into music folder , images in images and videos in video.
12.yes there is a battery saver mode on all windows phone , in which you can set when it turns on (always on , when battery is low-20% , or until next charge) when it is turned on it will block all the notifications from apps(you will still get calls and SMS) , stop syncing emails and other background task.

if you want to have a quick look at windows phone 8.1 features please visit this link :- Windows Phone 8.1 - What is it and what you need to know

 

[Gino Guillermo]

Is there an option to put a camera icon on the lock screen to quickly launch the camera app?

You mean a widget uses more (or a little more) battery & resources than a "live" Tile?

I'm currently eyeing either the Lumia 625 or the Lumia 925. I'm gearing towards the latter as it has better specs not to mention Dolby headphones as i will be using my phone mostly as a music player as well. What you think?

 

[anon(7900571)]

Is there an option to put a camera icon on the lock screen to quickly launch the camera app?

You mean a widget uses more (or a little more) battery & resources than a "live" Tile?

I'm currently eyeing either the Lumia 625 or the Lumia 925. I'm gearing towards the latter as it has better specs not to mention Dolby headphones as i will be using my phone mostly as a music player as well. What you think?

go for Lumia 925 :wink:
no not at the moment but camera button is great addition

 

[manicottiK]

Your questions, well answered by oditius above, do show that you come from an Android perspective. While Android makes your phone a little computer (which it is from a hardware perspective), Windows Phone makes your phone a smart appliance (which it is from a software perspective). As such, there's less ability to tweak things (no direct file system access, alternate keyboards, task managers, settings toggles, etc.) and much less need to do so to achieve good performance (within the bounds of what Microsoft was trying to provide).

On Windows Phone, there's almost no need to manage multitasking because there basically isn't any real multitasking in the usual senses of the words. (Like on iOS, only apps using certain specialized APIs can run while not on the screen.) Closing an app from the task switching screen simply unloads the app from memory, but even that's not needed since the OS will do it automatically if memory is needed. There are things called "background tasks," but those are really distinct parts of an app, separate from the part that users run, and those things can only run in a few MB of memory for 25 seconds every 30 minutes -- they aren't a source of battery drain or system usage.

Because of choices that Microsoft made, it's difficult for a poorly-written app to do anything detrimental to our phone. You don't have to toggle radios on an off (typically done in Android to manage power) because the OS already manages power well*. (I leave 4G, WiFi, Bluetooth, NFC, and GPS on all of the time. I can get 1.5 days out of my Lumia 1520.) However, in 8.1, Microsoft is adding some quick toggles for folks who want them. (I think that they're doing it out of a "if you can't beat 'em, join 'em" strategy.)

If you can accept the device as a smart appliance and not as a pocket computer, Windows Phone might work well for you, depending on your other needs. If you really want a pocket computer, Windows Phone and iOS are both wrong for you and you should look for an Android device that has good post-sales manufacturer support.

Good luck.

* There is a known occasional issue involving WP very suddenly draining batteries. (I've had my 1520 since mid-December and the drain has only happened to me twice.) It does not appear related to a specific device model or app; there have been many hypotheses on cause, but none has tested out. Those of us impacted by it hope that Microsoft has found and fixed the bug with 8.1.

 

[manicottiK]

Is there an option to put a camera icon on the lock screen to quickly launch the camera app?

No, but there's a hardware button on most models. Pressing and holding that button turns on the screen and launches the camera app -- saving you from even needing to look at the device to get the camera going. Like on real digital cameras, the hardware camera button is of a two-stage design: a half-press focuses and a full-press snaps the picture.

You mean a widget uses more (or a little more) battery & resources than a "live" Tile?

The "live" part means that the tile is updated from a server pushing a new tile as needed OR by a "periodic background task." Those tasks run in 10-20 MB for up to 25 seconds roughly every half hour. Unlike widgets, those periodic tasks aren't running constantly so they can't update tiles continuously. It also means that they can't hurt battery life, as a poorly-written widget can.

 

[rockstarzzz]

Is there an option to put a camera icon on the lock screen to quickly launch the camera app?

You mean a widget uses more (or a little more) battery & resources than a "live" Tile?

I'm currently eyeing either the Lumia 625 or the Lumia 925. I'm gearing towards the latter as it has better specs not to mention Dolby headphones as i will be using my phone mostly as a music player as well. What you think?

Go for 925. I use it as my daily drive. You won't need a camera button on screen because 925 comes with dedicated camera button so if you press that button for 2 seconds, camera app opens up ready to take a photo - even when the phone is in standby/asleep, you can wake up phone and launch your camera without faffing about. Also, dedicated camera button as other has its auto-focus feature by half pressing it, so if you are in a situation when you want a photo on second's notice, you can focus and still get awesome photo. I've practically done it hundreds of times!

Also, live tiles use less battery as it won't pull info all the time. It has set intervals, 30 minutes in WP8, 15 mins in WP8.1 - so you get all apps syncing for 30 seconds every 15 minutes and then phone sleeps. Not a situation where apps keep pulling info in background at random unsynced schedule leading to phone being awake nearly every minute leading to battery drain.

 

[three_thoughts]

The most thorough research you could do is to buy a 520 off contract, stick the developer preview of 8.1 on it when it's available next week and see if you like it. Keep in mind when using it that the specs are pretty low end and that a 925 (or 930!!!!) will be faster, but it will give you an idea of the OS.

 

[Gino Guillermo]

I'm in my late 30's and i found my needs of a phone has changed compared to say 3 years ago. My profession doesn't allow me to do hundreds of calls everyday. When i wake up or travelling or going to sleep i like something that tells me what happening around me in a quick summary, check if i need to bring my umbrella for tomorrow, to learn what was that medical term i encountered at work, the translation to another language, to make a grocery list for the weekend or a reference number to a repair, to enjoy my favourite music in hi-fidelity and just clear audio from my device and to see who have tweeted or posted that Instagram photos of my friends. The most "demanding task" i would probably be needing my phone is an "intermediate" (more than a novice) way to edit my photos, uploading loads of photos to the cloud all at the same time, listening to hi-fidelity music, the odd Youtube video and wireless printing whilst having enough battery at night to say...."Oh i got 10-20% of my battery. I shall leave it as i know it will still be good until the morning the next day". I'm not looking for a small computer in my pocket. I'm looking for something that meets my needs and be able to do non-demanding, low-graphics stuff for me.

I would like to know why there are at least more than 1 camera app built for a Lumia WP8 phone. I have heard of the Nokia Smart Cam and the Nokia Camera Pro. What are the differences between the two and which one do i need?

With my Galaxy S3 i make sure i set my apps NOT to sync as it was draining my battery. So, as you are saying is it safe to keep the tiles running and being "live"?

 

[anon(7900571)]

I'm in my late 30's and i found my needs of a phone has changed compared to say 3 years ago. My profession doesn't allow me to do hundreds of calls everyday. When i wake up or travelling or going to sleep i like something that tells me what happening around me in a quick summary, check if i need to bring my umbrella for tomorrow, to learn what was that medical term i encountered at work, the translation to another language, to make a grocery list for the weekend or a reference number to a repair, to enjoy my favourite music in hi-fidelity and just clear audio from my device and to see who have tweeted or posted that Instagram photos of my friends. The most "demanding task" i would probably be needing my phone is an "intermediate" (more than a novice) way to edit my photos, uploading loads of photos to the cloud all at the same time, listening to hi-fidelity music, the odd Youtube video and wireless printing whilst having enough battery at night to say...."Oh i got 10-20% of my battery. I shall leave it as i know it will still be good until the morning the next day". I'm not looking for a small computer in my pocket. I'm looking for something that meets my needs and be able to do non-demanding, low-graphics stuff for me.

I would like to know why there are at least more than 1 camera app built for a Lumia WP8 phone. I have heard of the Nokia Smart Cam and the Nokia Camera Pro. What are the differences between the two and which one do i need?

With my Galaxy S3 i make sure i set my apps NOT to sync as it was draining my battery. So, as you are saying is it safe to keep the tiles running and being "live"?

you don't have to open apps after apps just to have a look at what's weather like for today , latest news , your friend latest post on Facebook/tweet , emails ,messages and missed calls. people usually does not understand the concept of live tiles . I will explain you in short live tiles are like widgets+icons on your start screen. just pin the weather app and now you don't have to open the app just to have a look at the weather , it will flip upside down to show you the weather (it also changes for instance if you have the tile set on medium size it will show today's weather and with second flip 3 day forecast and if I make the tile bigger it will show me complete weather and with second flip it will show you 5 day forecast) same goes for other apps including news , sports , etc. Xbox music or nokia music radio is perfect for music junkie and the audio output is crisp and clear .I use Bing translator app which works offline , that's cool for me because at time I don't have internet connection. if you go for a nokia device you will get many nokia exclusive apps like creative studio which is perfect for photo editing , nokia refocus which is something new on HTC one m8 and Samsung galaxy S5 , nokia cinemagraph and lot more. For cloud you have OneDrive which works great if you have a windows laptop or desktop(you get 7GB free online storage and 3GB more if you enable image backup on device).metrotube is great app for YouTube , one can download the video in HD and watch them on the go (again offline cool )I use my Lumia 920 heavily (2-3 hour music , 2-3 hours web browsing including email sync all live tiles enabled , some youtube stuff like pocketnow , MKBHD , asphalt 8 , whatsapp , Skype and when I reach back home around 6-7 I still have 33-40% left by midnight it goes down by 20% where battery saver modes automatically turns on.

there are 2 apps for camera because the stock camera app (from Microsoft) is very basic and lacks features , its great for quick photography and since if you own a nokia device you will have many exclusive apps one of them is nokia pro cam (now know as nokia camera ) , nokia camera app and hardware works together very well , you will get manual controls , if you buy a Lumia 1020 or above model you will get RAW support which native stock camera app does not support. Nokia smart cam is dead I will say , its now merged into nokia pro cam (now cam after nokia cam merged into pro cam ) so nokia smart cam is now merged into pro cam in other words which is now called nokia camera :smile:

you can set the time when email sync , I have only one email account (Microsoft Id) which downloads email as soon as it arrives , live tiles does not suck battery. they auto refresh after 30 min but if you enable battery saver mode they wont auto update (and auto refresh requires internet connection to update the tiles you have pinned on your start screen ).

 

[Gino Guillermo]

Another question spring to mind is cloud storage. We all know about OneDrive, Google Drive, Dropbox et al but since i'm buying my very first Windows Phone 8 i can see the hardware is nothing compare to the quad-core behemoths of Android. So my fear is if i'm backing-up 100 photos of .jpg resolution (taken from a "standard" 8MP camera in 4:3 ratio) would that Windows Phone struggle in uploading those files?

I'm choosing between the Lumia 920 & the 925 but again i'm leaning towards the latter as it has better camera. Or does it? Worth the slight hardware change?

 

[anon(7900571)]

Another question spring to mind is cloud storage. We all know about OneDrive, Google Drive, Dropbox et al but since i'm buying my very first Windows Phone 8 i can see the hardware is nothing compare to the quad-core behemoths of Android. So my fear is if i'm backing-up 100 photos of .jpg resolution (taken from a "standard" 8MP camera in 4:3 ratio) would that Windows Phone struggle in uploading those files?

I'm choosing between the Lumia 920 & the 925 but again i'm leaning towards the latter as it has better camera. Or does it? Worth the slight hardware change?

Hehe uploading pics on one drive is nothing to deal with processors , it won't interrupt with your performance. This will all be done automatically in background. Go for lumia 920 if you want 32GB.

 

[Saksham Sharma]

Another question spring to mind is cloud storage. We all know about OneDrive, Google Drive, Dropbox et al but since i'm buying my very first Windows Phone 8 i can see the hardware is nothing compare to the quad-core behemoths of Android. So my fear is if i'm backing-up 100 photos of .jpg resolution (taken from a "standard" 8MP camera in 4:3 ratio) would that Windows Phone struggle in uploading those files?

I'm choosing between the Lumia 920 & the 925 but again i'm leaning towards the latter as it has better camera. Or does it? Worth the slight hardware change?

A thing i'd like to tell you, windows phone DOES NOT require quad core processors for any tasks, it functions like butter even on dual core ones !! It isn't at all resource heavy like android, so dont worry that the specifications are a little less !

 

[vaultsurvivor]

I came from android galaxy phone, and the one thing that windows phone will never do is get in your way in terms of speed. I quite frequently used to see my android device pause, or you could tell when a lot of things were running because of slowdown. This just doesn't happen on wp. You might have an app missing here or there (normally smaller business' nowadays), but the os just doesn't lag. Ive had my 920 for about a year and its still as fast as the day I got it, i have a ton of apps installed and a fair few live tiles pinned to my start. Don't worry about your live tiles draining power/system memory either. It doesn't affect the speed of the phone (they just don't, no matter how many you have). All i do with mine is pin them to my start screen and see if there useful to me. I have news/weather/facebook/6snap/messaging/2 x email accounts/phone/wpcentral/store tiles all pinned and active and I get about a day and a half to two days out of my phone. If you don't want them to update you can stop it running in th background under background tasks in applications, but i only do this for apps i don't use much or don't have pinned...

 

[Sandeep Aashish]

Another question spring to mind is cloud storage. We all know about OneDrive, Google Drive, Dropbox et al but since i'm buying my very first Windows Phone 8 i can see the hardware is nothing compare to the quad-core behemoths of Android. So my fear is if i'm backing-up 100 photos of .jpg resolution (taken from a "standard" 8MP camera in 4:3 ratio) would that Windows Phone struggle in uploading those files?

I have a Lumia 520 (5MP camera), and trust me, i never had to bother about the backup of photos and videos on Onedrive. They are uploaded automatically (depending on your data settings) without compromising with speed or user experience.

 

[Gino Guillermo]

I think when it comes to with a "closed" OS like WP and iOS is apps and the overall software seems to be always optimised and with my limited experience in handling a WP in stores i found it smooth actually. That's the main advantage. Android is yes it has all its good points but fragmentation and slow updates is frustrating me after 4 years.

I still think the 925 is better because maybe it has slightly better hardware but if i can get a good deal with a 32GB Lumia 920 then i will go for that.

 

[rockstarzzz]

I think when it comes to with a "closed" OS like WP and iOS is apps and the overall software seems to be always optimised and with my limited experience in handling a WP in stores i found it smooth actually. That's the main advantage. Android is yes it has all its good points but fragmentation and slow updates is frustrating me after 4 years.

I still think the 925 is better because maybe it has slightly better hardware but if i can get a good deal with a 32GB Lumia 920 then i will go for that.

925 with cloud storage is best! You do get about 19GB in total including cloud. If you are like me who uses cloud a lot, you won't know what do to with even 16gb. I guess you like your music and photos on phone. For me my music, photos, docs - everything is real time on cloud. Nothing on phone other than games. The biggest game I have is Asphalt 8 and its 800 mb. My phone has spare 9GB and I don't know how to fill it up!

 

[Gino Guillermo]

I now think a cheaper Lumia 920 32Gb is the way forward. I can wait for the 930 in the next few months. I'll test the waters if i like it. I'm sure i will.

The 16GB i think is fine for me. Currently have 5.5GB used and 5.6 free on my Galaxy S3. The extra 16Gb will just be more my media files and documents. (And Youtube videos)

Oh btw, does anyone know what format are the saved videos recorded from the camera? Or from Youtube videos? Are videos (from the camera) normally compressed via software?