Before I start, I'd like to say I love the platform. Being able to have a phone that integrates nicely with my other Microsoft services and allows me to be an achievement hunter on the go has been great... I love the live tiles, passionately express that it's ecosystem may be the most underrated thing of this generation, and I even love the concept of most Windows Phones' hardware
...but oh lord... there seems to be something about every phone I've had that rubs me the wrong way.
Lumia 1020 - This has to be the only thing on the market that calls itself a quality camera.. and has no slot for external storage!!! How do you screw up the most integral part of something so clearly focused on the camera experience? I loved this phone, loved it's camera something fierce and hated to get rid of it... but the lack of SD did kill it for me. I have a lot of content that isn't ideal for streaming and feel like I'm in some post-apocalyptic Fallout 3 type living condition when I find myself having to ration between things. Streaming music sucks for the lossless audio freak, and requires me to be connected while taking a hit in the battery department. I want to have my music, my games, pictures and the space to shoot more pictures/video without compromise. It's really not a tall order.
Lumia Icon - This has to have been one of the highest quality builds (and one of the most beautiful phones). The moment I got it out of the box I was in love... then I turned it on and within the first hour it was overheating... and the WiFi was inconsistent... and looking online I'd found that this... this "flagship Windows Phone experience" was well-known for having these issues where I initially thought I simply had a lemon. Then we got into all the other common problems like signal misreads, WiFi wake delay... and the fact that this flagship couldn't take advantage of flagship features like Storage Sense... and we get a beautiful phone that found it's way to eBay.
Lumia 1520 - I finally decided to put aside my bias for this big-honkin' beast of a phone and was momentarily glad I did. It had it all... great specs, an absolutely massive battery and they'd managed to pair all that with external storage. This is my current, and I really want to love it... but while I wanted to smugly say that I'm not getting the non-responsive screen issues that everyone's fuming about, I am definitely getting the non-responsive screen issues I was warned I'd get... and it's a depressing everyday problem now. I'm coining the phrase "inoperable hot brick state" because that's what it feels like. The screen doesn't just refuse to respond, it takes it a step further by heating up my phone and sucking away at my battery life... so I have a draining hot brick in my pocket that won't respond to any of my goddamn input. It usually corrects the problem within 1-5 minutes unless I just hard reset it.
Lumia 520 - This phone has been strikingly solid... like so solid that it often leaves me dumbfounded. It's mystifying how this low-end, crappy screen phone just works so well all the time. From a functional standpoint, it's worked and been totally reliable throughout everything I've ever done with it. While I once had one, it's now the property of my wife and I'm just the slightest bit jelly seeing that; even in the 8.1DP, it's stomping all my stronger devices at being reliable. The 512MB RAM holds it back, but I can't even say I've caught this phone being a pain my ***... but the 512MB does hold it back... and for the crowd of cheap people who just want essential functions, the lack of even having a cheap little front facing VGA camera kills the appeal for the selfie-addicted crowd (and even people like me who'd be totally satisfied with this phone if it were ideal for Skype). Seriously... not even a cheap little VGA front-facer? That couldn't boost the price up that much. I understand they wanted to keep it cheap, but Skype is a big part of any Microsoft device... and cheap bitches love their selfies. This phone is kind of unideal for the crowd it targets just because of that.
I don't quite know what to do... I've got the money to get whatever I want, but I don't feel like Microsoft/Nokia have really given me the phone I want to call my daily driver yet... and it's sad because the smallest little things could've turned any one of these phones into a satisfactory experience. /rant
...I'll probably stick it out with the 1520 for a few more months and see if they patch it to resolve the "inoperable hot brick state" it loves going into.
...but oh lord... there seems to be something about every phone I've had that rubs me the wrong way.
Lumia 1020 - This has to be the only thing on the market that calls itself a quality camera.. and has no slot for external storage!!! How do you screw up the most integral part of something so clearly focused on the camera experience? I loved this phone, loved it's camera something fierce and hated to get rid of it... but the lack of SD did kill it for me. I have a lot of content that isn't ideal for streaming and feel like I'm in some post-apocalyptic Fallout 3 type living condition when I find myself having to ration between things. Streaming music sucks for the lossless audio freak, and requires me to be connected while taking a hit in the battery department. I want to have my music, my games, pictures and the space to shoot more pictures/video without compromise. It's really not a tall order.
Lumia Icon - This has to have been one of the highest quality builds (and one of the most beautiful phones). The moment I got it out of the box I was in love... then I turned it on and within the first hour it was overheating... and the WiFi was inconsistent... and looking online I'd found that this... this "flagship Windows Phone experience" was well-known for having these issues where I initially thought I simply had a lemon. Then we got into all the other common problems like signal misreads, WiFi wake delay... and the fact that this flagship couldn't take advantage of flagship features like Storage Sense... and we get a beautiful phone that found it's way to eBay.
Lumia 1520 - I finally decided to put aside my bias for this big-honkin' beast of a phone and was momentarily glad I did. It had it all... great specs, an absolutely massive battery and they'd managed to pair all that with external storage. This is my current, and I really want to love it... but while I wanted to smugly say that I'm not getting the non-responsive screen issues that everyone's fuming about, I am definitely getting the non-responsive screen issues I was warned I'd get... and it's a depressing everyday problem now. I'm coining the phrase "inoperable hot brick state" because that's what it feels like. The screen doesn't just refuse to respond, it takes it a step further by heating up my phone and sucking away at my battery life... so I have a draining hot brick in my pocket that won't respond to any of my goddamn input. It usually corrects the problem within 1-5 minutes unless I just hard reset it.
Lumia 520 - This phone has been strikingly solid... like so solid that it often leaves me dumbfounded. It's mystifying how this low-end, crappy screen phone just works so well all the time. From a functional standpoint, it's worked and been totally reliable throughout everything I've ever done with it. While I once had one, it's now the property of my wife and I'm just the slightest bit jelly seeing that; even in the 8.1DP, it's stomping all my stronger devices at being reliable. The 512MB RAM holds it back, but I can't even say I've caught this phone being a pain my ***... but the 512MB does hold it back... and for the crowd of cheap people who just want essential functions, the lack of even having a cheap little front facing VGA camera kills the appeal for the selfie-addicted crowd (and even people like me who'd be totally satisfied with this phone if it were ideal for Skype). Seriously... not even a cheap little VGA front-facer? That couldn't boost the price up that much. I understand they wanted to keep it cheap, but Skype is a big part of any Microsoft device... and cheap bitches love their selfies. This phone is kind of unideal for the crowd it targets just because of that.
I don't quite know what to do... I've got the money to get whatever I want, but I don't feel like Microsoft/Nokia have really given me the phone I want to call my daily driver yet... and it's sad because the smallest little things could've turned any one of these phones into a satisfactory experience. /rant
...I'll probably stick it out with the 1520 for a few more months and see if they patch it to resolve the "inoperable hot brick state" it loves going into.
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