10 days with my Nokia Lumia 920

[GerOrBa]

I have had my lumia 920 for about 10 days now and I am very impressed by this thing of beauty.

I want to share some of my opinions on the WP8/Lumia_920 experience. Let me just say that I have not been this satisfied with a consumer product in a very long time (probably since my 4th gen iPod touch), and this is the first smartphone that truly meets all of my expectations. As you can see I cannot be more happy with this device!

Let me share then some of the negatives, or small issues I've had in my first week as a user of the WP8/L920 experience. Sharing the positives would be a considerable longer post!

Battery Life:
It not as bad as I was led to believe by reading the forums here. I did have to turn off some services in order for the battery to last on day an a half (LTE which is very spotty in my area, NFC, and Wi-fi when I'm out). But I think it was removing HERE Drive from background tasks that gave the most battery-life benefits. By 8 p.m I still have about 35% of battery life which i think is very good performance since I am still in my "honeymoon" period and it is really hard to take my eyes of the screen. It's just so beautiful.

No Quick Settings:
In order to preserve baterry life and use my dataplan efficiently, I turn off Cellular data and turn on Wi-fi when I arrive home (or wherever I have accesible wi-fi, like my parents house!)...Doing this on WP8 is really a hassle. Now I have installed the "connectivity tiles pro+" App which gets me quick access to settings from the start screen, but still!! This should have been implemented better in WP8.

Firmware Updates:
Well the day I unboxed my Lumia 920, it took 3 OS updates to get it up to the Amber version of WP8. It is not a big deal, but Imagine having this gorgeous phone for the first time, unboxing it at night and have to endure 3 OS updates, before actually getting to play with it!...man it was torture seeing the cog wheels on the screen each time (specially after reading the horror stories here!). Fortunately it went smoothly every time, and by the time the Amber update was finished and all system apps were pushed to the phone... well... I was tired and went to sleep!!.. I really wanted to play with it that night =( ... hey, I also set up my wife's brand new Numia 820 at the sime time, and it only took a single OS update to get to the latest Amber version... so I though that was curious.

Close open Apps:
I know that open Apps are stopped by the OS when they are in the background, but I still want to have the option to close them (in case location services still run). I am just used to do that in Android and iOS. Fortunately I know this is coming very soon. In the mean time the "back,back,back,back,back..." way of closing apps is really annoying.


No Manager mode in FIFA 13:
This is a minor one, not strictly related to the WP8 experience. I am so happy that FIFA 13 is available in WP, but it is not the same version as in iOS, since there is no manager mode... still tournament mode is pretty fun, and the soccer gameplay and graphics are second to none!!... but please EA, bring the complete version of the game for FIFA14 ... and release that already!!!

I really cannot think of anything else!... I know notification center is comming, app selection is pretty good, I am a instagram user on Windows phone since day one, I didin?t have to wait for it! and almost every app I want is available... so this lack of apps in the ecosystem I think is greatly exaggerated.

I am really satisfied with windows phone and the Nokia L920, It is a great piece of hardware and one of the prettiest phones out there. I got mine in black and it is just gorgeous. I am so happy to help the eco-system grow and are confident that it will only get better with WP8.1.

 

[Mikado_Wu]

Glad to see another member to our happy family, Welcome.

As for your statement about closing the Apps, this is address in the upcoming GDR3 update. Many of us are already using it, and it is a nice feature to have.

For FiFa, well as a soccer coach, the last thing I want to do is play FiFA on my phone during the bus ride home. Generally I am doing my own stats.

I think you will find a lot of apps you will like better on WP. Personally apps like IMDB, Ebay, Spotify, LinkedIn and Flickr to be more appealing.

 

[GerOrBa]

I just remembered another nuisance related to windows phone 8, and it is that I have not been able to adequately figure out the XBOX Music app....I synced a couple of playlist from my iTunes collection using the desktop interface, but I cannot figure out how to use XBOX music... I mean, I cannot, for example, select a song from the playlist to play fiorst and then have the phone randomly select songs after that... When I try to select a song from the playlist it starts at a random song!! ... also I'd like to have the complete artist artwork and not the ugly gray background... I need to invest some time in figuring out the music app... but I cannot understand how is this not easier. Anyway... If someone knows a good reference guide for XBOX music, I'd truly appreciate it!

 

[Mikado_Wu]

I am not sure what exactly you are doing, but everything you listed works fine on my phones (7 920's and 2 HTCs). Though I have NEVER used iTunes, I have synced my devices using WMP, W8 App and manually added the music.

Click music App - select music - swipe twice to playlist - select playlist - select any song on the playlist.

Question, on the playlist screen, are you clicking the Playlist words or the Play button next the words?

 

[GerOrBa]

I am touching the words... as I told, I am still figuring things out. I downloaded the MPA tools app... and now I do have very nice artist graphics instead of the gray background! and it does make for a different experience that I am actually liking =) ... I think my only complain is that it is a little bit less intuitive than it should be, since, WP8 is very intuitive and easy to use (even if it is different than iOS or Andorid). I do have my music library in iTunes since it managed an iPod touch and although I could write a very long rant about the iTunes experience in windows, there are several reasons why I am keeping iTunes, at least for now.
But for now, I am starting to figure out the whole xbox music thing and I am liking it quite a bit!

 

[SamiSaifDine]

C'mon .. You're in Honey moon Period and posting this long Article . She must be sad

 

[GerOrBa]

Loving the L920 and the experience... beautiful phone, best I ever had... just wanted to share some of the things I think could have been a little better, but none are detrimental to the joy of using WP8 on this piece of hardware!... If I had written an article on the things I love of the L920.... well... It would have been many times as long!... peace

 

[MC920]

Nice summary - I've had mine a week now and pretty much agree with what you said.

Previous phones iPhone 3G, iPhone 3GS, Galaxy S, HTC Desire, HTC Desire HD, Galaxy Note, LG 4xHD, Samsung Galaxy S3.
Tablet - iPad 1 and currently iPad 4 (Retina)

So as you can see I've got plenty to compare against. Truth is I fancied a change and after owning so many Androids I thought why not try a 920!

OS - Very nice - very smooth and clear - love the look and feel - very easy to get used to. I like how most apps fit the look of the OS, particularly live tiles. Android always looks a bit of mess in this regard.

Apps - Its true there are far fewer and for games its much much worse than iOS and Android - BUT I have my iPad for that and only play Wordfeud on my phones anyway. Notable ommissions are well known - YouTube, GMail (official) etc - but I've found everything else. One issue appears to be that the apps are quite far behind the iOS and Android versions - ebay for example doesn't let me view my own profile or add a tracking number, Wordfeud is very basic compared to the other platforms... If only this thing had the range of iOS or Android apps......

Battery Life - For me its been fine - not brilliant, but not noticably worse than my Galaxy S3. Better than the LG4x. Easily lasts a day at work, but can drop very quickly during even short periods of use.

Heating - This is worrying - after 20 or 30 minutes of use it can get very HOT. None of the phones I've had before have got anywhere near as warm. This thing gets too hot, too quickly.

Camera - Very good - low light is great, Nokia Camera app is excellent, Refocus is very cool. Easily the best phone camera I've had so far

Screen - Very nice - I miss the AMOLED blacks of the Galaxy S3 and Note, but in general its a 'nicer' looking display.

Very pleased so far - its funny to see peoples faces who have never tried WP 8 before!