I had a chance to finally go to a Verizon store and check out all the smart phones I have been reading about for the past 9 months till now. The Icon and a few others where my focal point of checking out in person. The corp. store near me has a great display of all the various platform offerings....which was nice to see since the last time I walked into it well over a year ago.
I quickly scanned the few rows of phones I wanted to pick up and feel in hand....and make a test call with. The ones I spent any time with were:
Lumia 928,
Icon
Ative SE
G3
S5
Moto X.
My initial test feel was to try holding it and getting some sort of sense of it even though its always hard with the security/power cord anchoring them down. Looking at the button/port layouts and feeling the exterior textures then led me to dive into the screens. Since I have bad eyes and did not have my reading glasses on....I thought this would be a good way to get a quick sense of how I felt using the phone with my normal glasses on as I would normally have to squint and strain some to read text on such smaller screens than my laptop.
There were 2 screens that stood out to me after turning them all up to full brightness in the well lit store. The 928 and Icon screens allowed me much easier visuals browsing through the settings and basic screens and text. Even after looking at the G3 I fell in love with the beautiful screens on the Lumia devices! I never changed the fonts or anything....but those screens just popped out and I like the Windows UI. Coming from using a Nexus 7 2013 stock KitKat experience.....I did not care for Samsung's TW or the LG's UI. The Moto X was the only phone I would of picked as it has the best in hand feel and the ear speaker was loud enough with very clear quality. Though the screen size is one that I would like to be larger, maybe the new version will be 5? Nothing feels as good as stock android with no skins to me. Windows phone....even version 8.0 was nice.........very nice. And I could not not get over how much I liked looking at the beautiful displays on the Lumia's. Deep rich colors and dark black blacks......makes someone with poor eyesight like me appreciate it even if its over saturated or what ever. Fact is they are easy to see and plus the smooth UI is such a plus.
The other main test I wanted to accomplish in this as it turned out on my hour long visit to the store....was to check for call quality on several phones. I was sort of let down in total with them all...........but just one actually. The Moto X was heads and tails better than all I had looked at. I was really let down by the lack of volume coming from the Icon and more so from a few others. It was at full volume and though the actual sound quality was very good, the volume level was very low. Even with just a handful of people in the store not to far away talking at normal levels.....it was hard to hear the other person on the phone with my test call.
Not sure if the 8.1 WinOS update will help, but the lack of volume really puts a wrench in my thoughts of getting a new phone from the WIndows selection.
What are others thoughts in regards to Volume levels on the various Lumia phones out there currently?
I quickly scanned the few rows of phones I wanted to pick up and feel in hand....and make a test call with. The ones I spent any time with were:
Lumia 928,
Icon
Ative SE
G3
S5
Moto X.
My initial test feel was to try holding it and getting some sort of sense of it even though its always hard with the security/power cord anchoring them down. Looking at the button/port layouts and feeling the exterior textures then led me to dive into the screens. Since I have bad eyes and did not have my reading glasses on....I thought this would be a good way to get a quick sense of how I felt using the phone with my normal glasses on as I would normally have to squint and strain some to read text on such smaller screens than my laptop.
There were 2 screens that stood out to me after turning them all up to full brightness in the well lit store. The 928 and Icon screens allowed me much easier visuals browsing through the settings and basic screens and text. Even after looking at the G3 I fell in love with the beautiful screens on the Lumia devices! I never changed the fonts or anything....but those screens just popped out and I like the Windows UI. Coming from using a Nexus 7 2013 stock KitKat experience.....I did not care for Samsung's TW or the LG's UI. The Moto X was the only phone I would of picked as it has the best in hand feel and the ear speaker was loud enough with very clear quality. Though the screen size is one that I would like to be larger, maybe the new version will be 5? Nothing feels as good as stock android with no skins to me. Windows phone....even version 8.0 was nice.........very nice. And I could not not get over how much I liked looking at the beautiful displays on the Lumia's. Deep rich colors and dark black blacks......makes someone with poor eyesight like me appreciate it even if its over saturated or what ever. Fact is they are easy to see and plus the smooth UI is such a plus.
The other main test I wanted to accomplish in this as it turned out on my hour long visit to the store....was to check for call quality on several phones. I was sort of let down in total with them all...........but just one actually. The Moto X was heads and tails better than all I had looked at. I was really let down by the lack of volume coming from the Icon and more so from a few others. It was at full volume and though the actual sound quality was very good, the volume level was very low. Even with just a handful of people in the store not to far away talking at normal levels.....it was hard to hear the other person on the phone with my test call.
Not sure if the 8.1 WinOS update will help, but the lack of volume really puts a wrench in my thoughts of getting a new phone from the WIndows selection.
What are others thoughts in regards to Volume levels on the various Lumia phones out there currently?
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