Hi all,
I wanted to share my experience with my first windows phone.
My smartphone History:
Before purchasing ATIV S, I had my first smartphone Samsung Galaxy S, purchased 4 years back when it was released. Now I was wondering how I survivded with it for long 4 years. Though Android is user friendly and highly customizable, found so many problems in terms of hanging, lagging and restarting. Even power button was also not working. Thanks to the removable battery, used too remove battery and put it back again to restart. Thats the only advantage of being plastic body
Why I chose Windows phone:
Last 5 months, have restarted phone, removed battery and put it back so many times that it was high time for me to replace it. I was thinking to try a new OS and the android offerings are similar except for hardware changes from different manufacturers but once we purchase, the OS still same. Wanted to try new OS. It left me with options of Apple or windows phone. Somewhere I read that Nokia 520, though with 512MB RAM, is highly successful because of the OS smoothness. Then I have decided to go with Windows phone, as am desperate to use smooth and nice OS.
Why I chose Samsung ATIV S:
After I have decided to go for windows phone device, I wanted to buy a new smartphone for next 2-3 years with latest hardware & nice screen. It left with options Lumia 1520 or wait for Lumia 930. I removed the option 1520 bcoz of its size and cant wait for Lumia 930 (and also SD card is must for me and decent battery). It also seemed LUmia 930 is not as per latest hardware means. I wanted to purchase up to date hardwared powered windows phone so that I can use it for 2-3 years for sure. But my android problems made be impatient to wait for Lumia 930 and hence I went to Samsung Ativ S whose configuration is same as what Lumia devices have now and come with less price. I wanted to purchase McLaren later and I will give this phone to my wife who also started liking this now.
My 2 weeks Journey with Windows phone so far:
Device is light weighted, nice design and more important OS is very smooth. No lagging, no hang up and no restart. Ofcourse it will take time for me to get adjusted with Windows phone after coming from Android.
OS update
Mine is ATIV S intenrational version. After I purchased, clicked on Settings > Phone update > Check for updates. Then two updates were installed. Now the OS version: 8.1.10328.78
I understood that till GDR2 was updated. GDR3 was not showing in updates. May be Samsung backed out as it was having some issues wuth GDR3. Am desperately waiting for Windows phone 8.1. But I dont want to install dev preview version as if any issues comes, will be painful as I just moved from stressful android
Phone, contacts, SMS
Fortunately, I had outlook account from long time and it helped in syncing the People, Calendar, Mail, Onedrive with my account and loved the skype integration.
PROS - Syncing all the data from outlook.com to my phone. Wonderful, it even allows to sync with google contacts
CONS - I cant attach a pic in People from Outlook.com site and the contact pics I attached in phone never gets sync to the website. Sync should be bi-directional. Not sure if this is fixed in future updates
Social apps
PROS - Integration of Twitter, facebook with People contacts. Onedrive auto saves the camera pics I took. Nice.
CONS - Integration exists in Photos section as well..which I feel not comfortable.
Other Apps
PROS - I dont know why people complaining lack of apps. Whatever I use in Android, found in windows phone. May be am an average user of apps. ICICI bank, HDFC, Maybank, Mudah etc exists.
CONS - After using Youtube application in Android, using Youtube app in windows phone is not that much interesting. Donno when the Google releases official Youtube app.
Sounds, Pictures, lock screen
Sound quality in ATIV S is above average. Even at 30/30, I wondered I got a msg tone when in public places. For all media + ringtone, same volume control. I know this got fixed in 8.1. But till I get that update, have to adjust However, audi quality in headphones is superb.
Pictures hub is awesome..nice background images
Lockscreen is the best thing I found in this OS. I had Bing desktop in my laptop. Same here the Bing images in lock screen is so nice and when music plays, the arist background is being shown.
CON - If no artist background, grey screen shows up in lock screen. In case of no artist background, phone should show Bing image.
Camera
Avg quality photos.
Video quality is very nice.
Photos at night are very bad.
Music + Videos
Wanted to mention this section in last. Here I can write lot of cons..
PROS - If artist background exists, it looks very very nice.
CONS -
1. Playlist adding is very troublesome. Am using windows media player for creating playlist. I found other ways in forums. But why no proper playlist feature here. Painful.
2. No option to display album art as artist background. Generally its difficult to add artistic background for Indian songs. I have lots of songs and I cant add different artist backgrounds for every song. In case of no artist background, phone should display album art as background. I installed MPATool. But it will not fulfill the purpose for Indian songs. THis is really bad.
3. Loading of songs takes time
4. In case I did some mistake in adding background, I couldnt replace it. I need to delete the file and have to add again and before that I need to delete the artist file as well
5. There is no subtitle support
Final words
I can compromise all the CONS because of the smooth, no lag OS. May be I can feel more good after samsung releases windows phone 8.1 and when I use tht. No regrets of leaving Android at all.
I think Microsoft should be more initiative and more spontaneous in terms of Device releases, OS update releases. (And ofcourse Samsung too)
Please suggest me any workarounds to the problems am facing. Thanks in advance.
Thanks for seeing this article,
Rummy
I wanted to share my experience with my first windows phone.
My smartphone History:
Before purchasing ATIV S, I had my first smartphone Samsung Galaxy S, purchased 4 years back when it was released. Now I was wondering how I survivded with it for long 4 years. Though Android is user friendly and highly customizable, found so many problems in terms of hanging, lagging and restarting. Even power button was also not working. Thanks to the removable battery, used too remove battery and put it back again to restart. Thats the only advantage of being plastic body
Why I chose Windows phone:
Last 5 months, have restarted phone, removed battery and put it back so many times that it was high time for me to replace it. I was thinking to try a new OS and the android offerings are similar except for hardware changes from different manufacturers but once we purchase, the OS still same. Wanted to try new OS. It left me with options of Apple or windows phone. Somewhere I read that Nokia 520, though with 512MB RAM, is highly successful because of the OS smoothness. Then I have decided to go with Windows phone, as am desperate to use smooth and nice OS.
Why I chose Samsung ATIV S:
After I have decided to go for windows phone device, I wanted to buy a new smartphone for next 2-3 years with latest hardware & nice screen. It left with options Lumia 1520 or wait for Lumia 930. I removed the option 1520 bcoz of its size and cant wait for Lumia 930 (and also SD card is must for me and decent battery). It also seemed LUmia 930 is not as per latest hardware means. I wanted to purchase up to date hardwared powered windows phone so that I can use it for 2-3 years for sure. But my android problems made be impatient to wait for Lumia 930 and hence I went to Samsung Ativ S whose configuration is same as what Lumia devices have now and come with less price. I wanted to purchase McLaren later and I will give this phone to my wife who also started liking this now.
My 2 weeks Journey with Windows phone so far:
Device is light weighted, nice design and more important OS is very smooth. No lagging, no hang up and no restart. Ofcourse it will take time for me to get adjusted with Windows phone after coming from Android.
OS update
Mine is ATIV S intenrational version. After I purchased, clicked on Settings > Phone update > Check for updates. Then two updates were installed. Now the OS version: 8.1.10328.78
I understood that till GDR2 was updated. GDR3 was not showing in updates. May be Samsung backed out as it was having some issues wuth GDR3. Am desperately waiting for Windows phone 8.1. But I dont want to install dev preview version as if any issues comes, will be painful as I just moved from stressful android
Phone, contacts, SMS
Fortunately, I had outlook account from long time and it helped in syncing the People, Calendar, Mail, Onedrive with my account and loved the skype integration.
PROS - Syncing all the data from outlook.com to my phone. Wonderful, it even allows to sync with google contacts
CONS - I cant attach a pic in People from Outlook.com site and the contact pics I attached in phone never gets sync to the website. Sync should be bi-directional. Not sure if this is fixed in future updates
Social apps
PROS - Integration of Twitter, facebook with People contacts. Onedrive auto saves the camera pics I took. Nice.
CONS - Integration exists in Photos section as well..which I feel not comfortable.
Other Apps
PROS - I dont know why people complaining lack of apps. Whatever I use in Android, found in windows phone. May be am an average user of apps. ICICI bank, HDFC, Maybank, Mudah etc exists.
CONS - After using Youtube application in Android, using Youtube app in windows phone is not that much interesting. Donno when the Google releases official Youtube app.
Sounds, Pictures, lock screen
Sound quality in ATIV S is above average. Even at 30/30, I wondered I got a msg tone when in public places. For all media + ringtone, same volume control. I know this got fixed in 8.1. But till I get that update, have to adjust
However, audi quality in headphones is superb.Pictures hub is awesome..nice background images
Lockscreen is the best thing I found in this OS. I had Bing desktop in my laptop. Same here the Bing images in lock screen is so nice and when music plays, the arist background is being shown.
CON - If no artist background, grey screen shows up in lock screen. In case of no artist background, phone should show Bing image.
Camera
Avg quality photos.
Video quality is very nice.
Photos at night are very bad.
Music + Videos
Wanted to mention this section in last. Here I can write lot of cons..
PROS - If artist background exists, it looks very very nice.
CONS -
1. Playlist adding is very troublesome. Am using windows media player for creating playlist. I found other ways in forums. But why no proper playlist feature here. Painful.
2. No option to display album art as artist background. Generally its difficult to add artistic background for Indian songs. I have lots of songs and I cant add different artist backgrounds for every song. In case of no artist background, phone should display album art as background. I installed MPATool. But it will not fulfill the purpose for Indian songs. THis is really bad.
3. Loading of songs takes time
4. In case I did some mistake in adding background, I couldnt replace it. I need to delete the file and have to add again and before that I need to delete the artist file as well
5. There is no subtitle support
Final words
I can compromise all the CONS because of the smooth, no lag OS. May be I can feel more good after samsung releases windows phone 8.1 and when I use tht. No regrets of leaving Android at all.
I think Microsoft should be more initiative and more spontaneous in terms of Device releases, OS update releases. (And ofcourse Samsung too)
Please suggest me any workarounds to the problems am facing. Thanks in advance.
Thanks for seeing this article,
Rummy
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