Welcome to the club...
Originally Posted by
NickInLA I've been using the 640 for a few days and while it's a fun phone, I wanted a phone to do something more. I use my LG G3 very heavy as a reader and a camera so I think the 1520 should be great for those two things.
I am in no hurry for W10 so is there a specific stable version I should be looking at? Is 8.1 pretty stable? Does "Hey Cortana" work with 8.1 on the 1520? I'm extremely reliant on "OK Google" so this is big for me. I was told this is one of the phones 'Hey Cortana' will work on.
Upgrade to 8.1 Update. It should be the last Official available to you via OTA. Yes it is stable. Yes you will have "Hey Cortana."
Originally Posted by
NickInLA I think this phone is capable of RAW shooting? Is that right? I use LR for my work so I'm really looking forward to this. The G3 has a good camera but no native RAW support.
Yes it will shoot the DNG standard of RAW at 16MP for 16:9 or 19MP at 4:3. It also saves a 5MP oversampled jpg in tandem. Also, built in HDR with the Rich Capture feature that is merged right on the phone and 4k video as well.
Originally Posted by
NickInLA From whatever videos I saw, the 1520 seems to be very snappy due to it's hardware and I want to make sure I have everything covered for a great Windows experience. I already like Coffee reader for my epub files but I am puzzled as to why Opera is not developing a full fledged browser instead of the crappy mini. Thanks!

The 1520 screen is big and beautiful. You should really enjoy it.
Can't answer about the Opera... I really haven't used it much as it can't give me the desktop experience of mobile IE or the Bing searches to help me build Bing Rewards points...