Living with a Lumia & Windows Phone 8

Actually this can be titled as how to make amazing everyday by inserting 2 to 70 cause my previous phone was a Nokia N70 Music Edition. Its a S60 2nd edition. Ya i happened to live with it until now 😦 as if the time didn’t come right to me, one thing or the other went wrong & i was stuck with it.

But who knows, i guess all that wait is to, just add a 2 between the 70. Yes, now i own a black beauty Nokia Lumia 720! And don’t think that i’m a cave man when it comes to smart phone only cause i used N70 all these days. I have used everything like iPhone 4S, Samsung Galaxy S2, HTC explorer, Samsung Galaxy Y, Samsung Galaxy Ace, Nokia Helen (Nokia 701) and those are a courtesy of my good hearted friends and i’m well aware of the hot & happenings of the mobile world and its current trends (read Android).

So lets go on a bit, the following is my personal rant, feel free to ping me back
 
Nokia Lumia 720:first lets start with the stuffs under its hood (well, under its unibody that is)


  • GSM 850/900/1800/1900 
  • HSDPA 850/900/1900/2100 
  • SIM Mini sim 
  • Dimensions 127.9 x 67.5 x 9 mm, 78 cc (5.04 x 2.66 x 0.35 in) 
  • Weight 128g 
  • Display IPS Capacitative 16M 480 x 800 pixels, 4.3″ 217 ppi CBD Corning Gorilla 2  
  • Audio Mono loudspeaker, Dolby via 3.5mm 
  • Memory Internal 8 expandable 64 RAM 512 
  • High Speed HSDPA 21.1MBps 
  • Dual band WiFi a/b/g/n 
  • BT 3.0 (SOC supports FM radio & BT 4.0) 
  • NFC 
  • Micro USB 
  • Qualcomm Snapdragon S4 Plus SOC (with Adreno 305) 
  • 1Ghz dual core 
  • 6.7MP Carl Zeiss Tessar lens f/1.9 1/3.6″ & front 1.3 both HD 
  • 2 HAAC mics

Price in India:I brought it at the Nokia Priority Store, T.Nagar, Chennai for INR 17,600 & also the Nokia’s partnership with The New India Insurance INR 305, which covers everything from broken display, battery.. In short the phone itself for one year. And the screen protector aka scratch guard and the hard case costs INR 450 each.

i was expecting the Nokia Hard cover for given away with 720 which enables the wireless charging feature of the phone. But there’s nothing that comes with the phone as offer except the free 3G data for 3 months if you’re an Idea Cellular user. And sans that cover the phone is like a sponge pulling in the oil of my skin 😦 after all i reside in India and its summer time here, and i sweat. The back of the phone catches dirt & moisture like cake walk, so take good care of it. Surprisingly when kept the phone on a flat surface the display facing up, the camera module seems to be void of any marks of such. Guess its slightly elevated from the rest of the back surface of the phone.

The sim tray is on top and the memory expansion on the left side, and be cautious when handling both of them. Its tiny and fragile, especially the sim tray, so do be careful with it. And to my surprise, when i inserted my Transend Class 10 16gig (usable around 14gig’s i guess) which was formatted in exFat prior, it was supported by the device. I’m not aware of any other Mobile OS supporting it, but that said we’ve to also note that its their own tech, so its a no brainer if it ain’t supported.

The built quality of the device is superb, as you can expect from a Nokia.
 
Unboxing:
Nope no unboxing videos now, there’s plenty of them already in YouTube, head there guys.
 

And take a look at how Nokia’s packaging has changed in the sands of time.

And when it comes to packaging, Steve Jobs, pioneered it imo. From the right, Nokia 3315 (2002), Nokia N70 Music Edition (2005), Nokia 3110 Classic (2007), Nokia C3 Touch & Type (2010), Nokia Lumia 720 (2013)

Sample Pictures:
 The front camera which is a 1.3 MP sensor is by far the best front camera i’ve seen in a Nokia including the Nokia Lumia 920. The back shooter is awesome too, thanks to the stuffs behind that tiny piece of glass. The color saturation is fine with just the auto settings. And i didn’t pretty much go out after getting this phone, so can’t provide more sample shots, sorry. I’m a bit on the lazy meter you know 😀



Here’s a comparison of Nokia Lumia 720, Nokia Lumia 920 and the Blackberry Z10

 Nokia Lumia 720 vs Nokia Lumia 920:



Windows Phone is something that i can say, you had me at hello. Its hermosa, its fluidic, its awesome. The Windows 8 ecosystem is like my dream ecosystem. Everything looks good, and more importantly it feels good in actual practice. Looking is different from actually feeling it, windows 8 (both the Computing and Mobile Operating Systems) scores in this aspect. I’ve detached myself from the Google world and have enrolled myself into Microsoft’s. I trust them, i prefer Microsoft to Google, trust it matters.

Apple ecosystem is not coming into play itself, you know in a Country like India, not every Tom, Dick & Harry can have it. Actually i do feel that iPhone sucks, i’ve used an iPhone for a while and got tired of it, within a single day. I mean heck, how are people using that stuff for years in a row? Perhaps that’s just me.

Windows Phone 8 is pleasurable. I can even stare at its UI for hours and its UX is admirable, something which other mobile OS’s should learn from. I mean with all its cons (off course it has its share of cons, along with Pros), it gives you a UX which is irresistible. It makes you come back for it, it leaves back an impression once you’ve held a Windows Phone device.

It sure is the third platform, and i believe it will eventually top the list.

But dear Microsoft, you need to get some things right ASAP! No its not the Instagram, well i’m not the one who gives a flying fuck for it anyways. First i need universal search via the search key. For the first three days i didn’t even touch the search key until i happened to scan a QR code. universal search is a no brainer guys. And for Christ sake make the device wake itself, ring that fucking alarm and ask me whether to stay oned or to go off back again. Those two things are pretty serious stuffs :@ and hey why should it say ‘goodbye’ while switching off? Like i’m gonna die the next moment like a Final Destination hero :/ if it displays “see you soon” or go a notch a bit and say “will miss you, x” or “take care, x” and fill that X with the microsoft account name the phone is linked with, or simply just give an option to fill it up ourselfs, it’d be super cool. Its the little things that’ll make people fall in love with, that special friendly touch rather just acting like a dumb phone.

About the device, since using it as my primary phone for more than a week now, i can say it has the right mix for a smart phone. And the cherry on top is the price. Its the perfect design with a unibody with memory expansion, a huge battery life, gonna wifi, 3G receptions and call quality. Its a package, its what i was looking for a while now from Nokia.  The Nokia Priority Dealer said they sold 15 Lumia’s this past sunday (brought the phone on Monday, 22nd April 2013) but still its eons back when compared to the sales of Android, but for the fact that a new and closed ecosystem is doing so well with such a initial momentum, apps coming in with some developer attention,  guess the Windows Phone statergy has finally paid off i guess, after all Stephen Elop was right! Sorry Elop for scolding you when you announced the good old Symbian/Belle dead, I’m glad you did it.

[And hey i want a dark background for Office!]


The above photos and suggested stuffs are my own rants, listen to this small kid Microsoft. Change it for good. I’m no Tony Stark leveled genius, but perhaps i may be right.

And FM Radio is something of a must in regions like India, i don’t want always on sleeping screen for my lcd, but double tap to wake up and fm radio will be a delight to have.


And hey, i only have 8GB of memory sans my MicroSD, so please fix this other memory problem. I can’t imagine myself to reset my device just for a flaw from yourside.


Okay here you go, the windows phone wallpapers that came with the phone


Sorry for the picure quality but this is the Samsung Galaxy Y which was 7k and made Samsung a promising side in the low end market and killed and grabbed Nokia’s share totally rivaling the Asha series. Look how small it looks and hey it has low ram (for Android) and it cannot be upgraded OS wise, meaning many current Android owners will eventually switch there phones in coming year or years, that’s a opportunity which should not be missed by handsets like Nokia Lumia 520 around 9.6K which is not only selling extremely well in India but on the foreign countries too.


I am totally satisfied with WP and its ecosystems sans the points i ranted above in a pictorial representation. But, still some things are making me go dafaq?

One of my Android friend once said to me that he has installed Prey a thing which allows him to track down his device, and i with super reflexes mocked him the very next moment that Windows Phone has this baked in right outta the box. But hey, that’s not working in theory, at least in India.

This ring, lock & erase thing, is not at all working. i tried several times but nothing happens, speaking of which after Microsoft implemented the two-factor authentication system, i’m having nigtmares!

When apps require me to sign in using outlook for either using their services or to backup settings & stuffs in SkyDrive, i need to pass through the two step. If i select text to X&%&^$%#(, that never ever works. Only call to
X&%&^$%#( works. I mean you can call but can’t message me uh?

And my dad wished to get a Nokia Lumia 520, we went there but its out of stock due to high demand! happy that WP is moving in the market.

And while my local Nokia Priority dealer at T.Nagar is doing a commendable job at customer relationships, look at the screenshot above, pathetic!

Overall to stop my rants and sum it up, sorry for writing it way too late. But its better late than never, isn’t! Windows Phone will be my phone forever in the foreseen future along with the Windows 7 desktop and a Windows 8 Tablet if Nokia does come up with an 7/8/10 incher around 15k – 22 or 25k.

The following is taken by a Nokia Lumia 920

And this is from my Nokia Lumia 720, the only difference is color saturation and that i guess is based on the image processing algorithms, correct me if that’s not the case at my twitter handle @RaT_KuttI

And sometimes when deep inside an app for example say after browsing many pages in IE10 when i press the back button like 192727 times a second, the app exits. But when raping the back button like that very swiftly, the vibration feedback stops when you press the capacitive buttons. And resumes after a while!

Microsoft Office has no option to have a dark background, it is only available in white. And that might be a pretty serious problem if you own a fancy LED display. Lucky me, mine is IPS LCD.
And right now i’m watching the Asha web cast , you can too watch it here http://www.media-server.com/m/p/aw8rc9z5, wish i can be there to ask some questions to Mr.Stephen Elop!

I found a bug in Windows Phone 8, i dunno how but when i pressed the lock screen, only the lock screen’s wallpaper came up. 
The time wasn’t displayed, only the date! When i swiped upwards the screen opened  up. 
Note that my screen is password protected and it should not go up, first of all it should have displayed the date and time and home screen notifications! 
But the good thing is nothing opened up when i pressed on the live tiles nor did it go to the app list. 
Then i pressed the lock button back again, the screen went off. And i pressed the lock again and everything is back as normal. 
This weird thing happened to me just once, but still a bug is a bug! I’m cannot guarantee you a way to exactly recreate it, cause you see this happened just once and that too lived for a short time.

 

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