Nokia Windows Phone Lumia-The Good The Bad & The Ugly

Nokia Windows Phone- The Good, The Bad & The Ugly

If you are not already aware, I am a massive Nokia Fanboi, however, since the announcement of Window Phone becoming the main OS for Nokia, by CEO Stephen Elop in February 2011, I have had great doubts about it, so after having been invited to Nokia World 2011, by Nokia Support Discussions and having the opportunity to use their just announced Windows Phone, the Nokia Lumia 800 , here are my initial thoughts and opinions.

I won't go into technical details as I have neither the knowledge or ability and others with both better writing skills and 'tech savvy' will cover that all over the web, this is just my thoughts, experience and opinions after using the device for two days.

Going in reverse order, from the title of this piece,

The Ugly -This bit is quite easy, fortunately, as it's just a personal thing, the Tiles, I hate the BLOODY Tiles on metro, as I say, it's a personal thing, the actual handset is gorgeous !!

The Bad- Slightly more difficult, again, it's probably perculiar to me and quite a few 'Geeks' and the general populous will probably neither realise or care, but the inability to drag and drop media onto the phone or to Bluetooth photos from it (hello IOS !!) I find annoying and frustrating as well as restrictive, also the requirement to use Zune to transfer/convert media is something that REALLY does not appeal to me (hello iTunes) and a bit of text re-flow wouldn't go amiss either. That being said, I believe this OS is aimed at mass appeal and the US Market and Apple have proved these type of restrictive practices don't put people off using something that is easy to use, reliable, and 'just works', and selling high end phones in numbers has to be a main aim for Nokia's survival and success, along with there ambitions to extend internet usage and access in emerging markets with Feature/Smartphone crossovers like the new Nokia Asha phones.

The Good- Fortunately, I need to attempt to write more about this, as I honestly believe it to be the biggest part of the story ! From a Nokia point of view, I believe they have caused major problems for themselves in the past with delays causing frustration and anger amongst customers and the press, by announcing things and then not delivering the goods, in this case, Nokia have produced a new phone with a new OS in 8 months and it will be rolling out of the shops in less than a month, and the quirky advertising campaign they plan will grab people by the throat instead of trying to simply drop a hint, they have to be applauded for that, and I for one am very impressed.

Now the actual phone itself, is absolutely gorgeous, it looks good, it feels good and it's 'cool' I doubt many people could deny it ? As for useage, the phone flys, it scrolls through the OS like butter, the screen is a pleasure to use and many of the features are really really good, people who use a Windows Computer and Hotmail, or Live or Xbox (and MILLIONS DO) will get fantastic intergration and some nice and useful features. The social intergration is excellent and will improve, the browser is quick, it will become a great gaming phone with it's Xbox connections. I think the Microsoft Connection will appeal to corporate buyers, as most large companies run there IT departments through a Windows system. Nokias add ons with free turn by turn navigation and maps is a great service, the new internet radio music service where you can stream FREE music and even save it for offline usage is great and will have mass apeall and if I could ignore my Geeky desire to tinker I really believe I could be happy with the Lumia in every respect and I'm sure a large proportion of the mobile 'upgrading' public will be wowed by it, because it's a truly great package, and I'm sure the marketing campaign will push the new phones into the public and it will really take off. I hope the doubters and knockers , including myself, will be proved wrong !!

Something had to be done at Nokia, it has been, it's been done drastically, efficiently and on time and I'm writing this with renewed enthusiasm and hope for Nokia for the future, only time will tell who's right and who's wrong, but if I had the spare cash, I'd be buying Nokia stock at the moment not selling it, I think they've turned a corner and are heading in the right direction, fast !!

Thanks for reading, and sorry about the quality of the photos and writing :)

Stephen Quin

Thought I'd do a minor update to this hub as I've recently had a confirmation from Nokia, via The Amazing Collective , a group that Nokia are setting up, whereby they are loaning a group of about 500 people a Lumia-800 each to use and review and give feedback on. I'm lucky to have been picked, and am looking forward to collecting a Lumia from Huddersfield on this coming Tuesday, which I believe I will have on long term loan from Nokia, and will be expected to use it as my main device. I also understand there will be some applications installed to enable Nokia and the rest of the 'Collective' to interact, however I'm sure I'll get the full lowdown when I go for my 'training' and collect the handset.

So, what now ? Well the phone has already had a software update, and further updates and bug fixes are in the pipeline, so I am expecting a better experience than I had with the pre-release SW I used whilst at Nokia World (not that it was bad at all) and also one of the SW updates is supposed to resolve an issue with battery life, which seems to prevent the battery taking a full 1450mAh charge, so that should be a welcome addition if it's to be my main phone, as I do tend to give my handsets a considerable amount of 'stick' and rarely get more than a day out of a battery, sometimes less and extra juice is always welcome, manufacturers in general simply seem to have some resistance to big batteries, and I really do fail to understand it ?

Having more than a couple of days with the phone, will hopefully give me the time to stop Hating the Tiles, other users say they grow on you, and are a much more useful tool once you've personalised them and set them up to give you the live info they are capable of, so I'm looking forward to that :) Also I plan to make a concerted effort to use Zune, I'm not looking forward to it as I like to do my own thing, and don't like the 'walled garden' approach of running an OS , but I'm always open to new ideas and want to get full use of the phone, so I'm going to use every aspect of the phone and it's ecosystem fully, and as Zune appears to be a major part of that it will have to appear on my laptop in the next couple of days ! Fortunately a big part of my Mobile phone usage is social networking and web browsing and as Twitter and Facebook are well integrated in Windows Phone that should fulfil a large part of my requirements, and hopefully I can grow to like the system as much as other people I know and respect from the web do, who are already using the phone. It's really great to be involved from the start of the Nokia /Windows Phone adventure and I hope to keep doing the odd piece as I use the Lumia-800 and hopefully I will be fully won over, whatever the case I will be honest and post what I find, and will also try my best to help users on the Nokia Support Discussions forum. assuming I learn enough to do so :)

So here's hoping my next post on the phone can lose the Bad and the Ugly bits and maybe just Good,Gooder,Better and Betterer ? Watch this space !!