Quick thoughts on the Lumia 920

[KaraK]

I think I've really gotten used to the size of the 920 without realising it - picking up an iPhone 3G the other day it felt tiny and the screen felt very cramped. As someone who always resisted big phones before because I preferred something that fit in the hand nicely and wasn't too big in the pocket I have to eat some humble pie and say that I'm a convert.

[ZesPak]

KaraK said:

I think I've really gotten used to the size of the 920 without realising it - picking up an iPhone 3G the other day it felt tiny and the screen felt very cramped. As someone who always resisted big phones before because I preferred something that fit in the hand nicely and wasn't too big in the pocket I have to eat some humble pie and say that I'm a convert.

I have the same with my S2, coming from a small 3.7" screen, going to 4.3" I thought it was brilliant but it shouldn't be any bigger.

Then I had a 4?7" S3 in my hand last week and I thought "I could easily get used to this".

[TameRacingDriver]

Everything feels tiny after using the Note 2 for a while. Just a shame it grenaded itself.

Though I have to say, 4.7 / 4.8 is about a nice all round size for a phone, the N2 was pocketable but you can't escape from its bulk.

[theboss]

KaraK said:

I think I've really gotten used to the size of the 920 without realising it - picking up an iPhone 3G the other day it felt tiny and the screen felt very cramped. As someone who always resisted big phones before because I preferred something that fit in the hand nicely and wasn't too big in the pocket I have to eat some humble pie and say that I'm a convert.

How are you finding the software?

several things are driving me mad already to the point I'm contemplating binning for an iPhone 5:

IE - st - buttons for stop/refresh or Tabs but not both - meaning its necessary to access a context menu frequently for essential tasks

the 'back' button is global so if you switch from IE to Start then back to IE, the back button takes you back to start rather than back within your browsing history - this is just nuts in my opinion

if you hit a HTTP error page in IE, typically this page cannot be displayed (due to loss of network) and then refresh it just refreshes the error page rather than re-requesting the original URL

it drives me mad that the status bar along the top, showing battery, time and network auto hides, I want this shown permanently

typing accuracy is a complete tt in portrait mode - it doesn't auto correct half as well as an iphone4 despite having a wider screen

battery life is st even with everything turned off - a full days use is not feasible

signal is generally poorer than an iphone4 that I was convinced had antenna problems - with the 820 I can't even take a call at my desk where previously I had a few bars

Not good so far I'm afraid.

[RockDoctor]

My battery seems great, as well as my typing. The back button is a bit annoying though, I agree with you there. I don't really use it for internet all that much though, so it's not bothering me as much as it is you.

I've not really travelled much yet to compare signals.

[clonmult]

theboss said:

typing accuracy is a complete tt in portrait mode - it doesn't auto correct half as well as an iphone4 despite having a wider screen

battery life is st even with everything turned off - a full days use is not feasible

signal is generally poorer than an iphone4 that I was convinced had antenna problems - with the 820 I can't even take a call at my desk where previously I had a few bars

If the auto correct isn't even half as good as iOS, then it really is bad. Auto correct on iOS does seem random, and ultimately it seems like a complete waste of time. Heck, I'm preferring the revised keyboard on the 808 (running Belle FP2) to that seen in iOS6.

Not even getting a day out of a charge really is bad, although I'm finding the 4S can sometimes barely last through a working day - it was needing a charge by midday when location services were enabled (albeit not being used).

With what I've heard of the 920, along with the experiences of a couple of months with an iPhone4S, I'm very definitely sticking with the 808 as my primary phone. The 920 would give me a considerably worse camera and battery life, iOS feels heavily restricted (interface). I can't take Android seriously (as a phone, it seems okay as a tablet OS).

[theboss]

I usually turned auto correct off in the iPhone because touch accuracy was high and I rarely needed it. On the 820 it seems that the touch screen is just not calibrated properly, you press a key and invariably the adjacent letter is touched. It's very hard to type on imho. Take my post above as a bit of a rant but I am finding it to generally be far below the iPhone in general usability terms. Also there is hardly any customization, if you criticize ios for being restrictive in this respect then WP8 will surely drive you mad. Three levels of screen brightness ffs? I guess I need to find out how to run regedit.exe

[clonmult]

theboss said:

I usually turned auto correct off in the iPhone because touch accuracy was high and I rarely needed it. On the 820 it seems that the touch screen is just not calibrated properly, you press a key and invariably the adjacent letter is touched. It's very hard to type on imho. Take my post above as a bit of a rant but I am finding it to generally be far below the iPhone in general usability terms. Also there is hardly any customization, if you criticize ios for being restrictive in this respect then WP8 will surely drive you mad. Three levels of screen brightness ffs? I guess I need to find out how to run regedit.exe

I'll try the iPhone with auto correct turned off (sometimes I just typed and it gave some hilarious results), but not sure I've found it that accurate. My name would either come through as Save or Fave. Sometimes it would be right - ie. Dave - probably just got clunky fingers.

I'm honestly not finding iOS that usable, although thats primarily down to the lack of decent task switching (so used to Symbian and its way easier way of switching between running apps).

[KaraK]

theboss said:

How are you finding the software?

several things are driving me mad already to the point I'm contemplating binning for an iPhone 5:

IE - st - buttons for stop/refresh or Tabs but not both - meaning its necessary to access a context menu frequently for essential tasks

the 'back' button is global so if you switch from IE to Start then back to IE, the back button takes you back to start rather than back within your browsing history - this is just nuts in my opinion

if you hit a HTTP error page in IE, typically this page cannot be displayed (due to loss of network) and then refresh it just refreshes the error page rather than re-requesting the original URL

it drives me mad that the status bar along the top, showing battery, time and network auto hides, I want this shown permanently

typing accuracy is a complete tt in portrait mode - it doesn't auto correct half as well as an iphone4 despite having a wider screen

battery life is st even with everything turned off - a full days use is not feasible

signal is generally poorer than an iphone4 that I was convinced had antenna problems - with the 820 I can't even take a call at my desk where previously I had a few bars

Not good so far I'm afraid.

The IE quibbles are definitely something you have a point on - the need to go into a context menu to swap tabs for me adds an unnecessary click and the back button behaviour feels rather clumsy. My phone-based browsing however is pretty minimal so while it's not a deal breaker for me I can imagine a heavy user getting wound up fairly quickly.

The status bar auto-hide is something that I thought would annoy me - and I was surprised that it wasn't switchable. That said I'm struggling to think of a time it's actually managed to bother me.

For the typing I couldn't disagree with you more - I utterly loathe touchscreen keyboards and typing anything more than about three letters on an iPhone makes me want to throw it out the window, the 920's has been a relative joy however. Accuracy seems good, autocorrect is relatively unintrusive (far better than WebOS for example) the word suggestions seem to be on the money more often than not and it's getting better as it gets used to me.

Battery life doesn't sound right to me - I know the 820 has a smaller battery than the 920 but it also has less demands and I easily cruise through a day-day and a half without any worries. I have Bluetooth and NFC turned on all the time with Wifi disabled unless I need it. Same goes for signal - it gives me the same or better signal than my old N97 mini and call quality is also noticeably better. These issues might be an 820 vs 920 problem but to me it sounds like you've got a pup and I'd be taking it back - whether you want to stick Lumia or not.

[RockDoctor]

clonmult said:

If the auto correct isn't even half as good as iOS, then it really is bad. Auto correct on iOS does seem random, and ultimately it seems like a complete waste of time. Heck, I'm preferring the revised keyboard on the 808 (running Belle FP2) to that seen in iOS6.

Not even getting a day out of a charge really is bad, although I'm finding the 4S can sometimes barely last through a working day - it was needing a charge by midday when location services were enabled (albeit not being used).

With what I've heard of the 920, along with the experiences of a couple of months with an iPhone4S, I'm very definitely sticking with the 808 as my primary phone. The 920 would give me a considerably worse camera and battery life, iOS feels heavily restricted (interface). I can't take Android seriously (as a phone, it seems okay as a tablet OS).

I'd give it a shot. Not everyone has the issues he has.

[CDP]

KaraK said:

Battery life doesn't sound right to me - I know the 820 has a smaller battery than the 920 but it also has less demands and I easily cruise through a day-day and a half without any worries. I have Bluetooth and NFC turned on all the time with Wifi disabled unless I need it. Same goes for signal - it gives me the same or better signal than my old N97 mini and call quality is also noticeably better. These issues might be an 820 vs 920 problem but to me it sounds like you've got a pup and I'd be taking it back - whether you want to stick Lumia or not.

My 800 gives me a couple of days. I don't worry if I forgot to charge it.

With regards to signal strength it's the best phone I've ever owned and I can talk on it where others just don't get a signal.

With poor signals the phone turns it's transmitter power up which kills battery life. It's quite possible you've got a faulty phone or it hasn't been rf calibrated properly. In either case return it.

[Rawwr]

The 820 I have is brilliant for battery. Took it off charge on Friday morning and by Monday morning it still had 46% left. The 920 goes for just shy of 2 days.

[RockDoctor]

Had my 920 off charge since 9am this morning, and it's still at 69% at nearly 11 this evening.

[TameRacingDriver]

Had mine for a day now. Previous phone Galaxy Note 2 and Lumia 800 when that broke. Thoughts:

• Feels like a really good quality bit of kit
• Weight - doesn't feel heavy to me, does to the GF. MTFU
• Screen is very nice, not as vivid as AMOLED, but so much sharper. Blacks still look black and colours still stand out.
• Very responsive to the touch
• UI is very slick
• Class leading camera, but still not up to mid-range compact standard

A few niggles.

• Live tiles don't seem to update properly at times. Pictures I deleted from the gallery (local and skydrive) were still being shown on the live tile.
• I shut it down with less than 10% battery and it refused to switch back on, even when connected to a charger, showing a "flat battery" icon on the screen.
• I let it charge for 10 mins but still wouldn't switch on. I had to perform a soft reset.
• When it rebooted it lost the time and date.
• The auto time/date function does not work. You have to set it manually

It seems to work fine most of the time, but its not a great start in a day.

I cannot yet comment on audio quality and battery life, but when I can I'll report back.

[KaraK]

TameRacingDriver said:

Had mine for a day now. Previous phone Galaxy Note 2 and Lumia 800 when that broke. Thoughts:

• Feels like a really good quality bit of kit
• Weight - doesn't feel heavy to me, does to the GF. MTFU
• Screen is very nice, not as vivid as AMOLED, but so much sharper. Blacks still look black and colours still stand out.
• Very responsive to the touch
• UI is very slick
• Class leading camera, but still not up to mid-range compact standard

A few niggles.

• Live tiles don't seem to update properly at times. Pictures I deleted from the gallery (local and skydrive) were still being shown on the live tile.
• I shut it down with less than 10% battery and it refused to switch back on, even when connected to a charger, showing a "flat battery" icon on the screen.
• I let it charge for 10 mins but still wouldn't switch on. I had to perform a soft reset.
• When it rebooted it lost the time and date.
• The auto time/date function does not work. You have to set it manually

It seems to work fine most of the time, but its not a great start in a day.

I cannot yet comment on audio quality and battery life, but when I can I'll report back.

Keep us posted TRD

Just regarding the camera it's worth mentioning that Nokia are updating the firmware with the "Portico" WP update which apparently is dialling out some of the "softness" that it was getting during daytime shots and it looks like a pretty good improvement:

http://www.wpcentral.com/nokia-improves-lumia-920-...

[HTP99]

Does anyone know how WP8 is doing globally, is it selling better than the previous generation at this stage?

[TameRacingDriver]

So left it overnight with about 75% battery remaining lying on my desk and this morning - dead. Won't even turn on.

No doubt another soft reset.

This isn't acceptable and it will be going for a refund. 2 days and I am sick of the sight of it already I'm afraid. They could well be software problems but I'm not waiting until Nokia deem us worthy to have the upcoming upgrade whic may or may not fix the issues.

I bought a wp8 handset as I liked the UI and thought it would be a reliable if closed OS but its already caused my a lot of grief and I didn't get it so I could sit on google looking for solutions to problems. If im going to sit dicking around with phones then I may as well just go back to android which is a lot less restricted.

[RockDoctor]

TameRacingDriver said:

So left it overnight with about 75% battery remaining lying on my desk and this morning - dead. Won't even turn on.

No doubt another soft reset.

This isn't acceptable and it will be going for a refund. 2 days and I am sick of the sight of it already I'm afraid. They could well be software problems but I'm not waiting until Nokia deem us worthy to have the upcoming upgrade whic may or may not fix the issues.

I bought a wp8 handset as I liked the UI and thought it would be a reliable if closed OS but its already caused my a lot of grief and I didn't get it so I could sit on google looking for solutions to problems. If im going to sit dicking around with phones then I may as well just go back to android which is a lot less restricted.

Must be a problem with the handset, sorry to hear that. No use to you, but mine lasts 2 days with moderate usage.

[TameRacingDriver]

The point is the battery was still on 70% when i finally done a soft reset (and set the date and time manually yet again) so it hadn't gone because the battery failed. It just crashed.

i knew there was a risk of this happening so i cant complain. Back to android for me i think. Wp8 shows promise but its not there yet IMO.

[RockDoctor]

TameRacingDriver said:

The point is the battery was still on 70% when i finally done a soft reset (and set the date and time manually yet again) so it hadn't gone because the battery failed. It just crashed.

i knew there was a risk of this happening so i cant complain. Back to android for me i think. Wp8 shows promise but its not there yet IMO.

Ahh, understand now. Haven't had anything like that happen (yet). Fingers crossed!