Huge mistake Nokia

[clonmult]

MarkRSi said:

The only Symbian phone I had was the 5800 XpressMusic. Was this a particularly good example of a Symbian phone?

Whilst it was OK, I felt the my first Android phone (ZTE Blade) was vastly better from a user experience point of view (Although the 5800 had admittedly a bit less power than my first Android phone a ZTE Blade (434MHz/128MB vs 600MHz/512MB) The 5800 felt like nothing more than a basic feature phone with the ability to install apps more easily, while android was much more customisable and generally felt more up to date and a worthy iPhone competitor.

Edited by MarkRSi on Monday 21st May 13:43

The 5800 was typical of Symbian at the time - it was rushed, and they kept a load of legacy crap in there for "compatibility".

Biggest fkuc up of that whole era was that each phone (N97, N97 Mini, 5800, 5230, X6 etc.) has the same CPU/ram, but for no particularly good reason each one had its own totally unrelated fork of the OS. Each with its own set of bugs. Which is stupid.

Interesting you compare it to the Blade, had one of those. And I won't say I hated it, it did have a good screen. But aside from that it was incapable of any gaming, all you could do on it was basic productivity. Browsing on it was painful - but then even on my Android tablet I hate the standard google browser. Its interface is shockingly bad.

The S^3 devices from the N8 onwards are totally different devices. Invariably well built, good design, solid/consistent interface that gives you plenty of customisation. The delays in release of S^3 are totally down to Nokias internal politics and truly incompetent management, the developers have always had the ability, but management never let them do their job.

[Balmoral]

The e-mail on my E7 is fine, and I've never had to reset/reboot it. It does everything other smart phones do, plus more. It has a nice screen and camera, and a proper keyboard. The battery lasts a few days at a time. As for the OS, back to back with others, I can't work out what's supposed to be so bad about it?

[happygoron]

Sorry, can't find any consensus in this thread. Nokia have made mistakes but what I want to know is: is the lumia 800 one? Looking at replacing my htc legend with it.

[lestag]

happygoron said:

Sorry, can't find any consensus in this thread. Nokia have made mistakes but what I want to know is: is the lumia 800 one? Looking at replacing my htc legend with it.

Depends what you want from your phone?

[bodhi]

clonmult said:

Not sure which universe you're in that SE made better cameras and music players - the N73 had a better camera than the K800/810, the N95 was a reasonable all round camera, and due to a well configured xenon flash the N82 would better most current mobiles on low-light imaging.

Moto did make funky handsets - the Razr is a truly fantastic piece of design. But it didn't have the software to back up the design.

SE DID make better cameras though, they were reknowned for it at the time. The K800i has a Xenon flash as well and took much better pictures than the N73 and even the N95 at times, then the K850i came out and was even better. Working for Vodafone at the time I saw loads of phone cameras of that age, SE were always pretty much the best. The N82 was excellent until the K800 came out, didn't make up for all the other bugs in the phone however.

[clonmult]

bodhi said:

clonmult said:

Not sure which universe you're in that SE made better cameras and music players - the N73 had a better camera than the K800/810, the N95 was a reasonable all round camera, and due to a well configured xenon flash the N82 would better most current mobiles on low-light imaging.

Moto did make funky handsets - the Razr is a truly fantastic piece of design. But it didn't have the software to back up the design.

SE DID make better cameras though, they were reknowned for it at the time. The K800i has a Xenon flash as well and took much better pictures than the N73 and even the N95 at times, then the K850i came out and was even better. Working for Vodafone at the time I saw loads of phone cameras of that age, SE were always pretty much the best. The N82 was excellent until the K800 came out, didn't make up for all the other bugs in the phone however.

I had both the N73 and K800i at the same time, and the N95 a couple of years later.

The xenon flash in the K800 was useless, pathetic range, very badly metered. The N73 definitely took better/sharper images.

What surprised me was that the K800 wasn't as good as the W810 with the plugin flash - that was well metered, had a great range. In fact, I do very much miss the W810 .... may have to nab it back from my son.

One thing that the K800 did very well was the bestshot (bestpic?) - somehow now being resurrected by BB and others as a "new feature".

[happygoron]

Pr1964 said:

I don't think you'll find much benefit in replacing your Legend with a Lumia.
If you like android then stick with android.
WP7 has worst battery life and isn't as customisable and is really quite basic, if you just want a simple smart phone then WP7 will be fine.

Lumia is compared to Legend
Worst :
Battery
Less customisable
Fewer Apps “if you care”
See 101 reasons not to buy a WP7

Better:
Camera
Faster Processor
Faster OS

Would I pay to upgrade from a legend to a lumia NO.

lestag said:

Depends what you want from your phone?

Well I'm definately ditching the legend, far too slow and underpowered to run any modern apps. I do love the case though! Not been hugely fussed on android so far, found it to be a bit buggy, my phone has needed more than it's fair share of resets to solve crashes. Was looking at a lumia 800 or an iphone 4 if I can get one cheap enough. Definatly want a smartphone with a decent browsing experiance and interface. Range of apps is nice but not the be all and end all. Any other suggestions?

[lestag]

happygoron said:

Was looking at a lumia 800 or an iphone 4 if I can get one cheap enough. Definatly want a smartphone with a decent browsing experiance and interface. Range of apps is nice but not the be all and end all. Any other suggestions?

Not really, I have a 800 lack of tethering (coming soon) is an issue for me, i have had one email crash the mail client if I open it, but delete the email and its fine. I think the build quality of the 800 is great, its solid.
Really, i don't think you could go wrong with a 800, iphone 4, S2/3 onex

[CommanderJameson]

happygoron said:

Sorry, can't find any consensus in this thread. Nokia have made mistakes but what I want to know is: is the lumia 800 one? Looking at replacing my htc legend with it.

I have a blue one. It suits me very well as I use Facebook a lot. The call and contact management works for me. The browser's not the best but it's quick and functional. What I really like is the aesthetic; very crisp and smooth, with clear typography and fluid transitions.

I think the email client is first-rate and better than its equivalents on iOS and Android. Having built-in access to Microsoft office (I use OneNote a lot) is very useful to me.

Build quality is excellent. I have no difficulty syncing it with my Mac.

WP7 isn't for everyone, but it's certainly not a mistake. Definitely try it out before counting it out.

[clonmult]

Pr1964 said:

Sounds like you'd be more than happy with an iPhone.
I didn't like Android not a very efficient OS IMO.
I've been offered a Nokia N8 by a friend he had it sitting in his desk draw haing bought an iPhone I'm going to update the OS to simbian belle and see how it goes I'm not a big fan of touch but apparently it's capable of 3 days battery as long as gps wifi and btooth are turned off. So might work for me.

Screen brightness turned down, switch to 2G, install some of the interface hacks that seem to actually make it smoother and use a little less battery. Don't take pictures with the Xenon flash, or do any video recording. Then you'll get 3 days.

I'm getting 2 days with the screen at 50% (not much difference between that and 100%), 3G on, bluetooth on a few times a day. Rarely use GPS, but thats only ever enabled on demand, you can't explicitly switch it off as such. WiFi is the same - it sits there doing nothing until you try to establish a data connection, and if there's a registered wifi point available it'll try to use it.

[MarkRSi]

Got the Nokia 710 today. Less than a month old (included original receipt for £130 + £10 top up, I paid under 100 for it, not sure why they were selling it yet...). Wiped the phone (the seller hadn't done this... ). Phone completely flat when it arrived so charged it up.

Currently running an update via some 'Zune' software I've had to download.

First impressions.

• Very smooth interface, very iPhone like.
• The interface layout itself (Metro?) it not much different to the W7 imitator apps you can get for the Android phone. I do like the customisation you can do with the Android launchers (I use Go Launcher on my Atrix) but need to play with the 710 a bit more I think...
• Apps seem to be slightly lacking - any recommendations chaps? - and there doesn't appear to be much in the way of Google apps (apart from search) which it a bit concerning since I use Gmail and Google This and Google That. I might be able to use the browser...
• Size is also similar to the Atrix (was expecting it to be smaller). 710 noticeably lighter.
• Dedicated camera button is a plus, less than 2 seconds to take a picture (vs power button+unlock screen+open camera app+take picture=5 seconds on the Atrix).

I'll use it tomorrow for a more through test, I'll just need to hack this Orange SIM card into a micro SIM first...

ETA Oh look the update failed... error code 801812C1, just like a Stop 7B error then...

Edited by MarkRSi on Thursday 24th May 00:03

[MarkRSi]

Pr1964 said:

MarkRSi said:

ETA Oh look the update failed... error code 801812C1, just like a Stop 7B error then...

Edited by MarkRSi on Thursday 24th May 00:03

The wonderful world of windoze .....

haha, tried it again shortly afterwards and no issues... :shrug:

Got my Google Mail on it now (you can add accounts to the phone). Are there any alternative browsers on the phone? I tried opening the Opera download page and was greeted by this



Guess I'll stick with Mobile IE for a while...

[wolves_wanderer]

I believe there are a few browser re-skins in the marketplace but MS are taking a line similar to Apple in restricting certain types of software. Mobile IE is pretty good though.

Edit, just seen your other post. Google seem to have a problem with Windows Phone (probably not surprising given all the patent woes of Android vs MS) but there are normally work arounds or decent 3rd party apps to cover it.

What sort of apps are you looking for?

Edited by wolves_wanderer on Thursday 24th May 09:20

[CommanderJameson]

MarkRSi said:

haha, tried it again shortly afterwards and no issues... :shrug:

Got my Google Mail on it now (you can add accounts to the phone). Are there any alternative browsers on the phone? I tried opening the Opera download page and was greeted by this



Guess I'll stick with Mobile IE for a while...

Yes, there is an alternative - sort of. It's called UC Browser, and it's in the Marketplace.

I have it on my 800. It's very Chinese (when it starts up, it says it's "initializating"), but it certainly works. However, it's based on the IE9 layout engine.

At the moment, however, there isn't a version of Chrome, Firefox or Opera (or anything using their respective layout engines) for Windows Phone 7.

[BliarOut]

My iPhone has never done that

[clonmult]

BliarOut said:

My iPhone has never done that

Neither has my N8 running Opera .....

[MarkRSi]

wolves_wanderer said:

I believe there are a few browser re-skins in the marketplace but MS are taking a line similar to Apple in restricting certain types of software. Mobile IE is pretty good though.

Edit, just seen your other post. Google seem to have a problem with Windows Phone (probably not surprising given all the patent woes of Android vs MS) but there are normally work arounds or decent 3rd party apps to cover it.

What sort of apps are you looking for?

Edited by wolves_wanderer on Thursday 24th May 09:20

I think I read about that this morning regarding the browser restrctions, apart from the Opera page (and Google Maps - this just gives a 404 error for some reason? That said Nokia maps is decent enough) it seems to work well enough.

I've got the phone pretty much setup for what I use it for now (contacts/messaging/Exchange email/Gmail/Facebook/Twitter feed). Dropbox support would be great (I think there's a 'BoxFiles' app?). Basically just any good/useful/fun apps you've come across?

ETA could add a 'Windows Phone' section in here? http://www.pistonheads.com/gassing/topic.asp?h=0&a...

Edited by MarkRSi on Thursday 24th May 23:15

[lestag]

clonmult said:

Neither has my N8 running Opera .....

Neither has my 800 running IE ...

[CommanderJameson]

MarkRSi said:

I think I read about that this morning regarding the browser restrctions, apart from the Opera page (and Google Maps - this just gives a 404 error for some reason? That said Nokia maps is decent enough) it seems to work well enough.

I've got the phone pretty much setup for what I use it for now (contacts/messaging/Exchange email/Gmail/Facebook/Twitter feed). Dropbox support would be great (I think there's a 'BoxFiles' app?). Basically just any good/useful/fun apps you've come across?

ETA could add a 'Windows Phone' section in here? http://www.pistonheads.com/gassing/topic.asp?h=0&a...

I think a Windows Phone Essentials thread might be in order. In the meantime, to get you started:

The following useful apps are probably familiar names (just reading down the list on my phone):

Adobe Reader, Amazon Kindle, eBay, Endomondo, Facebook, Flickr, IMDB, LinkedIn, Netflix, Outdoor Navigation, Photobucket, RAC Traffic, Shazam, Skydrive, The Guardian, Tripadvisor, Twitter, The Weather Channel

The following are probably not so familiar:
Appflow App Discovery (highlights from the Marketplace)
Arkwords (a dictionary app)
Board Express Pro (like Tapatalk)
Compass (guess)
Flashlight 7 (a torch that uses the LED flash. Doesn't work on phones with xenon flashes)
gMaps (Google Maps interface with route planning and traffic overlays, etc)
RapDialer (A cool replacement dialpad)
RedLaser (one of those scan-a-barcode-and-look-up-the-price-of-beans apps)
ShopSavvy (one of those scan-a-barcode-ad-look-up-the-price-of-beans apps)
Skydrive (Like Dropbox, but for Windows Live)
SkyMap Free (constellations! Spaaaaaaace!)
StormGlass (weather thing)
Thumba Cam (replacement camera)
Thumba Photo Editor (adjust/twiddle your pictures, apply effects)
Translator (point your phone camera at foreign words, get instant translation. Try it on the Chinese wikipedia page. tres cool)
Trip Manager (manage trips)

[MarkRSi]

Cheers CJ, I'll check those out later

Another problem... when copying videos to my Android phone the procedure was.

Plug phone into computer.
Copy video file(s) over.
Unplug
Play with MX Video Player or similar.

Now for the 710 the procedure is.

Plug phone into computer.
Copy video file(s) to phone using Zune.
Zune then converts the file then copies it over
Unplug
Play with video player on 710.

Now that's all fine and well... except the 'convert' bit is somewhat straining my laptop's 1.6GHz E350 processor (essentially designed for netbooks, in my 15inch laptop it's like putting a 1.3l Fiesta engine in a 5-Series)... this might take a while...

Edited by MarkRSi on Friday 25th May 13:35