The Windows Phone thread

Can someone recommend a good phone book app?
I find it annoying having to go through the People tile everytime to make a call.

For everyone who uses Bluetooth and/or Wifi I recommend a app called "ConnectivityShortcuts".
Really liking WP. It does anything you could want without too much hassle at all.

Things that could be better:
-the batterylife on "smartphones" make me feel like I am on a land line again... and Lumia800 apparently has good batterylife :|
-more color choices for the tiles, seriously how hard can it be?
-loose the stuipd arrow at the top right of the screen, all it does is makes the screen smaller when scrollind the home screen

Things that are awesome:
+fast, easy and looks nice, it's a huge plus IMO
+perfect build quality on the Lumia line, my 800 feels like it could survive a drop from my balcony
+very, very nice screen, I don't understand people who say it sucks, I have seen 5years old TVs that have worse image quality... :|

Mainly people complain about the lack of a "high pixel density" resolution a'la iPhone 4/4S and Android phones with qHD/720p screens. Personally I've always seen it as BS myself (I'm typing this from the Droid 3: a phone that was harshly panned due to its screen despite being qHD) and I've maybe been disappointed by it once or twice. That's it.

Of course, individual eyes may vary. :p

One can't deny that keeping the resolutions consistent is yet another way the end user gets a better experience due to the commonality between each phone running Windows Phone 7.

Now if only Verizon and AT&T would get off their asses and stop blocking Microsoft's attempts to deliver updates to their handsets....that's just classic US carrier levels of evil right there.

Making matters worse is that AT&T is Microsoft's "premier carrier" for windows phone in the US (Lumia 900 is a AT&T exclusive + they have the widest selection of windows phones) and I bet Microsoft's wishing they never gave AT&T that title.
 
Well, the higher pixel density combined with the black levels exhibited on the Lumia800 and I would be very satisfied indeed.

Used a WP7 device (Lumia 800) fr the first time recently, and first impressions were very good. I've been thinking for some time now, that if I had to switch away from my iPhone, it would be to a Nokia WP device. I really like the design as well.

However, right now I just want to get a cheaper plan for a while, instead of changing phone again. My perfect device would be a Lumia 800 in design and size, and then stuffed with a dual/quad-core, higher reoslution screen and LTE. Then we're getting to the point of "holy crap give me that thing" :p
 
So, Nokia did this bold "Smartphone betatest is over" adversiting campaign for Lumia 900 in the States. And of course few days after the release it turns out the betatest was not over after all, as some users had problems connecting to data network.

But what is quite unpreceded is the way how they dealt with the situation. First they acknowledged the situation very clearly, and promised that update will be there April 16th, and if you don't want to update yourself, your phone will be swapped to a new one. And second, every customer who has bought or will buy Lumia 900 before April 21st will get 100 dollars credit to their ATT bill.

http://conversations.nokia.com/2012/04/11/putting-people-first/

I would say that is a pontential PR nightmare handled very classily.
 
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That said, the data network issue was AT&T's fault where they didn't configure the settings right.
 
So Nokia practically takes the blame on them for the fault they are not any way responsible. That's intresting. Maybe they don't want to piss off AT&T and also saw this as an opportunity to create some goodwill?

However, soon after this flagship device began selling, we identified a software issue. In short, a memory management issue was discovered that could, in some cases, lead to loss of data connectivity. This issue is purely in the phone software, and is not related to either phone hardware or the network itself. As a proactive and prudent measure, we decided to take immediate action. We have identified the issue, and have developed a solution.
 
Probably, who knows.. It's paid off. But of course they'd rather this never happened in the first place
 
Can someone recommend a good phone book app?
I find it annoying having to go through the People tile everytime to make a call.

What? I don't get it. The people hub is the phonebook, you select the person and call, I don't see any unecessary steps.

If you are refering to smart dialing, WP doesn't have that. :( There is an app called "SmartDialer" which is pretty good.
 
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Got my Lumia 800. SO beautiful...

But I'm a bit confused about the signing into Windows Live thing. I used to have a hotmail email account that I don't use, and I used that for Windows Live gaming as well. But I synced my gmail account to the Windows Live Messenger so I use that now. How do I seperate the functions?
 
Anybody have any experience with the HTC Arrive? My sprint contract is up in a couple of months and I'm probably going to buy that.

I've played with one in a best buy mobile, great keyboard, solid design overall. Can't really go wrong with one although rumor has it that Apollo won't run on current hardware but who knows for sure.
 
It won't. The kernel is completely different
 
After little over a week with my HTC Titan I have a solid opinion about Windows Phone.

I believe within a couple of versions WP could become a viable compromise between iOS, Android and Blackberry OS. It has more functionality than iOS and even more eye candy, but it follows the same philosophy of 'less is more, everything is very streamlined and uniform throughout the apps. I love that. It is less work-oriented than a BB but it still has some key features that I look for in a phone such as linked inboxes, out of the box office documents support and flawless exchange synchronisation with the only drawback being that not every account supports push email. It is less customizable than Android but the live tiles offer some neat functionality and all the services are neatly integrated (e.g. People Hub). The only thing I miss is that I can't set a background image, hopefully they'll fix that in a future release. The marketplace is indeed not as large as the App Store or Play Store, but I have found everything I will ever need, including some awesome games. And I'm sure it will grow more over time. I'm actually really happy I got a high end (well, six months ago it was but in my opinion it still is) smartphone with large 4,7" display, it really does the OS justice. Another thing I noticed, or rather didn't, was the absence of any lagg whatsoever. It isn't a powerhouse like the HTC One S or One X but the OS is so well optimized that you don't notice any stuttering, ever.

That said though, I think if Windows wants to get a decent marketshare it should abandon the low and middle range smartphone market, Android has that covered far too well. I believe that if they concentrated on the higher end of the spectrum and let manufacturers make one WP device for their lineup they could become a serious competitor for Apple. Reducing the amount of devices running WP7 could boost overall sales because it makes it less difficult for the consumer to chose. Non tech-savvy people that are looking for a cool phone don't bother comparing all the Android devices out there, they usually simply go for an iPhone. So there, I haven't regretted my decision once and would certainly buy a Windows Phone again.
 
I hate to see people raging over the fact that current devices won't get Windows Phone 8 rather than 7.8.

1) The first batch of devices were released roughly two years ago and by Android or iPhone standards they would be considered obsolete. Windows Phone 8 is designed to run on multicore CPUs and current devices would be rubbish on WP8.
2) They will get Windows Phone 7.8, which is roughly everything WP8 provides apart from the performance or core upgrades. And I'm yet to see any iPhone 3Gs user bitching about the fact they'll get a similarily cut down version of iOS6.
3) Bought Nokia Lumia? Good for you! You already knew that Windows Phone 8 will come out soon and it won't support the current hardware (which haven't changed since the initial release of Windows Phone).
4) I'd be grateful if I received even half the upgrade on my 2 year old Android hardware.
5) If you really want to be nasally raped by the incompatiblity between the obsolete hardware and Windows Phone 8, head over to XDA soon.
 
I'm ok with receiving 7.8 on my Lumia 800. Super happy still with the device, looking forward to the new start screen.

When my current contract expires in a year's time I'll get a WP8 phone.

What Microsoft really need to do now though is get WP8 and the devices out BEFORE Apple announce the iPhone 5 and they need to make some noise about it. I know Google had speach capabilities first but WP7 beat Apple to the party yet because Apple make noise about it everyone thinks they invented it. Some of the features in WP8 are incredible and Microsoft need to shout loud enough to have that shown to people, I think with that an the beautiful hardware that Nokia are making they can steal quite a few Apple users.

Still get lots of people commenting on my Lumia 800, with the different looking interface and the screen. I think this year Microsoft can really take the fight to Apple with phones and tablets. They just need to get their timing and pricing bang on (something which i do worry about).
 
While my Lumia 800 was away for warranty repair, I used my brother's Galaxy Ace. Initially I was pretty open to Android, but after a while, just didn't like the fiddly nature of it, just too many menus! So glad when my Lumia came back
 
I'm seriously thinking about grabbing the Samsung Ativ S when it comes out. It's very much a Galaxy S3 with a pure OS(no TouchJizz).
 
can't wait for the 920 to be out. love my 800 and hope that 7.8 has some decent features coming to it besides the new home screen, as will have to wait a few more months until i can switch carriers.

Looking at the specs of the iPhone 5 today, the 920 actually blows it out of the water. Nokia and Microsoft should really try jump on the the lack of features the iPhone 5 has while they can, also given the fact it looks bland in comparison to the Lumias.
 
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