A Lumia Talk

Its not long since Nokia came out with their first Lumia - the Lumia 800. The curved glass screen, European styled design really impressed everyone. My first impression was, the once mobile phone king stands up again and we knew it will from the first day iPhone came out.

I myself am a Lumia 900 user. The slightly bigger version of the Lumia 800. It ran Windows Phone 7.5 from day 1 and eventually upgraded to Windows Phone 7.8. At that time, I put it back to the phone box  and switched back to a Galaxy Nexus. Don't get me wrong. I do love the Lumia. In fact, I hoped that the WP 7.8 update would get me more interested in the Lumia 900 and make me continue using it until I find another astonishing Lumia device to use. However, the blur resolution after the update just makes me think that the difference between the 900 and the Lumia 920 is way too big and my Lumia 900  is really outdated.

The Windows Phone OS experience

Android and Windows Phone OS are two of my favourite mobile OSs. I have more than two years of Android experience, more than one year of Windows Phone experience and I have been an iPhone user for a short time and an iPad user all the time. My experience with iOS is that it just works, not much complaints but not much impressions either. I can't say I am happy or excited about the OS or whatsoever. The iPhone has become a standard smartphone. I believe that its not just myself having the same feeling. The Android, on the other hand, backed by one of the biggest software companies on the planet always come up with fancy things like animated UI, different widget layout and so on. Many people complaint about the Android Ecosystem containing crappy applications. I don't disagree but hey, the craps are there but you don't have to take it, right?

My problem with Android is that it always tends to be slow. This really gives me bad experience with the OS. I have been carrying two phones for some time. One lumia 920 and one Galaxy Nexus. This is a Single Core CPU vs Dual Core comparison, and a 512MB RAM vs 1GB RAM comparison. The Lumia clearly beats the Nexus in every single way. The UI experience on the Lumia is just smooth. When I had so many applications installed on the Lumia, it still felt smoother than when I first got the Galaxy (without 3rd party app). One time, Google released a major update which improved a lot on the UI experience on the Nexus but there is still quite a bit gap between the two

The way the Windows Phone manages the UI brings some inconvenience to the users, especially the 7.5 Mongo. You can't put too many application entries at the front because it will end up appending them to the bottom which result in the very vertically long home screen. The purpose of having that home screen is to provide easy access but with too many apps at the front, it makes it even harder to find the app you want. In the application page, where you see a list of applications installed. You can't organize them by categories so you end up having to memorize the name of the applications if you want to find it because it organizes the apps alphabetically.

The Windows Phone ecosystem really lacks a bit of applications. However, I do see it catching up very quickly. Especially those big apps that almost everybody uses on their iPhone or Android, they already appear in the Windows Phone Market. I believe the Windows Phone 8 has a lot more applications than the 7.5/7.8.

The Lumia 920

I didn't bother purchasing the Lumia 920 although it was the world most innovative smart phone when it was first launched. I tried the phone at the store and I was really impressed. The feel of the device and the combination of the hardware and software really make it a piece of art. I was only afraid of getting dumped by Microsoft like they did with their first generation of phones (Lumia 900 can't be updated to Windows Phone 8) because if you spend the money to pick a piece of art, why don't you want to keep it longer as you would protect it better.

The Lumia 720

Nokia first showed up the Lumia 720 at the MWC. This is a very interesting device with a lower price point. Its available in 5 different colors and it has a more slim and lighter design. However, the availability of the device in Canada is still a question and if they do appear in Canada, it will be sold for around 450 price range.

The Lumia 928 and The Lumia 950

The rumours about the Lumia 928 and the Lumia 950 are really heating up. Some say the Lumia 928 will be a aluminium cased Lumia 920 launched specifically for Verizon in the US. It will be much lighter than the Lumia 920. The Lumia 950 will be the next Nokia flagship device. My opinions is that Nokia wouldn't want customers to wait for their new phones and forget the phones already released. Thus, the rumors could really be true; but which one would you get?