Hands On With the Nokia Lumia 1020

adeelarshad82 writes "Nokia's new phone, Lumia 1020, feels very similar in the hand to Nokia's Lumia 900 and 920, with one exception: it has a camera bump. The 41-megapixel uber-camera projects out very slightly as a black disc on the back. In terms of functionality, though, the camera provides for smooth zooming only a pinch away. However, it takes a noticeable amount of time to lock focus and save images. At one point during hands-on testing, the camera app crashed so hard that it required a phone reboot, which is hopefully just a pre-release firmware issue. The phone itself carries a brightly colored polycarbonate body that rolls around the edges to cradle a 4.5-inch, 1,280-by-768 screen. Lumia 1020 is powered by a dual-core, 1.5-GHz Qualcomm MSM8960 processor which plows through apps well. Speaking of apps, there's a ton of bloatware on here, as you'd expect from any AT&T device. AT&T adds four apps right at the top of the app list. Nokia Lumia is set to hit AT&T shelves on July 26th for $299."

Comments

Unfortunately...

[turrican]

...it still runs Windows Phone.

Trolling? Not really - I had a 920 but got rid of it because of the OS. Now if they'd just offer a version with Symbian...

Re:Unfortunately...

[Anonymous Coward]

What exactly is wrong with Windows Phone?

The UI concept is very elegant and better than anything iOS or Android has to offer. Windows Phone has excellent developer tools, easily the best. I'm not crazy about the system being locked-down, but this is the standard for phones. iOS is considerably worse in this regard and while I will concede that Android is a bit better, it's still quite locked down but not without major security flaws (SD Card permissions for example).

Re:Unfortunately...

[turrican]

Speaking for myself, the OS itself and how it works was fine - and I really did like the hardware (I wanted to take good pictures of my cats, and the phone absolutely delivered in that respect). However, it felt like initial support for software in general - including the OS - was really poor. As for applications, there were a few gems, but most of the stuff I used regularly felt clunky and half-baked, and I definitely had the impression that development resources applied to them was weak (I'm talking about things that should have good resources available to them; facebook, eBay, Amazon, etc).

My phone is my "main PC" currently, because what I do daily doesn't afford much time to use anything other than an easily accessed pocket terminal - and in that regard, the package failed me.

Re:Unfortunately...

[Anonymous Coward]

I got cancer of the penis shortly after I bought a Windows phone. My fiancee later left me and now just had her second baby with a Black man, because what's left of my lil' ol' stump "just ain't gonna cut it with her anymore," she said.

Oh, my poor lil' ol' stump. What a terrible thing to say to a man who lost three-quarters of his dick. I should just buy one 'o' them Asian or Eastern-European brides and syringe my man-gravy up in 'em. Shit. What good is a man with a stump?

Re:Unfortunately...

[turrican]

"What good is a man with a stump?"

I can tell you're not a typical slashdotter or you'd already know the answer: 3d printing.

Re:Unfortunately...

[gmuslera]

Or provide open drivers (and the photo app) so could be ported to be installed there Android, Tizen, Ubuntu Touch, Sailfish or whatever OS the end buyer prefer. Is pretty bad how localizable i am carrying a cellphone, but giving away all my data makes it some orders worse.

Re:Unfortunately...

[Stormwatch]

Sounds like you want a modern Nokia... but the TRUE Nokia, how it would be now if the Microsoft plant hadn't destroyed the company. So, you want a Jolla.

Re:Unfortunately...

[Barlo_Mung_42]

Personally I've been really happy with my 920 but I don't think I could use any phone as my main pc. Which phone did you settle on for that?

Re:Unfortunately...

[Anonymous Coward]

what the actual fuck!? *this* gets modded down?

standard slashdot anti-ms bullshit, that post actually is the truth (not particularly swaying but the truth nonetheless, along with a subjective view which apparently on this site you're not allowed to have), perhaps the google shill mods just don't like it being said.

Re:Unfortunately...

[turrican]

I went back to an iPhone 4 (a spare we had) for the time being. Prior to that, I was on an iPhone 3GS, and then prior to that, I was strictly a Nokia guy. So, I was really excited by the opportunity to go back to a top-shelf Nokia (I pre-ordered; cyan). I have no special love for iOS, and have very little invested monetarily in that ecosystem, so anything in the way of repurchasing apps is a non-issue. I'm actually pretty hopeful that WP comes around, because I really do like Nokia hardware.

Again, it came down to day to day usability for me. Currently I work in a decidedly un-techy environment, so whatever phone I use essentially serves as my main computing platform. It would have been different were I working I.T. again, where I'd have much more access to everything 'net (and listen to the music that is an IBM Model M).

Heck, I'd probably have posted instead how I was buying one of these outright instead of waiting for the subsidized upgrade!

Re:Unfortunately...

[Barlo_Mung_42]

Makes sense. I think if I was stranded on an island (with decent reception) and had to use a phone as my main PC I'd have to go with one that has a keyboard. I still find typing on a touchscreen a bit frustrating.

Re:Unfortunately...

[turrican]

Where I work, currently, is, in fact, like being stranded on a (noisy) island (with poor reception).

The only truly measurable difference being that it's an underground repair facility and not an island. I don't have one with a physical keyboard because of contamination by chemicals, etc. The Lumia was in an Otterbox, which I'd remove on days off - I really liked the feel of the 920.

Re:Unfortunately...

[Anonymous Coward]

I think if I had to use a phone as my primary PC, it'd be a Galaxy S4. Plug it into a TV, use a BT KB and Mouse and use Ubuntu Chroot to run Libre Office.

Re:Unfortunately...

[Provost Kihofakirius]

http://www.nokia.com/in-en/phones/phone/nokia-808/ (And yes, with all the updates Symbian is not too bad as an OS. People mostly bash it because others do.)

Re:Unfortunately...

[RaceProUK]

I see the Android/iOS fanboy armies have united in a common cause. OK, the parent is probably gushing a little, but he has a valid point.

Re:Unfortunately...

[Anonymous Coward]

Posting AC to tell you I down-modded for the sheer possibility you might be critical of Google in other posts.

Re:Unfortunately...

[Anonymous Coward]

It's bad because the system stinks so hard no one wants to develop for it, basically a zombie operating system.

Re:Unfortunately...

[Anonymous Coward]

And that's different from Windows phone because??

Re:Unfortunately...

[VP]

Yes, this kind of camera has been available for almost two years now...The Nokia 808, which runs Symbian, and supports Qt-based apps, is still the best existing camera phone. Apparently, the Lumia 1020 has some improvements.

Re:Unfortunately...

[davydagger]

Its windows, thats whats fucking wrong, no one wants windows on their phone

get lost brown shirt.

Re:Unfortunately...

[Krojack]

For me it's usability.

I like that on my tablet I can bring up a command line prompt and have access to the entire system (rooted) and use it as if it's a Linux computer. On my phone I like that I can load up an sshd server and remote into my phone.

To me it's the ability to use my device how I wish. With an iDevice or Windows device I feel too limited. I don't like that.

Re:Unfortunately...

[shutdown -p now]

It's mainly the shortage of good apps. Note, I said *good* apps. Even the usual stuff like Skype or Kindle is variously slower, or buggy, or both (e.g. Skype still lags notifications by minutes, and sometimes by hours).

bloatware

[Anonymous Coward]

The nice thing about "bloatware" on Windows Phone is that it can be uninstalled completely, cleanly and very easily.

Re:bloatware

[roc97007]

...and then install Android?

Re:bloatware

[Anonymous Coward]

So only fools need WP*?

That matches my observations here and elswhere. Agreed.

Re:bloatware

[Anonymous Coward]

Something being foolproof doesn't mean only fools use it. I don't follow you here.
But let it not get in the way of your WP bashing.

Re:bloatware

[Anonymous Coward]

But let it not get in the way of your WP bashing.

Thanks, I will. And since my work issued us all Nokia 520s, I can do so with confidence.

You see, if it were actually foolproof, I'd agree that non-fools could use it. But in practice, it's also got shitty maps, an annoying music player, utterly dumb volume controls that get hijacked, irritating, user-hostile wifi, unreliable calendar sync and a heap of other deal-breakers that mean it deserves its place at the bottom of the heap.

If you're choosing to pay good money for a WP* phone, you're a fool.

Re:bloatware

[Anonymous Coward]

Also, WP and all Microsoft messaging and search products include spyware.

Re:bloatware

[roc97007]

Microsoft practically invented it.

Re:bloatware

[Anonymous Coward]

so every one use google instead, they will never give you data to anybody.

Re:bloatware

[Anonymous Coward]

I use WP and I don't use any of these. In fact even Bing is not built-in, in some regions it comes with other search engines by default.

Re:bloatware

[RaceProUK]

How much of that is WP, and how much is the hardware itself? I ask as people often confuse the two.

Re:bloatware

[rjstanford]

How much of that is WP, and how much is the hardware itself? I ask as people often confuse the two.

Not intended as a troll-y comment, but its things like that that make me glad I keep sticking with iOS, even as a developer. The last thing I want to do with my phone is worry about crap like that, when I could just be using it. Everyone has different needs, of course, but still...

Re:bloatware

[Ambassador Kosh]

What about the wifi is user hostile? So far for me I have not encountered problems with a 521 with the wifi. Even the wifi calling works fine. I have multiple wifi connections setup and when I walk in range it auto connects and the phone switches over to wifi mode automatically. What else is there for wifi to do?

I have downloaded podcasts, streaming music etc just fine along with a few apps and streamed videos without problems over wifi.

Re:bloatware

[unixisc]

I have a Lumia 520, so to note your above points, the maps are fine, although occasionally, I've seen them suggest parallel routes to a destination. The music player - I just used an AUX cable to connect it to my car stereo and ran the songs on it, and it ran the MP3s fine. However, if one runs music videos on that, the quality is horrendous. Volume controls - there's a hardware switch that overrides everything. I do think that the phone could use an explicit way of directing it to prefer Wi-Fi to the cellular connection, and use a list similar to Windows 7 that tells it which APs to access and which to just ignore. I haven't tried the calendar, but for the clock, I wish there was a way of explicitly asking it to align itself w/ any NNTP server. But does iOS or Android have that?

The main deal breaker here would be that a lot of software that can be taken for granted to exist on either Android or iOS is not available here. But for those who aren't missing that, it's not a big deal.

YMMV

Meh

[tmark]

With a camera phone, I'd say that the time it takes "to lock focus and save images" is arguably far more important than the number of megapixels.

Even with DSLRS, we've long ago reached the point where the average person needs more MP than are available, and none of *them* are at the 41 MP count. They also have far better optics than what is almost certainly in this (Zeiss nametag or not), and it is well understood in that domain that the importance of glass far outweighs the importance of whatever body you happen to be using.

If the point was just to get better low-light performance by packing on more pixels and then binning them, I wonder why they didn't just design sensors with bigger photosites - at least then, reasonable save times and storage consumption would be a possibility. I know that camera novices get sucked into the MP marketing hype, but does anyone buy a phone for the MP in the camera ?

Re:Meh

[Dr Max]

More megapixels means you can take the picture now and zoom in latter, it also allows for much better touching up because you can access pixels that just aren’t there in other phones, as well as good low light performance like you mentioned. Due to the optical image stabilization, time to lock and focus is not as much of a deal breaker because it takes out all the little movements that happen in that time. Images will look noticeably better with this camera, and 6 times optical zoom means you can make photos look even better (for a face you want to stand back and use all your zoom because it minimizes feature, for a car or something you want to get nice a close shot with no zoom, because it accentuates the features) and all kind of manual options for cool exposer shots and what not. If your not in to photography and just want to take self shots of your self with beer in your hand you probably wont care, but if you like your dslr but hate dragging it around this will make a very nice fit.

Re:Meh

[Rockoon]

Megapixels aren't as important as the optics.. aka lenses..

I've seen some of the raw pictures that these high mega-pixel cameraphones take.. blurry shit at the pixel level, making them no better than a much lower resolution camera with better glass.

Re:Meh

[cheater512]

Yes but the optics point is still critical.
What is the point of being able to zoom in to 41MP when the optics fall over and blur all the pixels to the same value anyway?

And no it has zero optical zoom. It has digital cropping zoom rather than digital scaling zoom.
Flawless zoom quality yes (with MP loss) but no optical elements move. The same picture is seen by the sensor so the zooming is not performed by the optics.

Re:Meh

[dfghjk]

Spoken like someone who doesn't know what he's talking about. I wonder if you've ever uses a camera not built into a phone in your life.

Re:Meh

[recoiledsnake]

What makes you think the lenses are not good?

Its not enough to just include a high
megapixel sensor – the lenses conveying the image to
the sensor have to be of equally high quality.
Together with our partner Carl Zeiss, we yet again
pushed the limits of optical design to match the resolution
of the 41 megapixel camera sensor. To provide
the best optical resolution we increased the number of
lenses used from the five in the award-winning Nokia
808 PureView, to six. The first lens element is made of
high precision glass, and five of the lenses are moulded
high-performance plastic, taking lens manufacturing
precision to the next level.
The lenses are physically very big for a smartphone, and
the optical assembly alone is unique. But that is not all.
We put the whole system inside a completely new kind
of optical image stabilisation system, which uses an
extremely high accuracy sensing system linked to very
small motors which actively move the lens.
The extremely sharp image projected by the six-element
lens system is recorded by the second generation 41MP
BSI sensor, capturing even the smallest of details in the
scene, including detail not visible to the naked eye.

Whitepaper from Nokia on the tech http://i.nokia.com/blob/view/-/2723846/data/1/-/Lumia1020-whitepaper.pdf

http://mobile.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=3964341&cid=44257603

Re:Meh

[PhrostyMcByte]

There's that saying that the best camera is the one you've got on you when the moment happens. This is clearly targeting photographers who can't carry a DSLR with them all the time, or people interested in photography but not willing to commit to an expensive camera.

The 41MP isn't just so you can take gargantuan pictures -- it is intended to replace a zoom lens. The example photos I've seen look comparable to the best point-and-shoots I've seen, and it has exceptional OIS and low-light performance. If they work out the kinks it'll replace a point-and-shoot quite well.

A small target market is made even smaller due to lack of interest in Windows Phone. I can't help wonder how many of these they're expecting to sell.

Re:Meh

[mystikkman]

Spoken like someone who think all camera tech is the same. It's not. Read the whitepaper http://i.nokia.com/blob/view/-/2723846/data/1/-/Lumia1020-whitepaper.pdf

Which phone camera has 6 lenses and physical image stabilization?

Re:Meh

[Dr Max]

it's got pretty damn good optics from ziess as well it's not optical zoom but it's damn good glass. I've seen plenty of images from the 808 pure view and they kick serious ass (show me a better smartphone cammera if you disagree).

Re:Meh

[Anonymous Coward]

I agree. 41MP ought to be enough for everybody

Re:Meh

[Dr Max]

oops i read that wrong about the zoom, which is a quite a pitty. Still it seems to do a pretty damn good job to me http://press.nokia.com/wp-content/uploads/mediaplugin/photo/nokia-lumia-1020-pro-highres-4.jpg i don't see much blur at all on the part of the photo in focus.

Re:Meh

[Anonymous Coward]

Why? do you have any examples? are you scared you will be shown to not know what you are talking about?

Re:Meh

[jrumney]

Megapixels are more important for a phone camera than a DSLR, because on the phone, you don't have optical zoom, so you want the spare pixels to work with for digital zoom.

Re:Meh

[Anonymous Coward]

An experienced and frequent MS shill copy/pasting Nokia marketing bumf without even reformatting for readability?

You guys are getting lazy.

Then again, I guess it must be really disheartening peddling inferior crap for a living. You have my sympathy.

Re:Meh

[Barlo_Mung_42]

Not for me. My last phone would take crappy pictures quickly but especially in low light I'd have to fiddle with it and take several to get one that was good enough. My 920 is slower but I spend less time deleting failed attempts. Plus, I'm sure they'll get the speed up a bit by the time it ships.

Re:Meh

[Anonymous Coward]

as in "i cant refute what you are saying but i dont like microsoft so ill just attack you instead"...pathetic.

Re:Meh

[the_B0fh]

What is this "spare pixels"? You mean they actually make camera sensors where you don't get to use all the elements so that you can have some hot spare pixels?

Jesus Christ.

Re:Meh

[Anonymous Coward]

circle jerk

Re:Meh

[Paradise Pete]

it also allows for much better touching up because you can access pixels that just arenâ(TM)t there in other phones

There are no pixels to access if you missed the picture while waiting for the camera to get ready.

Re:Meh

[Anonymous Coward]

Refute what?

The guy just pasted a marketing brochure verbatim!

Re:Meh

[rcw-home]

What makes you think the lenses are not good?

Because it's a 1/1.5" sensor (3.93 crop factor) at its widest focal length and 1/4.5" at it's narrowest, with an f/2.2 lens, which means a relatively small ~3mm aperture which will necessarily yield muddy pictures, similar to most point-and-shoots?

Re:Meh

[Anonymous Coward]

white paper is a bit more than a brochure, and what would you prefer he do just dribble shit with no citation like you.

Re:Meh

[Dr Max]

Care to explain why my comment was so bad. Or do you not know what your talking about? I'm no pro photographer, but i've been using film cameras since i was 6.

Re:Meh

[Anonymous Coward]

get your self an image then zoom in on it, all those pixels that have been moved off your screen and you can no longer see are the spare pixels.

Re:Meh

[AmiMoJo]

Even if the image is blurred all the information is there, it just needs to be extracted to produce an un-blurred image. Photoshop has filters that can do that now. Sounds like the problem might be solvable.

Re:Meh

[Anonymous Coward]

It has a much bigger sensor, and binning (oversampling in Nokia-speak) is used indeed. Having more megapixels and smart software can give better quality same-MP pics. It also has good optics with an optical stabilizer. You could have actually googled this or read a review of the Nokia 808 Pureview.

Bottom line: 41 MP is how they market it, because the general public has no clue about the stuff you talk about. At the same time, the image quality is on par with mid-range point-and-shoot cameras and uncomparable to other phone cameras. Thanks for your attention.

Re:Meh

[Anonymous Coward]

reddit is more about the jerking eachother off in a circle, at /. we like to stand around and kick a puppy back and fourth.

Re:Meh

[m.dillon]

I think the digital-zoom capability argument falls on its face though. I've looked at the sample images. The camera is clearly designed to oversample. The entire technology is based around oversampling. The instant you start zooming digitally you lose that oversampling and the technology falls on its face.

The phone is designed to store smaller pictures, there's no point storing 40MP files. I guess a lot of people missed the point... photoshop isn't going to be able to do jack with a full 40MP file from this phone, you might as well let the phone process it down to a smaller format.

The actual sensor is not all that great. It's VERY noisy, even in good light, and the phone software is clearly doing a ton of noise-reduction post-processing. Oversampling works for some things, like the nyquist frequency limit, but it won't reduce noise appreciably compared to the same sensor designed with fewer, bigger pixels and a focus on noise reduction. Nokia's marketing is intentionally overstating the technology.

The phone clearly produces better pictures than other phones. It doesn't hold a candle to even a low-end DSLR, however. If you want to take good pictures you don't do it with a phone, not even this one.

-Matt

Re:Meh

[gl4ss]

Megapixels aren't as important as the optics.. aka lenses..

I've seen some of the raw pictures that these high mega-pixel cameraphones take.. blurry shit at the pixel level, making them no better than a much lower resolution camera with better glass.

I got a nokia 808.
the megapixels are extremely nice to have, even if you just save at 8mpix. it's a large sensor.. nokias have the best optics too.

too bad 1020 has a shitty operating system.

Re:Meh

[thegarbz]

It's not just plain binning. With higher resolution you spread noise out into a smaller area. By applying noise reduction and THEN binning the picture you end up with an incredibly low-noise image.

This was noted as well when Nikon released the D800. Everyone cried foul saying the D700 would perform better in low light, and when the pictures were blown up and analysed pixel by pixel on a computer they were right. When the picture was viewed, or noise reduction applied, or any normal form of photo was made with the cameras the neysayers could not have been more wrong.

It's simply a modern way of moving SNR improvements from the hardware domain into the software domain.

Re:Meh

[thegarbz]

Yes true, but take the same blury shit lens on a high megapixel camera and apply basic noise reduction and the results will be a whole world better than that of the low resolution camera when the resulting image is scaled to the same size. By increasing the pixel count the random noise distribution is made finer which makes it far easier to apply noise reduction without losing detail ... because there was no detail to begin with.

Re:Meh

[jhol13]

If image is blurred, there is not "all information". Depending on the amount of blurring you'll lose dynamic range, eventually all of it giving exactly zero information.

Re:Meh

[mystikkman]

A camera phone being similar to a point and a shoot is a good thing. Why compare it to DSLRs?

Re:Meh

[mystikkman]

Funny to see a Symbian user call WP shitty. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vJpEuMidcSU

Re:Meh

[Anonymous Coward]

That's not 6 lenses, it's one lens with 6 elements (and they don't even mention in how many groups). Besides, 5 of them are made of plastic.

Re:Meh

[Anonymous Coward]

I know all you idiots like to throw your points away on any one that sounds technical, but you guys know that about 3X better than an iphone.

Re:Meh

[terjeber]

What makes you think the lenses are not good?

The lenses are very good. Extremely good in fact. For their size. The problem is, in optics, size matters. A lot.

Still, this is a silly discussion, the camera is going to produce excellent imagry for a phone. Better than any on the market today, we know this because we have seen this stuff in action before, at that time on a Symbian phone that wasn't going to go anywhere, but still. The images from this phone are going to be stunning, for a phone, but they are not going to be in the same league as my Canon 5D (a touch over 20MP) images in anything but perfect lighting conditions.

Sadly, the haters are going to hate no matter what. If it is Windows, these paid Linux and Google shills are going to keep hating. That is what they are paid to do in online fora.

Re:Meh

[terjeber]

will necessarily yield muddy pictures, similar to most point-and-shoots

That's an utterly moronic statement. It's like saying my Canon 5D has crappy pictures because they are nowhere near the quality I get with my Hasselblad.

This phone will yield fantastic pictures (remember, we've seen the result before in the Symbian version of this phone) fora phone. That is all good. Phones are the most used cameras today, and they are all, without exception

crap compared to my 5D, and not even images compared to my Hasselblad. The fact that technology improves to yield better pictures is a Good Thing (TM) and only shills paid by Google will argue otherwise.

Re:Meh

[terjeber]

Photoshop has filters that can do that now

Your faith in Photoshop (clearly a fantastic product) is not warranted. Photoshop can do cool stuff in many situations, but walk on water and wake the dead are not among them.

yes, trolling

[Anonymous Coward]

I don't get all the hate at windows phone. Symbian?! Please. Our family uses ios, android, and now me with my new 920. My teenage kids love it and want to upgrade. Wp8 has a good selection of apps and the phone just works. The best app of all is the phone app. This wp8 pissing, moaning, and hating is getting old and completely unfounded.

Re:yes, trolling

[Anonymous Coward]

In other words, everyone in the world is like your family and do not have different needs, likes and preferences. personally I could say exactly the same about Symbian in my family back when it was still actively developed. - it seems the guy you replied to (lets just assume that everything on the internet is true) gave it a try but still found it to be lacking. there was no hate in his post, infact i read it more like he was sad it didnt work as well as he hoped.

Re:yes, trolling

[turrican]

"infact i read it more like he was sad it didnt work as well as he hoped."

This.

Re:yes, trolling

[Anonymous Coward]

frankly slashdot has gotten so pathetic that even the mere suggestion that you use or like a microsoft product gets downmodded. but google, oh no they say they do no evil so despite all the privacy violations and the fact that they sell the profile they build of you to advertisers they remain the darling of slashdot at the behest of ignorant fuckwits. don't get me wrong, microsoft are a bunch of cunts for all the shit theyve done but open your fucking eyes and realize that google are no different nor are apple for that matter, these corporations *DO NOT* have your best interests at heart, they will *ALL* sell you out.

so how about a bit of rational thinking and unbiased discussion instead of google shilling and downmodding *EVERYTHING* that isnt lockstep with slashdot groupthink.

Re:yes, trolling

[Anonymous Coward]

Down-modded for suggesting that Google is possibly capable of imperfection.

Re:yes, trolling

[unixisc]

It does have a shortage of games though. So on the games front, unless one is an avid player of Xbox games, the missing links will look real. Of course, this may well be only temporary.

However, I don't see why you were down-modded - (-1 at the time of writing): I found the 520, which is the entry level phone for the WPhone 8 (I still think WordPerfect when I see WP, so not using that here) Lumia series, reasonably good: I don't need the frontside cam or some of those extras, and 5 megapixels is good enough. I did like the Nokia Here maps and the GPS capabilities, though, and typing on this thing is the best I've seen so far, so for real work, this phone is right up there w/ iPhones & droids.

However, one thing - unlike in the past, as w/ WordPerfect, Lotus, Borland, Symantec, Netscape and so on, this time, Microsoft just can't wipe out the competition in the phone market. Everybody who has an iPhone swears by it (most people are not the type here who'll be put off by walled gardens: they'll just want the apps they need), and there are enough companies making droids that Google's dominance in this market is as guaranteed as Intel's is in the PC market.

Is it just me...

[MalachiK]

or has smartphone technology reached something of a plateau? I mean, I had a iPhone 3GS for years and I held off from upgrading until the 5 was released, thinking that there'd be a step change or paradigm shift of some sort. When the time came I left Apple because looking around it seemed that all of the top of the line handsets are basically the same. I don't exactly push the envelope with my phone useage, and despite what people say I don't know many that do. In terms of the core functionality and interface experience, I couldn't find much to choose between Apple, HTC, Nokia or Samsung.

The iPhone was fantastic back in the day. The touchscreen and build quality were a real step forward and set a new standard. But these day smartphones are just another part of the scenery. Any it's not as if they're really moving forwards. The handsets have gotten as small as they can practically be, and then bigger again. Most handsets use the same style screens. Sure, we get more processing power and what not, but seriously how many cores do you need to check e-mail and post to facebook?

I'm using a Lumia 900 right now. And I'n going to stick with it until the next device comes along that changes the game on the same scale as the iPhone 3G did.

Re:Is it just me...

[Billly Gates]

or has smartphone technology reached something of a plateau? I mean, I had a iPhone 3GS for years and I held off from upgrading until the 5 was released, thinking that there'd be a step change or paradigm shift of some sort. When the time came I left Apple because looking around it seemed that all of the top of the line handsets are basically the same. I don't exactly push the envelope with my phone useage, and despite what people say I don't know many that do. In terms of the core functionality and interface experience, I couldn't find much to choose between Apple, HTC, Nokia or Samsung.

The iPhone was fantastic back in the day. The touchscreen and build quality were a real step forward and set a new standard. But these day smartphones are just another part of the scenery. Any it's not as if they're really moving forwards. The handsets have gotten as small as they can practically be, and then bigger again. Most handsets use the same style screens. Sure, we get more processing power and what not, but seriously how many cores do you need to check e-mail and post to facebook?

I'm using a Lumia 900 right now. And I'n going to stick with it until the next device comes along that changes the game on the same scale as the iPhone 3G did.

I thought so too until recently.

  I had ... actually still do have a Samsung Galaxy S1 captivate circa 2010. It is very slow and the browser crashes at least once a day. I bought a galaxy 4S and couldn't believe the difference! It was freaking fast. It had light sensors in both cameras so the screen could auto adjust brightness. It has motion sensors so the pages go up and down based on your retina scanning. It has voice activation commands. If you click 2 of them together it can double as one screen. They could turn into 4g hubs in case someone in the car has an ipad with just wifi they can have maps and internet access. Warn you if you get near your datacap. Many UI improvements etc.

That is just within 2.5 to 3 years time. I never would have imagined these things and wonder what they will be doing in another 2.5 to 3 years time? They are moving forward fast

Re:Is it just me...

[pspahn]

To put it simply, smart phones are now capable of so much more than being simply a phone that their usefulness as a phone has been greatly diminished in the form of terrible battery life compared to what we used to have.

New phones that are simply phones would be nice to see. It doesn't need to have a bunch of power hungry radios in it. Just a phone. With great battery life, quality phone-based features, and that's it. Leave the rest of it for tablets and other doodads.

Re:Is it just me...

[roc97007]

So looking at your response, and the previous poster's, it's an interesting contrast. Previous poster is seemingly bored with smartphones, and has decided to stick with his Windows phone. You started from basically the same position (bored with smart phones; they've all become commodity devices) and then exhibited excitement with the feature set and degree of integration presented by the Galaxy.

I'm tempted to say, this recalls the old saying, you use Windows because you have to. You use (any other platform) because you want to.

My daughter has a Galaxy Note, and what has attracted me to it is the included variable pressure stylus. In honesty, I'm a Palm Pilot/Treo guy from way way back, and found myself somewhat excited to see a stylus again, but it's not just that. It's a more advanced stylus than you'd expect on a phone, and is integrated well. (Not perfectly, but you could see where they were going.) I have been holding off on a tablet, but want to try out the Note 10.1. But I'm certainly willing to admit my needs are specialized -- content creation -- which isn't the usual usage model for a tablet.

Re:Is it just me...

[mirix]

Yep..

This is why I have a Nexus 4 for 'mobile computing', and a circa 2008 Nokia for... using as a phone.

Close to a week of battery life on a single charge is what it's all about, along with legendary call quality, range, etc.

Whenever we need a phone, my girlfriend's S3 is *always* dead, near dead, or charging. The nokia is ready for action. Shame they don't make them anymore.

When we go camping for a long weekend, I don't even need to worry about bringing a charger for the Nokia!

Re:Is it just me...

[dfghjk]

"I'm tempted to say, this recalls the old saying, you use Windows because you have to. You use (any other platform) because you want to."

Only stupid people make emotional decisions regarding tools, there are far better reasons than "because you want to". If you choose a platform based solely on "want" then you playing with it, not using it. Very different things.

Regarding the topic, what distinguishes a smartphone is its ability to be extended with apps. These days, if it's not Android or iOS, it's at a severe disadvantage. I am not personally a big user of apps yet I gave up my recent switch to Android because the apps sucked so hard...and Android's a dream compared to the 3rd world of smartphones.

Re:Is it just me...

[roc97007]

I didn't say anything about it being an emotional decision. I'm mildly excited about the Samsung Note series, but because of what it does and how it may fit into my workflow. (Besides the variable pressure stylus, the ability to be a USB master is a selling point.) I currently use Windows because an app I need for content creation currently only runs there (plus certain hardware support). C'est ce que c'est.

Re:Is it just me...

[Ambassador Kosh]

I have been using linux for over 10 years for my servers and desktops. I have also use windows since before 3.x. However I recently got a lumia 521 windows 8 phone. In the price range I was looking at none of the android phones ran the current version of android. The lumia 521 was $130 total to buy. It also has wifi calling. In the labs on campus the cell signal is basically non-existant. I needed a phone so I could continue to deal with customers to pay for my going back to school and doing lab work over the summer. With the wifi calling I can send and receive calls, texts etc all transparently anywhere in any of our buildings since they all have wifi.

This phone has worked very well for me and enabled me to spend a lot more time on campus instead of at home or somewhere where I could use a different phone. Sure windows may not often be a good choice but at least some people choose it because it is the right choice given the available options.

Re:Is it just me...

[Billly Gates]

Nothing to do with having to use a tool vs wanting it?

The grandposter said there is no reason to upgrade as a phone is a phone and innovation is slowing. I countered I find the opposite true after what I saw what was out there and how crappy and outdated my Galaxy S1 was.

Things are moving better besides just more ram and a faster processor. Your note is a classic example of innovation. These are coming with more and more sensors and uses. If you just run apps on an old S3 you would not even know what other phones have today. Siri is one example for IPhone users but bluetooth is another too assuming the S3 has that or not (I do not own an IPhone).

Re:Is it just me...

[cbhacking]

MalachiK is using a WP7 device, which is decidedly lacking in features compared to WP8 or current Android versions. However, several of the features that Billly Gates mentions also exist on the Lumia 920, which runs WP8: data sense and warning, WiFi-based Internet sharing, voice activation, brightness sensors (not that those are anythign new) as do several other cool features that he didn't, like wireless charging and a low-light camera.

Excitement about features is cool. I totally understand. But don't confuse "Windows the workstation OS" with "Windows Phone the consumer smartphone platform". The reasons to buy the one have very little do with the reasons to buy the other, and there are plenty of people who are enthusiastic about the Lumia 92x and 1020 devices (no, I don't have one).

Re:Is it just me...

[gl4ss]

light sensors: old.
motion sensor scrolling: old
sharing network connection to pda's: '90s old.
data cap listing: as old.

it is in a plateau. and the "old" means that the features were introduced in phones ten years ago, everything is just slightly better.

Re:Is it just me...

[MrHanky]

Only stupid people make emotional decisions regarding tools, there are far better reasons than "because you want to".

Nonsense. When buying a simple mechanical tool like a hammer, it's much better to try holding it, swinging it and see what it feels like than going through a list of specifications. Same with smartphones, in that there's a real difference in how you physically interact with them. If it gets the job done with a minimal amount of stress, you'll be happy with it. The need for special apps as front-ends to every little web page (which is what most smartphone apps are) is there mainly because phones in general are deficient in this area.

Re:Is it just me...

[semi-extrinsic]

They still make stupid Nokias. The Nokia 100 retails for $50, on sale for $29 on Amazon now. 35 days of standy time.

Re:Is it just me...

[Dr Max]

This is why i want a little flexible phone i can wrap around my wrist like a watch. I don't want it to have sixteen cores or play bf3. I want it to make phone calls, text, email, maps, music, video, and not have to bother about carrying another thing around in my pocket.

Re:Is it just me...

[roc97007]

Good job trying to establish Linux cred before the Windows plug, but let's look at this.

> In the price range I was looking at none of the android phones ran the current version of android.

Ok, firstly, you either know that's not true and you're betting that some people will just take it on face value, or you haven't looked very hard. Jelly Bean was completed in November and c|net did an article on the top five Jelly Bean handsets on the shelves in January. That's a pretty short time to market by any measure.

Secondly, what exactly is the value of running "the current version of android"? In the old days when we were on the steep end of the curve, the version you ran and whether your provider would ever upgrade you was important, but not now for most people, as the curve has flattened. What specific feature were you looking for that no Android smartphone offered?

Other than, it wasn't Windows.

Re:Is it just me...

[roc97007]

Another vote for the crappiness of the original Galaxy. We owned one (or tried to -- actually six total, as we kept having to take it back) and vowed never again to buy anything from Samsung. The boycott was finally called off years later when the Note came out. It appears that Samsung has finally gotten its act together.

Microsoft may have also, but it's going to take much, much longer for me to trust them again. As bad as the Samsung Galaxy was, it wasn't even close to the aggravation of Windows Phone 6. For instance, that a phone, a PHONE won't RING because something has happened and the audio driver "will now close", is absolutely unacceptable.

Re:Is it just me...

[Anonymous Coward]

Jelly Bean 4.1 was released last June at Google IO, it was Jelly Bean 4.2 that was released in November. I wouldn't be surprised if all those handsets reviewed in January were running 4.1.

Re:Is it just me...

[roc97007]

Just for one example, the LG Nexus 4 [wikipedia.org] was introduced November 2012 with 4.2. C|net reports it was running 4.2.1 in January; it's currently running 4.2.2. So clearly 4.2 phones were available within days of its release. *And* amazon shows it as approx $150 cheaper than the Lumia. What is your definition of "none of the Android phones in my price range"?

But as much as I think I might be wasting my time, I'm mildly interested; what feature in 4.2 that 4.1 did not have that Windows Phone *does* have did you absolutely need? My Razr is still running 4.1. What am I missing? Should I be concerned???

Something you said in your original note:

> It also has wifi calling.

Um, I can't speak for IOS, but there's a bunch of Android apps to accomplish this, and have been for some time. I believe it's also a native feature of Google Voice. Not to mention, Skype has been available on Android since 2009. (With a company phone, I don't pay for minutes so I don't bother with this.) Now, it may be new on the Microsoft platform, so I understand why it feels like a new thing for you. But it's really not for the rest of us.

So again, what specifically about your Windows phone did you absolutely need, besides that it was Windows?

Re:No one will buy it because of the OS.

[Billly Gates]

It runs Windows. No one will buy it, and those who do will soon regret it.

Enough with the pretending Windows phones are actually good for something.

I disagree. They will make excellent hand warmers

Re:No one will buy it because of the OS.

[Anonymous Coward]

Try actually using one before spewing crap.

Re:Why hasn't Nokia crumbled yet?

[Anonymous Coward]

people are idiots. They see samsung and google making LOTS of money of android, see android ever where, then conculde to make money you have to make android (it's not going to well for HTC is it, and moto was losing so bad they put a for sale sign on the door).

Re:No one will buy it because of the OS.

[roc97007]

I have. He's right.

Re:No one will buy it because of the OS.

[Anonymous Coward]

but informed comments are so much more work then writting drivel.

Re:No one will buy it because of the OS.

[cheater512]

I still prefer my hand warmers to run Linux as it increases the 'warm and fuzzy' effect of the warmer.
My preferred hand warmer configuration is a Galaxy S3 with a full battery and Google Earth spinning around some 3d buildings.

Microsoft Closed OS, possible NSA backdoor

[Anonymous Coward]

It's a Microsoft provided OS, on a mobile device and since Skype has a big NSA backdoor, so likely does this phone. It could report NSA location, meta data, contact names, video feeds, audio feeds, all manner of stuff.

Sorry Nokia, but no.

Only viable option at this point is open source OS, Android (non-Google versions, the Google versions have Google spy crap on them which in turn is now NSA spy crap), Firefox mobile and a few others.

Re:Microsoft Closed OS, possible NSA backdoor

[Anonymous Coward]

Did you personally check the source? The fact that the source is open doesn't mean it's clean it means nobody might care to check it.
And what is the point of using Android without all the Google infrastructure? If you don't care for the apps source for which is not available most of the time, just stick with dumbphones. Though they also have some kind of software which may be tainted by NSA, but Smartphones have bootloader and GSM-modem firmware which is beyond OS controll and might have an NSA backdoor too.

Re:Microsoft Closed OS, possible NSA backdoor

[Anonymous Coward]

The fact the source is open does not mean "nobody might care to check it", it means that someone who might care can check. Now i fully agree that it is not a given that anyone actually does, but that is besides the point - if you care enough at least you can check (and if you do not know how to read code you can pay someone who do) you do not have that option with closed source.

Re:Microsoft Closed OS, possible NSA backdoor

[Anonymous Coward]

The fact the source is open does not mean "nobody might care to check it", it means that someone who might care can check.

Yes, I've messed up that sentence but you've got my poing.
Well, in case you hire someone to perform the source audit you've got to besides paying him trust him. By the way checking for backdoors can also be performed by disassembling the binary blob it just takes more effort. And you'll have to go that route with abovementioned closed-source components.
If that is a question of trust anyway some might happen to trust closed-source product manufacturers enough not to care about the source.

But Win8 really blows

[Anonymous Coward]

Got to play with one a few weeks back. Windows 8 bites. I'm sorry but Microsoft really blew it. It rots as a mobile OS and it sucks even worse as a desktop OS.

41 megapixel of stupidity

[swillden]

41 megapixels? 41 megapixels of blurry, grainy crap with heavy chromatic aberration. Even most DSLR lenses don't provide the optical resolution to make a 41MP sensor valuable, not unless you step up to the top-end lenses which tend to be very large and heavy -- because barring some revolutionary new ideas in optics, that's what it takes to make a lens with that much optical resolution.

The only thing you'll get out of this 41 MP sensor that you wouldn't get out of an 8 MP, or even smaller, is bigger files.

Re:41 megapixel of stupidity

[Anonymous Coward]

The real question is why have we got an AD for a Windows phone on a Linux-ish blog?

Re:41 megapixel of stupidity

[Solandri]

The iPhone's lens is a 4.1mm focal length f/2.4, so it's 1.71 mm wide. The Rayleigh criterion for a 1.71mm diameter lens in the red spectrum (700 nm) is 0.0286 degrees. That's the smallest angular separation you can resolve using that lens. It gives a view equivalent to a 33mm lens (in the 35mm format), which corresponds to a 57x40 degree field of view (I dunno the aspect ratios on these camera phones so I'll assume 3:2) . So the maximum resolution it supports is 1999x1398, or 2.8 MP.

The Bayer filter means only one pixel in 4 is red, so the camera's 8 MP is effectively capturing only 2 MP of red image data, which is less than the 2.8 MP limit I just calculated. The extra "data" bumping it up to 8 MP is "made up" by the Bayer filter processing algorithm. Unless they go with a bigger lens or a wider field of view, the camera simply can't resolve more than about 8-10 subpixels of data (counting each color pixel as separate). Increase the pixel count and you'll just be capturing two blurry pixels instead of one sharp one. You can see this if you compare a cell phone pic with a DSLR pic at 100%. Because more of the data is "made up" by the Bayer algorithm in the cell phone pic, it looks blurrier than the DSLR pic where adjacent subpixels are getting truly different optical data.

I haven't seen specs on the Lumina 1020 optical hardware. But its predecessor the 808 uses a 8.02mm f/2.4 lens, which is 3.34mm across - nearly twice as wide as the iPhone's. It has an angular resolution limit of 0.0146 degrees. Its field of view is a 26mm equivalent, or 69.4x49.6 degrees. That puts its maximum capture resolution at 4737x3386 pixels, or 16 MP. The 41 MP sensor means about 10.2 MP of red data is captured, which again is less than the 16 MP theoretical limit.

In practical use, the "you need a big lens to capture that much resolution" rule only applies to telephotos. In fact the Rayleigh criterion was derived while probing the theoretical resolving limits of telescopes. If you're using a tiny lens, what you give up in angular resolution you can make back with a wide field of view.

But what about optical quality? One of the advantages of using such a small lens is that it's a lot easier to grind it "perfectly". It takes a lot of work and quality control to grind a professional chunk of glass 77mm in diameter within a fraction of a wavelength to the desired shape. It's much easier to grid a 2mm wide lens into the desired shape, and it doesn't cost you much to just chuck it in the trash if it didn't come out perfectly.

Re:41 megapixel of stupidity

[dbIII]

Since the lenses are tiny (to deliver light to really tiny sensors) it's not going to be horribly expensive for those Zeiss lenses to be decent in the tiny bit of glass that matters. Of course there won't be much light coming in.
Unless something has changed drastically lately a very small 41MP sensor is going to be a bit noisy anyway so could be a weaker link than the optics.
To me this just looks like a hack to get digital zoom for OK snapshots in good light instead of going for detail, and since the sensor doesn't seem to be stupidly expensive I can see their point, which is not to replace even an early DSLR but to provide better "casual snaps".

Re:41 megapixel of stupidity

[gl4ss]

808 proved to be lot better in photos than 8mpix sensors.

it's a bigger sensor, bigger lens than usual. it takes better photos in better resolution. vastly better.

Re:41 megapixel of stupidity

[MrHanky]

Ah. Idiot know-it-alls. Always eager to ignore readily available empirical evidence.

Re:41 megapixel of stupidity

[__aasehi2499]

Thanks for sharing this information in this way.

Re:No one will buy it because of the OS.

[recoiledsnake]

I too have. He's wrong.

shills...

[roc97007]

It's interesting how the inevitable Windows shills (posting anonymously or from very new accounts) are trying to take the "it just works" aphorism away from Apple. Do you think if you repeat it often enough in relation to Windows Phone, people will just forget what devices the phrase was tied to before?

Caveat, I don't do Apple or M$. (I don't like either of their business models.) But I can spot a slimy marketing technique.

Incidentally, speaking as someone who used to work in marketing for a very large company, if you're going to shill for a company, it's not enough just to say it's the greatest thing since internet porn. You have to say *why* it's better than Jenny McCarthy's centerfold, in some plausible fashion. Just to say "I bought a Windows 8 phone and now my eleven kids are fighting over it and they all want to upgrade their Apple 5's to this" doesn't carry much weight, and parenthetically, seems really unlikely.

Of course, this leaves the shill in the unenviable position of trying to come up with some verifiable advantage to Windows Phone 8.

Re:shills...

[Anonymous Coward]

You are missing the point of just working and are extremely paranoid about the shills.
WP is better than Android and iOS not because it has more of something, but because it doesn't have all the shit that modern-day iOS and Android have, it's like a fat-free iOS of old days. Remember the days when everybody claimed that the iPhone will fail because it didn't have MMS or some other crap? But that is what made it popular! Tablets also became popular because they didn't have all the shit desktop OS has.
True MS will end up adding more and more features nobody really needs but claim they do and it will also become bloated, but right now it isn't.

Re:shills...

[TyFoN]

I'm not a fan of things not open source, but claiming that any device (including iphone) just works is just silly market speak.

My boss was fighting his new iphone 5 yesterday to install something but the market app kept crashing and he had to hard reboot the phone every time.

He was almost begging to get his old windows phone back.

So there exists some people that prefer windows over the apple one for real reasons :)

Re:shills...

[roc97007]

I'm not a fan of things not open source, but claiming that any device (including iphone) just works is just silly market speak.

My boss was fighting his new iphone 5 yesterday to install something but the market app kept crashing and he had to hard reboot the phone every time.

Indeed. When the iphone was qualified as a company phone, you heard co-workers going (dial dial dial) "Hello? Damn." (dial dial dial) "Hello? Damn!" (dial dial dial) "Hello? DAMMIT!" and then Jobs told them they were holding it wrong, and some of them believed it. It's an odd, cult-like kind of mindshare.

He was almost begging to get his old windows phone back.

So there exists some people that prefer windows over the apple one for real reasons :)

You lost me there. Why would anyone who had version 5 or 6 (which were buggy, extremely difficult to use, and ultimately abandoned by M$) or 7 (also abandoned by M$), or knew someone with this experience, or even read about it, have any interest whatsoever in Windows Phone 8? (Or in fact any Windows phone?) Because they saw it on Hawaii Five-0?

Moreover, as an IT person with connections to the wireless department in a large company, my experience is that the execs will put up with almost any behavior from their iphones in order to carry one. Given inevitable issues, they're much more likely to drop them on a wireless admin's desk and say "fix this now!"

Begging for a Windows phone is extremely unlikely from a number of reasons. Not the least of which: Nobody wants to be seen carrying one. We offer iphone (most popular) Blackberry (used to be most popular, then tied with Windows for last place, and now with Q10 showing a solid third place) Android (second place) and Windows. (One model available, no takers.) So is so.

I think that to try to convince people having problems with their iphone, that switching to Windows is what you need to do to guarantee a trouble-free experience, is probably a lot like skating uphill, given what Microsoft has produced in this area in the past. (Both the products themselves, and Microsoft flailing about in the marketplace as they try to find something that works.)

In summary, that the iphone has issues (it does) is not sufficient reason to vault over the lip of the cooking utensil into the flames. And more importantly, I think, to your point, is that as a marketing gimmick, I don't see how this ("iPhone have troubles? Come to Windows!!") can work in the marketplace. Maybe if you wait another generation, the memory of the debacles of the past will fade.

Re:shills...

[Anonymous Coward]

the positive remarks from real accounts have quite low numbers (i was surprised). "(I don't like either of their business models.)" is that because you like the idea of a giant advertising company subsidizing your OS by selling your personal data. People will comment AC on windows because of all the people like you that will claim they are all shills because they don't hate nokia and love google and schmidt's cock as much as you.

Re:shills...

[roc97007]

Between you and me, I know what "just works" means in the Apple ecosystem. It goes back to being voluntarily imprisoned in the little sheltered garden. "It just works" in that context means you don't get to change the look and feel or run non-apple services in the background or a dozen other things that might make it not work. And for some people, that's fine.

In the Microsoft ecosystem, I suspect that "just works" means, "yeah, we know that previous versions didn't work very well. This one does. Trust us."

Windows Phone

[Anonymous Coward]

If you check email, surf the web, do some multimedia, make phone calls - Windows Phone absolutely rocks. If you want apps, not so much. I have Windows Phone and have been tempted by Android, but not enough for me to switch to Android. I prefer WP over Apple and BlackBerry. I would guess half of the negative Windows Phone comments on here are people who probably didn't even pick up a device for 2 minutes. Just fashionable to hate on MS here it seems.

Re:Windows Phone

[Anonymous Coward]

Allmost all people I know who bought WP regretted it. It does not rock. Even the one person who likes it (a hardcore windows fan) had to admit it has some flaws after he had to reboot it a few times in my presence.

Re:Windows Phone

[richlv]

another anonymous coward post, praising windows on phones, and sounding soooo badly hurt about people not liking it. it probably is fashionable to hate ms in phone shops by that logic :)

Re:Windows Phone

[Anonymous Coward]

he had to reboot it a few times in my presence.

So? All 3 android phones I've owned, the latest using ICS, has either locked up, rebooted on its own, or required a reboot to get something working.

Re:Windows Phone

[Anonymous Coward]

he had to reboot it a few times in my presence.

Sounds like total bullshit to me. I had to reboot Lumia 920 like four times in like eight months and two of those were due to OTA OS updates. It was noticeably more frequent with iOS. In this regard Windows Phone is rock solid.

Re:Windows Phone

[Anonymous Coward]

If you check email, surf the web, do some multimedia, make phone calls - Windows Phone absolutely rocks.

Browsing the net with IE rocks? I don't think there's even proper Gmail app for wp either.

Sorry, I'll pass.

Re:Windows Phone

[cbhacking]

At the time of its release, IE10 was faster than Chrome on both rendering and JS. IE10 on the phone is faster, hardware to hardware, than all but the latest browsers for Android, and the difference there is meaningless. It's got standards support, performance, and (for a phone browser) a decent feature set (I admit I'd like the synched bookmarks of Chrome, but there are apps for that).

Stop living in the past, grandpa. IE6 is dead and gone (speaking as a former web dev: thank $DEITY)

Re:Windows Phone

[waitamin]

From one WP user to another, why WP is really not that nice:

- Can't type in my own language (a language of the European Union: present on the new banknotes, too). There are however multiple Chinese, Japanese, Korean keyboards available. No work-around.
- Can't connect it to a Linux machine. No work-around.
- Can't change the calendar alarm sound. Can't use it for reminders because of this. No work-around.
- Can't change text sizes. Text often too small. No work-around.
- Can't use any other browser but the built-in. No work-around.

The list goes on but those are the biggest deficiencies, in order of annoyance factor. I got the phone for free and this is the only reason I am still using it. So no, it doesn't rock. It is yet another "we tell you what is good for you" device. Despite all M$ hate, I have always maintained that they don't lock your computer functionality, and more has been possible on a Windows PC than on any other PC. Windows phone: the absolute opposite.

Re:Windows Phone

[gorfie]

To quell the "anonymous cowards are paid by Microsoft" folks, I too own a Windows phone (Lumia 900) and prefer it over my wife's iPhone 5 and my old Samsung Galaxy (the original). It's great for email, Web, phone calls, and music. I only use free apps and the selection for WP7 is acceptable (not as much variety as I saw in Google's marketplace but I'm not aware of any "killer" apps that I cannot have). The OS makes it easy to launch apps and configure the phone (the tile customization really helps). The search integration is fantastic - I haven't touched Google search/maps in a year. The device itself is very rugged - I've dropped/tossed it several times without damage to the unit. My only complaint about it is the camera - it's lousy - but I hear they've improved that in more recent versions.

Re:Windows Phone

[Anonymous Coward]

Think about it for a minute.

No, try again.

Ok, you're not going to connect the dots.
Slashdot moderation has a tendency to "-1 Troll" anyone who says something unpopular with the high-karma class. The high-karma class supports each-other, and downmods all unwanted talk. Since you still haven't made the connection, Slashdot's vicious hatred of Microsoft over a 20 year old lawsuit that found them guilty of starting the trend of making free web browsers results in bad karma for anyone who says anything supportive of anything that might be remotely linked to Microsoft. Only the anonymous can post comments that are not Linux boot-licking because using a uid would get that number on the karma-tyrant hit list and the user would have to resort to anonymous posting anyway.

Re:Windows Phone

[Just Some Guy]

But for many of us, apps are the phone. I run my life on OmniFocus, and I'm about 99.99% sure there'll never be a Windows Phone port of it. What about 1Password? Simple Bank? I'm sure everyone on an iPhone or Android has a pet app (or dozen) that they don't want to live without.

And that's my main gripe against Windows Phone. It's a pretty decent system by all accounts, but it just doesn't (and won't) do the stuff I'd need it to do. That's not hating - that's pragmatism.

Re:Windows Phone

[roc97007]

What... hang on, really? We all hate Microsoft because they came out with a free browser? I'm.... at a loss for words. So.... we don't hate Opera for coming out with a free browser, or Google, or Apple, or Mozilla or Mobotap? Only Microsoft?

Here, let me connect some different dots.

a) Lots of us here in Slashdot are in IT.

b) This means that a high percentage of us have had to either do work-for-pay using Microsoft products, and/or been assigned Microsoft devices to use, and/or have had to support Microsoft products and/or devices. If you're in IT, you have a high likelihood to have had deep experience with Microsoft products in one way or another. Est donc le cas.

c) We're all just damned sick and tired of dealing with Microsoft's crappy products. The back end products are tolerable, but holy crap, the rest is junk.

d) We all hate Microsoft because we hate having to use and/or administer their products, and we deeply resent the various necessities that force us to. It really is that simple.

e) Profit! (I don't know how that part works, but lists like this always end this way.)

Mind you, nobody hates absolutely everything about anyone. I find Win7 tolerable, for instance, although I freely admit to a burning hatred for Win8. (And yes, I've tried it. I own a touchscreen laptop running Win8. Well, I say "running" but we haven't booted it in awhile.)

Re:Windows Phone

[Anonymous Coward]

Posting AC to preserve mods.

Why do you need a Gmail app when support for Gmail is baked into the OS?

Google did try to kill that, along with a few other nasty tricks, such as preventing google maps from working in the mobile IE browser, but it all works now.

Re:No one will buy it because of the OS.

[Anonymous Coward]

i read that as excellent hammers for some reason, and that is damn true i saw a car drive over a 920 and there was barely a scratch on it afterwards.

Technical details and sample pictures

[recoiledsnake]

If you're comparing a phone camera with a DSLR then it means it has already won. Anyway, here's more technical details.

Sample photos from the phone http://www.flickr.com/photos/87544844%40N00/sets/72157634597356196/
Review of the photo tech http://pureviewclub.com/2013/15270
Whitepaper from Nokia on the tech http://i.nokia.com/blob/view/-/2723846/data/1/-/Lumia1020-whitepaper.pdf
Sample photos from the predecessor http://www.flickr.com/groups/nokia808/
Nokia presentation showcasing the phone http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M_Q3bxo7vJI&hd=1

Re:No one will buy it because of the OS.

[roc97007]

Well, "no one will buy it" may be mild hyperbole, but ... what was Windows Phone's market share again? Feel free to include 7 and 8.

Re:No one will buy it because of the OS.

[Billly Gates]

I was thinking excellent nails then would be more of a point than a hammer

No one else bothered by the name?

[SuperKendall]

I have to think they names it the "1020" just to put technical people on edge. So close...

Re:No one will buy it because of the OS.

[roc97007]

Does anyone else get the feeling that all of these retorts are being done by the same person?

Re:Why hasn't Nokia crumbled yet?

[Anonymous Coward]

Bubble, my ass.Nokia smartphone unit is loss-making since the declared Symbian phones dead and sales collapsed. Source: Nokia quartely earning reports. Exactly up to this point smartphones sales were increasing and the smart devices unit was profitable. They fired a lot of people (and the smart ones left), sold business units, and even their head quarter to stay a float. Other units like NSN are profitable which a helps. As a smartphone vendor the fall from number 1 to 10. And here a nice picture about the colllapse caused by the switch to Windows Phone: http://www.asymco.com/2013/04/18/lumia-is-the-light-visible/

Re:No one will buy it because of the OS.

[slack_justyb]

I second this motion. He's right.

Better Sale

[tuppe666]

I would guess half of the negative Windows Phone comments on here are people who probably didn't even pick up a device for 2 minutes. Just fashionable to hate on MS here it seems.

I know your just paid to promote the dead platform Windows Phone...But really attacking potential customers is not the way. Windows Phone was announced February 15, 2010, and released publicly on November 8, 2010. Its not a new product...its been a failure for a long time, its very heavily promoted; Its just not very good.

Here is the 125 reasons not to buy a Windows Phone http://my-symbian.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=44034 and people didn't. Microsoft simply needs a better product, and sell it on those features. Promotional posts are just insulting.

Re:Better Sale

[maxrate]

Not paid at all. Think it's a great device. I'm defending the device I like. that simple.

Re:Better Sale

[Anonymous Coward]

That link refers to Windows Phone 7.5. I wonder how much of it still applies to Windows Phone 8, or even to Windows Phone 7.8?

Re:Better Sale

[cbhacking]

Half the reasons on that list were obsolete before WP8 even came out (and WP8 is more different under the covers from WP7 than WP7 was from WinMo6.5), and about an eighth of them were never true. Most of the rest have been obsoleted since. That list has been trotted out so many times it's *probably* got more links to it than the number of point-by-point refutations, some of which have been posted right here on Slashdot.

At this point, it's the equivalent of claiming that Windows 8 is still based on DOS because it includes cmd.exe (yes, I've seen people make that claim, both on here and elsewhere). It does nothing but label you as an idiot who badmouths things with no concept of how they work and likely no actual experience with them either.

Re:Better Sale

[__aasehi2499]

My wife and I both bought and love it, she has Win8 device now, I have a Win7 device that has a custom ROM from XDA Devs. If you want all the distractoapps, it's not the phone for you. But, if you want a fast simple(contradiction?)smartphone, it is fun to own.

Re:Better Sale

[Anonymous Coward]

125 reasons not to buy an old discontinued win phone 7 OS (they aren't even using the same kernel anymore you fool). I was telling people not to buy windows phone 7 either. win phone 8 is a whole other story. What's your game son, is google or apple paying you to try and keep out competition or are you such a sad lonely little boy that you have to attack one of the smallest current smartphone OSs (that you probably haven't even tried for your self). shut the fuck up you queer fuck, your mother is more of a man than you'll ever be.

Re:Better Sale

[rjstanford]

Then why did you post the original as AC and this under your (possibly) actual handle?

Re:Better Sale

[magamiako1]

I'll reply to this, not as an AC, and not as an MS Shill. In fact, I've had this Slashdot account for years.

I recently switched to a Windows Phone (Lumia 920) from the iPhone 5 through that promotion that Nokia is running for trade ins. Yes, I voluntarily funneled out $450 for a Lumia 920 (of which I'll get $360 back when I send 'em my iPhone 5)

Anyways...

Overall, I've been happy with the phone. It works reasonably well. And while the lack of apps can be a problem, it hasn't detracted from the functionality of the phone itself. The best I can say is 'different'.

I also like the live tiles over notification center...

Re:Better Sale

[terjeber]

Here is the 125 reasons not to buy a Windows Phone

I stopped reading after the first ten since they were all wrong. How much are you being paid to post this nonsense? If your not getting paid, you are a moron, or just a "useful idiot".

Amazing resolution

[Alomex]

If this were an android or iOS phone people would be drooling over the quantum leap in MPs. But since it is a windows phone (which I too despise) fanbois will come up with arguments why 41MP are actually bad.

Let's be honest people. 41MP is amazing. I still won't be getting one since it runs WiPh, but the camera is amazing. Period. End of Story.

Re:Amazing resolution

[Anonymous Coward]

Let's be honest people.

You must be new here.

Re:Amazing resolution

[Anonymous Coward]

41MP means large file with almost no gains over 6MP (hopefully this phone as 500gb flash driver...)

Re:Amazing resolution

[Anonymous Coward]

Except that Megapixels means jack shit when there is no optical zoom and a lens that is less than 3.5mm wide.

5 megapixel point-and-shoot cameras from 7 years ago will still take a better picture. They could have put a sensor with half the pixel count on this device, and it would probably take a better picture too, because the sensor would be better at capturing light levels.

Re:Amazing resolution

[Alomex]

LMFTFY

Except that optical zoom means jack shit when there is a 41MP element

Re:No one will buy it because of the OS.

[mystikkman]

Since when is popularity the metric of good quality? By that metric OS X and Linux are very bad OSes.

Actual price?

[jrumney]

$299 seems kind of cheap for a flagship product with this feature set. Is it really $299, or is it $299 + a lot more $ in contractual obligation over the next 2 years?

Re:Actual price?

[cbhacking]

The latter. A 920 is at least $450 off contract; I can only assume this will be more.

Re:Actual price?

[Anonymous Coward]

I've seen $650 off contract.

Other specs not so hot.

[tuppe666]

Let's be honest people. 41MP is amazing. I still won't be getting one since it runs WiPh, but the camera is amazing. Period. End of Story.

From he article "4.5-inch, 1,280-by-768 screen. Lumia 1020 is powered by a dual-core, 1.5-GHz Qualcomm MSM8960" ...With the new standard of 5" 1080p quad-core phones especially considering this is twinned with "a high resolution camera" seems really stupid, and from its competitors HTC One(and Butterfly); Samsung Galaxy S4 and Xperia Z(L) as well as an army of cheap Chinese phones Selling at $200 I've been looking at a Neo N003 at $145

Re:Other specs not so hot.

[Anonymous Coward]

Are you working for GizChina?

Re:Other specs not so hot.

[Anonymous Coward]

I wouldn't mind 1080p, but I don't want a 5-inch screen, 4.5-inch is already bigger than I think a phone should be.

Cores only matter to the extent that they provide a material impact on experience - iPhone and Windows Phone are more fluid on two cores than Android is on four.

Re:Other specs not so hot.

[cbhacking]

"new standard" of 1080p phones? I know exactly two models with that resolution and a screen that big or larger. The vast majority of brand new smartphones are still less than 5" and are at most 1280x768; most are actually 1280x720. Quad-core is similarly still uncommon, and is mostly a benfit on Android with its love af battery-killing background tasks.

Re:No one will buy it because of the OS.

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm pretty much surprised I don't see a comment below this mentioning that Android is Linux.
Or do Google drone nowdays at last know that Android just uses linux kernel and when we speak of Linux as an OS we really mean GNU/Linux which their precious Google spyware has nothing to do with? Can't believe this!

um...

[Charliemopps]

An article about a windows phone? Why is this on here? What's Microsoft market share in phones? Doesn't Nintendo sell more phones than them?

(while I'm kidding about Nintendo there is this image: http://cdn.pocketnow.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/08/6a00d8341c5c9353ef01156f2acdc3970c-800wi.jpg )

Re:um...

[Anonymous Coward]

So anything with low market share is irrelevant on Slashdot? Ha-ha!

Re:um...

[Barlo_Mung_42]

As a nerd I would say this is news relevant to my interests.

Re:um...

[cbhacking]

What's Microsoft market share in phones?

Better than all of desktop Linux put together...
Still single-digit worldwide (though double digit in some markets), but that doesn't mean anything very important. Android was once tiny too.

Re:No one will buy it because of the OS.

[Anonymous Coward]

Most fandroids do.

Re:No one will buy it because of the OS.

[Anonymous Coward]

So Windows Phone makes you into a narrowminded insulting raging lunatic who thinks everyone else should use what you do because it works for you?

Re:No one will buy it because of the OS.

[richlv]

maybe the ac you replied to is elop :)

Re:Why hasn't Nokia crumbled yet?

[Anonymous Coward]

They have been loosing money for longer than that genius.

What's with the Hate

[Anonymous Coward]

I Love my windows phone I have the Nokia 920 and had HTC with Windows phone 7 before that, Windows Phone is Great, and easy to use, so simple, which is what you want a phone Interface to be, Iphone is old and stale and Android is great, have a Android table and wife has a Android Phone, but nether of them close to the speed and easy of use of the windows phone.

The Nokia phone hardware is great, both of my windows phone have been rock solid apart for updates I have NEVER had to do a restart.

Get one you will love it

Re:What's with the Hate

[Anonymous Coward]

Why are you telling me what i want? sounds like you work in PR. No, give me a featurelist and facts then I will decide if it suits my needs (obviously I want something that is "Great, and easy to use" but you are not making much of a case for it - just stating that "trust me, it is"). "An Android tablet" does not really say much either, you might have bought the cheapest crap out of china with one of the first releases of Android on it. You may be right or you may not be, but your argument seem to be: because I say so

(I fully agree that nokia hardware is (usually) great and my non-WP nokia holds about a weeks worth of charge and i dont need to reboot it either. - i have also inherited one of those cheap andorid devices i mention and it is just left in a box because it is useless but i know several people with Android phones/tablets who are very happy with them. as for iphone being stale, i guess thats a matter of opinion, i dont like iphones myself but i do know they work very well for a lot of people. Having a somewhat stale OS actually sounds kinda nice to me, I dont like my important devices to be changed too drastically between updates)

Re:What's with the Hate

[roc97007]

Right, exactly, as a marketing strategy, unsubstantiated claims of "it's great! it's easy to use! my kids fight for the privilege of using it!" kinda fall flat.

Not even iphone users fall for that, and they'll fall for ANYTHING. I mean, watching people huddling in the parking lot in the rain waiting for the store to open in order to be the first ones to exchange their 4 for a 4s, what was the marketing phrase? Not "it's great, it's easy to use", they already were convinced of that. One word: Siri. Now it could be argued that Siri proved to be largely pants, but it was at the time the major selling point for the 4s. And it worked.

What does Microsoft have that would sell the Lumia? Tiles. We've already got those on Android, thanks. Dynamic tiles. We've got Widgets, thanks, (something you, Microsoft, abandoned, remember?) and they're prettier than your tiles.

So, then, what?

You keep hearing "easy to use easy to use" could this be Microsoft trying to apologize for Windows Phone 6? Like the marketing phrase "have you driven a Ford LATELY?" Saying, yeah, we screwed up, but we're better now, honest.

If so, that's commendable; when you have a dark history, you first have to compete with your former self before you can compete with others. But that has to happen eventually, and then, what do you have to offer? The most product placements on prime time TV? (Does that even work anymore?)

Now this phone running MEEGO - that would be news

[Anonymous Coward]

I know a few geeks (VERY few) that have WP's
    Personally - I dont care who makes the OS - I care that it lets me do what I want....

  Currently - Android phones give me the most flexibility AND mobile processing power.
              And I can choose the phone that suites the activity I am doing
The frustrating thing about Nokia - is I LOVE their hardware - and I loved Meego - the potential was awesome - and I would pay for something like this - (with a quad core processor though thanks) if it ran Meego. BUT I dont JUST surf the web and read emails (and I have multiple phones and when Im not using a phone - its processing for me because android phones are powerful enough to do decent processing now (in specific area's) Win OS though - its just too limiting - immature AND I cant make it do all the things I want - and I cant CLOSE to near all the apps I want (and If it was Open I wouldnt care - but its not - so its to much trouble to change....

      My question is - how many others WOULD start looking at NOKIA again if they released Meego versions (and the perfect dream would be a Meego phone that would run android apps ) !

Re:Now this phone running MEEGO - that would be ne

[Stormwatch]

If you want a phone with Meego, wait for the Jolla. It's the closest you will ever get.

Re:No one will buy it because of the OS.

[Anonymous Coward]

very true, that said i've seen it used as a hammer aswell.

Re:Why hasn't Nokia crumbled yet?

[Anonymous Coward]

smart devices contribution margin:
2010 Q2 8,1
2010 Q3 9,3
2010 Q4 11,6
2011 Q1 6,2 (Symbian declared dead)
2011 Q2 -6,2
2011 Q3 -5,9
2011 Q4 -7
2012 Q1 -18,3
2012 Q2 -32,9
2012 Q3 -48,9
2012 Q4 -21,6
2012 Q1 -16,2

Re:Why hasn't Nokia crumbled yet?

[dbIII]

Because they are still selling bucketloads of Symbian phones to China. That "burning platform" is what is keeping their arse out of the fire.

Re:Why hasn't Nokia crumbled yet?

[Anonymous Coward]

I can't really prove it but i was seeing symbian die for a while (even if they sold a couple of extra symbians at the beggining of the smartphone race), people were still buying nokia because they always had, but each time they took it to work or showed it to their friends it had less of the 'cool' features than the competition had (so what were they going to buy next, whether nokia made symbian or windows? not nokia.). It was always going to disrupt sales doing something like what they did, that why microsoft paid them so much money. I'm starting (the very start mind you) to see this with ios as well, if apple don't shock every one soon they could have some tough times ahead. With all the NSA prism stuff happeneing now maybe nokia should have stuck with symbian, if they survivied till now they might of got to seriusly rake in the coin, but there were going to be some damn tough times in the middle.

Re:Why hasn't Nokia crumbled yet?

[Anonymous Coward]

smart devices contribution margin:
2010 Q2 8,1
2010 Q3 9,3
2010 Q4 11,6
2011 Q1 6,2 (Symbian declared dead)
2011 Q2 -6,2
2011 Q3 -5,9
2011 Q4 -7
2012 Q1 -18,3
2012 Q2 -32,9
2012 Q3 -48,9
2012 Q4 -21,6
2012 Q1 -16,2

LOLOLOL, had no idea it was that bad.

Re:Why hasn't Nokia crumbled yet?

[Anonymous Coward]

Symbian was not dying:
http://www.asymco.com/2013/04/18/lumia-is-the-light-visible/
That does not mean that Symbian did not have problems. Despite the growth in absolute numbers, Nokia lost market share in smart phones and it was clear that Symbian would not be competive in the future. But the thing is, they had a perfectly good plan: Two meego phones were already fully developed when they announced the switch to WP 7 (and more Meego phones were in development and a tablet). With QT there was a plausible transition strategy from Symbian to Meego which would have offered developers a way to support both. Nokia would have kept full control ecosystem and the ability to do innovative things. Instead they threw everything away and switched to WP 7 although Windows Mobile/Phone was failing to capture market share for years. The Meego-based N9 was then released only in smaller markets and turned out to be an absolutely awesome phone which initially outsold the two Lumia devices, proofing that this would have been a much much better strategy. The N950 was never sold and only given to developers and another device became the Lumia 800.

Re:Why hasn't Nokia crumbled yet?

[Anonymous Coward]

symbian was stopped at the end of q2 2011. They had already started loosing money because they wern't keeping up with android and IOS.

Re:No one will buy it because of the OS.

[roc97007]

> I'm pretty much surprised I don't see a comment below this mentioning that Android is Linux.

I think you just said. :-) And if you go back far enough, OSX -> Nextstep -> AUX -> BSD, which makes Berkeley Unix one of the most popular desktop OS's. :-) One could say, the year of *nix on the desktop is done got here. And has been for awhile.

Re:Why hasn't Nokia crumbled yet?

[Anonymous Coward]

The first nokia windows phones came out in october of 2011 meaning precious symbian was falling behind before they even had the replacement.

Good thing this has nothing to do with Win8...

[cbhacking]

Your comment could be taken far more seriously if you had given any indication that you even knew there was a difference between Windows and Windows Phone. Aside from both using NT-family kernels (definitely not the same kernel though, even accounting for CPU architecture) and having live tiles and sharing some APIs, the only similarity is their name. iOS and Android are more alike than Win8 and WP8.

Re:Now this phone running MEEGO - that would be ne

[Anonymous Coward]

I agree that high end phones with close to 2GHz quad core ARM and 2GB of RAM have reached the capability of being used as a PC. And they can be already if you want.

But there isn't anything marketed that way yet.

Re:Now this phone running MEEGO - that would be ne

[Horshu]

"I know a few geeks (VERY few) that have WP's" And I know quite a few. A circle of friends or a circle of co-workers is just that - a closed group of people who tend to have a similar collection of likes/dislikes and is merely a microcosm in a much bigger world. Just another case of "Nobody I knew voted for Nixon."

Re:No one will buy it because of the OS.

[Anonymous Coward]

no no no, that is what IOS was, and Android now is.

Re:No one will buy it because of the OS.

[Anonymous Coward]

i tried a 920 at a phone shop and it seemed alright to me, it was quick to find info and open stuff on the grid layout, maps was nice, internet explorer was no less useable than other phone browsers, controlling stuff like music from the tiles seemed to work. But as much as i distrust android on my nexus s (yes it has a custom rom) i didn't really trust MS any more also i'm too much of a tight arse to upgrade it.

Re:Why hasn't Nokia crumbled yet?

[gl4ss]

The first nokia windows phones came out in october of 2011 meaning precious symbian was falling behind before they even had the replacement.

that's because they declared symbian dead.

elop did it on purpose to kill it off faster than it would have otherwise gone. he just announced from a rooftop to the world to stop buying them.

Best. Phone. Ever.

[elabs]

Wow, there is nothing that comes close to the Lumia 1020 and it's camera. I've been using DSLRs for quite some time. No camera phone has ever been able to hold its own against a DSLR like the NIkon D800... until now.

Re:Best. Phone. Ever.

[roc97007]

Wow, there is nothing that comes close to the Lumia 1020 and it's camera. I've been using DSLRs for quite some time. No camera phone has ever been able to hold its own against a DSLR like the NIkon D800... until now.

Thanks for injecting some much needed humor into my day.

Lumia920

[Anonymous Coward]

I think Nokia's (and other) "Windows Phone 8" phones suffer from the existence of "Windows 8".

"Windows Phone 8" is my favorite mobile OS so far. I can get along with Android, but it's far from easy to use and breaks in random places after every system
upgrade. The Lumia 920 otoh slurped the battery very fast until the first patches came out, but it did get fixed.

Unlike "Windows Phone 8", "Windows 8" is a true nightmare.

Re:No one will buy it because of the OS.

[MrHanky]

Linux is probably more widespread than Windows. Unless your wireless router is from Apple, it probably runs Linux. Same for tablets, ebook readers, and phones, of course. Windows only owns the desktop, which is here to stay, but gets less and less relevant each year.

Re:Why hasn't Nokia crumbled yet?

[jbolden]

If you mean at the time of Elop's announcement there were 0 MeeGo phones developed. The N9 was only finished so quickly because it became terminal and thus the politics reduced. MeeGo was fundamentally flawed in that opposite promises had been made to different groups.

Begun...

[Ed_1024]

... the Megapixel Wars have.

Re:No one will buy it because of the OS.

[roc97007]

I think someone has already pointed out that Unix (OSX, iOS) and Linux (Android) are doing very well, thanks. And the reasons why Windows is the top desktop OS is a topic for another discussion, and has almost nothing to do with usability. (Even more so with the debacle that is Windows 8.)

Popularity is the metric of popularity. There are a lot of reasons why people aren't buying Microsoft's phones. Like me, they may have owned a previous model. (I'll never touch one again.) They may have toyed with one in the store and remarked on the unsophisticated, almost retro look of it. They may be concerned that the lack of marketshare will result in a thin ecosystem and ultimate abandonment. (Like Microsoft has NEVER abandoned a portable OS in the past...) And they may not choose to own one because nobody else does, and they'd feel silly carrying one. (I personally don't consider this a valid reason, but it does exist.) At my daughter's high school, Android is very popular because you can change the look and feel of the desktop. This is apparently very important to high school age consumers. With Win8 you can, what, maybe change the background?

Lots of reasons to own an Lumia 920

[roc97007]

The comment has been made several times (almost always anonymously) that there are *lots* of reasons to carry a Lumia. Ok, maybe that's true. I can think of one.

A friend of ours was an early adopter of the Surface RT. He carries it everywhere he goes and makes whatever use of it of which it's capable (mostly email and web, when IE isn't crashing). He has a very good reason to have gotten one early, and to still be carrying one. His paycheck says "Microsoft Corporation". His career depends on carrying the device and using it and being seen using it and most importantly, not complaining about it.

Those are good reasons.

Similarly, if your paycheck says "Microsoft Corporation", there's probably a Lumia in your pocket, for a lot of very good, easily substantiated reasons.

Otherwise, I'm thinking, not so much.

Re:Lots of reasons to own an Lumia 920

[roc97007]

Oh, and another good reason was, he got it for free.

Re:Freekin Awesome.

[Anonymous Coward]

Modded down for showing a sense of wonder. Well, I have a perspective of technology that goes back 60 years and, yea, new technological advancements still amaze me every day.

Anyway, the comment was brief because there is obviously no need to expound volumes on a cheap digital camera phone. On the other hand, think what could be done hacking the sensor.

Re:No one will buy it because of the OS.

[roc97007]

Yeah, like that one.

Yeah well

[Anonymous Coward]

Can I put android on it? Or ubuntu? or anything besides windows phone?

Lumia/Metro/WPhone8 not bad

[unixisc]

I've not had an Android phone, but I have an iPod touch, as well as a new Lumia 520. I'll say that I'd be fine w/ either the Lumia or the iPhone.

I've seen Windows 8 on desktops and can see how ugly it would be there. However, on the phone, it's just fine. It does a great job guessing words when one is typing, and I can easily see it as being as good as iOS. In other words, great for e-mail & sms. I also like, amongst its features, its mapping and GPS capabilities, as well as some of the general apps, such as the calculators, currency converters and the camera software. They do a good job w/ Skydrive, although one would wish that one didn't have to create a Hotmail/live.com account to use it. Music, video and MS Office are good as well.

The shortcomings of a Windows phone - which may or may not be temporary - is the variety of games that they have on it. They do have the common ones, like Angry Birds, Temple Run and so on, but many major ones are missing. For instance, in my iPod, I have Trivia, Monopoly, Risk, Stratego, Clue and Civ War, among some others. Few from that list are available on Windows Phone 8. Also, some really good iOS games, such as searching pictures for objects, don't seem to be there on this platform.

In short, if you're not much of a gamer and use the phones only for serious work, it's a good choice - the maps, for one, particularly justify it. It's also excellent for typing for something in that form factor, and also, the Metro interface, while justifiably maligned on the PC, is certainly good here. But yeah, if you are looking for the latest & greatest of games, this platform is just not there, unless one happens to be an X-Box user. That's where this platform seems to get a lot of its games.

Re:Why hasn't Nokia crumbled yet?

[Anonymous Coward]

I hear this often, but I don't believe this. There was simple not enough time until its release, which implies that it already must have been at a very advanced state when the switch was announced.

Re:Why hasn't Nokia crumbled yet?

[jbolden]

It was in an advanced state but there were conflicts between what was going in. Different teams had different build ups. Also lots of insiders have said it.

CHECK THIS OUT!

[Anonymous Coward]

I found a full & completely in depth review of Nokia Lumia 1020 here @

http://t.co/5MM5GrZZXP

It's more than a 41 mp camera! just look @ this website to know about this amazing smartphone!

Re:No one will buy it because of the OS.

[Anonymous Coward]

It doubled to 7% in the last year and is well into double figures in some markets, UK and Italy for example.

Re:No one will buy it because of the OS.

[terjeber]

Just to set the record straight, the people who buy and use Windows phones are the ones also happiest with their purchase. They have a very, very high customer satisfaction rate. Also, the "not selling" is true in the US, but not in other markets. US Consumers are among the most conservative and least willing to change to newer and better technologies (I mean, american cars were actually sold in the US all through the 1980s). Not so in other places. At the moment Windows Phone apparently sells on par with iPhone for example i Russia.

Not saying they are a great market success yet, but that there are signs that WP might do quite well in the next five years.

Re:No one will buy it because of the OS.

[terjeber]

You are lying. As usual you paid Google shills are just making up stuff as you go along. Sadly for you, Google doesn't pay you shills in anything but hit ranking, which is worthless when you are.

http://wmpoweruser.com/nokias-windows-phones-topping-customer-satisfaction-charts-in-us/

it runs windows and it crashed

[Anonymous Coward]

that is so unusual

Re:No one will buy it because of the OS.

[roc97007]

Laughter. Yeah we're all Google shills, including the Mac heads and all the former Nokia fans still clinging to their N95s who will never forgive Nokia for killing symbian and the people whom were issued windows phones and revolted. (Seriously, reboot the phone after installing an app??). Yep, we all work for Google. It's a conspiracy. Nice try.

For the record, I'd switch back to blackberry in a heartbeat if the offshore Admins could figure out how to keep BES up. Still the best keyboard in the business, and the tightest integration with the company intranet, when BES was working.

Re:No one will buy it because of the OS.

[terjeber]

Yep, we all work for Google. It's a conspiracy. Nice try.

Wooooosh

Re:No one will buy it because of the OS.

[roc97007]

Sigh. Well, it happens to everyone occasionally. One of my better rants, wasted. I need a drink.