Corner Geeks 25: The Windows Phone Experience

• Lumia 520 for AUD$176
  • Specs don’t really matter because it’s a pretty good experience
  • 512MB RAM which limits some heavier apps but still a pretty smooth experience. Much better than cheap Android phones
• Good Polish unlike Android back in the day that had a lot of rough edges
  • In between iOS and Android but closer to iOS
  • Find my phone
  • Sky Drive Integration
    • Save Photos automatically
      • can’t seem to enable only on WiFi so may be hazardous to your 3G data
      • doesn’t upload screenshots
    • Office Documents synced in the cloud
  • Office
    • Can create and edit Word and Excel files offline
    • Can view Powerpoint files
      
  • Bluetooth transfer data migration
  • Consolidated settings (like iOS) but also and in app
  • Glove usage! (probably a Lumia feature)
• Good Features
  • People Hub
    • Combines all social streams (Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn) into one stream
      
    • Like Twitter lists but for all social networks supported
      
    • Photo Stream of all updates with photos
  • Bluetooth image sharing!
  • Has Android like intents/sharing of data to other apps. E.g. from photo app, can share photo to apps like WhatsApp / Email / any app that supports receiving images
• Gripes
  • App selection still small. No official Dropbox app, no instagram
  • Search page is not a web page. E.g. Search in browser address bar brings you out of the browser to the search page, and clicking a link in the search page goes back into the browser
  • Sharing Intents inconsistent
    • But doesn’t seem to work for all things… Can share photo (.jpg file) from camera to WhatsApp but cannot share screenshot (.png file)  to WhatsApp. Can’t share URL to WhatsApp.
    • Perhaps more of a non-mature app ecosystem rather than Windows Phone fault. App developers need to program their apps right
  • Notifications could be better
    • If app is a Live Tile, then you can see the notification number
    • If app is not a Live Tile, there is no easy way to know what app caused the notification (iOS has it best with badges)
  • No quick toggles
    • Have to go into settings to turn things on and off similar to iOS (e.g. enable/disable data / WiFi)
    • Hard to toggle vibrate
  • Can’t disable screen rotation. Less sensitive than Android which is good.
  • No file explorer or file system like Android
  • No auto-sign in like Android for Google sites
    
  • Switching apps shows “Resuming…” quite a bit. More to do with how Windows Phone handles apps. Could be due to limited memory of 512MB and may not occur with higher end devices with more RAM
  • No Bluetooth tethering (available in iOS and Android)

Links

• Lumia 520 Review – The Verge
• Lumia 520 – GSM Arena