back to article Nokia Lumia 820 WinPho 8 review

The Nokia Lumia 820 is the second of Nokia's two new Windows phones. It's the neglected sibling of the flagship Lumia 920, and is barely mentioned in Nokia's presentations.  But I found it a very capable handset, with plenty to commend it. Why does this sound a bit familiar? Nokia Lumia 820 Windows Phone 8 Nokia's Lumia 820 …

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  1. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Maybe on the next incarnation they will have a phone as worthy as the best.

    Still not a bad effort from a manufacturer who is looking into the abyss.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Maybe on the next incarnation Microsoft will allow Windows phone to actually sync with Microsoft software. I mean come on, even the I-phone can sync with Outlook, so why on earth can't Windows phone? Why on earth are Microsoft are so intent on forcing everyone to store their personal information in 'the cloud'?

    2. Anonymous Coward
      FAIL

      Already in the abyss

      1. call quality is poor. Fail, it's meant to be a phone.

      2. battery struggles to last a day. Fail, it's meant to be a phone.

      3. The above 2 points were always areas in which Nokia excelled over other manufacturers, so now, why buy a Nokia?

      4. Nokia phones have no Android versions, only Win 8, so now, why buy a Nokia?

      4 fails, and I say this is a former Nokia user who genuinely would like to buy another one. Unless Elop is kicked out and they belatedly get back to producing decent phones which can power for several days and have great call quality including via the speaker phone, and with Android as the OS, then Nokia is definitely toast. They could easily have been where Samsung is today, that's the saddest part of the great Nokia failure.

  2. Ancient Oracle funkie
    Devil

    "The story of ordinary phone calls on both Lumias is not, I'm afraid, very good."

    So basically, don't bother if you actually want to use it as a phone. OK, I'm sold!

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Thing is, drop outs and other things like choppy sound are likely to be the result of the mobile network. These problems can plague any phone. I used to get it all the time with my iPhone at home.

      Did you even think to try another network or another phone on the same network?

      As for the 920, the volume is loud, some people say it is too loud even on 2/10. When playing music you can feel the vibration of the speaker in your hand.

      The Mac connector is flakey, but it does settle down eventually. The lack of "browsing" of the phone on OSX is Apple's fault for not implementing MTP (media transfer protocol) which this and many other devices use to sync files. MTP is a way of abstracting the underlying filesystem of the device so you can use any filesystem without the OS needing to have a driver for it. But sadly despite this protocol being many years old and officially part of the USB spec Apple have chosen to ignore it.

      http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Media_Transfer_Protocol

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Really?

        Your're blaming the lack of browsing functionality on Apple? Isn't it the job of the phone manufacturer to provide said functionality? If the OS doesn't provide, you bring your own tools. What is it about Microsoft that has people making excuses for them all the time?

        1. GitMeMyShootinIrons
          FAIL

          Re: Really?

          What is it about Apple fanatics blaming everything else for not supporting their cherished OSX? Standards are there for a number of reasons (even old ones) - One reason, applcable here, is to simplify implementation. If the operating system HOSTING a peripheral supports the protocol, then (hey presto), the peripheral works straight away without fiddling, or even 3rd party software in some cases.

          The Browsing function is based upon an established standard - if Apple can't manage that, then why is that Microsoft's problem to fix?

          Even playing Devils advocate, I'm sure Microsoft would prefer to keep Windows phones in the Microsoft eco-system in the same way that Apple prefer an Apple eco-system. I'd say Apple are VERY good at this, better than Microsoft. For example, look at the massively locked-in Apple TV platform. Try and get that little box working with a NAS or anything outside the iTunes client on a Mac (or the Apple-derived excrement version that Windows users put up with) and you'll see what I mean.

      2. Gerhard den Hollander

        blame the network ?

        I cannot vouch for the reviewer, but lack of call quality, missed calls due to too low ringer volume are (to me at least) pretty big reasons not to buy a phone.

        Also a battery that doesnt even last a day ? On a new phone ? That's another reason not to buy it.

        While most days I will be near a place where I can recharge my phone (read, behond a computer with a USB port), there are days (oh so joyous days) where I can (and will) be away from those places as much as possible. And while I understand that I can even make those days more enjoyable by not taking a phone, or leaving it switched off, I dont always have that luxury ...

        1. DrXym

          Re: blame the network ?

          "Also a battery that doesnt even last a day ? On a new phone ? That's another reason not to buy it."

          Heh it's a step up from what happened with the Lumia 800. Some phones including mine had duff battery firmware which ran the phone down in 6 hours. And it'd be dead as a dodo after that unless you plugged it into a wall socket. Charging from a USB cable connected to a PC did nothing. Took them many months to fix the issue and even now the phone has to be charged daily.

          It's also strange that one of the claimed benefits of Windows Phone is better battery life - that apps can't run things in the background, that stuff like streaming, push etc. are forced through the built-in OS services. The theory being the more the phone is idle the more power it saves. Which is fair enough though in practice it hasn't been realised in appreciably better battery spans for WP devices.

          1. JDX Gold badge

            Re: blame the network ?

            The battery thing doesn't seem to be a big issue for real-world users - otherwise it would not be the norm - which really surprises me.

      3. Law
        Happy

        "The Mac connector is flakey, but it does settle down eventually. The lack of "browsing" of the phone on OSX is Apple's fault for not implementing MTP (media transfer protocol) which this and many other devices use to sync files."

        Also have you tried downloading the android file transfer tool for mtp file systems. Not sure if it only works on android, but when Sony failed to release a stable/working version of Sony Bridge for Mac for my Xperia S (their sync software, and it sucks) I just took to getting photos and music on/off the mac using the file transfer tool manually. My guess is knowing google, it just implements an MTP device browser rather than being tied to Android devices themselves.

        http://www.android.com/filetransfer/

        Apple have no reason to implement the standard because they want people to use ipods/ipads - they don't care that some people with OSX arn't fanatics who buy every iDevice regardless.

      4. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Missing MTP

        The MTP protocol is a MICROSOFT protocol. Apple have their own alternatives. But in any case OSX does implement MTP. Blaming OSX for the flakiness of Microsoft's connector is silly.

        Microsoft can roll their own client connector. I get annoyed by the very suggestion anyone than MS should be blamed because that company has such inexcusable form for allowing the shoddiest of QA standards.

        This is the company where for at least 3 major releases of Word, if you edited references at the same time as having the document map open, you would, without fail, within 2 hours of work, have a irreparably corrupted document. They left that fatal flaw, a known problem, in Word for at least 3 major releases (I haven't tested the latest release - I now won't touch it unless I absolutely have to). I know this because the problem caused me weeks of work after the corruption got backed up undetected into my back-up set for an extremely valuable long document. Over the course of Word's use by many millions of people, there may well be instances of people committing suicide due to discovering very important work has been lost at inopportune times. Also, it was most likely, NONE of the (many, many) MS suggested alternatives for fixing document corruption would work (I know I've tried them all). This isn't one isolated case, with MS, there are many others. This is also the company that, for two major releases, shipped versions of Outlook, where without warning, your email database would get corrupted if it grew to exceed 2 gigabytes - WITHOUT WARNING, KNOWN PROBLEM, SHIPPED FOR TWO MAJOR RELEASES !! Again with the corruption quite possibly infecting past back-ups before it is encountered (but once it is encountered - AAARGGHH!!) Sorry if the caps make it seem as though I'm incoherent and shouting. I am. MS quality standards have institutional lapses is so bad a new word is required to describe them "shitasmic" (in truth a word made up by a Guardian journalist whose name I forget)

        Look at the article by the OS2 developer working during the MS/IBM collaboration years, published a few days ago in here, and you get an idea of why they are so bad. It comes from the very top. He wrote (and I even remember this problem in OS2 being reported on when it launched !!) how when testing single tasking DOS apps run in a windowed DOS session, he realised CHKDSK could be run twice, in parallel, with catastrophic results for anyone who did that (disk utility, designed for single tasking, running twice in parallel - OUCH). He referred it on to the project leader, who told him he was being too picky and left the issue in the build for release. Who was that man? Ballmer.

        Sorry for going over the top, but please don't ever give MS any slack for buggy craptastic software. Yes they have some excellent developers, and have also done some good work as well. But they are like someone who has grown used to a messy room and cleans just parts of it, leaving inexplicable piles of dirt and shit in place because they have always been there. Now we live in the world where devices like the iPad and Nexus demonstrate computers can be like as appliances. The room can be properly cleaned. Sure you can still find occasional bugs but not the kind of system destabilising, 3-days-of-your-life-down-a-void-of-back-up-and-system-rebuild bugs Microsoft tried to pretend are a normal and expected part of computing. People are beginning to see the standards have been kept unacceptably low by an unacceptable monopoly for far too long.

  3. EddieD

    Too little, too late

    The future is Android - certainly on mobile.

    Lumia phones are nice (I have one) - the HTCs running WP8 are nice. Their all nice.

    Unfortunately, they have no market traction, and I haven't seen anything that indicates that they're likely to gain market traction.

    That they still haven't announced anything to do with the promised "WP7.8" update shows their commitment to early adopters, and anyone contemplating making the switch will be looking at that.

    All in all, not good.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Too little, too late

      Give the whole "Android is best" thing a rest will you. Just because something is popular doesn't make it good. Look at the top 10 music charts. Some of us don't want to wear blue jeans, trainers and a football shirt even though they are popular too.

      The 920 is selling very well, demand is very high. This is from the Wall Street Journal (so not a fan site):

      http://online.wsj.com/article/BT-CO-20121119-705404.html

      1. Danny 14
        Pint

        Re: Too little, too late

        There is an 800 in the office. It has great battery life; it easily outstrips my hand picked kernel/firmware S2. Sure I can do just as much (plus more most of the time) on my S2 but as a phone the 800 at least works just as well in *stock* format. I have no idea what the modding scene is like for WPhones. Not played with any of the true WP8 yet.

        There isnt really anything wrong with the 800 so its probably just a WP image thing. I came from WM6.5 to android (1.6 initially - the original tmobile was a good phone if you ignored the 12 hour battery life) and would probably go back if I saw a need to. Perhaps when W8 is used more then i'll have a look at WP phones.

      2. Zane
        Headmaster

        Re: Too little, too late

        Well not sure where the Wall Street Journal gets its information, but when I look at the Amazon best sellers list, there's Android, and Android, and iPhone, and Android. Yes there is also the Lumia true - but not as high up as Wall Street Journal claims

      3. squilookle
        FAIL

        @A/C 08:45

        To be fair, the OP did not say Android is the best in that post. He didn't even say it was good.

        He said Android has more market traction and is going to come out on top for that reason.

      4. garbo
        Facepalm

        Re: Too little, too late

        Wall Street Journal? Owned by St Rupert of Murdoch, canonized for his services to Truth...

  4. Piro Silver badge

    Too expensive for what you get..

    ... But this is the kind of spec that should be mainstream. If they had Android on this, and slashed a whisker over a hundred quid off, it would most likely sell in high numbers.

    Removable battery and microSD along with a reasonable spec, seems good to me. I've used a Desire HD with an 800x480 screen at 4.3" for a long time now, and I've used iPhone 4 and 5, Galaxy S III, and honestly, I don't give one damn about the higher res screen. 800x480 at this size looks absolutely fine, is cheaper to make, and will no doubt drain less power.

    But forget all that, because this device (as decent as it is, especially with inductive charging built in, reminds me of my TouchPad), has been tied to the boat anchor that is Windows Phone. Sorry, Nokia.

    1. Robert Grant
      Coat

      Re: Too expensive for what you get..

      Yeah I think you're right. You can get the HTC 8S SIM-free for 239 notes...much lighter, higher-res screen, a few downsides as well (especially no Nokia Drive) but I doubt I'd ever pay almost twice the price for not much more device. Make it 250 and I'm there.

      1. Danny 14
        Happy

        Re: Too expensive for what you get..

        plus (I know this is a WP discussion - not flaming!) the venerable galaxy S2 is buyable for £270 too. The S2 is still a mighty fine phone for over £100 less than this.

      2. Mog0
        FAIL

        Re: Too expensive for what you get..

        Just a correction, 8S and 820 have identical resolution. They are both 480*800, the same as all WP7 handsets. The only other resolutions allowed are 720*1280 (as seen on the 8X) and 768*1280 (as seen on the Lumia 920)

  5. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Apple

    I wonder how big a cross-section there is between people wanting to try out new devices, and people who own an Apple computer. Either it's very small, or Microsoft doesn't want their business. Of course, with their luxurious marketshare, they can well afford to be haughty.

  6. Bob Vistakin
    Facepalm

    That bright yellow one

    Certainly sends out a loud clear message.

    1. Ocular Sinister
      Megaphone

      Re: That bright yellow one

      HI! YEAH, ITS NATHAN! YOU KNOW, NATHAN BARLEY!

      1. I ain't Spartacus Gold badge
        Happy

        Re: That bright yellow one

        I love it. It's sooo YELLOW!!!!

        Sadly I wouldn't have one though, I use my phones for work, so I'm Mr Boring Black.

        [Big yellow smiley face, for obvious reasons.]

  7. sabroni Silver badge
    Headmaster

    both new Lumias are a curate's egg

    The curate's egg was off. Despite what he said there are no good bits of a bad egg, the curate in the story is just being obsequious when he says some bits of the egg are good.

    So do you really mean "these phones are totally shit but we don't want to say so"?

    1. Andrew Orlowski (Written by Reg staff)

      Re: both new Lumias are a curate's egg

      You're taking an idiom literally :-)

      There's good bits and not so good bits. And you heard that from the mouth of my horse.

      1. Thomas 4

        Re: both new Lumias are a curate's egg

        El Reg doesn't have any horses. The closest thing you've got is Lester's ass.

      2. sabroni Silver badge

        Re: There's good bits and not so good bits.

        So not like the Curate's egg at all then.

  8. Bob Vistakin
    WTF?

    "On both phones I missed far more calls than usual."

    Nokia call quality has always been legendary. Clearly, something bad has happened to cause this now. Can't think what it could be - any ideas?

    1. dogged
      Meh

      Re: "On both phones I missed far more calls than usual."

      Probably glitchy firmware. Every manufacturer gets it.

      1. Bob Vistakin
        Holmes

        Re: "On both phones I missed far more calls than usual."

        Yes, of course. it's that nasty firmwares fault, and it was a coincidence it just went faulty for them, and only them, right at the same time the NoWin (aka loser) Nokia Windows phones appeared.

        1. dogged
          Facepalm

          Re: "On both phones I missed far more calls than usual."

          Of course, Bob. Of course. Nokia's legendary call-quality is always legendary except when there's a Microsoft product involved because everything Microsoft sucks because it says Microsoft on it and you hate it.

          Alright. You can stop now, we get it.

          1. Bob Vistakin
            Terminator

            Re: "On both phones I missed far more calls than usual."

            Shant.

  9. Kristian Walsh Silver badge

    Super-sensitive screen?

    The review implies that the 820 doesn't share the 920's super-sensitive touchscreen, but Nokia implies differently (in typical Nokia style, this standout feature isn't explicitly stated on the specsheet for either model)

    So who's right? Does the 820 have the glove-friendly touchscreen or not?

    1. Kristian Walsh Silver badge

      Re: Super-sensitive screen?

      (Talking to myself... tch.)

      Nokia are right. The 820 shares the same Synaptics Super Sensitive Touch controller as the 920.

      "Like the Lumia 920, the Lumia 820 can be used with regular gloves, rather than just those laced with silver. That's great, if you plan to use your phone out and about during the winter. Handy then that during our time testing the Lumia 820 it's been bloody cold, and yet we've been able to keep our hands toasty warm."

      Source: http://www.pocket-lint.com/review/6054/nokia-lumia-820-wp8-review

  10. Charlie Clark Silver badge

    Thanks for the review

    Looking for a Windows 8 Phone for compatibility testing and despite the nice things Andrew has to say about this, it looks like it won't be a Lumia.

  11. Corborg
    Meh

    Sunnyvale

    The screen shot shows it's in Sunnyvale. Bubbles must be doing well at the kittyland love centre if he can afford one of these phones now.

  12. spidercrab
    WTF?

    So this is a 160g phone that doesn't work very well as a phone? And it needs to have more memory added by the user to increase the low memory? As an absolute minimum I would expect that a phone from Nokia would be a good phone to make and receive calls.

    And it costs £400! Have I missed something?

    Shame on Nokia.

    1. Bob Vistakin
      Facepalm

      "Have I missed something?"

      Yeah, i just tried calling you but it went straight to voicemail. Is your phone on?

    2. I ain't Spartacus Gold badge

      I disagree with you on the memory bit. Most users don't even get through 8GB. Therefore it's much better to have a cheaper phone with either an SD card slot (so you can upgrade if you need it), or reasonably priced models with more. Extra models cause extra production costs, so as long as the OS doesn't go wrong if you have many files on your card, then that's fine. I've not used Win Pho with an SD card, so I've no idea if this creates the problems it sometimes does with Android.

      Did you hear that Apple? I said reasonably priced memory upgrades! I don't believe the extra flash chips in my iPad are made out of unicorns' toenail clippings - so stop taking the piss on price.

  13. Pig Dog Bay

    Lower Dev Subscription Costs

    The review mentions the lack of improvement of the Windows Store one year on from the last review. I'd love to port my Android apps to Win Pho 7 & 8 but I'm not prepared to pay the $100 yearly subscription. Also are apps able to run on both 7 & 8?

    Searching for crossword solver apps on Windows Store reveals less than 10 apps, and they're very poor compared to the many Android crossword solver apps. Admittedly this lack of competition means I may be able to place my apps on to Windows Store and even have the gall to charge for them.

    *ahem* CleverDic *ahem* 'cuse the plug!

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Lower Dev Subscription Costs

      You can write apps for 7&8 (uses a derivative of silverlight, xna etc.) or 8 only (which has some interesting new apis for games etc. with the C++, Direct3D etc.).

      Personally, if I'm going to write/port an app I don't mind about the $100 but I'm a year or so away from needing a new phone so will pass on evaluating my app ports for the time being. Unless Microsoft or Nokia decide subsidising dev. phones is a smarter move than filling the airways with adverts.

      1. Pig Dog Bay

        Re: Lower Dev Subscription Costs

        Hi AC, I'd write them in C# and Silverlight. What worries me is the App framework API and lifecycle management differing between the 2 versions of OS. Android in IMHO does a good job with keeping compatibility between flavours.

    2. RyokuMas
      Go

      Re: Lower Dev Subscription Costs

      There are also a number of ways to get the fee free or reduced for the first year, too. Got mine off a Dream-Build-Play sign-up a couple of years back.

  14. JDX Gold badge

    Apps

    What I still fail to understand is why MS don't hire a few developers to work on nothing but creating a slew of half-decent apps for WP8. Not MS-brand apps even, simply bung cash at developers to make specific apps.

    For 1% of the marketing budget they could pay for 1000 apps probably.

    1. Bob Vistakin
      Linux

      Re: Apps

      "For 1% of the marketing budget they could pay for 1000 apps probably."

      Or try investing some of the $5 per handset they extorted from the Android manufacturers. But you're right, as usual R&D, quality of the product and customer satisfaction takes a back seat to marketing when it comes to microsofts spending priorities.

      Convincing simpletons they need a bright yellow appless phone with an unusable UI, with call quality as reliable as an MP's expense claims, is the business they're now in.

    2. dogged

      Re: Apps

      Having used WP7.5 for nearly a year now, I forget what all this "apps" business is about. Weren't they supposed to increase functionality in order to add value to an extremely limited device?

      Most everything I use is baked into the OS. The obvious exception here is Nokia Drive which is an app, even if it did come preinstalled, which is way up there in "best GPS SatNav on the market" stakes. Beyond that, I rarely bother with apps at all and its tough to see what all the fuss is about.

      1. JDX Gold badge

        Re: Apps

        It's true that lots of key stuff (GPS, FB, twitter) is built in but while I don't really use apps much, clearly games and so on are a big deal.

    3. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Apps

      I've a couple of rather non-trivial apps I could port - even got as far as trying out running some of the code in the emulator but because I use the camera it could only go so far and without testing a real phone its hard to guess if performance will be ok. I am not spending £400 to satisfy my curiousity.

      @JDX. Yes, its a mystery to me too why MS find it easy to spend tens of millions on WP TV adverts in the UK but while doing next to nothing to encourage independent developers.

    4. Snail

      Re: Apps

      Microsoft already write numerous apps for third parties (Facebook, twitter, youtube being well known examples).

      They also throw money at developers for big name apps (Angry birds for instance).

      The problem is, they can only write to public APIs. If a company doesn't have good APIs, or isn't willing to let Microsoft use internal APIs, theres not a lot Microsoft can do.

      Some of the most requested apps people beg for, are banking apps, and no bank is going to let Microsoft write them an app.

  15. An nonymous Cowerd
    FAIL

    Quality? I recommended a colleague buy a Nokia Lumia 710

    as I was having fun with a HTC Mozart win7.5 'Mango'.

    After a year with the Nokia Lumia 710 - my mate emailed (for reasons that will become apparent) and said "great smartphone; lovely screen; snappy browsing; excellent maps; only problem is that when I phone people they cannot understand a single word that I say"

    wurfle-snuffle-spludge-zxhuu-zhuu (was the sound)

    we tried a proved-good external headset-mic: wurfle-gnurfle-snuffle-spludge-zxhuu-zhuu (again)

    seems to be a minority but endemic problem on the 710, minority - sure, but devastating on a phone! The forums seem to indicate that if you can get the phone to a Nokia authorised whatever then they will just swap it, it's some sort of motherboard codec hardware or software failure, there are spikes of digital noise and all sorts of garbage on the voice channel. He's now hunting down a HTC Mango Radar something or other that will probably get the update to 7.8 tomorrow...

    1. JDX Gold badge

      Re: Quality? I recommended a colleague buy a Nokia Lumia 710

      If it's a specific fault to a minority of handsets and they'll replace it free, what exactly is the problem? Every product has some faulty units.

      1. Charlie Clark Silver badge

        Re: Quality? I recommended a colleague buy a Nokia Lumia 710

        @JDX

        The problem is that such products should be recalled because the problem is known about.

        NB. the poster wasn't bitching about the phone just pointing out the less than stellar consumer experience. Not surprisingly this has led to someone jumping ship and while this happens to everyone all the time, it's not the sort of thing that Nokia call really afford.

  16. AceRimmer1980
    Thumb Up

    Rounded corners?

    That's asking for trouble.

    On a less un-seriouser note, I know a fair few folks who have Windows phones, and the story is the same: great OS, needs more apps.

    +1 for MS offering free SDK's and app store membership to IOS/Android devs, to woo them towards WinPho.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Rounded corners?

      Or how about keeping the $100 but including an unlocked phone in the deal.

      1. Snail

        Re: Rounded corners?

        Why? You can buy the HTC 8S for peanuts, and develop apps.

        Lets not forget, the $100 isn't just for WP8. As i understand it, you can write apps for Phone, Tablet & PC.

        If you write a decent app, it should be pretty trivial to get your $100 back.

  17. BigAndos
    WTF?

    Wireless charging

    Wireless charging seems like a feature for the sake of a feature. You still have to place the phone on a charging plate which presumably takes up a lot more desktop space than a USB cable connector. Also, I can easily keep a usb cable in my pocket or bag if I need to whereas a charging plate might be more difficult. Can anyone elighten me if I'm missing the point?

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Wireless charging

      Less wear and tear - no need for a fiddly connector that almost inevitably goes faulty in the end.

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: Wireless charging

        "no need for a fiddly connector that almost inevitably goes faulty in the end"

        The number one issue i had with supporting Blackberry users (sales force) in our business was devices failing to charge because the mini/micro usb port had gone wonky. Was it bad design or cheapo car chargers being repeatedly plugged in and pulled out in the course of the day?

        Phone provider gave replacements each time but in emergencies had to charge up a battery in a spare to get them going again.

    2. JDX Gold badge

      Re: Wireless charging

      Well the article said it's a feature you don't know you want until you use it...

      Carrying a cable is a minor inconvenience, carrying a mains charger a bigger one if you're not going to be at a PC.

      However I read MS are teaming up with companies like Starbucks to provide wireless charging points. If THAT happens, the idea makes a lot of sense... ubiquitous charging in the same way as ubiquitous wi-fi.

      1. BigAndos

        Re: Wireless charging

        Now that sounds useful, I hadn't thought about public use. Providing there is an industry standard I suppose you could drop your phone down any time you go and get a coffee to charge up.

      2. Giles Jones Gold badge

        Re: Wireless charging

        Not to mention on airplanes, where you aren't going to see them provide mains sockets or USB leads are you?

        1. JDX Gold badge

          Re: Wireless charging

          >>Not to mention on airplanes, where you aren't going to see them provide mains sockets or USB leads are you?

          Yes they already do, similar to trains. But not as standard on economy.

        2. david 12 Silver badge

          Re: Wireless charging

          >Not to mention on airplanes, where you aren't going to see them provide mains sockets or USB leads are you?

          Yes, they provide power sockets and USB sockets. The power sockets aren't 'mains', but they are a semi-standard..

          What you get depends on what airline you fly, what class you are in, and how old the airplane is. I had USB the last time I flew economy: I wouldn't have know what the other power socket was if I saw one.

    3. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Wireless charging

      I just place my phone on the charging plate on the bedside table (even has a cushion for the phone to rest on). Takes about 1 second, compared to bending down to pick cable up off floor, inserting it into the phone and then finding somewhere to place the phone on the table where I won't catch the cable and pull the phone onto the floor when getting up in the night.

      You're only moaning about inductive charging because you don't have it.

    4. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Wireless charging

      It's in addition to the normal USB charging option, not instead of, geez.

  18. moonoi
    Mushroom

    I have a Lumia 920 (in Yelllow)

    and very happy with it, I haven't experienced any of the "choppy" voice calls and over here in Thailand we don't have HD voice enabled on the networks. So I can only imagine its a crap network that Andrew was using for his tests.

    I also find it fits in my pocket just as easily as my previous Galaxy SIII, so I can only imagine he also has a problem with any phone that has a screen bigger than 4.3"?

    My colleague also bought a Lumia 820, and the battery lasts all day no problem for him!

    And something else, SIM free I got my 920 for 400 quid, and he got his 820 for 300 quid....so case of rip of Britain again?

    And just in case anyone isn't clear, I love my Lumia 920, faster and more stable than the SIII it replaces and also far more apps on the store since I last dipped my toe in the WP water with a HTC 7, so something else to disagree about :)

    1. JDX Gold badge

      Re: I have a Lumia 920 (in Yelllow)

      Got to love fanbois downvoting someone simply because he likes something they don't.

      1. RyokuMas
        Mushroom

        Re: I have a Lumia 920 (in Yelllow)

        Fanbois... worse than astroturfers. At least astroturfers are doing it because they're paid to, not because they've been brainwashed.

        1. JDX Gold badge

          Re: I have a Lumia 920 (in Yelllow)

          And of course someone who claims to like something you don't must be being paid to say that.

    2. moonoi
      Devil

      Re: I have a Lumia 920 (in Yelllow)

      Well I also speak owning an iPhone 4, I have an iPhone 5 on order and still have my old Motorola Milestone (running Cyanogenmod 7 makes an excellent bedside alarm clock with its dock) and a Sony Ericsson Xperia Active (which I use for tracking my biking activities, its an excellent device and with Garmin Fit you can also use LiveTrack, giving realtime updates on you exercise/races).

      So I'm pretty OS agnostic, I actually don't care what my phone runs, as long as it does what I want it to do, and in this case I've found that the Lumia 920 is far superior for use as my personal phone, than the Galaxy SIII it replaced....plus the colour is really cool :)

      Also El Reg's Windows Phone app is way better than the rubbish they pushed out on Google Play for Android.

      Some other interesting facts that may or may not interest you for the 920. Singapore has sold out of all devices, Thailand has also sold out and if you want one, you have to wait until Dec 20th at the moment. Thats in addition to reports of it selling out in various countries in Europe. So I think its fair to say that there is a lot of pent up demand for a decent WP from Nokia (the HTC WP8 devices are still easy to find) and Nokia/Microsoft WP is not dead yet......far from it.

      One last thing, I actually went to buy a PureView 808, but after playing with the display one and the Lumia 920, walked out with that instead. So I never intended to even purchase a Nokia WP in the first place.

      To all the naysayers, try it before critising something you have never held, even if you hate microsoft with a passion, I think you will be unable to deny that this is a good UI/mobile OS

  19. mr_jrt
    Facepalm

    Still stupid.

    They may have fired all the engineers, but good to know they kept all the same brain-dead marketing drones in place.

    Good old Nokia still shooting itself in the foot by having a set of products all missing one or more features and no "deluxe" model offering them all. Want feature A? Sure here's model 1. What feature B? Sure, here's model 2. Want features A & B? No deal.

    ...idiots.

  20. Tommy Pock

    Battery life.

    Battery life. I'll say it again. Battery life. It's the most important concern to any one who uses a portable device, and evidently of least concern to those who design them.

    If I take my phone out I want to use it.

    The 820 is of no use to me. The end.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Battery life.

      And? do the 820 and 920 not accept an external USB pack?

      Why carry around a spare bare battery with exposed contacts? a short circuit from a coin and you have a very warm pocket.

      A USB pack will charge multiple devices, a spare battery won't. A USB pack will be useful for future devices too, unlike a spare battery.

      Why switch off your phone and rip out the battery to replace it with another when you can just plug something into it?

      1. Tommy Pock

        Re: Battery life.

        Isn't the fact that you only have one device in your pocket the whole point of a smart phone?

  21. PCX
    Go

    An user impressions...

    I have been using 820's for a few weeks now on o2 and can say that apart from few issues it is an definite winner over Iphone and Galaxy ( those i have been using)

    I phone seems to be "anchient" compared to lumia desing and UI and Galaxy's cover seems cheap and squeezzzzy, 820 beat's them all, hovewer as WP8 is relatively new platform it seems that developers are a bit behind with publishing their's produc's on to windows store ( i'm looking for a game called "Hex defence" working on wp8, if anyone ?? )

    Battery life isnt great but i would say it's smillar or even beat's S3 by a head..

    Another annoing this is that when You type some text and made a mistake, then i could not find a way to correct one letter only, just can't navigate left <> right on the text. Hope new update will solve that.

    Recording works great and if You want to do that a 32 or 64gb card is a must, as on HD720 after few apps installed You can record around 10-15 munutes videos.

    Phone takes micro SIM's so be prepared to exchange.

    Overall excellent phone ! I can recomment to any one who is looking for a great business handset or PC In a pocket (MS Office comes preinstalled, facebook linkedin, hotmail, Drive, IE10 and ton's of other apps are available for free ) .

    1. Tommy Pock

      Re: An user impressions...

      "then i could not find a way to correct one letter only"

      Hold your finger down on the text input box until the cursor appears, then drag it to where you want it.

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: An user impressions...

        LOL, you have to love the biased reviews. Humans are supposed to be intelligent and able learn. It seems not with the reviewers on this site.

        If you stop learning or fail to move outside of your comfort zone then your brain turns to mush. This is why I change platforms after a while.

  22. Charles Calthrop
    Thumb Up

    El Reg: the reviews which matter

    I love the way you mention in the review call quality from inside a pub.

    pint_32.png

  23. squilookle

    Sorry Nokia

    If I could have the camera and the screen (size and resolution) from the 920 with the removable battery, SD card slot and changeable covers (I like the bright colours, especially the yellow, but wouldn't feel comfortable with it all the time) from the 820, I might have been swayed.

    As it happens, I did seriously consider the 920 when it was announced, but I felt the availability being restricted to certain networks and shops was a farce (although it looks like I could now get one on 3G from t-mobile if I wanted), but I have looked around and decided to stick with what I know (Android).

    Incidentally the Android I'm looking at doesn't have SD card slot of removable battery either, but it's cheaper, so I'm going to buy it unlocked and won't be tied in for 2 years if it becomes a problem down the line.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Sorry Nokia

      Cheaper because your Android phone won't have 32GB.

      Nokia 920 is around £100 or more cheaper than an iPhone 5 32GB. So it's hardly overpriced given what is on offer (the camera, QI charging, sensitive screen, bright screen, Nokia maps and GPS, Nokia music (who needs spotify), 18 months of support.

  24. o_0

    I've heard WP7.8 is out tomorrow

    It's a rumour but i've heard it from an MS employee today.

  25. Anonymous Coward
    WTF?

    Barely one day?!

    "One downside is the battery, at 1650 mAh, might barely get you through a day.".

    Is that because of the hardware or because WP8 has become much more demanding?

    Because on my WP7.5 Samsung phone, "merely" 1500mAh, I can easily last 1.5 day if I keep all my smartphone features turned on. When I'm in and around the house I tend to turn those off because I don't need e-mail on both my PC and my phone, and then the livespan easily goes up to 2 - 4 days.

    Pretty alarming figures to me.

    1. JDX Gold badge

      Re: Barely one day?!

      It depends a lot how much you use the phone. My Lumia 610 lasts multiple days with everything turned on but I don't use it very much. You'd guess someone reviewing a phone is a pretty heavy user so I'd take that with a little salt.

  26. SpaMster
    Mushroom

    "And you will need some sort of card: the phone has just 8GB built-in for OS, apps and media, and the Windows 8 Phone OS takes up well over 2GB out of the box. Once the Nokia Maps are accounted for that leaves just 5GB free."

    What a crazy world we live in where having 5GB free space on your mobile phone is considered 'not enough'

    1. JDX Gold badge

      In general I agree but 5Gb is not much even for a music player. If you were left with 8Gb I'd not be too bothered.

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