Nokia Lumia 710 Late last year, I reviewed the Nokia Lumia 800 – and I've just spent a week with the 710, its cheap and cheerful sibling, as my main phone. I actually preferred using this budget model to the much-hyped 800. Nokia Lumia 710 Windows Phone 7 smartphone Road to recovery? Nokia's Lumia 710 The 710 has essentially the same …
You just keep grasping at that straw, I'm sure you'll catch it eventually. For the third (and last) time now, yes, I use Android and that is the only reason I'm aware of long-pressing. I'm not criticising anything, I am saying it isn't obvious if you've had no other smartphone experience like Android. Are you likely to stumble onto it? Eventually, yes. Not while looking at it in a phone shop which is where most potential buyers will be looking and doing their research.
Get a grip. Just because *you* are aware of something doesn't make it obvious. Want a non-phone example? Try asking a non-computer user what a default option is and see if they know.
"WTF? And you say you've used WP7? Presumably you failed to use the long-press of the BACK key or spot the BACKGROUND TASKS page in SETTINGS then."
Stop pretending it has multitasking, it doesn't. There is some facility for background activity but not proper multitasking. And it hurts the experience as is plainly obvious within using a WP device for a few minutes..
Just try downloading a map or a voice in Nokia Maps... As soon as you try to leave the screen, the download is stopped.
BTW, if you like so much the limited interface, you can do the same on Android by limiting yourself to widgets. There is even a replacement launcher that completely copies the WP7 interface. No idea why someone would do that, though. It is cumbersome and impossible to use with more than a few apps.
"Just try downloading a map or a voice in Nokia Maps... As soon as you try to leave the screen, the download is stopped."
Nokia Drive stands as one of the most brain dead apps I've ever used. Like you say it doesn't download in the background (maybe WP7 has limits which prevent it) which is a pain in the arse to say the least. I'm still wondering what the point of downloading maps is at all when the app requires you to be online in order to search for a destination or calculate a route.
Even apps which do download in the background, I've yet to see more than one download occurring simultaneously. So if you install a few apps from the store they occur sequentially unlike in Android where you can set more than one off at once if you like.
@DrXym: I guess we will have to agree to differ on the multitasking issue. To my mind, suspending apps when they're in the background and resuming, is the best way to preserve UI performance and battery life. Allowing background agents is a great compromise that allows apps to do important stuff every so often again without battery drainage. Allowing all apps to do whatever the hell they like all the time is a recipe for chaos as a lot of Android users will verify through their poor user experience, random crashes and slowdowns. But hey, whatever floats your boat.
"suspending apps [snip] is the best way to preserve UI performance and battery life."
Android already does this.
"background agents is a great compromise that allows apps to do important stuff every so often again without battery drainage."
Background agents in WP land are just called broadcast receivers in android.
"Allowing all apps to do whatever the hell they like all the time is a recipe for chaos"
Allowing developers to run in background isn't a recipe for chaos, it's a recipe for flexibility and user choice. Applications running in the background have to notify the user by adding an entry to the notification tray. Users are aware of what is running and can switch to it. The user makes the choice of potentially battery drainage.
"as a lot of Android users will verify through their poor user experience"
The user experience of multitasking?? It's very simple: if the application isn't up front then it's basically suspended or closed, unless it has an entry in the notification tray, in which case, you know it's running something still.
"random crashes and slowdowns"
Any OS has to handle applications crashing in some way. Android doesn't fall over by applications that stop responding, it'll give you the option to force it to close, or wait more. As far as I know WP just returns to the home screen? No notification or anything?
There can be a million factors that slow phones down, badly designed applications, hardware limitations, background tasks. I've 100% sure I could slow a WP down by running a simple resourceintensivetask background agent - not all background agents need be lightweight battery-friendly processes, it depends on the developer and application!
If you really want to know the main differences between them, and what they can and can't do, look at these tech docs on the subject...
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/hh202866(v=vs.92).aspx
http://android-developers.blogspot.com/2010/04/multitasking-android-way.html
... I'm quickly into the dregs on the Android market, there are very few actually useful apps that really add features in a bug-free way on any app stores. What WP7 needs is the elite list, Skype, Evernote, TuneIn, the Google suite (Goggles, Shopper etc) and all the major shopping and airlines etc. Raw app quantity is no indicator at all.
The battery issues are universal on many smartphones, my HTC Sensation was a disaster at first but once I installed JuiceDefender and bought a bigger (chinese) battery it now lasts a day of smartphone usage (wifi, internet, mapping, navigation, talking, emailing etc) without trouble, I pop it in the dock every night and its great. I never use the charger at work anymore.
WP7 has Evernote and it's hardly a fault of MS that Google aren't providing their apps to a competing product. Sure I'd like them there too, especially Google Maps, but that's why I bought my WinPho second-hand and purely to see what the platform was like.
You say you're quickly into the dregs on the Android Market and that there are very few useful apps, I call bullshit on that. If you want an app to do something you can generally find more than a few options and a large amount of them are free without even ad supported crap. On the chance you find a paid app that you want to try you might not have 24 hours any more but you can still try out the app for 15 minutes before you're charged. It's generally enough time to get a feel of the app although I would like it to be pushed up to an hour.
Disclaimer: Yes I'm an Android fan but I'm aware of limitations such as awful battery life but that's a fault of manufacturers trying to outdo each other on how thing they can make a phone. Motorola have finally put out a phone with a huge battery that I'm hoping will make others take note for future handsets.
It's understandable that Google don't support WP too well (though one could argue that it is in their interest to do so). But that doesn't explain why there aren't Bing analogues for everything.
Also the absence of Skype is unfathomable. Though perhaps it isn't. WP7 is so abysmal at multitasking that I suspect Skype would be impossible to implement in a useful way on the OS unless Microsoft somehow special cased the app, e.g. giving it permissions to run in the background that regular apps are not allowed to enjoy. Otherwise it's only going to run in the foreground which pretty much rules out receiving calls or text through it.
Compare and contrast to Android. There are even apps like Viber for Android where you can rip out the standard dialler and replace it with a VOIP / Landline mashup.
Sadly I wish I knew the answer to that. As much as MS might like Bing, I don't. I'd like the choice to use an alternative search provider but you get no choice at all. Granted I don't think there's an alternative in Android either but at least the search button is used intelligently there with it searching the current app if supported. The background tasks are, as I understand it, limited to running once per 30 minutes which (if true, I'm not 100% sure on that) makes the battery life truly awful given that my Omina 7 barely lasts 16 hours or 20 on a good day with very, very light use.
How do I define that very, very light use? Checking Twitter a few times an hour (30 minute updates if background tasks info is accurate), maybe 30 minutes browsing and perhaps four or so texts. That's all done with the screen on its lowest brightness settings. The battery in my Android handset is smaller, 1230mAh vs 1500mAh, yet I can and do use it more and get roughly 24 hours between charging. When I go to charge the Desire HD it's usually around 15 - 20% battery life showing, the Omnia 7 is always under 10%. I don't know what the hell the phone does to use so much battery but it'll be worrying if they can't rectify it.
Yes they're severely limited. The documentation about them is here - http://www.silverlightshow.net/items/Windows-Phone-7.5-Use-Background-agents.aspx
Basically they let you check updates every 30 minutes for tweets, email or whatnot but that's a very poor substitute for the sorts of things that you can do in Android. e..g Skype / Viber can be listening for messages every minute, you could have tTorrent going, you could have Facebook / Twitter going, streaming music, background downloads, etc. It's all designed to multitask with the OS stepping in and killing stuff gracefully if it has to.
I don't know what's up with the battery life on Windows. You'd think it would be lower but my Lumia 800 has an awful battery life running down in a day's use. It often becomes completely non responsive too if I let it run completely down not showing any signs of life even when attached to a charger. I'm hoping a firmware update might improve it.
or in a more logical direction, Perhaps, MS are making Skype in to something special, you know, given that they own it an all an can do with it as they please. I think its Apollo thats getting the good news with Skype, which kinda suggests the anti MS bile is a bit premature, it can and will support it just fine, WP has a video call app called tango *not to be confused with the upcoming Tango update, which works just fine in the background. Most problems with multitasking not working are one of two problems, firstly they are running Nodo or pre Builds of the OS, secondly the Program hasnt been updated to support Multitasking as supported by Mango onwards, thats hardly MSs fault. i have plenty of programs that work in the background.
"the serif font, while fine for signage, is human-unfriendly"
Just looking at the pictures I can clearly see that the WP7 font is a sans serif font, not a serif font.
Generally I find sans serif fonts to be more readable on a screen but I've not had the opportunity to try WP7 for any length of time and the huge fonts that take up a ridiculous amount of screen space do put me off, not looking forward to them in Win8. :(
When I looked at the titles I thought I could see Serifs, particularly on the lower case a. After a close look I can see that the title font and the body font are actually the same.
By the way you should take a look at your Caps Lock key, it seems to have an intermittent fault.
I bought a Samsung Omnia 7 on fleabay for around £150 and after owning it on and off for a few months as a tester phone I came to the same sort of conclusion that the review does. There is lots of potential and it's quite polished at this stage but it has to catch up and catch up fast. Android and iOS matured over time, WinPho7 arrived late so unfortunately it will be given little time by most people to mature. It certainly won't be given as much time to get to the point that its competitors have and while that isn't the fault of the phone OS it will be a big 'con' point for any potential buyers.
One thing that really jumped out at me in this review was the mention of the Twitter app "Birdsong". It's beyond awful. It claims to have a live tile and there are options for notifications but none of them work. Numerous reviewers mention it, I contacted the devs and after explaining to them that settings are *not* saved (it kept throwing up an error that unhelpfully says, "sorry there was an error" and that's it) they said it must have been a bad download. I tried to download it over and over but clearly it's a big problem with the app as lots of others have the same problems. After making this clear I received no further support. There are font settings, too, which would help with the "three tweets on a screen" issue but as you probably guessed those don't work either. Changed settings and perhaps DMs were using that font while other areas weren't. Alternatives? Sadly the official Twitter app is worse, somehow... The best option right now, aside from the Mango built-in option, is "Mehdoh".
I realise that turned into a rant about Birdsong but it's apps like Birdsong that give an awful impression and tar the overall experience. Granted, WinPho7 isn't anywhere near what it needs to be but app experiences like that don't help. At this stage there are some decent apps but they are limited and very hard to find if you're new to the platform.
80% for a £300 phone with no Skype, poor battery life, no web cam, no Flash, bugger all in the way of apps, that you have to use the pile of sh!t that is Zune to load media onto and that is very unlikely to get the major WP7 Apollo update in the Autumn.
As most of these will be bought on contract not PAYG coughing up an extrea few quid a month for an iPhone 4/4S or good Android handset makes much more sense.
Hell the Symbian Belle 701 would be a better buy if it ever comes to the UK...that has free satnav too, a 1GHz CPU, a much, much better battery life and is much cheaper.
60% would be more like it.
I predict this handset will not sell.
"Given that the phone doesn't sync with PC or Mac address books, this is quite an important feature."
Seriously? What the hell is MS thinking? This is THE make-or-break usability feature on a new phone IMHO. The thing that lets you get a new handset, and immediately start using it. Boggling.
@dodge: Relax, the reviewer was talking bollocks. The phone syncs OTA with your Windows Live contacts, which sync with Outlook (via the hotmail connector). It's fast and flawless, and kicks off as soon as you enter your hotmail/live ID into your new phone. By the time you're home, they're all there, ready and waiting. Ditto for your calendar and email.
OTA you can sync with, Exchange, Hotmail, GMail, Yahoo. That includes Calendar, email, and contacts sync. You can sync with any combination of them, contacts can be combined together or seperated. When you add a contact to the phone you have a choice of which sync account you want it added to.
What the author of the article is talking about is there is no way to sync directly with your computer. I once synced my phone with my computer. I think it was in the 90s.
It syncs with all sorts as Fuzz listed above, i fail to see the point in syncing with Outlook any more, any place any time i can restore everything on the go, i dont see how a cable connection to outlook would make that any better? infact the only memory i have of syncing direct as it was so long ago was a royal pain in the arse, everything in my calendar was duplicated and moved 1 month over.
I've had a 710 for a week or so (free from Nokia - but having tried it I'd be willing to buy it).
I was up and going with mine in seconds as there is a pre-installed app which connects to your existing phone via bluetooth and pulls in the address book directly. There was no need for syncing and it was far faster.
Battery life is okay. I'm used to 4 days from my Blackberry but get about 1.5 to 2 days from the 710, which is on a par with the wife's iPhone 4S and her (previous) Galaxy S2.
The Zune desktop app is not up to iTunes standard but does the job and at least it doesn't feel as cobbled together and incoherent as the Android ecosystem.
The UI is fast and efficient, but I agree the single volume control is a terrible idea.
The main saving grace is the development tools. Using Visual Studio 2010 with the Windows Phone SDK (all free downloads from Microsoft) development is a joy. None of the dire XCode rubbish for the iPhone or the slow, unwieldy Eclipse for Android. No need to switch to some common denominator tool like the atrocious Flex. Just fast, easy development and deployment. Provided of course you are okay with the WP7 style of UI.
As an aside, placing the grid-of-icons UI of the iPhone and Android against the WP7 tiles and heavily text-centric layout makes it very clear how professional and polished WP7 actually is and how dated it makes the others look.
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I bought one 2 weeks ago through T-Mobile here in the States. Even as my first smartphone this was different from what I expected. I find it easier to use than my wife's droid2 on the Verizon network and the lack of a pull keyboard was very easy to get used to. The camera is faster and easier to use than the Droid's. The phone is also lighter than I expected and I must be blessed with exceptional luck with my phone's battery. After the first full charging I have yet to recharge. I usually turn location services off (to support my paranoia). T-Mobile's data network is horrendous in my area, so I've been slurping off unsecure access points (of which there are plenty) for data connectivity.
The biggest surprise to me has been the entire Microsoft integration. To use this phone in a useful way, I needed to set up Hotmail, Zune, and Microsoft Live. Although the phone phone supports third party web services such as Flickr (from Yahoo), it seems to try and bring an integrated Microsoft cloud to a smartphone. I do wish privacy policies were more clearly outlined. I am a bit worried about all of the marketing data Microsoft now has to churn through on me and I would feel happier if I knew I wasn't being data mined by a Google. With the 2 year plan the phone only cost $ 49.95 and I expect to either toss it by then and get a Windows 8 phone (better than a Nokia 900 series) or abandon the whole Nokia/Microsoft cloud vision and move on to something else.
Knowing full well that Meego was consigned to history/burning oil platform that it is, I bought one in December. There are a few apps that I had on my Android phone that I wish were available - most notably Google Sky. But for it's primary function as a phone and messaging device, works well. Skype has been integrated with the phone and messaging functions.
What Microsoft/WP dev team need is some input/influence from the Meego development team.
Only real downside for me is not being able to REMOVE Facebook and Twitter apps. Working on it...
AC
http://www.reghardware.com/2011/10/17/review_sony_ericsson_xperia_arc_s/
£300 from the local Phones4u, oleophobic gorilla glass screen, supermodel design and I can attest to it going, as the reviewer put it, "like greased lightning". £300 really isn't budget though. Get something into the sub-£100 range and we'll start calling it a "budget" smartphone.
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