back to article Nokia Lumia 900 WinPho 7 smartphone

So you’re trying to revive the fortunes of what was, until a few weeks ago, the biggest mobile phone manufacturer on the planet. You’ve launched a handset or two with a new operating system and they’ve gone down quite well. So what next? How about taking one of those handsets and releasing a near-identical one, different only in …

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  1. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    so

    This is the phone Siri claims as the best in the world?

    Weird, I didn't realise Nokia still made phones.

    1. LarsG

      Re: so

      Who will buy it when the new Samsung, new iPhone and HTC are its competitors?

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: so

        Someone who has had all of those before? people do like change sometimes.

      2. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: so

        I'm going to buy one of these...but I'm waiting for Windows 8 to come out. Before that I'm sticking with Android.

    2. CheesyTheClown
      Devil

      Silly!!

      You know they make phones... for the geriatric community... Nokia is Suomi for "The Granny Phone Company!"... the slogan for Lumia should be "Now Granny can cop a feel too!"

    3. Jim Coleman
      Meh

      Re: so

      Wait - you didn't realize the World's largest phone maker made phones? Do you get out much?

  2. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    75%?

    For a phone that has two year old specs ruling an os three or more years behind iOS or android yet costs around the same as the htc one X? Are you serious?

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Stop

      Re: 75%?

      Indeed. It's really a 55% but Microsoft's influence over inflates the score.

      Anyone that's USED one of these will know it's littered with problems, ranging from usability problems (try using the keyboard with telephone banking), to hard locks that require a battery pull (ooops, no removable battery, hard reset....) Added to the well documented sluggish UI, dire app selection, reception problems, it's a turd of a phone, which considering Nokia are promoting as their flagship is not good.

      My advice, steer well clear of Windows Phone. This time next year it's going to be as relevant as WebOS.

      1. Ginger
        WTF?

        Re: 75%?

        With respect (always a good start to a comment) that's horseshit.

        I've had a lumia 800 since practically launch, and while the battery life stank to high heaven for a long while, it's pretty much on a par with my other halfs iphone 4 now. The UI is slick - never had any stutter or sluggishness at all, reception is great - and I'm on three, which is always a coverage challenge... As for Apps - sure, there are less there, but apple and android practically had a three year headstart - what do you expect?

        1. Anonymous Coward
          Anonymous Coward

          Re: 75%?

          AND..... there's less shit in the market place.

          Who needs a talking cat, a strobe, or the rest of the shit pumped out for iOS/Droid?

          Tho our points will fall on deaf ears. The small minority actually make considered decisions, the ifan(nys) will never change because I think that they are not capable.

        2. Putonghua73

          Re: 75%?

          The *real* point is WHY have Apple and Android had a three year head-start? Do you think the average consumer will ponder and sympathize that their Lumia <<insert model here>> doesn't have a rich eco-system because both iOS and Android have had a "head-start"?

          They'll simply look around at the competition at the same price-point or less and think "where's the value proposition?". Ok. Admittedly, they probably *won't* think "value proposition", but you the meaning ;)

          FWIW, I personally prefer iOS compared to Android - however, the Apple tax and the relative performance between comparable iOS and Android handsets means that there was no way I was going to pay stupid money when I could get a HTC Desire on contract for 2 years (expires this Autumn) for circa £20 p/m (voice, text and 'net).

          Anecdotal evidence, I still do not believe I have genuinely seen a Nokia Lumia or an advert in the wild. Given that I live in London and commute to the Heathrow everyday, the marketing of these devices is truly dreadful.

      2. I ain't Spartacus Gold badge

        Re: 75%?

        Oh do grow up Barry.

        It got a fair score. It's worse than the other high-end phones, but not dramatically so. I'd argue a better phone (superior address book for example), but a worse mobile computer.

        As to your list of well documented problems... Some evidence please? Don't bother about backing up the app selection bit though, I wouldn't go as far as dire - but MS are a long way behind here.

        The UI isn't sluggish, all reviews I've seen say it's fast, and in my personal experience I've never seen lag on Win7, and I have on every pre-ICS Android I've ever used.

        Reception problems? I get better performance at home than on any other smartphone I've tried. Not seen it mentioned in reviews either.

        So turd of a phone it ain't. Though I wouldn't pay over £400 for it, when there's the iPhone 4 at that price, which is clearly a problem for Nokia.

        1. Anonymous Coward
          Anonymous Coward

          Re: 75%?

          101 REASONS NOT TO BUY A WINDOWS PHONE 7.5

          http://my-symbian.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=44034

          If half of these are true it should be 75% - 50.5 = 25.5%

          1. Anonymous Coward
            Anonymous Coward

            @ 101 REASONS...

            yeah, and read the amiga users group on why not to buy a pc

            dead os anoraks fail to see future rolling over them shock

          2. 5.antiago

            Re: 101 reasons

            I read those 101 reasons not to buy a Windows Phone, some are accurate but most are nonsense. For example, I don't regard ordering apps in alphabetical order as a flaw at all, let alone some kind of massive dealbreaker

      3. DelLS

        Re: 75%?

        It sounds like you are getting this phone confused with a Windows Mobile 6.5 device. It is not everyone's cup of tea, but that is preference, not driven by actual facts.

        The UI is slick, fluid and responsive. I own, and use daily a Nokia Lumia 800, iPhone 4 and an Android device, they are all good and I would be hard pressed to chose between then, but WP7 (especially the 800/900) is a worthy contender.

        1. Anonymous Coward
          Anonymous Coward

          Re: 75%?

          Nope, i'm not getting " confused with a Windows Mobile 6.5 device."

          Lumia 800. Carphone Warehouse got given thousands of them to give to their staff. Most of them chucked them in the drawer to gather dust. The few that didn't were less than impressed and told me about the serious usability problems.

          What's also interesting is the sheer number of these things Microsoft/Nokia re bribing everyone with. I wonder how many GENUINE paying Lumia customers there are. Much less than the sales figures suggest. Write a nice review, get a Lumia, tweet about Android security problems, get a Lumia and so on....

        2. Anonymous Coward
          Anonymous Coward

          Re: 75%?

          I have an iPhone 4s, a lumia 710, lumia 800 and now an htc one s. The lumias are rubbish compared to the other two. All ui and no substance. Not to mention the so called multitasking is total crap. Even Skype can't get their app running in the background, thereby rendering it useless, and they are owned by ms. Even ms think its crap so are using a different kernel for wp8.

      4. Spearchucker Jones
        Go

        Re: 75%? (@BarryShitPeas)

        Doesn't this boil your blood? ;-)

        http://wmpoweruser.com/official-the-register-app-now-available-in-windows-phone-marketplace/

        1. Anonymous Coward
          Linux

          Re: 75%? (@BarryShitPeas)

          Well it explains why they gave it a over generous review and score.

          What saddens me is they we will have to suffer even more deluded WP idiots and shills now...

      5. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: 75%?

        Buy an N9, they are great :)

    2. DrXym

      Re: 75%?

      Don't know why you got voted down. It does have 2 year old specs. It's a single core device in a market where dual core is common place and even quad core is coming along. Windows Phone 8 supposedly supports multi core devices.

    3. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: 75%?

      FFS, why do you care about specs. It's what it actually does for you that matters. It's a phone not a gaming rig.

      WP7 doesn't need high specs because it's well optimised and uses lots of GPU acceleration. Similar to the iPhone. Only Android needs multi-core and big specs to try and work around the lags in the UI.

      Each phone platform has their strengths and weaknesses, I agree about lack of start screen customisation on WP7, it needs the ability to have more than one tile page for example. Android is much better in this respect. And iOS is still the best all-rounder.

      I own the Lumia 800 by the way.

  3. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    David Phelan the reviewer describes widows tiles as looking tremendous, but I be he doesn't have one of these or will be buying one in the future.

    1. CheesyTheClown
      Angel

      I keep it with me for the fact that it has a great battery and plays Windows Media files. I use my iPhone for important things like calls and Angry Birds.

      Personally, I love the Windows Phone, I would even switch over completely if Microsoft would start filtering out the crap apps like "$0.99 for 20 high quality porn pics" from categories like "Family and Productivity" in the app store, I just can't be bothered to try and find the app I'm interested in.

      Also, Microsoft needs to make an iPhone migration tool and they need to get FaceBook the hell out of my contacts list.

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        wow

        Some people buy anything these days, I have a broken fridge, it really nice, would you like to buy it?

      2. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        "get FaceBook the hell out of my contacts list."

        You can stop it from syncing those conatcts.

    2. DrXym

      Tiles look tremendous until you realise you have exactly one set of tiles arranged in a long vertical list. The only customisation you have is to reorder them around. Some tiles offer feedback (e.g. saying you have 3 new messages) but you can't interact with them. If you have too many tiles you can look forward to throwing the list around to reach the ones at the bottom.

      It's just primitive compared to an Android phone where you can have multiple screens and you can place buttons, shortcuts, folders and widgets in any way you please on them.

      1. I ain't Spartacus Gold badge

        @ DrXym

        Android has got by far the best customisation options for the UI. The tiles are worse than I expected, moving to WinMo from Android. Although I didn't use them as much as some, but the options for having a full home screen of an email inbox/calendar were great. I'd argue that WinMo it's still better than iOS though. But I also agree, once you've got more than 2 pages of tiles, you need a separate home screen, rather than a big scrolling list.

        With bigger text and less info on the tiles WinMo has worse information density. But I find it easier to use on the move (important in a mobile). There's less distracting busy-ness onscreen, and it's far easier to read in sunlight, without reading glasses. I definitely think WinPho is the answer for those who struggle with fiddly small text on phones.

        The smartphone for the blind-as-a-bat doesn't really have a marketing ring to it though...

        But the stock email, text, address book and phone apps are far better than Android. And though it is a mobile computer, it's also a phone. So if you only use a few apps, the tiles are quite nice. Tiles for what you use on the front page, app list on the second.

      2. Paul Shirley

        @DrXym: e.g. saying you have 3 new messages

        Always makes me laugh when the fans and astroturfers bang on about tiles showing message counts as if that was a good use of so much space. My Xperia doesn't stop at showing a message count on the various mail and sms launch icons, if I put them in a folder it shows the count on the tiny sub-icons on the folder icon. That's 4 possible counter displays in *each single launch icon*.

        ...leaving more space for widgets with actual information in them ;)

      3. Bad Beaver
        Facepalm

        You are describing a Symbian^3/Belle device

        But then again that and Android is pretty close in many points. I, too, dislike the tiles in WP. For my taste they are too uniform and nervous. You lose the advantages of swiftly navigating by shape and or color.

        But you have to hand it to them: those phones are really wicked fast and the interface itself is very smooth. Despite "yesterday's hardware".

        I am not too keen on ever faster CPUs in everything just to have a faster CPU. It tends to make developers extra lazy and produce inefficient code, see personal computers. If you time travelled to the early 90s and told the Commodore / Atari crowd about the enourmous waste of RAM and CPU cycles these days they would shoot themselves.

    3. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Good guess!

      But, thats all it is.

  4. Seb123
    Meh

    Is this a review or an apology for missing features and outdated hardware? It reads like an apology with all the blame going to the operating system.

    1. foo_bar_baz
      Devil

      Outdated hardware?

      Tell me why my phone has to have more cores and more MHz. Windows phone uses GPU acceleration, so it cannot be for the UI or graphics in general. For the browser? Games are the only application I can think of that could demand a more CPU performance at the moment. Perhaps you can point to me why my "outdated" (2011 Android) phone needs a faster CPU.

      I can only conclude that people have carried the cores-and-MHz meme from the desktop world into the mobile world, where it only applies tenuously. In fact, with Atom and ARM making inroads into the desktop world, "good enough" is starting to apply there as well.

      Here's waiting for fridge and toaster epeen competitions to start.

      1. DrXym

        Re: Outdated hardware?

        You probably don't need more than one core if you use your phone one app at a time and don't intend to play high performance games or whatever. However if you want to run more than one app or play a game which is physics heavy or whatever then you do.

        I've also written apps where a worker thread has done something compute heavy and having two cores means the worker can do its own thing separate from the GUI reducing the time for a result to appear.

        The problem with Windows Phone 7.5 is that you CANNOT run more than one app at a time even if you have a good reason to and the kernel does not support more than one core anyway. So even multithreading doesn't yield much in the way of benefits.

        So the phone hardware is limited because of the OS. My understanding is Windows Phone 8 (Apollo) will support multi core but the same gimped "suspend in background" behaviour is maintained at least for Metro style apps. Supposedly native app support may appear so who knows, maybe multitasking will be available in some form.

        1. qwarty

          Re: Outdated hardware?

          WinRT (and presumably Apollo) makes a big deal about Async APIs, definitely a step forward in my experience so far in designing to make effective use of multi-core.

          Suspend in background WP/Metro style is supposedly about avoiding power drain and for most apps not a problem if care given to time to resurrection. Found it a nuisance for some heavyweight app functionality. Also annoying using apps which don't restore store state exactly, sets the bar higher for design. As far as I know, going native doesn't help.

        2. Blerg

          Re: Outdated hardware?

          Ummm, you CAN run more than one app at a time.

          1. Anonymous Coward
            Anonymous Coward

            Re: Outdated hardware?

            I'm holding out for the 8-core hyperthreaded version. I already have a nice backpack to carry the battery around in.

      2. Flocke Kroes Silver badge

        1 Core 2xF MHz or 2 Cores F MHz

        Both strategies would provide about equal performance and power use if manufactured with same process. In real life, the single core part has to be made with a much more expensive process to run at twice the frequency of a dual core part. There are savings in die area because only half the number of transistors are required and because the transistors are smaller. Despite that, the 2 core part is still cheaper.

      3. This post has been deleted by its author

  5. Gerhard den Hollander

    Nifty ?

    The nifty windows phone OS ?

    Is that a new use of the word nifty I missed out on ?

  6. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Lost

    I don't get your rating system at all, what are you exactly reviewing here?

    So why 75% what is it that makes this phone score 15pp less than the one x or iphone?

    is it the hardware? if so what difference does it make? I mean my 3 year old S1 HD2 is as fast as the one x (excluding games) is the screen different? build quality? you mention the lack of storage upgrade so is that the reason for the low score? but then I see you say its ok because the iphone is the same and that too scores 90%?

    is it that App stores that brings it down, well that's not really reviewing the phone, you could say that the one x is crap because of all the malware on the marketplace, you could say that but youd be wrong to make that the fault of the phone..

    So my question to you is this, do you review and score your phones based on your preconceived ideas of windows phone? then try to remain neutral (which you do a reasonable job of) but in doing so lose the perspective of what the phone is like

    In my mind this is nothing but a half hearted review, probably where the reviewer couldn't really be bothered or didn't really care for it, but was given the test unit by someone and in order to keep that someone happy you gave them a "sitting on the fence" review

    before I get bombed for posting a pro MS comment, im not saying it should be better or worse, im saying that there is absolutely no context to the scoring and the review is little more than reading the PR material from 3rd party sources or simply taking wild stabs in the dark guessing what its like based on pictures.

    1. I ain't Spartacus Gold badge

      Re: Lost

      It's a review of the phone against the competition. So the Microsoft app store isn't all that great. It's apparently up to 80,000 apps now, but a lot of the main ones still aren't there, and there's a lot of rubbish ones (as there are on all stores). That's a definite black mark against it, and should be. If you get a top-end Android/iPhone for a similar price, you've got access to many more good apps. Given this is a tech site, that should probably be worth -10% alone.

      Lack of storage is a big minus too. Obviously on the iPhone you've got to pay more to get it, but the option is there to go up to 64GB. With Android you have SD cards (so even better). So a top-end phone should at least have the option of more. Nokia are obviously cutting corners to try and keep manufacturing costs down - by only having one model. I've got 20GB of music, not including podcasts. I'm not that unusual. This is no good to replace my mp3 player.

      So I think the review was fair, and gave good reasons. Otherwise he said it's decent. The thing is, you can't complain that if it's a good phone it should get full marks. Because it'll be over £400. And for that money you can get 3 or 4 good phones (if a decent phone is all you want). For that cash it's got to be a good pocket computer as well.

      Disclosure time:

      I have a Nokia Lumia 710. If I wanted lots of apps, I'd not have got it. Because the app store's not yet good enough. Although I think I'd agree with the review that the UI on apps is generally better and more consistent than either iOS or Android ones.

      I'm surprised this only has the same 1.4Ghz processor as mine. Though in the 3 weeks I've had it, it's never lagged once. I'd argue that Android needs dual core processors because it's less well written, and all the pre-ICS androids I've used have suffered from lag. And to be fair to MS here, they've just re-written their OS to need less memory/processor speed.

      For the £130 I paid, I think the Lumia 710 is brilliant. I want a good phone first, with acceptable email and maps and a bit of web. It far surpasses that - and is better than any Android at the price. If I used apps on a phone the same way I do on my iPad, then I'd go iOS, or Android if I couldn't get it.

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: Lost

        "It's apparently up to 80,000 apps now, but a lot of the main ones still aren't there...."

        This is because the companies who pay for app dev still concentrate on iPhone!!

        The largest OS user base is droid, but apps are still developed for iOS first. If that doesn't speak volumes...

        "This is no good to replace my mp3 player." I thought this was a phone, not an MP3 player?

        1. I ain't Spartacus Gold badge

          Re: Obviously!

          Doesn't matter if it's the companies paying for app development's fault or not. If I want apps and they're not there, then I'm unhappy. 'Droid gets less development because less money is made on the Android marketplace. iOS users pay more for apps. That comes down to userbase + demographics of same. If Windows phones sell more at the lower end of the market, then this problem will continue. I don't use many phone apps, so I don't care, but for those that do it's a major consideration. I wouldn't recommend WinMo to anyone that uses lots of apps - even though I think it's a really good OS.

          It should be able to replace my mp3 player! I shouldn't need to carry 2 devices. Just the addition of an SD card slot would solve this problem. They make me install bloody Zune on my PC to set it up (presumably so they can sell me music), so they bloody well ought to make it do that job! I know I'm unusual in having 20GB of music, but it ain't rocket surgery!

          As happens, the battery drain means I probably wouldn't dump my mp3 player yet, whatever phone I have. I need the it primarily as a work phone, personal phone second, all else is gravy. But I'd like to be able to.

      2. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: Lost

        ok, in which case im going to now say that all Android phones are poor because of the threat of malware available to them through the marketplace and Googles data mining.

        That sounds fair now doesn't it? no?

        Im sorry, I see what your saying but its rubbish, you cant compare phones based on software provided by third parties, that have nothing to do with the phone in question, just like it would be wrong to slag off all android devices because of software issues.

        I take on board that the storage is fixed but im a fairly heavy user of my device and I have a huge amount of audio on it to play non stop for a day or so and my 16GB card is only half full.

        If its movies your after then then fair enough, I cant for the life of me work out why people would want to watch a movie on a <5" screen but that's personal choice, unless you want to look a complete plank holding your phone on the end of your nose you wouldn't need it in any form of high resolution so in terms of space, you could keep the file sizes down.

        I see what your saying, but I just cant see the math working out, the device does what it says it does very well, in my opinion that is. So what is it that the device is, that isn't very good to give it 75? clearly the one x and Iphone do what they do very well to get 90%, personally I think what they advertise the phones as is questionable to whether or not they should get 90% but that's not the argument.

        and that is the point. You cant take a Second hand Audi R8 and say well, your new Corsa is crap compared to mine, so based on that this is the best car in the world. Like the phones, they are two different devices that do the same thing, each device should be reviewed on its own merit!

        To review devices like this you need a set of common criteria, criteria that can be easily measured and can be consistent across different devices, you then weight that criteria with points which will add up to give you a score. You could add that the app stores have more or less apps, but that isn't what all users care about, so the weighting would be less, like wise core functions like phone, txt, email build quality would be weighted higher, everything else would take a number and line up behind. that would give you a fair comparison of core functions with the added Fluffy stuff making up the difference if it had those options

        At the moment, the number is pulled out of the air - meaningless and a complete waste of time, they may as well get the Manufactures to dump a PR review on here and whoever pays the most money wins.

        1. I ain't Spartacus Gold badge

          Re: Lost

          Dazza,

          Firstly, I like Win Pho 7. I own a Lumia 710. I think that it's the best sub £200 smartphone. Though I've not tried Ice Cream Sarnie, but they're not this cheap yet.

          Your argument is silly. You can mark down Android on the insecure software in the market. And maybe Google's data mining (though Apple and MS aren't innocent of that either). In fact, you should. It's a vital element of any review. These are smartphones. The Lumia 900 will come in at over £400. For that money you can buy 10 decent dumb-phones, or 2 reasonable smartphones. So you're not just reviewing the thing as a phone, but as a mobile computer.

          To do a proper review, you must look at hardware, software and usage. Plus comparison with rivals at a similar price. If you were to do a review of Windows vs. MacOS vs. Linux, you'd have to review software availability. It would be idiotic not to. If you want games, you're going to favour Windows, for example. That's what the review's for, and why I've chosen to comment on WinPho stories recently, to give people decent info. In the couple of weeks I've been doing this, my downvote count has jumped by 50%... [insert smiley of choice here]

          In reviewing a phone, you must necessarily cover the OS. And that means what you can do with it, and how it stacks up against its rivals. Apps is a massively important part of that.

          In my opinion the Apple app store is better than Android Play, which is better than MS Marketplace. With a caveat that you get more freedom with Android than either of the others, which has risks, but also means you can have useful apps the others don't allow.

          You talk about drawing up objective criteria to get a percentage. Something I'm not sure is possible. But then you complain that some problems with WinPho aren't important, and mistake your subjective opinion for fact. You might not think it's important to have more storage, or more apps, but that doesn't make you right. A good review doesn't make such assumptions. It tries to give all users the info they need to decide themselves.

          Like too many people, you mistake your personal opinions for universal truth. I happen to agree with you that video on phones is silly, and that phones should be good phones first. And I don't use many apps. But I don't make the mistake of thinking that everyone shares those opinions. This review was fair, because it gave readers the information to make decisions based on their subjective opinions.

          1. Anonymous Coward
            Anonymous Coward

            Re: Lost

            Dont have time to reply to it all but if you read my first post you will see that I said the review was neutral or more or less, but what I am complaining about is that the number 75 is pulled out of the air. The titan that has arguably better specs for the camera also gets the same score.

            Look at the depth of the review, and compare that to the One x or the Iphone.

            Its very clear that the phones are not being reviewed on their own merit, nothing more than a cursory glance and are simply given lower score because its running WP.

            The reality is that the you are buying a phone, and that is all WP has ever said it was going to be. If they were making a pocketPC then they would have carried on using the far more powerful and useful PC of them all, WM. You are saying that for 400 you should get this that an the other, but why? Take a device, review it based on what it is sold as, add points for things like app support, but adjust the weighting.

            I am not saying that this phone should have a better or worse score and am arguing for that reason, I THINK it probably should have a better score but THAT is my opinion, what im saying is the review is meaningless half hearted (compared to Other platforms) doesn't explain why it got this score, ignores majorly important facts, places emphasis on the most important fact being number of apps supported, Ignores out of the box experience and is generally not very good. and so far all WP reviews have had much the same treatment....

            Oops, running late now! :)

            1. I ain't Spartacus Gold badge

              Re: Lost

              Dazza,

              You can't review the device on Microsoft's terms. You have to review it against the competition at the same price. For £400+ you can get a lot of phone/pocket computer. That's what it's competing against, so that's what it's got to beat.

              El Reg gave the Lumia 710 80%. That was in the review when it was £300. Now it's £170 (£130 unlocked on Pay&Go from Carphone Whorehouse), it would probably get a higher score, because it's competing against less good competition.

              It's clear that the market wants apps. That's why there's been a few billion downloads. MS are still worse for apps. And it is fair to to review the phone on the relative merits of the OS, which has some limitations compared with the others. Though I'd say it also has the best address book - I think the People hub is absolutely brilliant - and can do some really interesting things, while still being easier to use - and with big, clear writing for reading on the move.

              Finally I think you're being a bit unfair to El Reg. One, ratings will always be arbitrary. They're only a guide. Two, the Lumia 900 is the third in an almost identical series. It's a slight evolution of the 800, with both slightly better than the 710. So it doesn't need a 5 page review. Each new iPhone gets a big review, because it's once a year, and usually has new OS features to cover. You aren't being cheated here, and your personal OS choice should not need validation by El Reg.

  7. Silverburn

    no microSD - FAIL

    16gb only - FAIL

    no dual core - FAIL

    no 1080p video - FAIL

    no hardware home button - FAIL

    Connector on the top, not the bottom - JURY STILL OUT

    Bigger battery - SUCCESS

    Bigger screen - SUCCESS

    Front camera - SUCCESS

    So that 5:3 to the fails. Though not all are Nokia's - MS's OS limitations are a bit bonkers (no multi-core? no microSD support?).

    1. dogged

      No MicroSD support is mad, I'll grant you but not supporting multicore is like saying the Ferrari Enzo doesn't support HGV engines. It doesn't need multicore.

      In order for more processing power to be necessary, you need a slow OS. You can call WP7 many things but "slow" isn't one of them.

      1. Silverburn

        I still think multi-core is a necessity these days if you want multi-tasking. And with a sufficiently robust ramping algorithm, it shouldn't suck that much more than a single core. If I have browser session with flash running (ok we're talking android here), and backgrounded, I should still be able to run my new foreground app without stuttering.

        1080p video - There is a point to be made about storage, yes. With a fixed 16gb internal storage, you won't get a lot of video in there at 1080p. However, the resolution is pretty common in Nokia's competitors these days, and people want to view their movies at the native resolution of their HD panels. Is the quality of 1080p better than 720p, given the poor/cheap sensors in these phones? No probably not. But people *still want" 1080p.

        1. qwarty

          @Silverburn. Multi-tasking doesn't need multi-core, a matter of fact not opinion in a multi-tasking multi-threaded operating system. A 2GHz core can do as much work as two 1GHz cores and will be more responsive executing bottleneck code that has not been optimised for multicore. Often apps benefit more from unloading work onto GPU for most effective multitasking (why iPad 3 boosted GPU while leaving dual core CPU virtually unchanged). If performance is the goal, memory cache, floating point performance and so on can be more relevant than core count or GHz.

          The trend towards dual then quad core on phones is about power usage and manufacturabilty, not performance per se. Certainly WP multicore support is overdue as we look forward to future processing demanding applications on phones (higher resolutions, image processing, games etc.) not viable on most current phone models.

          The fact that WP7 competes so well on single CPU core compared with Android 4 multi-core is connected with the way multitasking is done. I expect Android 5 and WP8 will both do better, will be interesting to see how that pans out.

    2. JDX Gold badge

      The only reason to want 1080p video recording on a phone is so you can boast your phone has 1080p video recording. Holding the phone above your head at a gig is going to look crap regardless.

      Considering how popular 16Gb iPhones with no SD support are, marking those as failures seems a bit pointless.

      Multicore presumably is coming in the next version, anyone know... but note how this phone has strong battery life. Upping the CPU power only reduces that.

    3. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Connector on the top, not the bottom - JURY STILL OUT

      Nah, thats certainly a fail.

      I still haven't seen a smartphone that makes me want to retire my ancient Nokia 3310. At least the damn thing works when I need it!

    4. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      unless you

      are a porn collector, 16GB is enough.

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Stop

        Re: unless you

        I'll bear that in mind when I listen to the 60Gb of FLAC encoded music files on the excellent 'Poweramp' app on my 16Gb Samsung Galaxy Note via my 64Gb Sandisk MicroSD card. It's by VERY far the best portable music player I've ever experienced and the audio quality is superb. Try doing that in a paltry and pathetic 16Gb internal phone.

        1. Anonymous Coward
          Anonymous Coward

          Re: unless you

          Then surely a dedicated device is required? If you're such an audiophile??

          1. Anonymous Coward
            Mushroom

            Re: unless you

            Errr ... did I mention that the phone does the job perfectly? Keep up please.

        2. Anonymous Coward
          Anonymous Coward

          @PhilW

          60GB of music, ooh and I bet you listen to it all don't you.

          Be truthful, its 60GB of porn you dirty begger.

      2. This post has been deleted by its author

    5. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      W O W subjective!

    6. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Connector on top: jury's in: FAIL

      Sorry, but the charging on the top means:

      1) No car dock - unless you want to either turn the phone upside down, or have some weird "Slide it UP into the dock, then lock in place" design.

      2) No desk dock, no "bedside charging stand/use it as a clock" (which is sad, because OLED means the display could dim enough to not be annoying, unlike a backlight LCD, which if dim enough to not be disturbing is dim enough to be unreadable)

      3) If plugged in and you want to take a call, the cable is looping over your hand. Look at your old wired telephone handset - does the wire come out the top or the bottom?

      As for "no 1080p video" - the one thing nice about being able to play back 1080p video is that you can then have one video file for both your phone and for your TV - rather than having to transcode a file for your phone had adding 25% to your video storage needs.

      (of course, since most of my 1080 video is ATSC and thus MPEG2, I still have to transcode it so all my devices can use hardware acceleration since no phones or tablets seem to have HW MPEG2, but at least if I do transcode it to H.264, my TV will still play it - maybe. If I hold my tongue just right during the encode. Frackin DLNA - Doesn't Like Nearly Anything.)

  8. Anonymous Coward
    WTF?

    no mention of...

    I love the look of this phone, the WinPhone OS looks great with those live tiles.

    But WinPhone is missing some critical features that MS should have had from the beginning, but certainly in the 7.5 update

    - support for VPN (many business users, and virtually all techies I should think)

    - built in support for Messenger (or whatever they call it these days). This is widely used, i can even use it on the Xbox with Kinnect to talk to family overseas, but not on a WinPhone without some (apparently rather poor) additional app by a third party.

    And why does MS not permit SD cards? I don't understand that... I imagine Apple does it to up-sell because they have 16/32/64 models... but MS only produces the O/S, so why not let the phone makers decide whether they want to have SD support? As it is, Nokia only has 16gb models, so no chance of cheap SD cards cannibalizing their 'bigger' phones.

    1. Conrad Longmore

      Re: no mention of...

      "And why does MS not permit SD cards?"

      Because they slavishly followed Apple' s policy of no removable memory and built the entire OS on that assumption. It's tricky to change now.

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: no mention of...

        "It's tricky to change now" Really?

    2. dogged

      Re: no mention of...

      Messenger support is cvertainly built-in. Always was.

    3. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: no mention of...

      " support for VPN (many business users, and virtually all techies I should think)

      - built in support for Messenger (or whatever they call it these days). This is widely used, i can even use it on the Xbox with Kinnect to talk to family overseas, but not on a WinPhone without some (apparently rather poor) additional app by a third party."

      ----------------------------------------

      Support for a VPN? You have seen the adverts for the Lumia right? This is not a business phone this is not a business OS. This OS is designed for the generation that watches The Only way is Essex and can't remember any more than 160 characters.

      What phone suitable for business would think it a good idea to merge facebook contacts into your phone book?

      As for built in support for messenger that'll be coming but replace messenger with skype

    4. Snail
      Alert

      Re: no mention of...

      SD Cards are a well documented issue. And its not all MS's fault.

      I think its the Samsung Focus that has a hidden SD card slot, that is "upgradable".

      The OS uses all memory for the phone, and therefore the performance of the SD card is critical. Annoyingly its really easy to get the throughput figures for an SD Card, but theres never any mention of the random access times, and with the vast majority of SD Cards, its attrocious, and putting it in a WP7 absolutely kills performance.

      Microsoft could insist on SD Cards in every phone tomorrow, but it would be the same situation as the USB Flash drive support for Xbox. Everyone just buys the cheapest one they can find, rather than checking supported lists, then bitches about the performance problems that follow.

  9. Bob Vistakin
    FAIL

    The perfect example of excellent hardware ruined by garbage software

    "This screen is gorgeous: bright and colourful as you’d expect from an OLED screen – or Clear Black Display as Nokia calls it.".

    A very important consideration when you waste a quarter of those precious pixels with a dead bar running down the home screen, making it look all unbalanced and amateur. Well, if these wasted pixels are to be black, of course you'd want them to be "Clear Black" on an OLED screen, wouldn't you?

    1. foo_bar_baz

      Re: The perfect example of excellent hardware ruined by garbage software

      And the troll wakes to the smell of a Microsoft related article.

      BTW, is the forum name "Lisa Copland-Newton" taken yet? You ought to check.

  10. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    that's a lot of money

    for a 4.3" 480 x 800 screen and 16GB when only a few quid more gets you a One X with a 4.7" 720p screen and 32GB.

    1. Stacy
      Unhappy

      Re: that's a lot of money

      Or less and the Xperia S - 32GB and 720P screen...

      I was really dissapointed in the resolution that this Nokia has... I hate it when companies come out with a bigger screen when they mean a screen with a lower DPI... (And then pretend it's a good thing!)

    2. DrXym

      Re: that's a lot of money

      That's probably why it's score is so low. In a vacuum it's a good phone. But compare it to the competition and suddenly it's not that great.

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: that's a lot of money

        "In a vacuum it's a good phone."

        I find it hard to hear my phone in a vacuum.

    3. h4rm0ny

      Re: that's a lot of money

      I went the opposite direction and got a Lumia 710 for about £160. It's the same O/S and the performance is snappy. All that's missing is the better camera, some memory and a bit better battery life. I only care about the last one and it's still good enough, so I basically saved myself three hundred quid as far as I'm concerned.

  11. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    question to reviewer

    Did you break the port cover on the Lumia 800?

    It has a magnetic catch which doesn't wear out, and it's almost impossible to open by accident.

    I am one of those people that constantly fiddles with any movable part on my phone. The cover on the Lumia 800 is particularly satisfying to flick off it's magnetic catch and annoy people with the clicking noise :P

    Curious because after owning the phone for a fair while now, I am always surprised that the port cover is always singled out as a weak point. In my experience, the phone has several weak points, but the port cover ain't one of them.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Another gullible fool who bought the advertising splurge.

    2. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      everything else is weak

      but the cover is not.

  12. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Android Porting

    SO is it possible to port Android ICS on this excellent hardware? Flash it clean and hey ho.

    It would be a sure winner, if anyone can crack it!

    1. Andrew_b65

      Re: Android Porting

      Erm, I can't imagine what ICS would be like running on this hardware, except dreadful. The point is that WP7 doesn't need the most recent hardware to run smoothly. It was the same with Symbian. I guess this was probably a driving factor behind Nokia's dramatic WP move (like it or not). Most consumers won't be buying a phone on the specification, they'll be buying based on eye-candy and what it can do for them.

      It's funny to think that Microsoft, who used to be the driving force behind the need to constantly built more powerful PCs to cope with the latest version of Windows, are now producing a mobile OS which is able to work really well on two year old hardware specs.

      I was livid when Nokia dropped Maemo and disgusted again when Elop shot Symbian in the back. Lately I'm becoming less hostile towards the Nokia/WP thing as it does seem to be starting to turn into something new and refreshing.

      1. dogged

        Re: Android Porting

        @andrew_b65

        It's interesting that the same people who rave about being able to run linux on a 10 year old desktop rig and get oputstanding performance are the same people who spit on any phone that doesn't have multiple core choppery.

        1. Miek
          Linux

          Re: Android Porting

          @dogged. We are not buying old phones, we want new phones with powerful stuff inside. I tend to fart in the general direction of any device that is underpowered regardless of the OS.

          1. dogged
            FAIL

            Re: Android Porting

            @Miek: Suppose for a second that I gave you a truly open-source version of linux that ran flawlessly on a 100MHz (yes M, no Gs) single core chip and offered extreme battery life savings because of this.

            By your logic, it would be crap.

            I think you have a problem here.

            1. Miek
              Linux

              Re: Android Porting

              "By your logic, it would be crap." -- Not necessarily, but, trying to keep old hardware running and choosing a new phone are different things. I am not going to buy an old 100Mhz computer, not even if it has a turbo button.

              1. dogged
                FAIL

                Re: Android Porting

                I am not going to buy an old 100Mhz computer, not even if it has a turbo button.

                Does your laptop have a low-power chip in it? Do you own any ARM-powered devices? I ask since low-power also means "reduced performance" and ARM is by definition considerably less powerful than x86/x64. Your statement is the equivalent of "I would never buy a DVD player to watch my DVDs on when a £3000 gaming rig can do that job and is more powerful".

                In other words, it's drivel. You're just criticizing for the sake of it.

                1. Miek
                  Linux

                  Re: Android Porting

                  Dogged, this applies to you : http://xkcd.com/386/

                  "Does your laptop have a low-power chip in it? Do you own any ARM-powered devices? I ask since low-power also means "reduced performance" and ARM is by definition considerably less powerful than x86/x64. Your statement is the equivalent of "I would never buy a DVD player to watch my DVDs on when a £3000 gaming rig can do that job and is more powerful"."

                  Stop trying to "interpret" my logic. There is no point in creating new analogies to explain my analogies, I'm sure readers of this site are capable of interpreting my analogies without your help. If it's simply the last word you want, step up.

                  1. dogged
                    IT Angle

                    Re: Android Porting

                    I don't give a shit about the last word. I want to know WHY you always do this.

                    I know you think Windows Phone is ugly, you said so before. de gustibus non est disputandum so that's valid but then again, it also means you can't go around saying "everyone! don't buy this, it's ugly!". So instead we get this "underpowered" nonsense. Which is madness, because if Android could run on less than half the resources that WP needs, the Android fans would never shut up about it. But because it's Microsoft, it's a fault.

                    What I really don't get is why so many people here actively want this to fail. Would a successful (say, 30% of market) WP prevent you from buying an Android phone? Or an iPhone? No. Would it drive down the prices and drive up the quality of Android phones and iPhones? Probably, since that is a feature of competition.

                    But no, they want it to fail. Which implies that they want to pay more for less. And they tell pretty outrageous lies about it in the process, which is worse.

                    I wish I understood it. Is it some sort of religious thing?

                    1. dogged

                      Re: Android Porting

                      PS.

                      I don't go around telling everyone that Android phones are shit, laggy, ugly and smell like donkey-fart on every Android phone article. Check for yourself if you don't believe me. So it's not a classic fanboy thing. The One X is pretty nice, although it shares the WP flaw of not having a MicroSD slot.

                      1. Miek
                        Linux

                        Re: Android Porting

                        Which part of my posts mentioned WP7 today?

                        "I don't go around telling everyone that Android phones are shit, laggy, ugly and smell like donkey-fart on every Android phone article." -- That's because you would be wrong.

                        1. dogged

                          Re: Android Porting

                          Just as you are wrong in talking about "underpowered", but it never stops you.

                    2. h4rm0ny

                      Re: Android Porting

                      "I wish I understood it. Is it some sort of religious thing?"

                      I think it must be something of that mindset. WP7 came up in another discussion and I chipped in with a correction to what was posted (I own a Lumia 710). And along came the downvotes on a short and purely factual post. I was even polite.

              2. Anonymous Coward
                Anonymous Coward

                Re: Android Porting

                I once saw a 3rd party games console controller which had a "Tubro" button.

                Nothing to do with phones, just wanted to lighten the mood a little.

    2. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Android Porting

      Why put ICS on?

      Have you tried WinPhone OS? Doesn't sound like it!

      Another "informed" decison!

    3. Mikel
      Windows

      Re: Android Porting

      @AC - It won't work as a phone. Once W8 comes out they'll be plentiful on eBay and Cyanogen will probably do a mod that will turn it into a decent gPod.

  13. Arctic fox

    I feel that, all things taken into consideration, that the mark is fair.

    Other than that it is obvious that the Lumia series currently is a holding action by Nokia. If by Q4 we do not see a genuine flagship phone running WP8 then the Finns won't have any excuses. I hope they will, Nokia at their best are fully capable of building superb phones. Unless MS in some very clear way frakk up with WP8 then Nokia will have the elbow room to do the necessary. If, however, they fail to do so then I fear that it will be looking very bleak for them indeed.

  14. Patrick Moody
    WTF?

    Letting Nokia off for Microsoft's imposed limitations

    "...Still, Nokia’s not to blame here." They absolutely are to blame for any and all shortcomings of the phones they produce. It was Nokia's choice to employ an ex-Microsoftie. It was his (highly predictable) choice to decide to use Microsoft's phone OS for all future Nokia smart-phones. Being subject to Microsoft's demands are a consequence of these choices which they made themselves.

  15. Just a geek
    Thumb Down

    bigger screen but I see that the text still doesn't fit - the 's' on 'Games' still goes off the right hand side.

    I know its 'design' and 'chic' but I just find it ugly and broken.

  16. Jonathan White
    WTF?

    'You’ve launched a handset or two with a new operating system and they’ve gone down quite well.'

    Really? Really? I suppose they've gone down quite well if you assume 'going down quite well' does not include 'any large number of people actually paying money for them'.

    1. dogged
      Meh

      It's not exactly Android yet, but it looks as if phones are selling.

      Unless Reuters isn't a good enough source to be taken seriously. And yeah, three years late, etc etc etc. I think it'll get there, assuming Microsoft don't make WP8 an ugly static grid of icons like Bob Vistakin's beloved WIndows 3.1. Or iOS and Android, for that matter.

      1. Bob Vistakin
        Happy

        Clippy Zunemetro says hi.

  17. Seb123

    Looking at the comments it's clear that the 20 people that bought a Nokia Windows Mobile phone in the UK have already voted.

  18. Mint Sauce
    Pint

    Lol

    half the people who spout hatred against Windows Phone sound like they've never used it especially when they complain about things that could be fixed by changing some settings (e.g. filtering out facebook contacts).

    I don't care how many cores a phone has, or how much ram for running applications. As long as it works smoothly. Yes there's no hardware expansion which could be a problem if you like to store tons of songs/vids but other than that I think it's a really nice phone. My 710 is slick as anything (even with its 'outdated' hardware) - maybe I haven't installed enough fart apps on it yet?

    Each of the major phone operating systems has its plus and minus points, just pick the one which works for you, eh?

  19. DrXym

    Fixes the most glaring issue

    The Lumia 800 has a stupid little flip hatch covering the USB port which was just bad design for something that needed to be used at least once a day for charging. The mini sim slot was easy to break too. Sounds like the 900 has fixed the most grevious issues in the last model, at least from a hardware perspective.

    I assume Windows Phone 7.5 hasn't changed in any way which really impacts on the device's ability to compete with other modern handsets.

    1. dogged
      Windows

      Re: Fixes the most glaring issue

      I assume Windows Phone 7.5 hasn't changed in any way which really impacts on the device's ability to compete with other modern handsets.

      It got an official El Reg app this morning. That helps. Also, it may encourage Barry Shitpeas to go troll somewhere else given that you could interpret this as the Reg officially acknowledging that WP7 is growing and not going away any time soon.

  20. Techs UK
    Thumb Up

    It looks fantastic, cyan for me

    the phone design looks great - would have prefered the curved glass like on the 800 though.

    OS is fast, 80% of the stuff i use is built into the OS, so no need for fart apps.

    pretty fair score really, all things considered - i've have put it at 80% at least though - the design is great.

  21. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Lots of really informed decisions being voiced here! HA!

    75% is bollox. The Lumia beats the iPhone for design/style and usage hands down.

    Of course too many commentards are glued to their iPhone. They have to justify to themselves why they chose a closed proprietary OS, because they know they are now stuck with it! All of their content is stuck with Apple and can't easily shift it.

    "Windows Phone still doesn’t have the app range of iOS or Android. But what is available is turning out to be pretty good quality these days."

    When you *consider* the absolute CRAP apps on iOS and Droid you realise a smaller number of quality useful apps is undoubtedly better than having 1000's of shit app to choose from.

    If you’re going to comment, make it an informed and objective comment and not just the usual knee jerk reaction to anyone slating your poor choices.

    1. Miek
      Coat

      "If you’re going to comment, make it an informed and objective comment and not just the usual knee jerk reaction to anyone slating your poor choices." -- Where's the fun in that?

    2. hplasm
      Windows

      In my informed and objective opinion-

      You made a poor choice.

    3. JDX Gold badge

      Of course too many commentards are glued to their iPhone

      I don't have an iPhone. But it's still a very slick device objectively speaking. All this "justify it to themselves" and "locked in" stuff is a load of balls, real people only care their phone is shiny and easy to use and that's exactly what the iPhone does.

  22. Robert Grant
    Happy

    From the review, I'd be saying, "Why only 75%?"

    It's actually a really positive review. I went to the second page assuming that'd be where all the downsides were, but that didn't happen.

    Having used (very sceptically to start with) a WP7 device for a year now, I'd say:

    1GHz single core is enough for the phone. Anything more is a bonus. It runs very fast. You're just used to Android needing multiple cores to make up for garbage collection causing UI stutter.

    16GB is a lot. No MicroSD is a bit annoying, but for a lot of people (e.g. me) it's not a showstopper. I get by fine with 8GB at the moment. YMMV. @Silverburn obviously EITHER only 16GB of storage OR no MicroSD is the feature fail, you can't list them as two problems.

    Almost every app I need (or have heard of on another platform and wanted) is either there or built into the OS.

    I've NEVER had to powercycle/remove the battery on my phone from a crash. Not once, in over a year. The only time I restart it is if I want to fully discharge the battery, and that's probably just a ritual left over from NiCad days. My phone does let me remove the battery though, and I value that feature.

    Anyway. Sounds like a load of commenters who haven't used the phone. As a Java monkey who ran Linux for a long time, it works really well and it's getting better. I'm a gradual convert to Windows 7 + WP7 + Xbox 360, and MS hopefully to pull another Xbox-style win, glad I got in early.

    (And have you tried the dev tools? Amazing. If you're used to Objective C, welcome to the 21st century.)

  23. squilookle
    Linux

    Torn on this one. I've been an Android user for a long time and I'm happy with it. When I come to renew my phone, I will probably stick with it, partly because it is familiar and partly because I know it does everything I need it to. As well as that, both the HTC One phones and the Galaxy S 3 are looking very good.

    I'm sort of drawn to these phones too though, partly because they actually look good (IMHO), partly because they are different, and partly because, as much as I prefer Linux and FOSS to Microsoft, I like the idea of having a choice and feel that MS/Nokia need the support before they go the way of Palm/WebOS. If that happens and Windows Phone and it's ecosystem cave in because everyone chooses Android and iOS instead, then I think we will all be in a worse position in the long run, whatever your opinion on the OS/devices themselves.

    So the choices are Android for practical reasons, or WP7 for curiosity/political reasons. Android and the practical reasons will most likely win when I choose my next phone, unless the Windows Phone is significantly cheaper and can be had on a shorter contract. I still have about 7 months left, so we'll see what's out (and being promoted) by then, and what happens to the prices.

    1. Miek
      Linux

      Have you given the WP7 online demo a go (on your phone)?

      http://aka.ms/wpdemo

  24. Snail

    Still no WOW factor.

    I'm a WP7 owner, i love the OS, but am decidedly unimpressed by all the current WP7 range.

    I've been with WP7 about 2 years now, so i'm due an upgrade (from HTC HD7)., and in 2 years the only real improvement from my phone to a Lumia 900 (or HTC Hitan) is 0.4mhz and a front facing camera.

    There is absolutely no reason for me to upgrade my phone, my current phone works well, is fast (and the next WP7 update is tailored to low end handsets, so might make my phone even better), and theres very little difference to the current gen handsets. And thats annoying. I want to upgrade, i want something new and shiny, but theres nothing on the horizon for months, By which time, by which time WP8 will have iPhone 5 to deal with.

  25. I ain't Spartacus Gold badge

    Nokia profits

    How much profit can Nokia make?

    They're only selling a few million Lumia handsets so far, so economies of scale aren't great. But they only have 4 models, which has got to help. Especially as the 710, 800 and 900 seem to have the same board, which just more storage (and maybe RAM) for the top models.

    They've gone for plastic not metal/glass. So that's got to save a penny or two.

    And Windows needs less (or uses less, insert argument here) processor speed and RAM. So they're getting to use cheaper chips.

    So here's the question. They launched the Lumia 800 at £400 and the 710 at £300. The 710 is down to £170 now (unsubsidised). I've seen the 800 at £350 ish. I got my Lumia 710 at £130 on a Pay-&-Go contract, but unlocked, from Carphone Whorehouse.

    So are Nokia able to make a profit at these price points? And did they release at too high a price? Or, are they having to buy market share?

    I don't currently see them selling too well at the top-end. At over £400, I'd take an iPhone 4, or probably an ICS Android. But if they could make a profit, they can beat the mid-market Androids. I can't see them winning against the best phones, until they improve the home-screen and get more/better apps. And the second of those needs them to have more users. So for Nokia to succeed, I think the Lumia 800 has got to do well (and profitably) at £250.

  26. Danny 14

    not too bad

    Work colleague has one, got it on saturday. We spent yesterday comparing with my galaxy S2. Battery life is about the same. W7 is far easier to use for some tasks, for others is simply wont do things. Y

    ou cant run (for example) a streaming radio program whilst locked on the 900 whereas tuneinpro works just fine on the S2.

    No wakelock issues on the 900 due to design.

    GPS lock took about 5 seconds outside but a good full minute in the office. S2 took 5s and 10s respectively.

    A task of adding a number to contacts from an unknown text was easier in 900 (stock apps on S2)

    Looking up the location of a postcode in maps whilst on a speakerphone call was a chuffing nightmare in the 900, S2 was easy.

    16Gb is utterly tripe on the 900. Since you dont get 16Gb it will be gone in a week. Totally inexcusable and would be a dealbreaker for me - offer 32 or 64 versions! S2 trucking along with 16gb+32 however, with android being shit, this is geek territory, my wife couldnt figure out why there is a hidden 2gb "apps" partition, 10Gb of "sd_card" (that isnt the sd_card) and 30 Gb of "/mnt/external_storage" (that is the sd_card) so thumbs down for android's stupid file manager.

    Exchange 2010 was the same for both. You can do the same things in both.

    Overall the 900 seemed ok for normal stuff, app store was a bit sparse compared to android but then again you need to hit google (or bing) to find the usefulness of each android app anyway (and check wakelock issues nowadays...)

    75% i'd say simply due to lack of storage. As a phone it seems ok and a decent alternative to android or iOS. This being from a neutral person who has USED one rather than spewed venom at something different.

    1. Danny 14

      Re: not too bad

      ack no edit! on the situation with 2 cores, with my S2 system monitor pro shows that my 2nd core is idle for 97% of the time. Only when playing games has the 2nd core powered up and whilst core 1 does peak at 100% core 2 has only done so a few times. I doubt many apps are multithreaded enough to care.

      I still wouldnt swap my S2 for one though. We couldnt find apps for stuff I use on my phone.

    2. Jim Coleman
      Meh

      Re: not too bad

      "You cant run (for example) a streaming radio program whilst locked on the 900 whereas tuneinpro works just fine on the S2."

      The Tunein Radio app continues to stream perfectly under lock on my HTC Titan.

      "No wakelock issues on the 900 due to design."

      Whenever my Titan wakes, it is locked.

      "GPS lock took about 5 seconds outside but a good full minute in the office. S2 took 5s and 10s respectively."

      GPS doesn't work without line of sight, what you're talking about is cell-tower location I suspect. On my Titan that was instantaneous, positioning me to within a few yards while it waited indefinitely for satellite line-of-sight.

      "Looking up the location of a postcode in maps whilst on a speakerphone call was a chuffing nightmare in the 900, S2 was easy."

      While on your call, press WINDOWS button, fire up MAPS app, press SEARCH, type post code, press RETURN, there you go. How is that a Nightmare?

      "16Gb is utterly tripe on the 900."

      On my Titan I get 16GB internal plus 25GB free Skydrive storage = 41GB.

      I don't know why the Nokia 900 you tested can't do the things my Titan can - same OS...

      1. EddieD

        Re: not too bad

        "I don't know why the Nokia 900 you tested can't do the things my Titan can - same OS.."

        I was going to post an almost identical reply... my 800 can do the same as your Titan.

        Odd.

        (My main gripe is that I wish they'd make the tiles wrap - sometimes it can be a pain scrolling from one end to the other...)

        1. Jim Coleman
          Happy

          Re: not too bad

          "(My main gripe is that I wish they'd make the tiles wrap - sometimes it can be a pain scrolling from one end to the other...)"

          If you're at the bottom of the list, press the WINDOWS key and you'll be taken right back to the top. Another tip is to keep your most used tiles at the top, obviously, but your next most used right at the bottom, because it's quicker to spin fast to the bottom than it is to spin more slowly to somewhere in the middle and stop it at the right point. Hence keep your less important tiles in the middle. :O)

      2. MS Rocks

        Re: not too bad

        Hah hah, yeah, the Tune In Radio comment is a classic example of someone dissing the Lumia because they have not worked out how to use it.

        To fix this 'problem' you may want to go to Tune In Radio, click the settings bar and ummm, tick the option that says 'Enable radio playback when the screen is locked'.........

    3. Snail
      Facepalm

      Re: not too bad

      I still don't get the issue with storage space.

      I used to have this on my old iphone which was one of the 8gb ones. I was forever swapping content to stay under the limit.

      Then i got soo fed up, i spent some time looking at my music collection, and found that large portions of it never got played, same with videos.

      Since monitoring my listening/viewing patterns, i've found i generally don't need 90% of my collection, so it never makes it onto the phone.

      These days, new music goes onto Skydrive, then if i find i'm listening/watching something reguarly, it gets uploaded to the phone. Thus i i've still not filled up the 16GB of my 2 year old phone.

      Whats more annoying, is i didn't work this out, before upgrading HDDs of PC, PS3 and NAS, all of which are half empty most of the time nowadays.

  27. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    "the Windows Phone Marketplace has hay fever"

    Am I the only one who misread that line? (Okay maybe I am but I've got an excuse, just took a med school exam, albeit it was ophthalmology and not allergology...)

  28. Jess

    Lots of friends have Nokias ..

    .. and keep banging on about how good they are, so I just bought one.

    The phones my friends love is the N8, and I have just bought a cheap e72 from ebay, (Primarily for functions that the Lumias lack.)

    I wouldn't want a windows mobile device, if nothing more than I wouldn't trust its future.

    V7 won't run V6 software, and V8 is on the way.

    Will V8 software run on V7 and vice versa?

    And Nokia also has a proven history of abandoning systems, Symbian was (and probably still is) bigger than WP7 can hope to be before it is replaced by WP8.

    So the questions are.

    Will software you buy now run on a new Lumia in a year or 18 months?

    In a year, will software for the new phones run on a current Lumia?

    Will current Lumias get a free OS upgrade to the next system?

    If you were to have asked a similar question for Nokia Smartphones, (or WM6 phones) in the previous range, the answer to all of those would have been NO.

    I see the situation similar to Sega abandoning the Saturn (when it was still more successful than some competitors) and then wondering why people didn't trust them not to do the same with the Dreamcast (which of course they did.)

    1. Jim Coleman
      Happy

      Re: Lots of friends have Nokias ..

      "Will software you buy now run on a new Lumia in a year or 18 months?"

      Unequivocably, yes.

      "In a year, will software for the new phones run on a current Lumia?"

      Apps written for WP8 will be written using a different framework, so I believe not, no. But then apps written for WP8 will also turn up on Windows 8, as vice-versa, as the code is pretty much portable. So you'll want to get yourself onto WP8 & W8 ASAP. :O)

      "Will current Lumias get a free OS upgrade to the next system?"

      That is pretty much undeterminable at the moment. Personally I renew my phone every year so it's not an issue for me, but if it's an issue for you, just wait for the official response. Simples. Alternatively, dive in now, be happy with what you've got and stop worrying about the future so much. The Lumia 900 is a great phone running a great OS and with very nearly 100,000 apps to choose from.

      1. Jess

        Re: Lots of friends have Nokias ..

        > "Will software you buy now run on a new Lumia in a year or 18 months?"

        > Unequivocably, yes.

        (To avoid ambiguity, I should really have put "on the equivalent model in the range".

        The question really was will WP7 software run on WP8?)

        So you think it will.

        > Personally I renew my phone every year so it's not an issue for me,

        Wow, I'm guessing you are the target market for phones like this then.

        My personal requirements for a mobile are that it can run a SIP client, Instant messaging clients, Browse the web and play music simultaneously and watch videos. And have a GPS system. I also would hope for 4 years from a new phone.

        The impression I get is WP7 would not be able to do this.

        1. dogged

          Re: Lots of friends have Nokias ..

          MS have confirmed that all current WP7 software will run on WP8. It's dou8btful that stuff explicitly written for WP8 will run on WP7.

          1. Jess

            Re: Lots of friends have Nokias ..

            > MS have confirmed that all current WP7 software will run on WP8

            Thanks, but do you happen to know if that is *all* software, or just software where the writers have followed guidelines properly?

            1. dogged

              Re: Lots of friends have Nokias ..

              clicky

              The Microsoft bod responsible for the WP8 SDK states in that MSDN blog post that all WP7 apps will work on WP8.

              1. dogged
                Trollface

                Re: Lots of friends have Nokias ..

                By the way, whoever it is that goes through downvoting perfectly factual posts with links and sources?

                Fuck you, loser.

  29. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    so

    can you have custom SMS alerts? No.

    can you have a custom alarm tone? No.

    can you have a ringtone which is >1mb or >39s? No.

    do you have to use Zune software on your computer? Ergh, yes.

    Anyone tempted? No...

    1. Jim Coleman
      Meh

      Re: so

      "can you have custom SMS alerts? No."

      There are plenty of different SMS alert tones available, you can't create your own, boo-hoo cry me a river most people don't give a shit.

      "can you have a custom alarm tone? No."

      Ditto. Pointless.

      "can you have a ringtone which is >1mb or >39s? No."

      Again, pointless, a bigger ringtone than that would be superfluous as the person on the other end would have hung up by the time it finished playing.

      "do you have to use Zune software on your computer? Ergh, yes."

      The whole point of using Zune is to intelligently sync your media - setting up sync groups, setlists etc. Sorry but the age of dragging and dropping is long past, it's just not flexible enough. For instance, I have a random setlist which picks 200 random tunes from my collection of 12,000 and when I sync, it put on a different selection every time. To do this by mounting the phone as a drive and dragging/dropping would be a monumental pain in the arse.

      All these things you're moaning about are really quite ridiculous. On the other hand, I could moan quite legitimately about Android being a stuttery, CPU-hogging mess.

      1. Silverburn
        Joke

        Re: so @ Jim

        200 random files? Is that because you can't get more than 200 into your fixed and unexpandable 16gb?

        Joke...it's a joke...

        1. Jim Coleman
          Happy

          Re: so @ Jim

          Yep a Joke OK I get it, very amusing and one I've never heard before (joking). But really, 200 songs represents 13 hours and as I listen to 2 hours a day it takes me a week to get through them all, so it's plenty. And yes I have loads of free space on my phone thanks to Skydrive's free 25GB of cloudspace.

      2. Jess
        FAIL

        Re: so

        > "can you have custom SMS alerts? No."

        > There are plenty of different SMS alert tones available, you can't create your own, boo-hoo cry me a river most people don't give a shit.

        That may be acceptable on a £10 phone, and most people with smartphones I know do like their own tones. I certainly do. I currently have 7 or 8 custom alerts.

        I have at least one friend who would take the piss mercilessly (and deservedly, I think) if I paid hundreds for a phone that I could not set whatever sound I like.

        That is a pretty basic function on feature phones, let alone a wannabe smartphone.

        1. Jim Coleman
          Devil

          Re: so

          "most people with smartphones I know do like their own tones. I certainly do."

          So you've done a survey have you? I've not noticed any custom SMS tones in my office, custom ringtones yes but not custom SMS tones.

          "I currently have 7 or 8 custom alerts."

          I think we've spotted your problem right there. Hope I don't need to explain.

          "I have at least one friend who would take the piss mercilessly (and deservedly, I think) if I paid hundreds for a phone that I could not set whatever sound I like."

          You need new mates, possible ones that are less anally retentive.

          1. Jess

            Re: so

            "most people with smartphones I know do like their own tones. I certainly do."

            > So you've done a survey have you? I've not noticed any custom SMS tones in my office, custom ringtones yes but not custom SMS tones.

            Obviously I'm referring to those I have heard. Pretty sure I have heard some custom ones in the office.

            > "I currently have 7 or 8 custom alerts."

            > I think we've spotted your problem right there. Hope I don't need to explain.

            I think you do actually, I find it useful knowing from whom a text is. Gives you and idea of whether to read it immediately. Even a custom tone stops you thinking someone else's alert is yours. I guess you actually need to be in the proximity of someone with the same phone *and* have enough friends to receive texts from for this to be an issue.

            > "I have at least one friend who would take the piss mercilessly (and deservedly, I think) if I paid hundreds for a phone that I could not set whatever sound I like."

            > You need new mates, possible ones that are less anally retentive.

            Actually this would be the last description I'd use for this particular person, as anyone who happened to be shopping in Canterbury HMV one day in the January sales a few years ago could testify.

            It would also be far simpler not to get a product that could have the piss ripped out of it.

      3. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: so

        "Sorry but the age of dragging and dropping is long past"

        Not if you want to have the option to move files onto your handset from Linux, Windows and Mac boxes it ain't.

        You may think you know all there is to know about how other people use - or want to use - their smart phones, but I can let you into a secret. You don't.

      4. B4PJS

        Re: so

        Custom Alarm tone:

        So that wasn't a custom alarm tone that woke me up this morning then. Odd.

        You can actually set any ringtone as an alarm tone - currently I have Dizzy Rascal - Bonkers for weekdays, and Andy Williams - Moon River as my weekend alarm.

  30. kwv-dc
    Thumb Down

    WinNok is no WinTel .......

    I had the Nokia E90 and E7 ...both with Symbian ... and both were FAR better than the Nokia Lumina 900 with Windows 7.5.

    Win 7.5 is not at all intuitive .... Win Mobile 4.5, 6.0 and 6.5 were far better ..... especially the latter .... which MS abandoned.

    No micro - SDXC?

    No ability to turn-off auto cap, text completion, punctuation ( MS knows better than you how you want to format SMS messages ...... just ask Steve Ballmer ....)

    I spent 5 hours with MS India Tech Assistance trying to get Outlook synced .... and they managed to delete ten year of notes and all calendar entries ....

    After 10 days, I finally took the phone back to AT&T and purchased a Samsung Note ...... absolutely a great phone ( although having a keyboard a la the Asus Transformers would be a nice addition)

    I like Windows PC OS 7 ..... and would love to see MS improve the touch variant ..... but the Tiles ( or bricks ) on Win 7.5 are a waste of real estate and increase the number of clicks to complete most tasks ..... but again, MS knows best .... just ask Stevie B ........

    1. Jim Coleman
      Meh

      Re: WinNok is no WinTel .......

      "I spent 5 hours with MS India Tech Assistance trying to get Outlook synced .... and they managed to delete ten year of notes and all calendar entries ...."

      Odd, took me ten minutes to install the Hotmail sync adaptor, sync everything to my hotmail account and watch it automatically populate my phone.

      "Samsung Note ...... absolutely a great phone"

      So wanted to stop reading about here, lol

      "the Tiles ( or bricks ) on Win 7.5 are a waste of real estate and increase the number of clicks to complete most tasks"

      Eh? tiles are a waste of "real estate" - assuming you mean "screen estate" rather than implying live tiles cause some kind of housing crisis, WTF? Without tiles the start screen would be completely blank.

      As for them increasing the number of clicks to do anything.....are you MAD? They do the OPPOSITE. You can pin tiles to the start screen which deep link to most parts of an app, saving you having to start the main app and navigate to that part. They SAVE clicks. Jeez!

    2. Silverburn
      Facepalm

      Re: WinNok is no WinTel .......

      I spent 5 hours with MS India Tech Assistance trying to get Outlook synced .... and they managed to delete ten year of notes and all calendar entries ....

      Sounds more like another shining example of outsourced support, rather than an issue with the phone per se.

  31. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    re: Jim Coleman

    There might be other tones but only a couple aren't really annoying, so everyone picks the same tone. If you've ever been in a meeting with a load of MSFT staffers (the only time you see a load of WPs together), and then an SMS arrives, the clear confusion about whose phone just had a message is evident, because they all sound the same, everyone checks the phone.

    Any other smartphone has these basic tone features (and have done for years) and if you fail to recognise this short coming then it just goes to show you're a WP zealot.

    Anyway, WP7 has about 6 months then WP8 comes out at which point MS will drop it like a shit sandwich. I hope your zealotry is robust enough for your own boo hoo moment.

    1. Jim Coleman
      Devil

      Re: re: Jim Coleman

      Right so not having custom SMS tones will be a pain if I'm ever in a meeting, but one with a lot of Microsoft employees, and only if someone receives a message, and everyone hasn't bothered to put their phones on silent?

      OK I'll make a note of that in case it ever happens, ROFLMAO!

  32. Andus McCoatover
    Windows

    Tail wagging the dog?

    Microsoft not permitting SD cards???

    Insisting on hardware shutter button? (in fairness, sensible)

    Will they insist soon on the word "Microsoft" replacing "NOKIA" on the front? I'll bet it won't be many months before we see that....

    1. Jim Coleman

      Re: Tail wagging the dog?

      "Microsoft not permitting SD cards???"

      This has been the case for a couple of years now, well done for catching up, but you lose a point for not mentioning the iPhone does the same and even certain Android phones.

      "Insisting on hardware shutter button? (in fairness, sensible)"

      You've answered your own point there, good.

      "Will they insist soon on the word "Microsoft" replacing "NOKIA" on the front? I'll bet it won't be many months before we see that...."

      Er, no, actually.

  33. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    re: Re: re: Jim Coleman

    or if you ever find yourself with more than one other WP user - make a note of that in case it ever happens, ROFLMAO!

    1. Jim Coleman
      Meh

      Re: re: re: Jim Coleman

      My entire household use Windows Phone and no we haven't had that problem, but thanks for bringing it to my attention. Oh, ROFLMAO.

      1. Jess

        Re: re: re: Jim Coleman

        The phase entire household is not very precise. It could mean you, the dog the cat and the parrot.

        However, if it includes teenagers, are you certain that providing them with WP7 hasn't reduced their street cred to zero so they won't receive any texts to cause confusion?

        (Teenagers today can be so shallow, it's much more fun to take the mickey out of the technical shortcomings of a friend's equipment - your dragon has less ram than my spectrum - than to chose friends on the basis of it.)

  34. armyknife

    Titles are for toffs

    "Incidentally, the Lumia 900 has excellent call quality and picks up a signal strongly"

    Why is this an incidental, what with the product being a mobile phone ?

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Titles are for toffs

      Might be relevant as the Lumia 800 had a documented bug for ages that wouldn't let you end phone calls which is also pretty fundamental to phone operation :)

      1. Jim Coleman
        Devil

        Re: Titles are for toffs

        At least you didn't have to hold it right.

        1. AB
          Stop

          Re: Titles are for toffs

          Haha! Funny!

          Just because iPhone has many faults (and it does!) doesn't make WP7 good, nor does it make Microsoft's perversion of Nokia's highly innovative N9/Meego into the Lumia do-as-we-tell-you suddenly OK. Let's not t forget that that slick Lumia 900 hardware design is wholesale stolen from the N9.

          1. JC_

            Re: Titles are for toffs

            Let's not t forget that that slick Lumia 900 hardware design is wholesale stolen from the N9.

            Get the same lawyer who sued John Fogerty for sounding too much like John Fogerty onto this!

  35. Robert Caldecott

    No WP8 update for Nokia's flagship?

    Will this phone get WP8? Because Nokia say "Ask MS" and MS say "no comment". So, in other words, no it won't. Seriously - why would anyone buy this *very* expensive phone if it cannot be upgraded? If Apple launched a new iPhone and said "we don't know if you're going to get iOS6" they would be _panned_. And rightly so. I think the fact Nokia themselves cannot answer this question is incredibly sad.

    This is Nokia's flagship device but it simply cannot compete with phones of the same price from the competition. Not even close on hardware specs in some cases.

    I want Nokia to succeed - really - I know good, talented people who work there. But this phone isn't going to save them which begs the question - can they hang on long enough to produce one that can?

    Oh, and figures released today show that WP7 is now the _sixth_ most popular smartphone O/S after Android, iOS, Symbian, RIM and Bada. If there isn't a massive turnaround in fortunes for WP7 then MS won't have any hardware partners left to make any bloody hardware.

    1. Snail

      Re: No WP8 update for Nokia's flagship?

      The WP8 upgrade this is obvious.

      WP7 only supports a couple of chipsets, so you can guarantee Microsoft have the ability to upgrade every single WP7 device.

      The issue is down to manufacturers and telcos. I'd wager Microsoft have the manufacturers on contract, so every phone will be capable of upgrading to WP8.

      The issue was always the telcos. The recent, high selling phones, like the new Nokia's will definitely get WP8. The older, less selling generation 1 devices are a different matter. I bet Microsoft are begging telco's to support W8, and hearing silence.

      Its difficult, because Microsoft could provide a list tomorrow, saying all these phone/telco combinations will be updates to W8, but i bet they can't, as its the actual telcos that are their customer, and Microsoft have enough of a struggle with telcos as it is, annoying them, by exposing their laziness will just mean the telco will just show Microsoft the door.

      Me, i'd happily pay a small fee (IIRC it was about £10 to upgrade iOS) to upgrade my HTC HD7 to W8. I'd be a bit annoyed if it didn't get W8, but then its 2 years old already, out of contract, and i'm waiting for the W8 hardware before upgrading, as at the moment, theres nothing drasticly different between my 2 year old hardware, and todays flagship devices.

  36. RKS
    Alert

    Android/Nokia

    I took the plunge earlier this year to get an Android phone, my E71 being a little too old for good photos and web browsing. My older N95 would have been fine for the former and Opera usually did a good job of the latter.

    Now here is what I found in the last week with Google's OS:

    Can't make SIP calls on 3g without installing a third-party app.

    Can't make a SIP call directly from my contacts unless I first saved an internet number for them - no long press or option menu like my 4 year old phone.

    No option at all to make a SIP call from a manually entered phone number.

    No ability to directly send DTMF of a contact when already in a call - for using local access number of SIP provider when no 3g or wi-fi was available.

    Irrespective of why Android leaves me wondering why I can't do things my old trusty phone could do, can the new WM7 do these things?

    1. Jess

      Re: Android/Nokia

      > can the new WM7 do these things?

      From the comments about lack of multitasking and the silence from the fanboys (WP7 PR agents?) when I raised a similar point earlier, I suspect it can't do SIP in the background at all.

      The best thing I can say about NoWin is that it has bought down the second hand price of the e72 to the point where I am prepared to buy one to play with.

      I was a Nokia user until an insurance replacement gave be a BlackBerry Bold 9700. But I am getting totally sick of the crashes and freezes and the total failure of BlackBerry Internet services to work on wifi out of the UK (obviously imposed) turned me off the system quite badly.

      The BIS deal is no longer looking good enough to put up with all this.

      I was seriously considering an N8 until Nokia killed Symbian's future. (I may get a second hand one, when the price is right.)

      I guess the future (once the second hand Symbian devices are no longer viable) is android.

      (Unless BBX or whatever it is, is a massive turnaround in quality.)

      (BB does SIP very poorly with a 3rd party app though it does integrate OK, and there's no skype at all)

      1. dogged
        Meh

        Re: Android/Nokia

        (WP7 PR agents?)

        If you suspect that people here are paid PR agents, you should report their posts. Don't call it out in the forums because that's against the House Rules and makes you look like Barry Shitpeas, the well-known Sony publicist.

        I suspect it can't do SIP in the background at all.

        You're both right and wrong, interestingly enough. It can do foreground SIP. It can't leave a SIP process running to poll for calls. However, some solutions are more clever than others. Tango, for example, send a push notification of an incoming VOIP call which initiates the VOIP client. A cunning workaround.

        Skype (who aren't SIP but used as an example) aren't bright enough for this, despite being an MS property these days.

        To be frank, nothing in the current market does SIP well (Android and iOS bothy stink at it) but there's Nokia's PureUltraPhotoResolution thing which is Symbian and should cope.

        Best policy right now is to hold off on upgrading for six months. That'll give you iOS6, Android5 JellyBean (apparently) and WP8, as well as whatever RIM can salvage.

        1. Anonymous Coward
          WTF?

          Re: Android/Nokia

          "nothing in the current market does SIP well (Android and iOS bothy stink at it)" - strange, my android phone handles SIP brilliantly either with the inbuilt functionality or via a third party app. Unfortunately, my Lumia doesn't handle it at all...

        2. Jess

          Re: Android/Nokia

          > If you suspect that people here are paid PR agents, you should report their posts.

          It never occurred to me that a paid PR agent would be prohibited from posting.

          (In fact, why should they be? If someone had posted that a Lumia's charge only lasted an hour, why couldn't they counter that it is more like five and a fix is being developed to give a reasonable life?)

          However I don't actually believe they are actual PR agents, a decent PR agent wouldn't appear so troll-like. It did come across, to me, as someone with a vested interest though.

          > It can do foreground SIP. It can't leave a SIP process running to poll for calls. However, some solutions are more clever than others. Tango, for example, send a push notification of an incoming VOIP call which initiates the VOIP client. A cunning workaround.

          Roughly what I thought, the solution the same as used on the old iPhone messenger clients. (It now makes sense why people are saying 2 years behind, and people are calling it a feature phone rather than a smart phone). I assume WP8 won't be as antiquated.

          > To be frank, nothing in the current market does SIP well (Android and iOS bothy stink at it) but there's Nokia's PureUltraPhotoResolution thing which is Symbian and should cope.

          I had a quick play with an HTC that seemed OK, didn't have long enough to confirm, though.

          The Pure thing would be lovely, but a bit pricey, I think I'd prefer to go on holiday somewhere.

          Is the E series completely defunct now?

          > Best policy right now is to hold off on upgrading for six months. That'll give you iOS6, Android5 JellyBean (apparently) and WP8, as well as whatever RIM can salvage.

          The e72 when it arrives might keep me happy for a couple of years. At least it should answer whether to go for Symbian until the bitter end or keep fighting with The BlackBerry for a bit longer.

          (At the very least the e72 should do OK abroad on WiFi.)

          I'm reasonably convinced the longer term future is going to be Android. (Unless BB pull a miracle from their hat with the new OS.) iOS isn't in the picture due to the walled garden. WP (even assuming it gets multitasking, and custom tones :) ) is even further out, for the same reasons, plus the fact that I like Symbian on Nokia, and I will hold a grudge for the way it was killed by WP. (I'm pretty sure I'm not the only one who thinks this way, too.)

          1. dogged

            Re: Android/Nokia

            I'm reasonably convinced the longer term future is going to be Android.

            I hope you're wrong, but not in the obvious way. I'd like to see all the major systems do well. That way lies competition on price and functionality and maybe even interoperability in the longer term.

            I rather hope that Android and WP do better than iOS and RIM though - being stuck in an ecosystem is a bad thing but being tied to a single manufacturer as well is asking for trouble.

  37. Shannon Jacobs
    Holmes

    Does ANYONE believe Microsoft can do anything SMALL?

    Not me, and less so after my sad experiences with an earlier incarnation of Microsoft's small Windows. Can't even remember which name it had at that time. Too bad Microsoft can't get me to forget the rest of it, eh?

    In summary, Microsoft sees the OS as a weapon against competitors, and that's why they HAVE to make everything too big. That mentality has actually been useful in their BIG upstream efforts against the spammers, but in most cases it FAILS. Today's important failures are small phones and downstream efforts against smaller spammers.

    Hey, when you're accustomed to building trench mortars, it's hard to think about flyswatters. How about another another example? Overly BIG thinking is why the Windows 7 WiFi hostednetwork defaults to 100 devices instead of a more realistic 5 or 10.

    1. Jess

      Then again

      It seems Nokia haven't totally killed Symbian yet:

      http://www.phonesreview.co.uk/2012/05/09/nokia-808-pureview-uk-release-confusion/

      (Or meego for that matter)

      Also there seems to be a rumour that WP8 will be better than WP7. (Which is odd, because according to its users WP7 is perfect)

      http://www.phonesreview.co.uk/2012/03/26/nokia-apollo-windows-8-phones-better-than-lumia/

  38. Hubert Thrunge Jr.
    Linux

    I'll stick with my "burning platform" phone with it's 1Gb of RAM and 64Gb of mass memory. I like the little flap over the micro usb, it keeps the crap out of the connector (we don't all live in cleanroom environments like some of you!). And I have a car dock for it - it slides UP into it and stays in place (made by Brodit).

    It multi-tasks quite happily with it's puny single core processor, with apps running in the background - not stalled waiting to return to the foreground.

    OK the app store isn't very volumous in it's offering, but I already have everything I need on the phone - the ability to make and receive t-e-l-e-p-h-o-n-e calls, to send and receive text and multi-media messages, to send and receive emails, to do a bit of web surfing - watching FLASH as well as HTML5 content. The only thing that peevs me about it is the sync app with the computer - since Elop ordered that it was not to be supported by the great Nokia Suite app, I have to use Nokia Link - which works well, but isn't as good because they have stifled the bluetooth sync from the PC end (it's in the phone).

    And I have a game of throwing avian projectiles at swine.

    My verdict on the Lumia 900 is "Elop is still Bill Gates' bitch" It still looks like "My First Smartphone" with those crap tiles, and WHY does it need a "home" button, in fact why do you need any more buttons other than the hardware on/off, and volume? It's got a touchscreen FFS, put the controls on that!

  39. Plinkerton

    My god.

    That sounded like a positive review! From El Reg no less! Then sadly followed by the usual dross in the comments.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Windows

      Re: My god.

      You're right, the usual tripe from the softies, accusing anyone who points the inadequacies of WP7 of never having used it is getting very long in the tooth.

      I just don't understand why you are amazed with a positive review of a WP featurephone. The reg has always given way more credit to WP7 than the market and the users.

  40. marc 9
    WTF?

    Who give's a **** about the number of cores?

    Android only needs 4 cores to run fast because it's so slow and bloated - seriously, we use these devices to check Facebook, not to render the next Toy Story.

    Windows Phone is more like a sports motorbike, with Android being a big fat, gas guzzeling 4x4. The bike's engine will be far smaller, but it will no doubt accelerate more quickly, and have a higher top speed than the wagon.

    We should be judging devices based on how well they perform, not on the numbers.

    Also lack of SD card is a GOOD thing. Users don't want to have to decide where to install apps, or even think about that sort of thing. It adds too much unwanted complexity. Microsoft's motto here, quite rightly is KISS - "Keep it simple, stupid".

    1. hplasm
      FAIL

      Re: Who give's a **** about the number of cores?

      "Actually these cheap knock-off trainers I'm wearing are technically better for your feet than the expensive ones,that's the main reason I wear them...And the sweatshop pays an extra 2c per week to the children that sew them up"

      Excuses,excuses.

    2. AB
      Trollface

      @marc 9

      "Also lack of SD card is a GOOD thing. Users don't want to have to decide..."

      etc. etc.

      Are you sure you'd not be happier with an iPhone?

  41. gruffrey
    Alert

    710 owner - previously posted these problems but here I go again...

    The ui problems, not sd cards or cores etc, make these a dog of a phone:

    - Inbox - unread emails have a blue subject (or whatever you have chosen as the highlight colour), but open any email and the subject is then always in blue... So you cannot tell if you have read an email or not. A real problem when you use the next back buttons to move through a thread. It's inconsistent and bad design.

    - For some reason the onscreen keyboard is not as accurate as an iPhone or Android phone - weird as the keys themselves are the exact same size. I have many more incorrect key preses than on my wife's iPhone.

    - Only the top power button wakes the phone even though there are three front buttons. Finding the damn thing is sometimes (holding a fag or coffee) a real pain in the arse. I am left handed which doesn't help.

    - Off centre tiles - just to show a small arrow... Stupid, looks ugly

    - Unable to reorder app list - The Guardian under T not G ... Irritating

    - Terrible spell checker and an even worse editing interface. It's impossible to correct a text without the text swooshing up and down and up and down as you try to position the cursor.

    - boring live tiles ... What's the point if they impart so little info and take up so much space. 8 to view!

    - telephone numbers too small in the addess book to read out if you need to give someone another persons contact number. I'm 40 and my eyesight's going so 7 point numbers under an 18pt heading 'call mobile' is rotten.

    - a back button that has a mind of its own. You have cannot tell if it will take you out of the app or back on a web page, depends on if you have hit home at some point making the browser extremely frustrating.

    - too easy to accidentally put on silent

    - bing - bollocks. I know you can use Google but the default is double shit. And it gets it's own button... I could go on (as I already have) but for the love of god I feel like a beta tester for MS.

    They are all pretty minor irritations but after 3 months of having the phone I go around telling everyone not to go near them. A 24 month contract is a long time to be with a phone that has so many bad points that even more irritatingly could be fixed, but with 8 coming so soon you know will not. Some bits are great, but not enough of them. As 'just a phone' they are ok, but compared to the competition they're 2 years behind and I really can't see them catching up before Nokia goes tits up.

  42. Darren Barratt
    Facepalm

    Been on a windows phone for over a year now (HTC HD7) and I've had no problems. Upgraded from an iphone 3gs.

    For me, my windows phone feels more like a comunications device with media things included, rather than the other way around for the iphone. That was effectivly an MP3 player with a phone tacked to it. Unless something remarkable happens, I'll be staying with Windows for my next phone

    Recently taken another bite of the apple with my first ipad. Lovely screen, but I can't get used to how disorganised it feels. Even after stacking my apps in folders I struggle to find things. Having to resort to search each time is not good.

    As well as that, my phone recovered from a trip though the washing machine with no decernable damage after it'd dried off (so obviously WP7 is better ;))

  43. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    One of the reasons to dislike Windows, amongst many...

    is that they are now flogging the benefits of an OS tightly coupled with the hardware so that they can run an OS with less driver bloat and integration issues than Android.... Now, after they have made a fortune and dominated the PC industry running a hugely bloated desktop OSs with more security flaws, firmware issues and driver mishaps than you can count..... Apple and the Unix server vendors have been talking about the benefits of tightly coupled hardware for a generation and MS could not have been less interested because they had all of the PC hardware manufacturers pushing their OS.... Now that only one, for all intents and purposes, hardware manufacturer took the payola to run WinPho they are talking about tight hardware OS integration like they discovered something new.

  44. Darren Barratt
    Gimp

    @ac

    "Grrr, I hate company X for doing a thing. Now I hate company X for not doing that thing in different circumstances....I DEMAND COMPANY X VALIDATES MY PREJUDICE!!!1"

    That's you that is.

  45. johnh3

    Windows Phone apps.

    I dont know why the apps always be a subject? Windows Phone marketplace have reach 90.000:

    http://allaboutwindowsphone.com/news/item/14819_Windows_Phone_Marketplace_pass.php

    I have a Nokia Lumia 800 and are happy with it. And I am a previous Android user.

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