lumia – Terence Eden’s Blog

The Perfect Phone

@edent — Fri, 02 Dec 2011 19:39:36 +0000

After the disaster that was my experience with the Nokia Lumia and the rather underwhelming time I had with the BlackBerry Torch, I've been thinking a lot about what my perfect phone would be.

I think I've found it...

My Photoshop skills are legendary!

Here are the things that I want - no one platform covers them all, so I've nicked the best bits from each.

Blackberry

Here's what BlackBerry provides that is missing on other phones.

Physical Keyboard

This is the big one. I've tried all of the touchscreen keyboards out there - nothing comes close to the physical click of keys.

I'm aware of a few Androids which have a keyboard - but they tend to be older models or underpowered and aimed at the teenage text market. The Dell WP7 phone has a keyboard, but appears to have been abandoned by Dell.

Start up speed.

You never really switch a BB off, it just sleeps. That gives it a phenomenal start-up speed. When you shut it down, it also tells you when it's planning to wake up - either due to an alarm, calendar, or because you set an "auto on" timer.

WP7 does have a very fast boot time - much speedier than that of Android. But there's no auto-on / auto-off feature.

Deep Twitter Integration

I can't believe no other phone has this. If I receive an email which contains a hashtag or @name, I can click on it and my Twitter client opens up. Same in calendar, documents, and (ISTR) web pages. Even if the text isn't linked it was clickable.

Spell Cheque & Auto Text

Spell checking is available on WP7 - but not to the same degree as BlackBerry. The auto-text feature on BB is brilliant, I can type a short code and text is automatically filled.

dt - prints the current time & date, perfect for note taking
sig - prints my standard contact details
ht - (one I created) prints the hashtag of the event I'm following

Android

Android is my main device. It's not without its deficiencies - but here are the bits I wish others would copy.

Time of Day Email

Perhaps the best feature of the Samsung Galaxy S - and not something I've seen elsewhere. I can set a peak and off-peak schedule for my work email.

At 1800 during the week I stop getting work email - and it all comes through at 0800 the next morning. During the weekend, I get no work email. This is one of the major features which keeps me on Android.

FLAC and OGG

I've ripped all my CDs to FLAC. I hate the fact that I have to transcode all my music in order to listen to it on a portable device. All the high end Android phones I've tried play FLAC natively.

Open

I like the fact that I'm not tied down by the operating system. If I want to replace the lock screen, the email client, the web browser, I can. And I do.

If the device manufacturer abandons my phone, there's a huge hacker community who can keep it running.

WP7

I've not had the greatest success with a Windows Phone - but there are some elements that I love.

Interface

The Metro Interface is amazing. It's fast and fluid and generally really well laid out.

Camera

I found the camera to be very responsive - both at focussing and snapping. The integrated QR scanner was also a cut above the rest.

iOS

Media hype / Coolness

It's a little depressing that all the media and developer attention is focussed on a minority platform like iPhone. Just for once, I'd like a cool game like Whale Trail to come out first on something other than iOS.

Misc

Lanyard hook. Ever since smashing my BlackBerry, I've worn a lanyard strap.
Front facing camera. I'm the only one I know who likes video calling.
Trackpad. Even the best touch screen can't get the fine grained accuracy of a touch pad.
Removable storage. I like being able to choose how much I carry with me.
Mass storage. I'm not always at a computer where I can install "media transfer" software. I just want to be able to plug in a USB lead and copy what I need.
Call recording. Must admit - never had a phone that can easily do this. Always wanted it though!
Removable battery. When the going gets tough, I don't want to have to be chained to a wall-wart. The ability to buy higher capacity batteries is also handy.

What Hath Thou Wrought?

Essentially, I've created Homer's Car - a monstrosity no one other than me could love.

So, tell me what would be in your perfect phone?

Lumia Review

@edent — Fri, 02 Dec 2011 09:52:44 +0000

It was the best of phones - it was the worst of phones...

I want to start this review by saying three things:

I got this phone for free - thanks Nokia!
I'm an extremely demanding mobile user. I recognise that I am an edge-case; what I find annoying, you may not.
I've tried to stick to actual bugs, not just "it does things differently."

Sergeant Elop's Lonely Phone Club

Imagine, of you will, you have just purchased a brand new copy of Sgt Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band on vinyl.

It is beautifully designed, an astonishing work of art. You play side one and it is sublime - perhaps the perfect start to any album.

The you flip the disc to side two - and it's Justin Bieber. A screeching, horrible, tune free noise that damages your calm and makes you want to smash your stereo.

That's the Lumia 800 from Nokia. It's Finland's first Windows Phone 7. It's beautiful and infuriating in equal measure.

The Good

There is much to praise the Lumia - and WP7 - for. So much potential - and nearly all of it squandered. But, we'll get to that... Let's start with what I love.

Beauty Is Skin Deep

The phone is gorgeous. Like a futuristic pop-tart. Sleek, shiny, and midnight black. It pulls off the incredible feat of being discreet and eye catching. A pure monoblock. As enigmatic and attractive as the monolith from 2001.

There's just one problem. We're in 2011.

A Brand New Operating System

Windows Phone 7 is different from all other phone operating systems before it. Sure, it has icons, widgets, lists, long presses, swipes, and ... you know what? It isn't different. It isn't a new paradigm. What it is, is gorgeous.

It's a sparse and elegant experience. Fast and user friendly.

The "Metro UI" is really easy to use, gentle on the eye, and a clever way to organise a phone.

Speed Demon

This is one of the fastest phones I've used. It's startup speed rivals that of BlackBerry. In day to day usage, I never found that it stuttered or slowed down - even while having several apps open at once.

Our Friends Connected

You can add in all your disparate social networks into your phone book. So, when you look up a contact, you can easily see their last status message, their Facebook photos etc.

Just like Vodafone 360 did years ago...

But, unlike 360, it works really well. It seemed to match up all my Twitter, Facebook, and address book friends without hassle.

Getting The Basics Right

Call quality was excellent. Good speaker phone. Fine reception. Basically, it works as a phone.

The camera is quick to focus and produces outstanding images.

Ok... ok... If you want to use it as a basic smartphone, the Lumia will do you fine. It browses the web, plays music, links all your social networks together, and looks beautiful while doing so.

It is basically fine - until you scratch beneath the surface.

The Bad

I thought that the Nokia N8 was the worst phone ever made by Nokia. The Lumia may come a close second.

I've been posting a running commentary on Twitter of all the niggles I have with the Lumia.

Here are the highlights - and slightly more in depth explanations - of every bug and annoyance I found. I have suffered, so that you may not.

Let's start off with a gentle one...

For a very modern operating system, WP7 has a fondness for outdated UI elements. I can't think of the last time I used a floppy disk.

That was the warm up. What would you say to a phone that you can't switch off?

I have since discovered that this only happens when the phone is plugged in. Maybe I'm unusual but, before going to bed, I switch off my phone and let it charge overnight. I've had several WP7 fans say that I should switch my phone on to flight mode (go in to settings, scroll through) or switch my phone on to silent if I don't want to be disturbed during the night.

There's just two problems with that. Firstly - why doesn't the phone tell me that I can't switch it off? Secondly - it's impossible to switch the phone on to silent.

Silence Is Golden

This may fall under the "just how I am used to it" school of errors, but bear me out. On every phone I've owned I've had three sound profiles that I can toggle through.

Ring and vibrate - what the phone is normally set to.
Vibrate - when I want to be notified, but having a loud ring isn't appropriate.
Silent - I don't want to be notified (I'm in a meeting).

With the Lumia, I can toggle between Ring+Vibrate and Vibrate. There's no way to get the phone to go silent without diving through a maze of menus.

In fairness, this is a problem which has affected recent Android phones - but there are multiple (free) widgets which solve it.

Screen Issues

The screen on the Lumia is a mixed bag. When it's displaying white text on a pure black background, it's perfect. When there's a white background, the screen seems - to me - to have lots of artefacts on it. The Lumia's screen is at its worst when dealing with greys, and solid blogs of colours. It suffers from lots of vertical banding which is really quite unpleasant.

I've scanned in the screen looking at a fairly normal grey image. While the scanner has overemphasised the problem (and my greasy finger prints!) you should be able to get an idea of how the problem manifests.

Browser Bugbears

Internet Explorer is a reasonable browser - but very buggy.

The URL bar keeps disappearing. I've had this a couple of times. The URL bar just vanishes when you're using the web. As far as I can tell, there's no way to bring it back.

The scrolling for the web browser sometimes stops responding.

Meeting You, Meeting Me

It's really hard to accept meeting invites on the Lumia. On my Exchange email, it works perfectly. For some Gmail invites, I have to click a link and go to Google Calendar on the web. The Lumia doesn't recognise .ics files - so there's no way the email client can talk to the calendar.

But, worse is to come. I asked someone at Microsoft to send me a meeting invite to my Gmail account. While the invite worked fine on the web, the Lumia gave me literally no way to answer the meeting invite - as this video demonstrates.

Crapware

This is Nokia's flagship phone - so you think they would have taken more care with it, wouldn't you? As well as a buggy OS, they've filled it with... let's just say "non-premium" apps.

Some apps, like this one from BA, need updating as soon as you switch on the phone. Sadly, you can't click a button to update - you have to go into the app store.

The greatest opprobrium is reserved for TripAdvisor. I know that deals like this take a lot of time and money to organise - but they really could have done better than this pathetic effort.

Still, at least they let you easily uninstall the bloat.

Things Go Better When We're Together

Microsoft may - or may not - be buying Nokia. One thing is for sure, they're working closely together. What's weird is why they've decided to duplicate some of the services on the phone.

I'm all for customer choice - but here, it just seems confusing.

Finally, Nokia seems to have its own app store. Once again, we see just how little Nokia care for UX.

Paperback Writer

The keyboard is a very strange beast. It's mostly fine, but has some oddities.

Weirdly, the word "Lumia" isn't in the Lumia's dictionary. So there's a little red squiggle ever time you write it. Or other common words.

That said - the in-line spell check is very nice. I miss it on my Android - I think I first saw it on the BlackBerry many years ago.

My Baby's Got Me Wrapped Up In Chains

We're living in a post-PC age. Unless you're Microsoft. You have to connect to a Windows PC to update software, copy across music and videos, change the BlueTooth name of the device, or even subscribe to podcasts.

What's worse, is you have to install the Zune software if you want to get music or photos off the device. You can't send via Bluetooth, you can't just shove in a USB cable and drag them off. You have to install the 100MB behemoth that is Zune, restart your PC several times, fire up the software, wait for it to detect your phone, then let it sync before you can get your photos out.

Of course, you could email your photos off the phone - but the UI for that is terrible. There's no way to select multiple images, so you have to attach each one individually.

It seems that any time you want to do something to your phone, you have to connect it to a PC running Windows.

Let's Talk About Text, Baby

Do you ever use read receipts for SMS? Perfect for seeing when someone has received your message. In every other phone on the planet, the read receipt is integrated in to the SMS app - so you can see at a glance which messages have been received.

With WP7, you get a long list of phone numbers which have received a message. It doesn't even do the simple task of showing you the name of your contact.

No Thanks

I hope that what I've shown you is a litany of bugs, errors, gotchas, and foul ups. I don't think any of the points I've raised are unfair. I like to think that I judge other phones just as harshly - see my treatment of BlackBerry and of iPhone and of Android.

I know this is a brand new OS - but you don't get credit for trying.

If you are prepared to stay in the walled garden, and put up with the bugs, the Lumia is a decent device. But there are devices which do more, cost less, and have more apps on them.

I'm not giving up on Windows Phone 7. It is still a work in progress. There is a great deal of potential here - and I look forward to seeing what the future brings.

For now though, avoid the Lumia. Wait until Microsoft fixes the bugs and until Nokia decides release a phone that they are happy with. Because, honestly, I don't think anyone at Nokia can believe this is the best that they can do.