From Android to Windows Phone
After watching the battery on my Samsung Galaxy S3 run down to perhaps 20% by late evening without actively using itto do anything a few days ago, I finally snapped. Yesterday lunchtime I walked into our local mobile phone store, put the S3 on the counter, and asked “how much will you part exchange this for?”.
Ten minutes later I left the store with a Nokia Lumia 630 Windows Phone. It's costnewwas 20% of the cost of the Samsung Galaxy S3. The store clerk seemed interested in why I was switching.“I bought my eldest daughter a Nokia Lumia 520 last year, and was massively impressedjust how fast it is at the core functions, and how good the battery life is”.
He agreedfor good reason. When Microsoft builtWindows Phone, they didn't so start with a clean slatethey started with a clean slate 3 times. Remember Windows Phone 7? Then 8? Now 8.1? Each iteration has been a significant change to the platform, and is only starting to stabilise now. I have jumped in at the bottom end of the range with an inexpensive phone that's ridiculously fast, and lasts for DAYS on battery. I plugged my existing SIM into it, and walked out of the shop, configuring it as I wandered down the street towards home.
I would love to say the whole experience was flawless, but it wasn't. After finishingwork yesterday evening I started playing with the phoneconfiguring social networks and so onand hit problem after problem. Things that should have “just worked” didn't. Finally, at maybe 10pm I downloaded the dangerous sounding “Nokia Recovery Tool” onto the desktop computer, and clicked “Go”. An hour later (after downloading the latest, greatest version of the phone's operating system and firmware), I had a phone that worked perfectlyas it always should have.
Today has been a reminder of how well mobile phonesshould workit hasn't been on charge since early evening yesterday, and despite me continually tinkering with it,the battery level is still at 70%. The S3 would have been dead this morning.
After arriving in the office this morning I showed it to a few co-workers, and they had the same reaction as me when they saw how smooth and fast the user interface is for core functions. Navigating to the contact list, and starting a phone call have always been a bugbear for mewith both Android and iOS (yes, I've had both, several times)there would always be pregnant pauses while the phone first pulled up the contacts, then lumbered towards making the phone call.
It's not all sunshine and rainbows thoughbecause I've bought a low-end handset, the camera is nowhere near as good as the S3, or any “higher end” phone camera. That's not such a bad thing though; it will encourage me to carry a proper camera, and use it to take considered, framed shots, instead of “snaps” with the phone. I did photography at college, and miss the control, quality, saturation, and sharpness of photos taken with a real camera.
It's still early days with the phoneand the Microsoft ecosystem (I've switched to Outlook.com for email too), but the first signs are that I won't be buying another monster “phablet” phone in a hurry.