I’ve had the Nokia Lumia 920 for three weeks and there have certainly be a some highlights of using the Windows Phone 8 system. Here are some of my final thoughts about the device.
The device is too big. Measuring at 70.8mm wide by 130.3mm tall and with a 4.5″ screen, the device as a whole was just too big for me, even with my large hands! My family and girlfriend held the device and it was too big for them as well. I’m used to being able to used a phone with one hand. With my HTC Wildfire S and Apply iPod Touch (4th Gen) I can do this easily and I rarely encounter any issues. However I regularly end up touching the back and search buttons with the palm of my hands as I reach across to the screen with my thumbs.
I wouldn’t mind hitting the back button by accident if the apps within WP8 saved drafts. The text message and Twitter apps don’t save drafts if you accidentally leave the app half way through typing a message. This annoyed me a fair amount and would be something that I miss from iOS and Android.
On the subject of buttons and doing things accidentally, the keyboard layout wasn’t quite what I expected. I would often type a comma instead of a space in the middle or end of a sentence. I expected the space bar to be slightly wider. I’m not the only one to experience this inconvenience, as my girlfriend also comes across that issue on her Nokia Lumia 800.
On my three other posts during my trial, I have also commented about some great features like the camera and video and also the way it integrates easily with Facebook and Twitter. Here are the other posts:
- Plug Me In and The Whole 8.7 Megapixels
- Nokia Lumia 920 – Blueteeth and Screenshots
- My Nokia Lumia 920 Trial – Getting to know each other
To summarise, my favourite features are the camera, speed, general interface and it’s general ease of use.
I’ve spoken previously about how the app store needs to mature and some apps are missing completely (Instagram), however one app in particular has caught my eye recently thanks to a recommendation from my girlfriend: Wordament.
Wordament is a word game, built by Microsoft itself. It feels like it’s been designed exclusively for WP8 and Windows 8 as it makes use of the tiles look for throughout the entire application. It’s very quick and integrates fantastically with Xbox Live. It’s quick and easy to understand and is one of the best apps I found in the Windows Phone Store. But Wordament isn’t exclusive to WP; it’s also available on iOS devices. However after playing it on my iPod Touch, it certainly needs smoothing out on iOS and is much better on a Windows Phone.
I’ve raved so much about the camera and here are some of the final shots I took with the Lumia.
Overall the Nokia Lumia 920 is a fantastic phone and is solidly made. However there are still bugs to be ironed out of Windows Phone 8. At the moment I wouldn’t buy one, mainly because some of the apps I’ve come to love on Android and iOS just aren’t present in the Windows Phone Store.
The Nokia Lumia 920 was on trial from the Nokia Conversations ‘Trial A Nokia’ scheme.