[mjp27]

Hi all, I played with the Nokia Lumia 900 at a shop here in Singapore (the Lumia 920 isn't here yet), and the build quality is amazing. Windows Phone 7.5 is actually not bad.

Has anyone used the Lumia 900/920 extensively? How does it compare to a BlackBerry for overall usage, battery life, emails & notes?

Thanks,
Mark

Sent from my BlackBerry 9810 using Tapatalk

[Alex_Hong]

Hi all, I played with the Nokia Lumia 900 at a shop here in Singapore (the Lumia 920 isn't here yet), and the build quality is amazing. Windows Phone 7.5 is actually not bad.

Has anyone used the Lumia 900/920 extensively? How does it compare to a BlackBerry for overall usage, battery life, emails & notes?

Thanks,
Mark

Sent from my BlackBerry 9810 using Tapatalk

I do not have the Lumia 900, but I have a Lumia 800 that I have been using for quite a while.

Emails and notes, its pretty similar to iOS, if you're using gmail like i am, emails are instant as well. I'm not sure what type of notes you're talking about but i use onenote and its pretty good. Or you can go for 3rd party apps and pin notes to the live tiles.

Battery life is decent, but with some tweaks to the settings. But in comparison to BlackBerry devices, its not as good. Any of my BBOS 7 devices that I've used are able to last 1 day of heavy use juice left at the end of the day, even full touch screen devices like the 9860. Whereas on the Lumia 800, I would be precariously close to emptying my battery at the end of the day, and this is with turning off auto updates on live tiles, facebook, twitter, etc. Sometimes even have to go back to manually fetching mails to save battery. I'm guessing BB tend to have better battery life because of BIS push notifications. But of course the battery is bigger on the 900/920, so it might be better than what i've experienced.

Personally for overall usage, the OS is smooth and fluid. Showing little to no lag. But app ecosystem is still a little lacking imo. Though there are tons of apps that are pretty useful as well. The 2 apps that I personally use the most on any platform are Whatsapp and Tapatalk. But are very frustrating on WP7.5. Whatsapp takes much longer to launch compared to even my OS Curve 8520. The tapatalk app, called Board Express on WP is very buggy and laggy, and the developer seem to not care much for improving its performance. Both which i hope will be improved with WP8.

The OS is exceedingly clean and pretty imo, and with WP8's resizable tiles, it will be even better. But one thing that bugs me is the lack of notification system, with only a simple number indicating the number of unread items. This mean that if you have a missed call, new sms, new whatsapp msg, and email, you need to open 4 separate app to check everything. Whereas on BB you can have everything in one unified inbox. Which saves lots of time. Settings are a little obscure as well, if you want to turn wi-fi, tethering, bluetooth, etc, you need to find it in the settings which is cumbersome, but there are 3rd party apps available that allows you to place shortcuts on the homescreen too, which helps, but still is a little annoying.

Then my favourite feature is the integration of social media on the OS itself. Take facebook for example, your photos albums on your facebook will be populated in the native photos app once you log in facebook on your phone. You can even browse your friends' photos too, all within the native photos app.

I know its a little long winded to read, but these are just my observations on the platform based on my usage pattern. Yours i'm sure will be different from mine. Overall the phone is a pleasure to use, the only reason i still use my BB more is because of the reasons mentioned above. If not I would just use my Lumia as my daily driver. If those does not concern you, you would love the phone. The polycarbonate on the Lumia 800/900/920 is very durable, I've dropped mine a few times and it survived with only some very minor dents on the corners. The phone might be a little heavy though. Lastly the design on the Lumia 920 is just stunning in my opinion. Of course there are new things in WP8 as well, which i think most of us still don't have the opportunity to try yet.

If you're based in singapore, i suggest checking out hardwarezone forums, there's a wp users section and there's ongoing discussions over the 920, and plenty of helpful users there too.

Of course, you should ask this at the WPCentral forums, there's discussions over there from users who have switched from a BlackBerry over to a Windows Phone as well, so you can see what their opinion is too.

[mjp27]

Thanks, I am based in SG. Will check it out.

Sent from my BlackBerry 9810 using Tapatalk

[mjp27]

I do not have the Lumia 900, but I have a Lumia 800 that I have been using for quite a while.

Emails and notes, its pretty similar to iOS, if you're using gmail like i am, emails are instant as well. I'm not sure what type of notes you're talking about but i use onenote and its pretty good. Or you can go for 3rd party apps and pin notes to the live tiles.

Battery life is decent, but with some tweaks to the settings. But in comparison to BlackBerry devices, its not as good. Any of my BBOS 7 devices that I've used are able to last 1 day of heavy use juice left at the end of the day, even full touch screen devices like the 9860. Whereas on the Lumia 800, I would be precariously close to emptying my battery at the end of the day, and this is with turning off auto updates on live tiles, facebook, twitter, etc. Sometimes even have to go back to manually fetching mails to save battery. I'm guessing BB tend to have better battery life because of BIS push notifications. But of course the battery is bigger on the 900/920, so it might be better than what i've experienced.

Personally for overall usage, the OS is smooth and fluid. Showing little to no lag. But app ecosystem is still a little lacking imo. Though there are tons of apps that are pretty useful as well. The 2 apps that I personally use the most on any platform are Whatsapp and Tapatalk. But are very frustrating on WP7.5. Whatsapp takes much longer to launch compared to even my OS Curve 8520. The tapatalk app, called Board Express on WP is very buggy and laggy, and the developer seem to not care much for improving its performance. Both which i hope will be improved with WP8.

The OS is exceedingly clean and pretty imo, and with WP8's resizable tiles, it will be even better. But one thing that bugs me is the lack of notification system, with only a simple number indicating the number of unread items. This mean that if you have a missed call, new sms, new whatsapp msg, and email, you need to open 4 separate app to check everything. Whereas on BB you can have everything in one unified inbox. Which saves lots of time. Settings are a little obscure as well, if you want to turn wi-fi, tethering, bluetooth, etc, you need to find it in the settings which is cumbersome, but there are 3rd party apps available that allows you to place shortcuts on the homescreen too, which helps, but still is a little annoying.

Then my favourite feature is the integration of social media on the OS itself. Take facebook for example, your photos albums on your facebook will be populated in the native photos app once you log in facebook on your phone. You can even browse your friends' photos too, all within the native photos app.

I know its a little long winded to read, but these are just my observations on the platform based on my usage pattern. Yours i'm sure will be different from mine. Overall the phone is a pleasure to use, the only reason i still use my BB more is because of the reasons mentioned above. If not I would just use my Lumia as my daily driver. If those does not concern you, you would love the phone. The polycarbonate on the Lumia 800/900/920 is very durable, I've dropped mine a few times and it survived with only some very minor dents on the corners. The phone might be a little heavy though. Lastly the design on the Lumia 920 is just stunning in my opinion. Of course there are new things in WP8 as well, which i think most of us still don't have the opportunity to try yet.

If you're based in singapore, i suggest checking out hardwarezone forums, there's a wp users section and there's ongoing discussions over the 920, and plenty of helpful users there too.

Of course, you should ask this at the WPCentral forums, there's discussions over there from users who have switched from a BlackBerry over to a Windows Phone as well, so you can see what their opinion is too.

Thanks for the detailed post. I'm concerned with notifications, primarily. Guess I have to test WP8 and compare it with BB10 when that is here in Q1. Thanks again!


Sent from my BlackBerry 9810 using Tapatalk