1. grahamf's Avatar
    I have multiple times stated that I will stay with my Z30 until it is no longer supported or it broke, and now that statement is being put to the test.

    A couple days ago I had dropped my phone on concrete, and although it did not damage the exterior it somehow broke the LCD, leaving it off save for a few lines that terminate at the crack. I had called Blackberry and they sent me a box to send to them for a warranty repair, which will be done in a couple weeks or so - unless the damage is worse than I thought or the warranty somehow became void.

    In the meantime I had picked up a prepaid Microsoft Lumina 435 for $72 and popped my Koodo SIM card in it. I had been looking at Windows Phone as a potential backup plan as I strongly disagree with the design and support philosophies of Apple and Google, and I found this phone when I was actually looking for a $200 Telus model (Telus locked phones work on Koodo).

    So far I have it set up with all my accounts on it and am pretty happy with it. For $72 it's actually a pretty capable and speedy phone, and I do believe I can recorded it to others. But there are some things that are dramatically different that I have to get used to:

    1. No sound profiles. I use Bedside Mode all the time on my Blackberry, and WP8.1 doesn't even have profiles. It has a "Quiet time" mode that would enable automatically, but it even mutes phone calls. I work nightshift so I do need to be alerted to calls. Quiet time will allow people that call more than two times in three minutes to break through, but not very many people will do that.

    2. Switching between apps is pretty invisible, and frequent. In BB10 The animation makes it clear when a link had popped you to a different app, but WP will simply jump you over. So If I'm browsing the web and want to google bing something, typing the search terms into the address bar will switch you over to the search app as opposed to bringing you the bing search page. Or if I'm in settings and want to change something, it'll transparently hop me to a utility app, giving me the "resuming app" when I go back.

    3. Systemwide back button. Coming from a Blackberry 10 device, I have little familiarity with the concept of a back button. And to make matters worse, It works different than even BB7. In BB7 you go back-back-back-quit in an app, but using the back button in WP will actually hop you to a previously used app. So if I had hopped around a bit pressing the back button would actually do this: webpage -> previous webpage -> search -> different webpage -> different previous webpage -> another different previous webpage -> start screen -> camera -> camera roll -> start screen. It's confusing as hell especially as I don't always remember what I was doing last. Holding down the back button pulls up what looks like all running apps that ca be closed, but there can be multiple different instances of some apps such as search or web browser.

    4. the interface is different. I think Blackberry is pretty good at making it easy to view content and locate navigation and icons. WP seems to use significantly larger fonts and minimal visual cues in comparison. A prime example of this is the email app, which does away completely with lines dividing the individual emails and simply has another line break.

    In the end, it is a pretty decent device. I don't fully understand it, but nothing stands out as being a really stupid design, and the things that do come up are more or less unfamiliar implementations that in the end are pretty decent once you get used to them. If I get my Blackberry back I will keep this as an emergency phone for me and my mom on Telus, and to try out the WP10 preview. I have to see how the next couple weeks go if I start having Blackberry withdrawal symptoms or not. I am using this time to fix the messes with my contacts and music (Blackberry doesn't sync contacts with outlook, which i want to make the primary contacts archive as I've lost my blackberry contacts a few times now; and my music is a mess with three similar copies of the library having been merged). Plus there's a chance (if small) that my Blackberry cannot be fixed under warranty and I may not be able to afford to repair it, In which case it's possible I might move to WP completely.
    06-24-15 04:09 PM
  2. grover5's Avatar
    Best of luck OP. I hope whichever device you end up with works well for you. I'm curious to see windows 10 when it officially rolls out.

    Posted via the CrackBerry App for Android
    06-24-15 04:22 PM
  3. grahamf's Avatar
    Update: I'll be back on Thursday

    Blackberry had just called me a few minutes ago, telling me my Z30 has been fixed and that it is expected to arrive via Fedex on Thursday (a bit faster than expected). I will be popping my SIM and memory card into it as soon as I get it, and will return the Lumina as it is still in the return period. The Lumina is a pretty good phone, but it's simply in a different class compared to the flagship Z30. I have enjoyed my time on Windows Phone (and had finally gotten my music and contacts sorted out), but I do find myself missing little random things (and I just don't care for the back button's implementation). I can see WP fixing most of my niggles as it matures, but in the end I don't need a random phone kicking around.
    06-30-15 04:00 PM
  4. grahamf's Avatar
    Hopefully today. I had to send it back because it for some reason wouldn't recognize any SIM cards. This time I will be doing a complete BBVE test before setting up the phone.
    07-13-15 10:42 AM

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