My initials impressions of Lumia 920 after four days of usage

biostud

Lifer
Feb 27, 2003
19,846
6,932
136
This is a personal subjective review, so I won’t try to be objective :)

Background for buying a smart phone

This is my first smartphone (and I’ve never been into cell phones) ever so I only have very limited experience with iOS and android, and therefore I don’t have any special apps I need. On the other hand I use office and Skydrive a lot in my work, so that’s some “apps” I really would like to keep. The reasons I finally decided to buy a smart phone are: My pocket camera got stolen last summer, so I needed a new one and my ipod nano ended up in my washing machine, so I also needed a new one, so my thought was now is the time to get a smart phone. While Apple makes some spectacular devices, I’ve never really liked company and hype around it, and the Android devices I’ve seen feels very bland. They have all the right specs, but they just feel “soulless”. I’ve been lurking on the windows phone, but for a long time the OS has gotten horrid reviews, so with the arrival of windows 8 + windows phone 8, I could finally see a mobile ecosystem that met my needs. Since it was going to replace my pocket camera I wanted the best camera, Lumia 920 soon was on my shortlist. The other phones I considered was the HTX 8X and Lumia 820. The Nokia apps swayed me to go for a Nokia phone and the best camera was the 920. The only concern was the weight but that was something I was willing to live with. So I bought the yellow 920 as I like colors.

Impressions

Looks and feel:
I think it’s a really good looking phone and it fits my hand fine, but it’s a bit heavy. While it’s made of polycarbonate (a fancy word for plastic), it feels really solid and well built.

Camera:
I’ve never been that impressed with mobile cameras, and I’m not blown away by the lumia 920 camera. It’s probably a really good mobile camera, but I’m spoiled by using a Nikon D5000/D5100 as primary camera for the last couple of years and they are just not in the same league. The good thing is of course that I have the Lumia 920 with me all the time. I haven’t really played that much with the camera, and there should be an update on the way that would increase sharpness of pictures. Maybe I just need to play with it some more.

Sample pics:
https://skydrive.live.com/embed?cid...91768BA63C166C2B!3537&authkey=AEd4z_bvN-Hk8U0

Music and podcasts:
It was very easy to transfer my mp3’s to my phone, and I always listen to albums, so I don’t need to make playlists. It works fine as a mp3 player. I didn’t like the ear phones shipping with the lumia, but I have my own I use so that’s no problem. I listen to a lot of podcasts from Danish Radio, and I used itunes to sync to my ipod nano. I tried different apps, and ended up buying podcatcher (my first bought app) as it would auto download new podcasts to the phone when they became available, and the phone is on a wi-fi network. For some reason the phone needs to be attached to an external power supply while doing so, which is a wp8 requirement I find pretty stupid. This should be optional.

Browsing:
I use UC browser as my primary and IE as secondary, but I would REALLY like firefox for wp8 . My biggest problem is learning to use a touch screen and hitting the correct letters and links. I’m really slow compared to using a PC…

Wp8:
After getting used to a new OS, the tiles and live tiles and how you arrange everything, multi task, I find that it is pretty logical and works really well is, and I don’t get any surprises. I haven’t experienced any crashes or freezing or similar.

Battery and connection:
Can’t really comment on, since I’ve been at home most of the weekend and never been far away from a charger. I use SHORTKUTS app to place a wi-fi on/off live tile on the front. It doesn’t always show correctly if wi-fi is on or off though.

Overall I’ve been really happy with the phone and I am pretty sure I made the right decision getting the Lumia 920.
 

richierich1212

Platinum Member
Jul 5, 2002
2,741
360
126
Thanks for the impressions. After looking at your photos, I can see why there has been people saying the 920 photos look soft.
 

amdhunter

Lifer
May 19, 2003
23,332
249
106
My impression before I tried using Bluetooth Audio in my car: Nice phone, but needs apps.
My impression after I tried using Bluetooth Audio in my car: This phone is a total piece of ship.
 

biostud

Lifer
Feb 27, 2003
19,846
6,932
136
My impression before I tried using Bluetooth Audio in my car: Nice phone, but needs apps.
My impression after I tried using Bluetooth Audio in my car: This phone is a total piece of ship.

I don't have any bluetooth devices (or a car for that matter). :)
 

Yuriman

Diamond Member
Jun 25, 2004
5,530
141
106
I'm very curious about WP8 myself, and since we have one upgrade left I'm tempted to pick up one of the Nokia phones on AT&T to play with. Some questions:

Can you replace the keyboard in WP8? ie, since I don't like the stock keyboard on Android very much I'm using Swype which lets me get 30+ words per minute, as opposed to the ~5-10 with a pecking keyboard.

How are the aftermarket music apps? Do they integrate well with the OS?

Might be a dumb question, but can you use MTP or USB mass storage with WP8, or do you have to go through something like Zune?

Is there a file manager app?

Can you browse the app store from a PC? Are there any bittorrent clients or emulators out for WP8 yet?

What is the default map app and do you like it?

Is there a good audiobook app included or in the app store? One feature I like on android and would need on WP8 is the ability to exclude files from music players (ie make the media scanner skip over them) and only appear in apps that sort music via folder.

That's about all I can think of off the top of my head.
 

pantsaregood

Senior member
Feb 13, 2011
993
37
91
As far as phone cameras go, the Lumia 920 is in a league by itself. Be sure you have the camera update, it did improve the camera significantly.

Anyway, why are you using UC Browser, exactly? Too many people look at Internet Explorer and go "derp it is ie it sux." Since IE9, IE has been a fine browser. There's really nothing wrong with IE9/IE10, and I'd honestly say Firefox is losing the niche it had in the market.

I don't really understand the complaints of the phone being heavy. It is heavier than most phones - 65% heavier than the iPhone 5 - but it still happens to be inconsequentially heavy. Holding the phone straight out at arm's length isn't going to tire your arm incredibly fast or anything.
 

pantsaregood

Senior member
Feb 13, 2011
993
37
91
I'm very curious about WP8 myself, and since we have one upgrade left I'm tempted to pick up one of the Nokia phones on AT&T to play with. Some questions:

Can you replace the keyboard in WP8? ie, since I don't like the stock keyboard on Android very much I'm using Swype which lets me get 30+ words per minute, as opposed to the ~5-10 with a pecking keyboard.

No. The default keyboard, however, is much better than the default Android keyboard in my personal opinion.

How are the aftermarket music apps? Do they integrate well with the OS?

There are no "true" aftermarket music apps. There are alternate apps, but they are essentially skins for the default player.

Might be a dumb question, but can you use MTP or USB mass storage with WP8, or do you have to go through something like Zune?

USB Mass Storage works fine. There's a dedicated sync client, if you prefer using that.

Is there a file manager app?

No system-wide file manager. You can manage files that have been downloaded from your browser, music, and documents. You can't freely access the OS root directory or anything like that, though.

Can you browse the app store from a PC? Are there any bittorrent clients or emulators out for WP8 yet?

You can browse the app store from a PC. There is an official uTorrent remote for WP7.x/8, but there are no clients that actually allow you to torrent files to your phone.

There are a few emulators. The only one I immediately recall is a very nice NES emulator, though I do believe there were also Game Boy and Master System emulators. Those were all out in the pre-WP7.5 days, however. There may be more around now.

What is the default map app and do you like it?

The default map app on Nokia phones is Nokia Maps. It is great, and many people say it is superior to Google Maps. On other devices, Bing Maps is used. Bing Maps works quite well in America, but it isn't great in all markets.
 

biostud

Lifer
Feb 27, 2003
19,846
6,932
136
I'm very curious about WP8 myself, and since we have one upgrade left I'm tempted to pick up one of the Nokia phones on AT&T to play with. Some questions:

Can you replace the keyboard in WP8? ie, since I don't like the stock keyboard on Android very much I'm using Swype which lets me get 30+ words per minute, as opposed to the ~5-10 with a pecking keyboard.
AFAIK, not possible

How are the aftermarket music apps? Do they integrate well with the OS?
I use nokia music to play my mp3 files works fine, one thing is that there's one global volume button, can't set different volumes for different apps

Might be a dumb question, but can you use MTP or USB mass storage with WP8, or do you have to go through something like Zune?
works like mass storage, but there's a win8 app that easily lets you transfer music, photos and videos

Is there a file manager app?
Couldn't find one, but there might be one

Can you browse the app store from a PC? Are there any bittorrent clients or emulators out for WP8 yet?
Yes and no

What is the default map app and do you like it?
Nokia Maps, I like that I can download the map to the phone, so it works offline, but I haven't tried it since I haven't been anywhere I didn't know how to get to

Is there a good audiobook app included or in the app store? One feature I like on android and would need on WP8 is the ability to exclude files from music players (ie make the media scanner skip over them) and only appear in apps that sort music via folder.
don't know

That's about all I can think of off the top of my head.

As I'm virtually a smart phone virgin, I guess other can answer better than me :)

maybe this link can help

http://xyo.net/lumia/android/?inclWP8=True&country=US
 

biostud

Lifer
Feb 27, 2003
19,846
6,932
136
As far as phone cameras go, the Lumia 920 is in a league by itself. Be sure you have the camera update, it did improve the camera significantly.

Anyway, why are you using UC Browser, exactly? Too many people look at Internet Explorer and go "derp it is ie it sux." Since IE9, IE has been a fine browser. There's really nothing wrong with IE9/IE10, and I'd honestly say Firefox is losing the niche it had in the market.

I don't really understand the complaints of the phone being heavy. It is heavier than most phones - 65% heavier than the iPhone 5 - but it still happens to be inconsequentially heavy. Holding the phone straight out at arm's length isn't going to tire your arm incredibly fast or anything.

I can tweak UC browser better, but I might try IE a bit more, as UC browser also has some shortcomings.

The weight has more to do with using a lot of micro movements with your fingers while holding on to an object. I'll probably get used to it, once I get some routine typing on a small screen.
 

pantsaregood

Senior member
Feb 13, 2011
993
37
91
Nokia music plays and streams music through the default player. There are, as of now, no aftermarket music apps that support odd codecs or anything of the sort. I do believe it should theoretically be possible now due to support of native code in WP8.
 

s44

Diamond Member
Oct 13, 2006
9,427
16
81
There are, as of now, no aftermarket music apps that support odd codecs or anything of the sort. I do believe it should theoretically be possible now due to support of native code in WP8.
Really? Will it still get to run as a background process while you're doing other stuff?
 

CuriousMike

Diamond Member
Feb 22, 2001
3,044
544
136
nope, not available in Denmark until February, so hopefully the pics will get better.

According to the exif, everything is shot F2.

Any ability to stop down the aperture and see if the sharpness gets better?