Re: Time for a new phone?
 

Lumia hardware summary:
- Not as physically beautiful as Apple or Blackberry devices
- Not as technically advanced as Samsung/LG devices

Lumia software summary:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c3AgcltUM9s


Jailbroken iOS is surprisingly good. There's no need to look for sources, drivers, or code, its based on the stock rom/os. Tweeks can be added to the system and freedom to do anything with it. In a sense, it is somewhat comparable to working with N900 but much easier, refined and powerful but has its own set of strengths and weaknesses.

Android is not bad. Its lacking in so many ways. Yet its filled to the brim with features.

Windows Phone is the worst of the bunch. No featureset/power of Android, no seamless experience and ubiquity of iOS. I always envisioned MeeGo to grab this segment between Android and iOS, being pretty ubiquitous and feature-rich in the same time.

Re: Time for a new phone?
 

iPhones tend to look nice when new but scratch like crazy or you get weird things like the lightning connector stopping working or the button sticking. We've had a few in the family and the annodising is shockingly bad. It's so thin. Of any of them I'm quite partial to the white 5c, but again, it scratches like crazy. Nokia managed to get plastic that didn't scratch easily yet Apple seems not.

Samsung/LG seem to be advanced internally but then they shove an awful exterior on them with fake stitching and gimmicky things like fingerprint readers that don't work. Such a turn off.

Nokia generally had much better taste with their design. The N9 era design was just great. They went astray a few times with some of the Lumia models though I notice they've gone back to what looks like an N9 with the new 730. I'd love to see SailfishOS running on that.

Surely someone at Nokia could just leak out how to stick Android on it and then we're probably off and running. :D

Re: Time for a new phone?
 

Therein lies a problem. You're still comparing against the other phones whereas Nokia/Microsoft hasn't really gone in those directions in ages.

In fact, their philosophy has been to avoid customization for ease of use and a more direct path to get things done. In fact, I'd say that Jolla is closer to that mentality (so was Harmattan) than Android's constant customization and Apple's singular method to what they call functionality and workflow.

I'm not a fan of Apple's workflow on mobile devices. I'm really not a fan of Android's either. BB10 was closer to my natural tendencies. Harmattan was a flawed take on that.

So with that said, my favorite workflow doesn't need heavy hardware. MeeGo didn't. BB10 doesn't (RAM excepted). Windows Phone doesn't. Face it, Android is just so damn bloated - probably why Tizen on the same device can trim out more hours on the same kind of hardware.

And incredibly fractured. A lot of great ideas that are in iOS7 came from the jailbreak crowd. But a lot of it is pure crap.

Android feels like it was made by engineers. iOS feels like it was made by artists. I need an OS to balance that, drop the egos from either direction, give me wtf I need. And Android needs to be stripped down to get where I want, iOS needs to be propped up to get where I'd like it. And yes... I own both in this household.

We're just going to disagree here. Windows Phone, while extremely flawed; is made with ease of use. Metro (or Modern UI) is a seriously in-depth UI/UX study that broke a lot of molds that are really bad user patterns. But it also introduced some newer problems.

But it's not the worst of the bunch. I'd say that Tizen wins that at the moment - it's too much like Android without some of the pluses. It's inconsistent and above all, overly and unnecessarily complex for simple, simple things like option changes.

It'll be a while before it congeals into something that's not EFL or TouchWiz derivative. And the market might not have the patience for that.

Windows Phone isn't for me, but I can see how deeply they went into the UI details and it's on par, if not deeper than iOS and definitely more thoughtful than pre-Matias Duarte Android.

Re: Time for a new phone?
 

How strange. I have never held a Lumia and I'd rather refrain from passing aesthetic judgement based on online pictures, but I have always disliked iPhones. I can't help it, they are dowright ugly. So, are you telling me that Lumias are even uglier?

Re: Time for a new phone?
 

This is also a very good and beautiful designed phone. It's very simpel with some very handy accessories included. You can throw the addressbook papers away and use it as a wallet. . No screen means no scratch tracks. The pencil may become convenient at the point you need sign an autograph to a fan.

Re: Time for a new phone?
 

I think if you want to go with a walled garden, then you might as well just buy an iPhone instead of a Lumia.

Re: Time for a new phone?
 

Wow man....that IS pink!
I don't just mean a little pink ...I mean ALOT pink.
I've had a pink smartphone...not a biggie...I'm secure and comfortable in my masculinity to get away with pink now and again...but sorry...I don't think I could pull that one off...that is past neon pink...past luminous pink...past bubblegum pink even....
.that is just over-the -top ...too intensely pink for me

ps. pink isn't one of my fav colours anyway...pumpkin...rust colours ...teal..aquamarine even...and the like ...I favour more...
gee that sure is pink though

Re: Time for a new phone?
 

Why I think the iPhone is beautiful:
- Minimalistic
-Large logo on the back
-Patented rounded corners are best for palms, and to keeping the bezels short (but Apple doesn't take advantage of that second fact)
-Stright sides cause better grip than chamfered ones.
-I think if it had front stereospeakers and shaved off A LOT of bezel, it would be apex

Why I think the Lumia is ugly:
-Capacitive buttons (I much prefer on-screen, or at worst physical)
-Rounded sides aren't my taste
-Sharp corners digs into my palm, instead of around it
-Designed much thicker, though it doesn't need to be
-Plastic build is plastic, they get praised for this... I'm here to tell you they shouldn't be praised or deducted
-Its classy, but if it wasn't so excessive it would be much better

If you try to live with Windows Phone what you realize is this:
-MS went to a lot of detail in the UI
-MS failed epically with the UI
WHY ???

Most of the times, the screen is full of blank spots, where additional information/gestures/buttons could've been added. It makes it extremely wasteful.
The Menu button is a real pain in the ***, a swipe up to reveal common buttons is idiotic and even moreso when there is ample space for it
The Back button is horrid, you'll see why
The Search button is for Bing, and missing key functionality like contextual search... rendering it utterly useless like 90% of the time despite taking up a significant portion of the phone's real estate
The Windows Phone Store is a joke, the quality of the Apps are worse than Android in my experience and its full of spam spam spam
First-party Apps are missing too, needing to pay real money for third party Apps (which break compatibility)
The devices hardware-wise just can't compete with the iPhone let alone Android, unless you compare it to the low/mid-range (and that's not good with the iPhone 5/5S getting cheaper and Moto G/OnePlus One)
Lumia is king of photography, but LG, Samsung, SONY getting dangerously close to PureView's performance.
Windows Phone is slower and uses more battery than Android, as tests show between the M8
Support is a joke from the OEMs, for the OS, from third-party software, and accessories
There's so much room for improvement, yet MS consistently doesn't do anything about it.

There's no incentive to have a Lumia, no selling features besides "me too". Its not powerful. Its not customizable. Its not widely-supported. Its not even open-source or developer friendly.

I rather live in Apple's walled garden than Microsoft's walled desert....
...or you know, get a cheap and decent Android device and (easily/quickly) modify it to suit my use.

Re: Time for a new phone?
 

still using my N900 and still listening to ma'f*#$kin brutal metal music!
keepin it retro ;)

Re: Time for a new phone?
 

Okay, this is my take on UE's;

The situation can be likened to that of games, in a way.

Apple devices are like well done 3rd person shooters, very colourful, packed with action and fluid in motion. The theme is a kind of pipe run but so well crafted it takes a while to notice it; all goes well if you need to do the usual tasks 90% of people require.
On the other hand, if you want to do something SteveJ and his merry men did not anticipate you'll run into the pipe wall and it is pretty much impossible to escape from that.
The experience might be pleasing in the beginning, but it limits your creativity a lot and makes users adapt to the machine instead of other way around.

WP devices on the other hand aim to be 3rd person shooter pipe runs, but often fail spectacularily.
You might be able to manage for a while, and then you find that when you should scale a wall suddenly your hands drop off. Or you are just about to face the boss-enemy, and at that instant your machinegun mysteriously turns into a tuba! And the boxes of ammo you find turn out to be chokolate candies...

Open devices on the other hand fall into totally different game category; they are more akin to games like MInecraft. Depending on the vendor they might include ready-made parts that fit together nicely like lego bricks, or all you might get is a huge pile of differently shaped parts that have nothing in common.
However in both cases you fortunately have glue! Several kinds of glue in fact, that comes with different colours; some of it sticky and some of it hard.
And boy you can glue anything together and make all your heart desires!
The end result might not be pretty, and it might not be like anything somebody else made into their devices but it works like a charm!
There's no limitation of your creativity, you can do anything you like.