Called Nokia for update, replacement N900 will be delivered this week!

Mine died too early to ask for an N9. Still, I got one and I'm sticking to E7 for now. This may sound weird, but I'm not a fan of N9.

No keyboard, for one. Second, I hate how it tries to teach me to use it instead of it learning from me. It slides, it fades, it does all kinds of stuff and it's IMO way too *** complicated. Use a damned button. There is nothing wrong with a button. WP has them, Android has them, iPhone has them, everyone. And they're mandatory. And for a good reason.

Also, it's (like N900) a one-of-a-kind, not all that bright future, beta OS phone. Options are missing, important stuff, like browser options. Plenty of bugs (silly, beginner bugs like truncating strings when adding favorites).

It's nice and shiny, but frankly N900 was way better.

It traded hardware keyboard for no keyboard, full keyboard support (Ctrl+C, Shift+left) for jack s***, a beta OS for an Alpha OS, full SIM for small SIM, SD card for no SD card, removable battery for non-removable, and what did it gain? AMOLED, though with high resolution but capacitive screen. And a fix that actually accelerates UI, something N900 should have gotten after-launch anyway.

I have 3 in my family (1 16G and 2 64G) and, in complete honesty, I rate it below both N900 and E7.

I know it has a better camera than E7, and a shinier, faster UI than N900, but it has lost its soul. N900 has a geek soul, left everything behind to offer geek heaven. E7 has a business soul, sacrificing geekiness for Office, ease of use and autonomy.

Who here agrees that making it 2 mm thinner than E7 was worth the sacrifice of keyboard and that "snap" it does popping up?

12.1 mm (N9) versus 13.6 (E7).

1.5 mm.

How tight do your jeans have to be to care about an extra one and a half millimeters enough to renounce extra hardware?

Opera Mobile is free and has the option to send desktop useragent. It renders like desktop Opera mostly, and while it has some stuff reminiscent of Opera Mini (like shortcuts being "* 4") it is a good replacement. It features real tabbed browsing, full rendering and it's butter-smooth.

Not decent. It's called a replacement for a reason

I tried, even with broken GSM and GPS, it was still a nice wifi browser and a platform that runs VNC (S3 is the only mobile platform out there with no RDP or VNC. This has been your trivia fact for today).

They said replacement implies removing the original and called me a greedy SOB.

Nah, I kid, they were really nice, but they kept the N900. Maybe they replaced the board and gave it to one of other people that asked for a replacement.

If people tell you you had your phone off while it's fine, that used to be mine.

Whilst i would agree with you in many respects the E7 is superior to the N900 ... in much the same way as CD is superior to vinyl (Amoled vs LCD) i do miss the N900's sheer customizability and the unique way that i could somehow have it just the way i want it, and i also miss the free apps from the Maemo catalogues, timed silencer was a particular favourite of mine as my phone has to be on silent when i am at work and i could never remember to do it. It might seem a bit odd to some people but i prefer small text, something that the N900 with it's tightly packed pixels could do better than the E7.

You say that Opera had the option of rendering desktop and yes it's true enough i did get desktop versions but when the text was resized i found it rather blocky and cumbersome.

I will be getting a N900 back tomorrow and the E7 is going back, I will miss that big old clear screen but to be honest i originally hated, no, resented that i got the E7 in exchange for my N900, then got used to it, then i got to like a lot of the new features but i have quickly grown rather bored of it, i shan't be too sorry to see it go.

There's no escaping the fact that the E7 through all it's superiority is a smartphone with a lot of good features whereas the N900 is a bit like a scaled down laptop with phone capability thrown in as an afterthought. They are 2 very different devices built for doing different things in different ways and i think that if i tried to persevere with the E7 i doubt i would be comfortable it in the long run

Dear forum.

I have upgraded my E7-00 and, as a result, I am OUT OF HERE.

Nah, I kid, it's a great forum and I didn't get rid of my E7, it's just being pushed forward in the family. I'll review the Belle version when Nokia decides to release it. (rumors say this year)

In the mean time, I'm gathering information on the new Mango (WP 7.5) line.

Until then, Lumia is one of the best phones I ever saw, complete with absolute bliss and absolute gaping holes right in the middle. This summer, in a theater near you, Nokia is being Nokia saying backing up Lumia line isn't their job, Microsoft is being Microsoft in their pricing policy and, through the tiny cracks, a herd of elephants falls though, complete with the forest around them.

From the people who brought you E7 vs N900 and Top Gun [citation needed], a review of N900, E7, N9 and Lumia 800, head to head.

i'm looking forward to it!... =)

Huh, someone cares

After going through the Lumia thread I was kind of put off, seeing how little anyone cared about the next Nokia generation of phones. Ranted for a few bits but what the heck - it can't do any harm, right? My RAID is rebuilding anyway.

So.

Nokia puts out the next generation of smartphones, which is a combination of Nokia design and hardware and Microsoft's brand spanking new OS - Windows Phone 7.1 (Marketing says 7.5 but this is a discussion for another time) - AKA Mango.

Let's start with hardware.

The phone is very, very similar to N9. While a perfect slab with little features, it does share a nice touch to the user, along with a perfection-embodied Gorilla Glass scratch-proof front. Adding to the design is the rounded edge, which makes the phone feel a lot thinner than it really is.

Left along the IPhone 4, it looks and feels smaller and ligher, thinner, and sturdier, even though it is none of those.

It's actually thicker, but the smart curved design ensures the edges are smaller, thinner and more delicate, compared to the IPhone that looks like a slice of canned spam. It is also actually heavier by 4 grams, but looking and feeling both phones the Lumia feels lighter, due to the fact that it fits the hand more naturally and it feels smooth to the touch, while the iPhone meets the user with hard edges and metal. I have no idea which is sturdier, frankly, I just said that.

The screen is curved out, giving the user a very tough feel, since the glass REALLY opposes bending stress, while in other similar phones the screen feels less thick. All this while keeping it slim.

Unlike the N9 and its (unnecessarily) minimalistic design, the Lumia 800 sports 3 buttons at the bottom of the screen. Back button, Windows button (don't despair, it does the same as the menu button on Symbian - takes you back home) and a search button.

The back button is tied into that OS and takes over any back action that the applications doesn't handle. This means seamless "back" actions not only through the windows of an app, but back through several apps, the desktop and then back again. This feels very natural after a day or so, because no matter what you do, you can always back-back-back to that document you were typing or video you were playing.

Hold the back button for a kind of exposee, except it has larger tiles, in a row (back-back-back, remember?) and it has no "close" function because they don't really run. Windows Phone is a selectively mutlitasking environment. We'll get back to that.

The windows key drops you back to the desktop, which isn't the desktop, for those who have handled Windows before (don't play with me). It's actually the start menu, the left side of the start menu in W7 and the new XP - that is, a list of pinned applications. We'll be back to that when discussing software.

Hold the Windows key for voice recognition. This is cool stuff, you can see some stuff here (youtube). Thing is, MS's Tell Me is a bit behind Siri (Apple's version) in silly jokes, but they are similar in capabilities, MS's version works mainly offline AFAICT and it is potent stuff compared to Nokia's own. Not just contacts and apps, but dictate messages, reply, update status on FB and other cool stuff.

The third key is Search, that boasts an enhanced version of Bing. While the vast majority of the people over the forums agree that this super-Bing is way cool, we also agree it's super-not-so-cool to not give us the option to switch. Other search engines are available from tiles, menus and other stuff, but not the search buttons. That's THEIR button. It has been suggested that long press will select engine. Until then,

Hold the search button for absolutely nothing. Yup. Nothing. Huh. Aw well.

The device also sports volume keys, a sleep-wakeup button and, lower, a camera button with half-press. Absolutely no magic here, they are just like every other button Nokia ever did, except these are a little thinner and higher, which makes the easier to press and slightly wobbly. Not much mind you, but it does remind one of Chinese toys. Oh well.

The back has a 8 MPx camera, but better than E7 because it can take close up pics (actual camera), and a dual LED flash. Nothing fancy, just your Nokia-grade (that's a compliment) Zeiss Tessar lensed, 8MPx, focused camera.

The front hides a proximity sensor and a speaker for the ear. The bottom sports a single, but quite clear speaker over what Nokia claims it's a bored case, not a molded one, which is something not even they know what the heck it means. On the bright side, it has small holes, so less dust. Feels weird.

The hood. Ah, well, the hood is well stocked with a chromed, sparkly, 1.4 GHz CPU, from a newer generation, 512 Mb or RAM (which is unnecessary unless you game because WP7 is quite slim), a 16G internal storage that is DAMN quick, an Adreno GPU capable of making minced meat of anything fittin on its 800x480 AMOLED ClearBlack beauty of a display.

Many sites have been over this. Yes they say, but Phone 1 has more, at 1.5 GHz. And Phone 2 has a dual core. And Phone 3 has 1 GB or RAM. Yes, and this isn't a length contest, if you read the rant in my first link you already know my opinion. The point is, the Veyron isn't the best drive out there. Neither is Saturn 5. And neither is a Bobcat earthmover. It's all down to balance and power to weight.

The hardware has been tuned for WP7.5 Mango, and it performs beautifully. If you ever believed A WORD of what I ever wrote, believe this: the ting is smooth like a lubricated shark and fast. Not iPhone fast. Haha, you bought an iPhone fast.

I can't imagine having a faster CPU because I never hit the ceiling. 3 days now, pushing ALL the buttons, it has never stopped to think ONCE (except wait for online data). It's like you're alt+tabbing though applications, by the time the animation went through it's already loaded, and bored.

Oh, and, boot time is equally impressive. No longer one has to way for *** ever like with E7. Check out the redline race. And that is the LG, with the 1 GHz CPU. Lumia has 40% more crammed in.

And this is the rough cut from the Lumia's hardware. Also under the hood:

The Good

* 1520 mAh battery / 13 hours talk / 2 millenia standby
* 512M RAM 512M ROM, 16G storage
* 800x480 AMOLED (24 bit color) with capa multitouch
* Bluetooth
* Wifi b/g/n
* Proximity sensor
* Light sensor (fine sensing)
* Accelerometer, 3 axis
* Magnetometer (compass)
* a-GPS
* Micro-USB
* Stereo Jack (with mic and control over headset)
* Mini-USB is covered to protect from dust, pocket lint and bad look.

The Bad

* No front camera. Huh. No video calls, ever.
* Battery is non-removable by user.
* mini-SIM only. Be prepared.
* No card slot. Seems to be a trend. Brighter side, cloud storage.

That's it about the hardware. On to software.

The software.

This is the cool stuff, what everyone is on about. Is the market now a 3-horse race, as MS CEO said? Am I going to like it? Will I be labelled a fanboi? All these answers in my next sentence. Yes. See? I deliver. None of that next week stuff.

Ah, the software. First, let me say this: if you are a hardcore Linux fan, if you spell Microsoft with a dollar sign, if you are adverse to paying a dollar or two for a good app, stop now. This is going to give you an ulcer.

Microsoft launched WP7 as a new product. And it is new, it is NOT Windows Mobile 7, the whole thing was built from the ground up, based on W7, for a phone and it shows. It was born on a phone, to be a phone. Not a small tablet, not a mini PC, it is a phone and it knows.

WP 7.0 entered life as beta. WP 7.1 (Branded 7.5 at the marketing), codenamed Mango boasts 500+ improvements, patches and new implementations, and it is, finally, ready for the light. Not the full light, as we'll see, but one or two spotlights can't hurt.

The OS is built around the Metro interface concept, which does away with desktops and fits everything into 2 "desktops". One "home", that is made of tiles user pins, and a second that is basically a list of installed applications.

The home has 2 rows of tiles, and goes down forever, seamlessly. One can have larger tiles, but generally doesn't. Images, for example, has a large tile, for obvious reasons. So does Calendar, for less obvious reasons. But the home can have all kinds of stuff pinned to it, some necessary, other just plain cool. It can be any app, or any point in an app where an app deems it available. For example, you can pin an Images app, but also a folder from the gallery of images, or a single image. Or, pin the Youtube app, or a video from Youtube. Or a contact. Or a group of contacts, call it "quickdial". Or Facebook contacts. In fact, most stuff can be pinned. Submenus, for example. Again, it's up to the app, so not everything is there. But just enough to be cool.

There are no themes. The phone has a dark or light theme, for serios-and-power-saving or iPhone-like-white. Then, all tiles, menus, subtext, etc is either in highlight color (black on white or white on black) or subtext color. That you can pick. So your phone is going to be blue-on-black, red-on-black, orange-on-white, but never green on mauve. Why this happens is because the tiles must look uniform. Though if you feel anti-microsoftish, you can unpin everything an pin smutty Youtube videos and naked pics. You bought it, it's yours.

The other "desktop", on the right, is a list of apps. It initially starts with a list, the moves to an indexed list (with letter headings) and finally all you do is letter-navigate because there are no groups or folders, they auto-group by name. In the end, searching is good, but tapping a letter header brings up an a-z as big as the screen, so it's ultimately easy to navigate.

It's a new concept, not the familiar, but this is a newly-designed interface. No familiar here, folks, MS is throwing in the glove, no copying of iPhone here (hear that, Android?).

And that's not the end of it. Microsoft does like its standards, and it's a good thing. Each service it supports has a list of capabilities. Google, for example, has mail, contacts, calendar. MS's own has mail, contacts, calendar, chat and remote photos. Picasa has remote photos. Facebook has photos, news, feeds, posts and chat. Huh. So here is how they solved it:

People hub. The thing you used to call "Contacts" is now a "people hub". This hub thing integrates all the contacts from everywhere (if you chose to) in a neat list. The list also has linked accounts, so you can link Facebook to Live contacts, to Google accounts, etc. It has a page look, with one being "all" contacts, with groups, the next is "recent", the next is "news" which integrates the latest news on any contacts - which is an altogether surreal experience. All news, posts, mails, statuses, everything that goes on in your little world pops in there. Like a news feed in Facebook, except this has twitter, mail, text, calls, your changes, everything. Or none at all, if you don't like social media.

Never has anything worked so effortlessly - it took me 2 days to realize I don't have a Facebook app - the news was fine, I can click on posts, like or comment, see photos and videos, everything.

It also allows you to hide contacts as to keep phonebook and - say- mail contacts separate, or ignore Facebook if you like. Which is f*ing NEAT.

The same concept applies to images. One application, with albums. In this album view, you have the camera roll (cam pics), the Images (stuff you used to call Images), the online albums of everyone (Picasa, facebook, etc) and the skydrive albums.

What's that? Well, the WP7 comes with a SkyDrive account. This is part of the Live.com account you will kind of need to make. It offers 25G of online storage of whatever-the-heck-you-want, with strict security and not-even-God pre-set security on everything. You can up and down images as you like, it's completely integrated. The camera also has the option to insta-share pictures as you take them, be it on Facebook, Picasa, or store to SkyDrive.

Plus, another 5G for mesh storage, that can't be shared, where you can connect with your PC and share files in a centralized fashion.

Skydrive takes it in like a Thai pro. Images, Videos, Music, Documents, all centralized (if you want). Yes, documents, it's a Microsoft phone, remember? Office, and plenty of it, with Word, Excel, the works. And none of that preview stuff, real, live, editing Office. And with Mesh Storage, you can start at work, add and sketch ideas on the bus (you'll be riding the bus after you shell for this baby) and finish at home.

Hubs, hubs everywhere.

Remember messages? And how those messages became Conversations? Well, now Conversations have now become threads. A thread is with a single person, and includes text, MMS, chat, the works. Once you start threading with one person, it keeps track of it and brings up history as you chat. Person moves from text to FaceBook chat? No worries, all you see is a little "facebook" in the thread and you keep on chatting. Move back to SMS? A little "text" line separates the lines as you keep typing. YOU want to switch targets? Tap the switch button, pick an avenue and keep typing. The window also sports an Attach button for pushing attachments and a "record" button for voice chats if your hands are tied up.

Mail is separate for now, with voices out there crying in MS's ear to include. The mail app has unified inbox, a myriad of accounts, but still it behaves like a mail app. You can pin inboxes to your start or the unified "mail" that brings everything in.

The thing I like about MS at thus point is that it doesn't hold a grudge if you have other accounts. It has 250+ partner sites, the best, and integrates them all. Try telling Google you want your live mail. See how that goes. Not these guys, they love you anyway. Facebook? Sure. Picasa? Google? Youtube? Let them come. It'll take them all, split and sort them, and make the pieces into hubs.

A little of Nokia remains. Nokia still has Nokia Maps and Nokia Drive, if you liked those, though Bing also chimes in as a backup complete with turn-by-turn navigation.

Videos are a little weird, because videos, video apps, podcasts and music all come together into the Zune hub. I personally don't like Zune, but hey, it's a hub and it works. Plays all kinds of stuff, HD included. Easy controls, fast play, fast skip through media, crystal clear picture. I'm trying hard to hate it, but I can't.

Internet is piped through IE9. Yes. The first browser that isn't webkit. So, how is it? Well, it's IE, so the sites look right (not a stab, I'm just sayin'). The Adreno GPU works its magic, the thing is FAST like the Roadrunner. Sports multi-finger zoom, real tabs (well, windows, actually), a user-selected user-agent, options to clear cookies, several basic options and is generally well adapted.

It's eyecandy, but it's fairly young. It's lacking hover support (it's in the works at MS - until then you can cheat your way through some sites), there are no "fast forward to top" buttons and Flash isn't here yet. 7.0 had Flash, 7.1 hasn't one but MS has announced that Adobe and MS are working together hard to push F10 or later on the device. At 1.4 GHz on an 800x480, shouldn't be too hard to make it work. Until then enjoy HTML5.

In fact it's so young WP7.0 didn't support landscape.

Games are supported via XNA framework, which means games flow like water. There's an XBOX icon that serves as a game hub, complete with what XBOX brings - achievements, avatars, saved games and progress, animations and other cool stuff.

Your won status and settings are integrated into a "me" tile that contains your own public data, like phone number or avatar if you like, but also eats Facebook notifications and allows for status updates and chat status (away/here/ appear offline/offline).

There are no profiles to speak of yet, you are basically into "works" "vibrates" and "shuts the hell up" mode. The global volume is just that, global. Want stuff turned down, fiddle with volume. Nice because you can have "quiet" gaming. Bad if you want to wake up tomorrow morning. (this is acknowledged as a bug and they are fixing it. In fact, it might be fixed, I updated my phone today).

One more thing, before I hit the character limit. The voice commands. Yes. Phone has a voice UI, which can be ON, ON on wired headset, ON on bluetooth headset, ON on bluetooth and wired and kinda-off.

Hold the Windows button and speak. Soaks up a lot of accent, like that guy in the video who I have nothing against but can't say Hungary in English.

You can say "call Jim", "call Jim on Mobile", "text Jim". Basic. Level 2, you have "start <application>. Level 3, you have true voice recognition that Bings your query. And for the truly elite and the complete *****s, it has an "understanding" of sorts, that fixes your queries to Bing so it makes sense. "Search for Pizza restaurants nearby" searches for Pizza restaurants nearby. So does "where can I get pizza". Also equivalent are "Italian restaurants" and "pasta places", depending on if you paid for the phone or just stolen it.

There's also a level 4 of sorts, or -1, depending on how unable to speak English you are. You can dictate your messages and chats. When on a BT or wired headset, phone can read the message to you. It goes like this:

WP: Message from Jim. Content: How are you, Jack? You can say "reply" or "cancel"
You: Reply.
WP: Say your message.
You: I'm not speaking to you, you overdressed pickle.
WP: (after you were quiet for about a second). "I'm not speaking to you, you overdressed pickle". You can say "send" or "try again"
You: "send"
WP: <soft beep>

It does this with a TV on in the room, or the sound of an engine. It's not tv-grade bull, but it is workable and damn neat. If your message is in English or another supported language. I have no idea what the supported language list is, frankly, I keep my phone in English anyway because some terms translate like hell. Also, there are more commands coming. The W7 (desktop) speech recognition supports English, French, Spanish, German, Japanese, Simplified Chinese, and Traditional Chinese. So, at most, those. Though I wonder, if it does German, how hard can it be to implement anything else? Heck, Romanian is phonetic, like Italian and Spanish. All you do is re-type the key words and add a dictionary.

Though, for an English-only command, it does well with contacts.

Also, at any point, you can hold the button and mutter "help". A help comes on, with a list of commands, read out loud for the blind, stupid, or people with wet hands. Yes, wet. See, the screen is flush with the case, the speaker is at the bottom, the face buttons are touch and the top is covered, so when you operate the phone with hooker bl... I mean wet hands, it's OK.

In fact, no matter what you have on your hands, just hold the Windows button and say it out loud. Neat stuff.

This concludes part one of the OS overview, part two coming up. General feel, the rest of the apps and new concepts and the DIRT.

[v 1.1, added voice]

Apps, part 2

I'm not going to hold your hand through Calculator, it's just that. I am going to comment on Calendar, though. Everything you hated about Nokia's is back. Nah, I'm kidding, look at your faces. It's gone, man, solid gone.

There are tons of calendars, including a birtday calendar. Each calendar site has its own color (remember that hub thing? Yeah.) So, blue for phone, red for birthdays, cyan for Google, etc. Plain. The month view slides up and down through months.

There is no week view, but the day view is infinite, if today slides, tomorrow comes and then the next day. It's easy to get an overview. Unles you want to see that you work Mo, We and Fr from 11 and Tu and Th from 12. That isn't there.

BUT. There's an Agenda view that is widely generous with the time range. And it goes both ways. (there's a she said joke in there somewhere). That is, it shows both the last few "missed" events, then today, then the future. Which is cool, because you get to call the next day and say your battery died, instead of 4 days later, when anything you say is awkward.

Also, To-Do is in there somewhere. Standard stuff, add todo, add a date (optional). Mark as done (Called "Complete"). Also a Delete, which is weird, because Complete takes it away. I assume it makes a difference if you sync with something. Also, "Postpone a day" if you are a lazy, procrasinating, postponing type of guy. All lazy procrastinating people raise your hands in the air and jump up and down! Ha, I know you won't.

Also, it's butter-smooth.

Now, some of the 3rd party apps. There are 4 kinds of VNC. 4 kinds of RDP (hehe, this is Microsoft, it's what they do). There's a TV DB tracker of viewed images, like SeriesFinale. There are paint apps, music apps, BBC player, BBC2 player, BBC4 player, every single player is there, because MS uses Silverlight-based XML programs for WP7.5 and the embedded controls. If you ever developed for Windows you know what I mean. There is no importing code. You can embed a Facebook viewport in your app in 3 lines. And you can build a BBC<whatever> player in a single line. Mediaplayer.OpenStream(<address>) or somesuch nonsense.

So, most of what I missed is here. There are tens of thousands of apps, music and videos on there, no ghost town. Also, with XNA up and running XBOX games start slipping over.

Also, Microsoft included TouchDevelop on their phone market app, so you can just pas the time developing on the phone. No compiler, no fuss, just an IDE with events, actions, scripts, and a few XML files it writes. Complete with several examples.

As a Delphi developer, I can say this is INSANE. A bouncing ball game can be scribbled in 10 lines, with no compile time, on the phone, while waiting for the dentist. With C-like syntax and help. Integrated timer, put sprite at coordinates function calls. All you do is x++ and it slides. Add an if and it bounces. No wonder the app market exploded.

And, even though development is easy, some apps deserve some hats off. MetroTube (Ex Lazytube) is a Youtube browser that is better than Youtube itself. Plays, searches, maintains lists, switches quality, jumps to full screen by accelerometer (tilt), remembers back and forward, pins videos to start, is butter smooth and plays while phone is locked. All for 1 dollar (but the free version is not restricted, the buck is for support of developers).

Other apps deserve a mention. AccuWeather is up and kicking, complete with nice UI and background updates, several other weather sites have representatives. Like I said, Series-finale and VNC along with RDP make an appearance. Several remote-pc controls also exist, complete with a screen for every app you want, including browser, youtube, MPC (-HC), XBMC, WMP, WMC, VLC, Winamp, Hulu and several others, making VNC kind of less important.

Other apps are also stirring up joy. AppFlow is similar to an app we had here, on N900, except this one works right. It's a filter of Marketplace, in which it shows new apps, stars (with an exploding number of downloads), fallen stars (were popular, now almost dead), hidden gems (very high rating, low downloads) as well as staff picks and other manually maintained lists.

Toggle app allows you to toggle GSM, Wifi, BT, Silent profile and the like and, best of all, allows pinning of any button so you can pin whatever you use.

There's a "Where Am I" app that you fire up when lost, it gets position, draws a map, and allows forwarding of the address via SMS or whatever so people can recouperate your sorry, lost behind. It also serves as a meeting point, you can message where you are to a group of people (did I mention you can text groups?) and they can converge on your (sorry) (lost) behind. Also, there's the POI thing that's cool.

Check-ins are here, complete with several services (FB, foursquare, etc).

And the usual tools. Alternate dialers, where's my car, text while you walk (superimposes text over the camera so you don't fall into holes while typing), Internet Radio, network tools (ping, DNS, etc), humor magazines, ebay.

Overall, it's not a bad site to look at. I thought what with it being new, I'll be able to download "tumbling weed". Not so. In fact, it is larger than the S3 market place by a factor of 10 or so.

Which reminds me.

Also in the "good" section, we have: Microsoft software. Why is that good, you ask. What have you been smoking, you ask. Because it starts with a M. And things that start with a M don't start with an O, as in OVI, or with an N, as in Nokia Suite. That's right, no more OVI store, no more clumsy UI, no more bugs, no more jumping lists. No more running Nokia Connectivity service. Free. I'm finally free.

ETA: Almost forgot. The app market has a mandatory policy of try and buy. Each app has a try button, that serves either a time limited version, an ad supported version, or a limited functionality version. There is no buying before looking, and no "look for the free version". See something you like, tap "try". Fiddle. Uninstall or buy.

Unlike S3, it's the same app and same name, so "buy" upgrades you. On S3, you had to download the paid version. Which installed another app.

Oh and, it all installs in the background. No SIS stuff, no wizards, no packages. Tap Try, it goes to menu, app is there, grayed out, with a progress bar. 0-50% is downloading, 50-100 is installing. When done, it's no longer gray.

Also, I noticed I referenced the selective multitasking but never addressed it. So here it is:

There are basically two schools of thought. There's the Linux phone, a la N900, that runs everything in parallel. And there's the iOS (and those obnoxious Android copycats) that only runs the current app.

Well, now there are kind of three. Windows Phone has a whitelist. An app can declare itself as needed in the background, when installed. This adds it to a list, and, once that is done, it is allowed to play in background, say, music, or video.

The whitelist is user controlled, in the sense that user can turn off the background stuff if an app misbehaves. Let's say you see no good reason to allow Accuweather to keep updating every hour. Set to settings, flip it to off and it freezes when closed/locked/whatever.

There is no UI to ADD apps to the whitelist, but frankly, why would you. If the developer thinks it's not a back task, why? I don't want Contacts to keep running when I'm on the phone. Though if you REALLY want, there's a registry setting for that. Get used to that meme.

So, does it multitask? Yes. Does it multitask YOUR app? Yes. Can you play music/radio while browsing? Yes. Can you leave a game running and flip away on the UI? No. You could if you tried really bad, but don't.

And another thing. Updating software flashes it, which is kind of what you expected. It's also a wizard, not a CLI tool, which is also what you expected. What you didn't expect is that the PC that updates your phone makes a backup before trying, so you can back-back-back through versions too, if needed be. This far, all MS versions can be backed to any point in time, unlike some other firmwares I know from people that start with N for phones that start with N.I'm starting to hate N. In fact, from now on, I'm going to pretend it's a Z that's too stupid to walk and tripped over.

And with that, on to the bad.

[v 1.1, added marketplace and selective multitasking and flashing]

The Bad:

I knew this day would come.

It's a new OS, with a new look, new browser and new hardware. This means stuff ain't quite here yet.

First shocker, BT isn't ready. The drivers are there, the protocol and stack is there, but only 7 of the projected 17 protocols are implemented. It supports audio and contact transfer, PBAP. Which is good. It lack OBEX. Which is bad.

By this I mean (if you are not a fan of Bluetooth documentation) that until this is fixed, you can't send files over bluetooth. Yeah.

There are apps out there that allow you to send your contact over, and another that makes QR codes of contacts so you can share this way. No images, videos or documents. You'll have to use mail. Or Skydrive. Or Picasa. Or Photobucket. In fact, it's not really a crime against humanity, heck, iPhones have about the same issue, except nobody is frantically rushing to completion.

UI related to all the new features in Mango is still missing. For example, MS released the SmoothStreaming controls that allow for rtsp streams to play, with support for mp3, h264, wmv and wma (if I'm not mistaken) but nobody wrote those 3 lines yet. For a Linux community, this is status quo - you'll have to grow one yourself. Still, not all menus can be pinned, not all settings are available, not all features are there. But hey, there's a silver lining: someone developed a registry editor. You can set your options like you want. For example not having a lock screen (sleep button wakes up directly to desktop), changing colors to whatever you like and generally crashing your phone.

And I saved the best for last.

There is no local storage for your data. Much like Google does on Androids, the contacts are synchronized with your Live account (use a sturdy password). On the bright side, if you hard reset of flash your phone, you won't even notice. Setup asks for your user/pass and beams you down Scotty. And Jim and Layla and all other contacts, complete with accounts, pictures and names. Also, images and videos from SkyDrive. Also, calendars, complete with all sites' calendars.

So on the bright side, no backup, ever (or always, depending on if you see the glass half full). Phones are discardable (if you call that cash discardable).

On the less-than-bright-side, data is online. Which means that, in spite of a reassuring EULA and privacy terms, you store your data at Microsoft.

Yeah.

This is a big pill to swallow for most. Me, not so much. Google already has my contacts and reads my mail (unlike MS, they are actively doing it, openly), knows what I search, what I view. Facebook tracks me via those little "share" and "like" buttons. At least MS has the decency to pretend it doesn't know who I am when I check out www.microsoft.com. At least they don't serve me ads by name. In fact, they don't serve me ANY ads. It's f*ing refreshing. Android be damned.

Personally, I was a little paranoid, but then I remembered that E7 has online backup. Android has online backup. iPhone users report their farts to Apple. So basically, it's down to who gets your data. And my answer is simple. Not Google. And I kind of dislike Nokia over that cherry thing. And the data collection policy. And Apple isn't getting squat while I draw breath.

I guess it's MS. Heck, I already have My OS registered, if they wanted to know, they'd know. Say what you will, they are among the most professional out there.

Also, I get to ditch Nokia PC suite. I mean OVI Suite. I mean Nokia Suite. You know what, MS can have it. It's a bit like sleeping with the guy who saved you from rape. It's still not love, but it's not mentally scarring. I prefer the smell of roses to that of duct tape.

On the bright side, always backup. Also, online editing of contacts, which is better than PC Suite. Also, import and export to CSV and Outlook. So you can have your local copy. Hey, this isn't so bad. More lube, please.

Unlike the streaming problem, and the browser limitation (Opera said it's considering porting to WP7.5, there is talk of Mozilla) and the bluetooth (they are writing right now), the contact thing is not going away. This is it. Before you buy a WP device, know that your data is on their server. On a less serious note, you can't be that important, right? Who digs through billions of gigabytes to read that Jane is in your contact list? Be grateful you don't own a Blackberry.

And that's the end of the bad, and the good, and the review of the new OS/phone from Nokia. It's a quick little devil, it's speedy, nimble, animated like a SciFi movie computer, has everything other Nokias have, plus a bunch more, fixed a TON of issues Nokia never fixed or said they'll fix.

Phone doesn't have the answer at the bottom or top, the proximity works (it's at the center, no more wakeup when talking), excelent build quality, excellent screen and feel, global contacts, fully integrated <insert your site here>, real mail, real chat, real text and a real phone. And best of all, they actually develop for it because MS doesn't sell phones, they sell software and if software stinks they get booted out.

And Nokia does the hardware, there is no more unique "Nokia feel", no more silly design guidelines that don't change the **** reject button, they are free to focus on design and specs, which is what they can do. And they should do it well, else I buy an LG and just beam Scotty down into that. I won't even notice.

If anyone can do a premium, beautiful, ingenious device, it's Nokia. And if anyone can match up with Google and Apple, it's Microsoft. Software isn't like David and Goliath, if you want to compete, you need resources, manpower, and a few brilliant minds to actually take a chance and rewrite the way we look at devices. And most importantly, to take the risk it's going to be a total flop.

In closing, I strongly recommend that you get your hands on a Lumia 800 and play with it. Like I said in the rant from the first link, youtube videos will not do justice to a big, amoled screen and will not show 60 FPS of animation over a 15 FPS video. Go interact with it, it will not be wasted time.

That's it for Lumia 800 for now. A beautiful device, a combination of form, function, power and new tech.

As always, feel free to ask questions, I'll do my best to respond to your inquiries. Ndi signing out, 4:40 AM.

Wow, ndi, I am impressed. A rather thorough and well written review. You writing style is hilarious!

As for the device itself, it seems the future is bright for MS/Nokia. The only thing that is gnawing at me is the very high dependance on cloud storage. Frankly, it is making me nervous.

Apart from the safety of my data, just think about the data charges! Wifi is not always available, especially on the go.