Conversations with Nokia Lumia 800, Second Take ~ SCRATCH e-PAD!

First Take talks about my overall initial impression of the phone. I’ve covered the things that I like the most and some fiery circumvents. The second take article will uncover more features of the phone, both positive or negative, read on to find out more!

I think it’s important that people must know about the isolated problem that I encounter with my Lumia 800 trial device. I’m supposed to be using the phone for two weeks but it needs to be cut short because there was a problem with the phone that leads me to report and return it back. The unit had a heating problem which was quite unusual since I’ve trialled a Nokia N9 before with same design and construction but have not encounter such.

I have a hunch from the start that it was defective but I just set it aside and continue using the phone not until the third night that it went completely blank and won’t turn on no matter how I tried. I was downloading several apps in Marketplace for more than an hour when it bugged down, perhaps because the unit cannot stand the heat. Battery was definitely not the issue because it was 3 quarters full when the incident happen. I’ve also tried searching feedback online regarding the problem but I could not find any similar circumstance.

I was supposed to be getting a replacement but up to now, I have not received any yet so my comments will only be base on the 5 days that I have with the phone.

Lets begin...

The Windows Phone 7 does have its own drawing prowess, even after a few weeks of being off-hooked to the system, I’m still mesmerize by my experience with it. Everything on the software was just intuitive, smooth and fluid with all the visual perks that the Metro (UI) style offers. If iOS is the current then Windows Phone 7 is the future with its ultramodern interface. Its probably the reason why Android is imitating it on their Ice Cream Sandwich update.

Peoples Hub

One of the software's strongest features at the moment being very attractive and useful is the People Hub, Windows Phones version of Contacts or Phonebook, leveled up. In fact, I would even regard it as the best in the mobilephone world at the moment offering a smooth and gorgeous interface. It also have cunning features such as social network integration bringing users closer to people that matters or to people that they socially connect.

Messaging

As far as the interface of messaging is concern, I very much like it. The conversations view, the chat integration, etc., everything was well thought of with peoples communication behavior as its main focus, but then I’m not a big fan of its virtual QWERTY keyboard. I tried liking it but to no avail even if it’s better than those of iOS, Meego, Symbian or Android. I still prefer the SWYPE input mechanism and it will take me a lot of courage to buy an all touch smartphone that doesn’t support one. For me, text and messaging is one of my most used feature in a mobilephone, I don’t want to be bothered with difficulties in writing one via regular virtual QWERTY keyboards. Windows Phone must seriously consider porting SWYPE to Windows Phone or at least mimic the same.

There is also a feature that allows users to hear, create and send messages without touching the phone but you have to do these all in English. Problem was, most of my sms and messages received were in my local dialect and I became a laughing stock when I tried to reply to them in English. Anyways, hopefully Windows would try to add more languages to the system so it could be useful to everyone.

Memory, External and Internal

The phone has no external memory but has the least 16GB to 32 GB internal memory depending on the variant plus a Sky Drive connectivity that allows users to port/save 25GB of files on a cloud. Quite a huge memory storage here, I don’t even think I’ll be able to use the 16GB memory on the phone, how much more the 25GB on the cloud. The beauty about cloud base file management is that you can save any files on it like documents, images, music, movies, etc., and access them in any Windows phone device or PC eliminating the need to download and transfer files using external memory drives. This feature though is not unique for Windows Phone, iOS and Android have their own cloud systems.

Web and Email

The Windows Phone Email set up of Lumia 800 had been reconfigured and renamed Nokia Email, users in here can enjoy mail service for Nokia Mail, Google, Yahoo and Microsoft’s very own Hotmail. But unlike the Symbian set up, Windows Phone have added perks for users; Microsoft Exchange or Office 365 email accounts are fully supported; it can linked several inbox's to one unified view; users can pinch to zoom on the email once opened; among others.

The phones web browser is Internet Explorer 9 that sports a WAP 2.0/xHTML, HTML5 and RSS feeds. The browser renders a smooth and fast interface making mobile web browsing more fun. Among its noticeable features were the pinch to zoom, double tap to zoom, rendering of full page implementation, etc. It doesn’t offer anything new though, these features can be found on other systems.

Entertainment

I’d like to wrap this article up with a feature that I often used on a smartphone, music and video players. The phone offers two distinct music player, the proprietor Windows Phones audio player and Nokia Music. Of the two, I like the Nokia Music more because it offered many relevant sub features than the other, but either way, I’m a bit disappointed by the phones mundane player panel offering no adjustment options such as equalizers, balance settings, etc. It doesn’t even have the feature to create or customized playlist directly on the phone and rely so much on Zune, a PC software that would allow transfer of files in and out of the device. Nokia and Windows phone must address this issue seriously, music is the soul of smartphones.

In terms of video player, it only supports a single codec which is WMV, no DivX, Xvid, H.264, H.263, RV, 3GPP, MP4, FLV, etc. How in the world Microsoft afforded to subject a futuristic operating system with a codec-less video player, it’s ridiculous and we all know where they got the idea, Apple's!

Worst, when you are to transfer a movie file to the phone, Zune software will have to convert it to WMV making the process very tedious, and don't ask me how bad the quality of the converted video was because its not worth sharing. I'm sure the Nokia team behind the fitting of its hardware to Windows Phone feels the same way. Nokia should junk the Zune of Microsoft and rather use the feature-rich Nokia PC Suite.

Oh well, enough with the system overview for now, Part 3 will be posted very soon covering the rest of the software’s features and my conclusive thoughts. Watch out for it.