Now that's almost 1 month i'm using the lumia 800, i couldn't give my feedback or full review yet because of the lack of time but if you're following me on twitter you'll know that i'm overall satisfied with the user experience of the lumia 800 knowing that i'm owning a Nokia N9, iPhone 4, N900 and range of symbian devices (of course the N8) but no android OS here (still not ready for each other), so i'll give my first positive impressions based on daily and natural use (i'm using the device with no intention to "test it" if you see what i mean) !
This is not the final review, you can consider it as my first impressions of what i like so far, if something isn't listed here, it means, it's still confusing or i don't like it at all !! (you can meantime take a look at camera test, here and here to have a first impressions of how it performs)
1- So to start the journey, everything was so easy to set up, Windows Live ID, Xbox Live ID and a recent convert to Office 365 done in an instant ! Great way to start quickly with a device ready to go ;)
2- The Windows Phone UI in its current form is probably the first text driven UI to exist commercially in the industry. We’ve seen a peek of this with the Windows Mobile 6.5 and fully so on the Zune media devices, it's bleezing fluid, smooth, my N9 is ashamed in-front of it !!! it's something beautiful, something stylish and user friendly :
- This is the first platform in my knowledge to actually embrace a panoramic view for the apps. it means, you need to scroll sideways to get to the various key features of an app or the native apps within the platform, this approach means reduced need to dive into ‘options’ every time. Everything is just ‘a flick to the side’ away, personally, i found adding horizontal access to more content within apps and phone features was a breath of fresh air.
- Also, i like the tiles approach builds up on icons and takes it ahead, instead of static icons that do nothing, the tiles act as widgets and feed you informations, that you can glance at and if necessary access the entire application.
- The People Hub is in my sense the phonebook of the 21st century, i mean it puts everything I need at my fingertips. The system brings in all of my Twitter, Facebook, Linkedin and Google contacts, and links them together. If I want to send a friend a text, a Facebook message, mention them on a tweet or simply call them, it’s all just a few swipes and taps away! And that's not all ! with groups feature you'll be focused on the contacts you really care about : family, best friends etc. you can create groups and whether it is sharing a photo you clicked or an email or anything similar, it’s all possible with one click. Within the groups also you can see what each one has been up to, new photos that they might have uploaded to their Facebook account or a new status message perhaps, one is able to view it all and comment right there from within the humble ‘phonebook’ and the best of the best you can tile a group to your "homescreen" ;)
--> There's also a "History view" that i like a lot, which enables you to see the history of your recent calls, emails, texts, and chats with one defined person. Just tap in the list to return the call or go to the thread.
--> The ‘what’s new’ option next to the phonebook listing within the Hub will list what your contacts are saying on the social networks where you have them listed.
--> The ‘Recent’ section will show you the 8 last interactions you’ve had with the contacts listed in your Hub, irrespective of the kind email or twitter.
One more thing, "Me" card. It's all about Me ! the first real visible attempt by a mobile OS to show the ownership of the device by an owner. The tile is the easiest way to post a message (or status) on all the Social Networking sites (natively supported by the OS) simultaneously. You can check in to a place and set your chat status (Windows Live and Facebook), All your notifications, basically if you have been tagged on any of the natively supported social networks (Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, Windows Live) will be displayed here.
The best part, you can reply and comment back from here itself, no need to jump into another app to reply !
- Messaging on the Nokia Lumia 800 is different from messaging that you would see on an Android or any other device (except the N9 and N900 at some stage). Windows Phone has merged the Windows Live, Facebook and Xbox Live with traditional messaging here. What I mean by this is that you can chat with your friend on Facebook, continue on the phone when he moves on to the Xbox and is playing a game and text him once he’s outside. All of this will happen out of a single chat window or rather all of it will be displayed in one conversation string with that person.
- The QWERTY keypad also is very good (not like the N9's one by design but by functionality) on par with the iPhone's one if not a little better. Personally I find typing on the Windows Phone to be a much better experience than on other keypad setup except that of the N9 which IMHO is still the best by design and some unique features and flexibility...
- Conversation view on emails : If you're fed up with deleting emails one by one or sifting through your inbox for related messages, then conversation view based on emails that are grouped by subject, is for you. If you'd rather see your emails individually, you can still do that, too.
- Linked inboxes : Juggling multiple accounts for personal or work email? Streamline things by linking them into a single inbox to see all the messages in one view (the accounts will stay separate).
- ‘Pictures’ is your gallery on the phone. Is it different like the rest? Yes! Microsoft has done a good job here again. By integrating all your albums on Facebook and on SkyDrive along with making it available conveniently for viewing, downloading etc.
- Picture tagging automatically detects untagged faces when you're uploading pictures to Facebook or Windows Live, just tap, tag, and post.
There's also an amazing integration of applications in hubs App Connect, for example You'll see photo apps in the Pictures Hub and music apps in Music + Videos, Games in Xbox Live hub etc.
- The calendar on the Windows Phone platform is also socially aware so as to say, integrating with the Facebook calendar and also birthdays that you have entered in Windows Live and Facebook and LinkedIn, nothing exceptional but it works well.
- Right outside the box, you can create, edit and view documents, spreadsheets and presentations. The best part however lies in the fact that also included is OneNote.
Thanks to the expanded Office Hub. The improved Office Hub has more ways to view, navigate, and search for your docs, you can share directly from the app itself with other people over email and also on SkyDrive, you can sync your Office docs between SkyDrive and your phone, so you can edit them on your phone now, then edit some more on your computer later. .
Sharing so as to collaborate on it is easy within Office. If you share it on SharePoint Server then it makes for easy collaboration and for you to work more effectively. Any changes made over the PC will instantly reflect here too.
Office 365 takes your business to the cloud and by that, Windows Phone supports Office 365 right out of the box.
Bing helps you search the web in more ways, with voice search, Music search, and Vision search, which uses your phone's camera to look up product info or to translate a text !
All in all, i'm liking the overall experience because of its fluidity and smoothness and Windows Phone, really, is the only OS besides the iPhone that feels like it's got its shit together, from the interface to the core apps to the overall experience and it's Not the common cup of coffee you find at any restaurant ;)
This is not the final review, you can consider it as my first impressions of what i like so far, if something isn't listed here, it means, it's still confusing or i don't like it at all !! (you can meantime take a look at camera test, here and here to have a first impressions of how it performs)
1- So to start the journey, everything was so easy to set up, Windows Live ID, Xbox Live ID and a recent convert to Office 365 done in an instant ! Great way to start quickly with a device ready to go ;)
2- The Windows Phone UI in its current form is probably the first text driven UI to exist commercially in the industry. We’ve seen a peek of this with the Windows Mobile 6.5 and fully so on the Zune media devices, it's bleezing fluid, smooth, my N9 is ashamed in-front of it !!! it's something beautiful, something stylish and user friendly :
- This is the first platform in my knowledge to actually embrace a panoramic view for the apps. it means, you need to scroll sideways to get to the various key features of an app or the native apps within the platform, this approach means reduced need to dive into ‘options’ every time. Everything is just ‘a flick to the side’ away, personally, i found adding horizontal access to more content within apps and phone features was a breath of fresh air.
- Also, i like the tiles approach builds up on icons and takes it ahead, instead of static icons that do nothing, the tiles act as widgets and feed you informations, that you can glance at and if necessary access the entire application.
- The People Hub is in my sense the phonebook of the 21st century, i mean it puts everything I need at my fingertips. The system brings in all of my Twitter, Facebook, Linkedin and Google contacts, and links them together. If I want to send a friend a text, a Facebook message, mention them on a tweet or simply call them, it’s all just a few swipes and taps away! And that's not all ! with groups feature you'll be focused on the contacts you really care about : family, best friends etc. you can create groups and whether it is sharing a photo you clicked or an email or anything similar, it’s all possible with one click. Within the groups also you can see what each one has been up to, new photos that they might have uploaded to their Facebook account or a new status message perhaps, one is able to view it all and comment right there from within the humble ‘phonebook’ and the best of the best you can tile a group to your "homescreen" ;)
--> There's also a "History view" that i like a lot, which enables you to see the history of your recent calls, emails, texts, and chats with one defined person. Just tap in the list to return the call or go to the thread.
--> The ‘what’s new’ option next to the phonebook listing within the Hub will list what your contacts are saying on the social networks where you have them listed.
--> The ‘Recent’ section will show you the 8 last interactions you’ve had with the contacts listed in your Hub, irrespective of the kind email or twitter.
One more thing, "Me" card. It's all about Me ! the first real visible attempt by a mobile OS to show the ownership of the device by an owner. The tile is the easiest way to post a message (or status) on all the Social Networking sites (natively supported by the OS) simultaneously. You can check in to a place and set your chat status (Windows Live and Facebook), All your notifications, basically if you have been tagged on any of the natively supported social networks (Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, Windows Live) will be displayed here.
The best part, you can reply and comment back from here itself, no need to jump into another app to reply !
- Messaging on the Nokia Lumia 800 is different from messaging that you would see on an Android or any other device (except the N9 and N900 at some stage). Windows Phone has merged the Windows Live, Facebook and Xbox Live with traditional messaging here. What I mean by this is that you can chat with your friend on Facebook, continue on the phone when he moves on to the Xbox and is playing a game and text him once he’s outside. All of this will happen out of a single chat window or rather all of it will be displayed in one conversation string with that person.
- The QWERTY keypad also is very good (not like the N9's one by design but by functionality) on par with the iPhone's one if not a little better. Personally I find typing on the Windows Phone to be a much better experience than on other keypad setup except that of the N9 which IMHO is still the best by design and some unique features and flexibility...
- Conversation view on emails : If you're fed up with deleting emails one by one or sifting through your inbox for related messages, then conversation view based on emails that are grouped by subject, is for you. If you'd rather see your emails individually, you can still do that, too.
- Linked inboxes : Juggling multiple accounts for personal or work email? Streamline things by linking them into a single inbox to see all the messages in one view (the accounts will stay separate).
- ‘Pictures’ is your gallery on the phone. Is it different like the rest? Yes! Microsoft has done a good job here again. By integrating all your albums on Facebook and on SkyDrive along with making it available conveniently for viewing, downloading etc.
- Picture tagging automatically detects untagged faces when you're uploading pictures to Facebook or Windows Live, just tap, tag, and post.
There's also an amazing integration of applications in hubs App Connect, for example You'll see photo apps in the Pictures Hub and music apps in Music + Videos, Games in Xbox Live hub etc.
- The calendar on the Windows Phone platform is also socially aware so as to say, integrating with the Facebook calendar and also birthdays that you have entered in Windows Live and Facebook and LinkedIn, nothing exceptional but it works well.
- Right outside the box, you can create, edit and view documents, spreadsheets and presentations. The best part however lies in the fact that also included is OneNote.
Thanks to the expanded Office Hub. The improved Office Hub has more ways to view, navigate, and search for your docs, you can share directly from the app itself with other people over email and also on SkyDrive, you can sync your Office docs between SkyDrive and your phone, so you can edit them on your phone now, then edit some more on your computer later. .
Sharing so as to collaborate on it is easy within Office. If you share it on SharePoint Server then it makes for easy collaboration and for you to work more effectively. Any changes made over the PC will instantly reflect here too.
Also if you have IRM-protected email or Office doc? Now you can open it on your phone !
Office 365 takes your business to the cloud and by that, Windows Phone supports Office 365 right out of the box.
Bing helps you search the web in more ways, with voice search, Music search, and Vision search, which uses your phone's camera to look up product info or to translate a text !
Stay tuned of the "what i don't like" part :)
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