Windows Phone 8

[shakalaka]

I haven't had an opportunity to read the whole thread but I am curious as to which is the BEST windows phone out right now? I am bored of the iphone 5 for now and the BB is way too hard to acquire so I am thinking of trying this OS out.

Which is the best phone running this OS that I should be looking for and is available to buy outright locally?

Thanks!

[eblend]

If I had to choose, I would go with the Nokia 920, if nothing else for the Camera + nokia's apps which are mostly excellent (Drive, Maps, Transit ect ect), however it is only sold at Rogers right now, and you would have to try to find a dealer that would sell out right, as some won't

[Nate]

I purchased mine from Omegacell in Edmonton. They actually used to be a sponsor here years ago but the local store closed.

http://www.omegacell.com/

[shakalaka]

I checked their site out, they do have a store here where I got my old BB unlocked from.

The one they have though apparently is locked to Rogers and I am with Fido. From my understanding since only Rogers carries it, all the ones avaialble locally will be locked and certain features like the Hotspot won't work with other SIM cards.

[Nate]

No. I bought an unlocked one and I am using it with Wind. Still a Rogers phone though. There are unlocked unbranded 920 but they are not pentaband. Only thing with the Rogers branded one is that you cannot hotspot with it on another network. Might work for you since you are on Fido. I have not got up the nerve to flash my 920 with another firmware yet.

This is the one I purchased.

http://www.omegacell.com/collections...ogers-unlocked

[flipstah]

I'd choose between a Nokia Lumia 920 or the Samsung Ativ S.

Personally, I chose the Lumia for the camera but the Ativ S has expandable memory.

If you want the smaller version, the HTC 8x is good but shitty camera.

[shakalaka]

Originally posted by Nate
No. I bought an unlocked one and I am using it with Wind. Still a Rogers phone though. There are unlocked unbranded 920 but they are not pentaband. Only thing with the Rogers branded one is that you cannot hotspot with it on another network. Might work for you since you are on Fido. I have not got up the nerve to flash my 920 with another firmware yet.

This is the one I purchased.

http://www.omegacell.com/collections...ogers-unlocked

Yea that's the one I looked at and noticed Hotspot not working. Maybe I can do without that one feature.

But Omegacell unlocks it for and everything else works fine? Does the Lumia take a regular SIM card or Micro? They only have black colour too...boo.

[Nate]

Yeah the phone works perfect except the hotspotting and coming with some of the "Branded" Rogers crap on it. Hotspotting is something I would hardly use anyways. The Lumia takes a micro. Yellow is coming out soon I believe with Rogers so you might be able to get that when it comes out.

[flipstah]

Originally posted by Nate
Yeah the phone works perfect except the hotspotting and coming with some of the "Branded" Rogers crap on it. Hotspotting is something I would hardly use anyways. The Lumia takes a micro. Yellow is coming out soon I believe with Rogers so you might be able to get that when it comes out.

The 920 does not take MicroSD.

Unless you mean MicroSIM, then yes it does.

[ZEDGE]

Originally posted by Nate
Yeah the phone works perfect except the hotspotting and coming with some of the "Branded" Rogers crap on it. Hotspotting is something I would hardly use anyways. The Lumia takes a micro. Yellow is coming out soon I believe with Rogers so you might be able to get that when it comes out.

You can uninstall the rogers stuff, actually you can uninstall any app on windows phone, its not like android that way.

[Nate]

Originally posted by shakalaka


Yea that's the one I looked at and noticed Hotspot not working. Maybe I can do without that one feature.

But Omegacell unlocks it for and everything else works fine? Does the Lumia take a regular SIM card or Micro? They only have black colour too...boo.

I checked the firmwares last night. Looks like Nokia has developed firmwares for Black, Yellow, Red and Blue for Rogers. The firmware also has Fido in the name. So it should work for you.

After some searching I found an application from Nokia called Access Point that enables the hotspotting.

Use the link for QR code or the one attached.
http://forum.xda-developers.com/show....php?t=2075659

This is the link that the QR code brought up on my phone.

http://www.windowsphone.com/en-us/st...3-25c10463942d


After Access Point installs go to Settings, scroll to the bottom and click Access Point and select your provider. Then you can enable Internet Sharing on an unlocked Rogers phone. I tested it last night.

[hampstor]

Originally posted by stephen_haxton


Ditto, I'd like to see how it looks. I've got the same rubber case from Rogers for the time being (was all they had when I got the phone)

Met up with flipstah today - he took some photos of my phone in that case, the case by itself, and in comparison to his 920. He said he'll post them later.

[Stephen81]

Originally posted by hampstor


Met up with flipstah today - he took some photos of my phone in that case, the case by itself, and in comparison to his 920. He said he'll post them later.

awesome

[duaner]

Originally posted by hampstor


Met up with flipstah today - he took some photos of my phone in that case, the case by itself, and in comparison to his 920. He said he'll post them later.

A mini 920 meet. lol Still waiting for my case. It was on pre-order when I ordered it and now it's showing a ship date of around the 13th.

I know this is "Gorilla glass" but is anyone getting a screen protector?

On another note, is anyone else finding the battery life somewhat dismal? Of course, I don't have much to compare to.

[Stephen81]

Originally posted by duaner


I know this is "Gorilla glass" but is anyone getting a screen protector?

On another note, is anyone else finding the battery life somewhat dismal? Of course, I don't have much to compare to.

Haven't looked into a screen protector yet but I've dropped it from ~5ft onto polished concrete and not a scratch. I keep the LTE off and it helps battery life a lot...it's not hard to burn through a charge in several hours though.

[flipstah]

Originally posted by duaner

A mini 920 meet. lol Still waiting for my case. It was on pre-order when I ordered it and now it's showing a ship date of around the 13th.

I know this is "Gorilla glass" but is anyone getting a screen protector?

On another note, is anyone else finding the battery life somewhat dismal? Of course, I don't have much to compare to.

I would recommend getting a screen protector. At first, I was being smug but then I still got minute scratches, I think from my bus ticket staple. I bitched at Nokia for that to which they replaced when I sent my phone in for repair.

Battery life is alright; the whole day with WiFi on, LTE on, Bluetooth on and being used to listen internet radio/music. I find turning off NFC and the touch screen sensitivity makes a BIG difference.

[duaner]

Originally posted by stephen_haxton


Haven't looked into a screen protector yet but I've dropped it from ~5ft onto polished concrete and not a scratch. I keep the LTE off and it helps battery life a lot...it's not hard to burn through a charge in several hours though.

I'm more worried that it drops and falls on a rock or some other object, but then I suppose a screen protector would just help hold all the pieces together. haha

I keep the "Highest connection speed" set to 3G but it will still pop up occasionally showing 4G. I generally have to charge it every night and I'm not a big user. Airplane mode made a big difference last night, of course, but I don't necessarily like not being able to receive calls. Practically lost nothing overnight.

I don't suppose there is a way to close apps? One thing I am not liking is how Skype is always on, Facebook is always on, etc. At least on iPhones (Android too?) you can logout and shut them down.

[duaner]

Originally posted by flipstah


I would recommend getting a screen protector. At first, I was being smug but then I still got minute scratches, I think from my bus ticket staple. I bitched at Nokia for that to which they replaced when I sent my phone in for repair.

Battery life is alright; the whole day with WiFi on, LTE on, Bluetooth on and being used to listen internet radio/music. I find turning off NFC and the touch screen sensitivity makes a BIG difference.

I might get an invisibleSHIELD then. I've used them on a few devices and they've worked great.

I just turned the sensitivity down but I've kept the NFC off, keep it to 3G, keep Bluetooth on and never use it for music of any sort. I make a couple of calls per day, maybe a couple of texts, and check email. Oh well, I still love the phone. I'll see how much turning down the sensitivity helps.

[hampstor]

Originally posted by duaner

A mini 920 meet. lol Still waiting for my case. It was on pre-order when I ordered it and now it's showing a ship date of around the 13th.

I know this is "Gorilla glass" but is anyone getting a screen protector?

On another note, is anyone else finding the battery life somewhat dismal? Of course, I don't have much to compare to.

For now, most 920 meets will have me standing out cause mine isn't black . I didn't get a screen protector - I probably should though. I've got the sensitivity dialed up to max so I can wear gloves and use my phone. I'd probably lose that a bit with a screen protector.

My wife and I had horrible battery life - and we were chewing up data like there's no tomorrow. I was only getting maybe 14-15 hrs on a charge.

Found out our phones were automatically backing up photos to the Skydrive. Since we took a lot of photos, it was both chewing up data, as well as power. After disabling that, it really helped. You can also set it to only upload over WiFi. I also found a bunch of apps I don't normally use were using running in the background or running and also using location services. So I disabled those as well.

My usage today: Listened to my locally saved music for about an hour, browsed reddit on it for maybe 30 minutes, played a few games, the usual playing with the phone while waiting for an elevator, checked a few sites today, lots of txt messages and about 5 minutes of calls. Only took 1 photo (and used photobeamer - which is a fuckin awesome app to use in meetings)

So as of right now:
Remaining battery life: 70%
Estimated time remaining: 20 hours
Time since last charge: 8 hours

Edit: To find out what's running in the background (not everything can be disabled):

Systems -> Swipe to Applications -> Background tasks

[flipstah]

Originally posted by hampstor


For now, most 920 meets will have me standing out cause mine isn't black . I didn't get a screen protector - I probably should though. I've got the sensitivity dialed up to max so I can wear gloves and use my phone. I'd probably lose that a bit with a screen protector.

I had horrible battery life - and we were chewing up data like there's no tomorrow. I was only getting maybe 14-15 hrs on a charge.

Found our our phones were automatically backing up photos to the Skydrive. Since we took a lot of photos, it was both chewing up data, as well as power. After disabling that, it really helped. You can also set it to only upload over WiFi. I also found a bunch of apps I don't normally use were using running in the background or running and also using location services. So I disabled those as well.

My usage today: Listened to my locally saved music for about an hour, browsed reddit on it for maybe 30 minutes, played a few games, the usual playing with the phone while waiting for an elevator, checked a few sites today, lots of txt messages and about 5 minutes of calls. Only took 1 photo (and used photobeamer - which is a fuckin awesome app to use in meetings)

So as of right now:
Remaining battery life: 70%
Estimated time remaining: 20 hours
Time since last charge: 8 hours

Meh. I bought conductive gloves instead haha.

I love SkyDrive auto-backup! Keeping that on for sure.

So I pretty much have everything on and have been blaring internet radio for majority of the day and...

48% life
4 hours left
4 hours since last charge