This time I thought I’d give myself a lot more practise with the phone and do some general use to see how well it fares, in addition to the other impressions I have given you guys over the last week.
This is what I have to say:
Camera and Camera Lenses
I said before, I’d probably repeat that the camera does not match up to what I get from the HTC ONE X. The fault probably lies in the fact that I have to compare it with an HTC ONE X, rather than develop a standard against which I’d measure it. Having said that, they offer you ‘lenses’. These lenses are what we know as filters, and they give you a bit more fun. Well, one of them does, and it is called Cinemagraph. It is a NOKIA only download, and allows you to produce high quality gifs which look like movies. You are allowed a maximum of 20 seconds but the results look very cool. This is one I did:
It is very simple to use and gives you very good results! I suggest looking it up and I also suggest that other app makers should take note of how good this little gem works.
There is, of course, things like Panorama etc… here is one I took in Brixton, London yesterday:
You’ll have to click on it to get a proper size, but the results were pretty good.
So, to summarize, camera… good on software, not so great on hardware, but t the fact that it comes with a camera button will give this a massive win!
Keyboard
Probably my biggest issue with this phone is the Keyboard. On Android I am used to the magic offered by Swype or Swiftkey. While the keyboard here is very clever, it offers me many American words and seems to not learn very well. Having said that, it does predict words well. However, I just love the flow you get with Swype and the latest Android keyboard, and from what I can see, it does not offer you that.
This is where this phone seriously falls down, specially since it comes with a very well integrated email and Office applications. Lack of a good keyboard means a lot of those are useless or quite cumbersome to use.
Games
Some popular games have been ported from the more popular formats to this, but the regular games available on this phone are a bit like the kind of games you get (or used to get, since I don’t own one any more) on a Nintendo DS. They are simple and amusing, but lack what you get on Android and iPhone, which is a bit more like a Sony PSP experience, now the PS Vita.
App Download
One of my favourite features about Android was how easy it is to download an app. You go online on your computer or any device, go to Play Store website and tell it to install it on whatever Android device you want to download your app on. It seems to offer you this service, but then you get a message saying unable to do so, which results in you getting an email which you have to open from within the phone. That takes the phone to that app’s page on Window’s Marketplace, which then allows you to complete the install that way. Close, but no cigar.
Forced Skydrive
Yes, while you have no Dropbox, all your pictures and documents get automatically uploaded to Skydrive. Yes, you can disable it, but it is complicated.
Find My Phone
One of the many features Windows Phone 8 boasts about is the ‘Find My Phone’ feature. Well, tell you what. It doesn’t work. It will tell you the last location it can remember, which can be up to a few good hours old, but it was unable to ring my phone when I wanted it to.
This so far… covers my impressions. Two more days left with this phone. Will it convince me or will it get very close? We’ll see!