Author Topic: Well, I got it: Nokia Lumia 920, Windows 8 (Read 56972 times)

superboyac · « **Reply #50 on:** November 16, 2012, 11:16 PM »

Last one for the night...
I really do prefer the Windows mobile interface over android and ios (both are basically the same). The tiles are better. I really dig the way to jump around alphabetically in your lists, I thought that was well done. Some of the tight ecosystem integration as mentioned above I found to be better than the others. Maybe I'm old school or something, but I find a lot of the harsh criticisms regarding these specific points to be unwarranted and a little misinformed.

superboyac · « **Reply #51 on:** November 17, 2012, 12:14 AM »

I lied, one more:

The Wikipedia app is beautiful, oh my. This really raises my hopes about what can be done with this OS. If you play with it you will see a few very nifty things they've done that are unexpected and unlike anything else on the phone currently. I'm VERY impressed.

allen · « **Reply #52 on:** November 17, 2012, 09:26 AM »

Check out 627.am and WPCentral -- both apps are superbly designed. 627 could be an alarm + weather app replacement if not for the fact that the api it uses for weather data is about 10 degrees off (at least for my location) ruling it out for me. Still, it's nice to look at.

superboyac · « **Reply #53 on:** November 18, 2012, 05:08 PM »

Now I'm having difficulty automatically syncing my phone files with skydrive, even though I've set everything up properly. I've set it up to auto sync my photos/videos automatically with Skydrive, but only using wifi when it's available (so it doesn't waste my ATT bandwidth). Well, it doesn't do anything, really. I have to sync them manually. Phone's been sitting here at home for hours now, I've been waiting for it to decide to upload, but nothing.

I took about 3 GB of videos and pictures last night, was hoping it would have been seamless. Cmon microsoft.

allen · « **Reply #54 on:** November 19, 2012, 02:13 PM »

My "Camera Roll" automatically uploads but that's it. . . I'd have thought everything would.

superboyac · « **Reply #55 on:** November 19, 2012, 03:14 PM »

My "Camera Roll" automatically uploads but that's it. . . I'd have thought everything would.
-allen (November 19, 2012, 02:13 PM)

the photos in the camera roll uploaded fine (but not automatically). The videos don't upload at all, it just hangs where it says "uploading..." and it just sits there forever (i left it overnight).

As for the auto uploading, I have mine set to only do it when wifi is available. well, it never does it. How do you get it to actually do it?

Also, java and flash? internet explorer is very slow. speedtest.net will not load. lakersground.net takes forever to load, and I have LTE. If these issues remain, I may have to consider getting another phone.

allen · « **Reply #56 on:** November 19, 2012, 03:44 PM »

I haven't had any problem with the camera roll auto uploading. Under photos, I have skydrive set to best quality (needs Wi-Fi) for both and it has worked. I don't think there's any way to get the other folders to sync at this time (Though the backup settings seem to imply ALL photos should be backed up). Have you tried rebooting the phone?

I am quite sure Java and Flash are never going to happen. With WP7, I don't think it was possible to make a browser that didn't use IE at the core--I'm guessing it's the same way with WP8. Maybe you should stick with Android

superboyac · « **Reply #57 on:** November 19, 2012, 05:43 PM »

I haven't had any problem with the camera roll auto uploading. Under photos, I have skydrive set to best quality (needs Wi-Fi) for both and it has worked. I don't think there's any way to get the other folders to sync at this time (Though the backup settings seem to imply ALL photos should be backed up). Have you tried rebooting the phone?

I am quite sure Java and Flash are never going to happen. With WP7, I don't think it was possible to make a browser that didn't use IE at the core--I'm guessing it's the same way with WP8. Maybe you should stick with Android
-allen (November 19, 2012, 03:44 PM)

lol, no I'm good for now. I do like the phone. Yeah, I think rebooting fixed it, but I won't find out till I get home. Seems like I was installing the skydrive desktop last night and messing around with the phone a lot (installing lots of apps, etc.). I restarted the phone and things seemed to work better. I had to reenter most of my account passwords to get things working again. I read others had similar issues.

I like the phone more than the others available. I'm not a huge fan of google, so bing is fine also. I switched back to bing since it works better with the phone. It's all good...overall less headaches than android for the accounts.

superboyac · « **Reply #58 on:** November 19, 2012, 08:02 PM »

Allen, so the large videos seem to be uploading with wifi now, although it's hard to tell exactly when and what is happening. Between yesterday and today, I've had to reboot the phone about 5 times. Sometimes the wifi wasn't working and I was getting upload errors. Sometimes the LTE connection wasn't working on websites (very slow and would not finish loading). Restarting seems to fix these problems somewhat (like normal Windows). But is this a cause for concern, or just something normal to get used to?

allen · « **Reply #59 on:** November 19, 2012, 08:47 PM »

I've had the phone a week and have restarted it fewer times total than you did yesterday. I haven't made any videos but my photos upload silently in the background like they're supposed to. I've had no connectivity issues and the browser seems fast enough. For the most part, everything just works. Is your WiFi and LTE connection generally good and stable for other devices? I'd say cause for concern. . . maybe a factory reset and a clean slate would rectify things or maybe you got a device with a defective radio or something.

superboyac · « **Reply #60 on:** November 19, 2012, 09:04 PM »

OK, I'll try it out for another week and see what happens. It could be the websites I'm visiting...if java, flash is not supported, that explains why those don't work. I also tried mainly discussion forums, and those have pretty intense page loading stuff going on versus a normal site.

I removed most of the apps I downloaded since I read some caused problems. They were not very good anyway, most of them didn't work as expected, and a lot of them were really made for WP7.

And regarding the videos...I think my problem is just that they are big videos. The crazy thing is it looked like zero progress was being made with the uploads whenever I checked on the phone, but now I check skydrive and see that a lot of the files have been synced just fine. So it could be just the phone's interface...not very helpful in letting you know what is going on.

The other thing about the videos is that a 1080p video is a large thing. A 2-minute recording is like 200-300MB. And the phone needs to first convert the file to mp4 before uploading. This is all pretty heavy stuff, so no wonder it takes a while. It's doing it on a mobile processor, so i get that. heck, my desktop will need some seconds to do the same with it's fully loaded specs.

superboyac · « **Reply #61 on:** November 19, 2012, 09:08 PM »

ok allen...quick test (if you don't mind):
how long does it take you to load www.latimes.com ?
For me, it takes about 10 seconds for 90% of the page to load, and another 30-60 seconds for the last few bits, maybe 10% of the progress bar. Clicking the first article...pretty much the same story. This is with LTE and 4/5 bars enabled.

allen · « **Reply #62 on:** November 19, 2012, 09:21 PM »

It loaded instantly. Oh, I had the mobile version setting enabled (I only have 1G of data

The full version of the site... the progress bar was at half and the text visible maybe two seconds in, then the bar filled up and it took a few more seconds before it stopped loading. The whole process probably was 15 or 20 seconds, tops. By comparison, it wasn't much faster in Chrome on my desktop. Granted, this was over WiFi, but we're not comparing ISP's here

I clicked through for a while and any given story was fully readable within 2-4 seconds, there still was some loading time after that varying from 15 to 30 seconds but it's just that crap in the sidebar being pulled in by AJAX.

Switching to 4g (3 bars, I don't think LTE?) slowed it down a little bit but still faster that your 30-60 seconds. I still could read the article within 3-5 seconds.

superboyac · « **Reply #63 on:** November 19, 2012, 09:39 PM »

It loaded instantly. Oh, I had the mobile version setting enabled (I only have 1G of data

The full version of the site... the progress bar was at half and the text visible maybe two seconds in, then the bar filled up and it took a few more seconds before it stopped loading. The whole process probably was 15 or 20 seconds, tops. By comparison, it wasn't much faster in Chrome on my desktop. Granted, this was over WiFi, but we're not comparing ISP's here

I clicked through for a while and any given story was fully readable within 2-4 seconds, there still was some loading time after that varying from 15 to 30 seconds but it's just that crap in the sidebar being pulled in by AJAX.

Switching to 4g (3 bars, I don't think LTE?) slowed it down a little bit but still faster that your 30-60 seconds. I still could read the article within 3-5 seconds.
-allen (November 19, 2012, 09:21 PM)

Interesting. Thanks, seems like mine is fine. I'll go back to mobile versions, maybe those are better.

[edit]
mobile versions are not bad! faster. And really, they're basically the desktop versions without the ads.

allen · « **Reply #64 on:** November 19, 2012, 09:45 PM »

Yes, for news and information based sites I always opt for the mobile version. Straight to the point, less crap -- and now that my data plan is tiny I appreciate them all the more. I bet your load times double if you've got a movie converting and uploading!

By the way how is the video filming on it? How does it compare to other devices you've used? Nokia really hyped that camera, but I don't have a benchmark to compare it against really.

superboyac · « **Reply #65 on:** November 19, 2012, 10:01 PM »

I photos are very good, a couple of people even mentioned so to me. How much better? I don't know, I know the iphone is pretty good also. I'd say it might be a little better than that.

Video: pretty damn good, wow. This thing records crisp full 1080p videos. That's pretty awesome for a phone. I have a good 1080p digital camcorder, and there is a significant difference, but probably a lot less than I expected. Huge files. If you want, I'd be interested in you recording a 2-3 minute best quality video clip, and share how your skydrive syncing went.

allen · « **Reply #66 on:** November 19, 2012, 10:24 PM »

I hadn't noticed the "Uploads" section previously, so I hadn't stalked my photos. I just let it happen in the background. Now that I've got a video uploading I have an observation: the uploads section sucks, at least for big files. It doesn't have any sort of progress indicator. If there was a % on there somewhere, that would be great, otherwise the queue doesn't do an awful lot of good except to tell you that you have a queue.

Oh, it finished! It was a minute clip, about 200 megs, and it took 6 or 7 minutes to upload over wifi. No problems to report. Had I not been stalking the download dialog for the purpose of this test it would have been a better experience, quietly in the background. But at (at least) 6 minutes a pop, I can see how several videos would tie up your skydrive sync for a while. My takeaway is, I'm turning off video uploading. Should I make a video, I'll plug it in to my pc.

In general, I've been very disappointed in the Windows 8 sync app (coming from Zune, which I still think is the unsung best-ever media platform), but they did one thing right--that app will automatically drop everything in your skydrive folder if you have it installed so it ends up backed up on the cloud. (Apparently I had the foresight to set my skydrive photos as my default folder in my "Photos" collection)

superboyac · « **Reply #67 on:** November 19, 2012, 11:16 PM »

My takeaway is, I'm turning off video uploading. Should I make a video, I'll plug it in to my pc.
-allen (November 19, 2012, 10:24 PM)

How would you get it off the phone and on the pc? windows explorer?

allen · « **Reply #68 on:** November 19, 2012, 11:20 PM »

No man, that's way too manual. The "Windows Phone" Windows 8 app auto-syncs content when plugged in over usb. There is also a Desktop/Windows 7 program (You linked to it previously) that I presume can do the same.

Stoic Joker · « **Reply #69 on:** November 20, 2012, 06:43 AM »

No man, that's way too manual. The "Windows Phone" Windows 8 app auto-syncs content when plugged in over usb. There is also a Desktop/Windows 7 program (You linked to it previously) that I presume can do the same.
-allen (November 19, 2012, 11:20 PM)

This one? http://www.windowsph...hone-app-for-desktop

Apparently there's a version that runs on a Mac ... But:

The Windows Phone app for desktop won't work on Windows RT

.
That's rather dumb.

allen · « **Reply #70 on:** November 20, 2012, 08:07 AM »

No man, that's way too manual. The "Windows Phone" Windows 8 app auto-syncs content when plugged in over usb. There is also a Desktop/Windows 7 program (You linked to it previously) that I presume can do the same.
-allen (November 19, 2012, 11:20 PM)

This one? http://www.windowsph...hone-app-for-desktop

Apparently there's a version that runs on a Mac ... But:
The Windows Phone app for desktop won't work on Windows RT
.
That's rather dumb.
-Stoic Joker (November 20, 2012, 06:43 AM)

The desktop app won't run on RT, none do. The Windows Phone app would work on RT and is what I use on Windows 8.

Stoic Joker · « **Reply #71 on:** November 20, 2012, 11:29 AM »

No man, that's way too manual. The "Windows Phone" Windows 8 app auto-syncs content when plugged in over usb. There is also a Desktop/Windows 7 program (You linked to it previously) that I presume can do the same.
-allen (November 19, 2012, 11:20 PM)

This one? http://www.windowsph...hone-app-for-desktop

Apparently there's a version that runs on a Mac ... But:
The Windows Phone app for desktop won't work on Windows RT
.
That's rather dumb.
-Stoic Joker (November 20, 2012, 06:43 AM)

The desktop app won't run on RT, none do. The Windows Phone app would work on RT and is what I use on Windows 8.
-allen (November 20, 2012, 08:07 AM)

Ah! Okay ... The other link. I was in a bit of a hurry, and got sidetracked being baffled by why they would even bother coding a Mac version...as them folks is hopeless KewlAid fiends.

allen · « **Reply #72 on:** November 20, 2012, 12:07 PM »

Funnily enough, now that Zune is out of the equation iTunes and that connector problem seems to be the only way to sync podcasts right now. (You can subscribe to them via the Marketplace on the phone, but there's no desktop connection and no way to add podcasts that aren't in the market place. . . )

superboyac · « **Reply #73 on:** November 20, 2012, 07:15 PM »

Funnily enough, now that Zune is out of the equation iTunes and that connector problem seems to be the only way to sync podcasts right now. (You can subscribe to them via the Marketplace on the phone, but there's no desktop connection and no way to add podcasts that aren't in the market place. . . )
-allen (November 20, 2012, 12:07 PM)

Do you think MS is going to insist on their closed ecosystem? Or do you think people are going to start complaining a lot and they will open up the features? I think the latter will happen, but I'm way out of the loop. I'm more worried that MS has designed the OS in such a way that certain important functions won't even be accessible to developers that were accessible with previous windows versions.

allen · « **Reply #74 on:** November 20, 2012, 07:35 PM »

Funnily enough, now that Zune is out of the equation iTunes and that connector problem seems to be the only way to sync podcasts right now. (You can subscribe to them via the Marketplace on the phone, but there's no desktop connection and no way to add podcasts that aren't in the market place. . . )
-allen (November 20, 2012, 12:07 PM)
Do you think MS is going to insist on their closed ecosystem? Or do you think people are going to start complaining a lot and they will open up the features? I think the latter will happen, but I'm way out of the loop. I'm more worried that MS has designed the OS in such a way that certain important functions won't even be accessible to developers that were accessible with previous windows versions.
-superboyac (November 20, 2012, 07:15 PM)

I am almost certain that it wasn't a purposeful move, they just didn't get it done before launch. Like every other complaint I have with Windows Phone 8, this is functionality that was previously accomplished using the Zune desktop application that they didn't account for when cutting Zune out of the picture.

It could be worse, though -- at least in the US I have access to podcasts in the store. The international community just can't listen to podcasts unless they do so using a third party application.