It the immortal lyrics of Britney Spears, "Oops, I Did It Again." The biggest tech story of the week is all the cool stuff unveiled at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas, but instead I'm going to write about my new phone — specifically my Windows Phone 8 (WP8).
The "again" part refers to last October when I skipped the very important launch of Windows 8 and Windows Surface Tablets to brag about my new You Rock Guitar. That's how I roll...
Truth is, I wanted to use my new Windows phone for a little while before writing about the experience, and now that I've had my Nokia Lumia 920 for all of six weeks I find I can't shut up about it. I haven't been this excited about a piece of technology since — well, since my You Rock Guitar arrived in the mail last October.
I've used Apple's iOS devices extensively as well as the latest flavour of Android, and despite the fact that the top phones of 2012 on most reviewers' lists were the Samsung Galaxy III and iPhone 5 (usually in that order), I'm ecstatic with my choice.
Before I dive into the reasons, I should explain why I went with a largely unproven platform. For one thing, I've already made a commitment to Microsoft — my laptop now runs Windows 8, my console of choice is the Xbox 360, I use Office products at home and at work, etc. More importantly, I wanted to subscribe to Xbox Music and get access to 30 million songs for $100 a year, and use the same account to fill my computer, television and phone with music.
That's why I bought a Windows 8 Phone; this is why I love it:
• It's superficial, but I think WP8 is the most elegant mobile operating system out there. The coloured, resizable live tiles are awesome, as are the stunning photos that Microsoft loads onto the Bing search bar and my lock screen. The native fonts and white-text-on-black-background appearance of system apps like phone, contacts, messaging, etc. is pleasing to the eye. Even the system icons at the top are the nicest looking out there, and disappear tastefully when they're not in use.
• I've always liked Nokia products in the past, and knew they would build something close to indestructible. Physically, it's an amazing phone with a vibrant 4.5-inch 1280x768 screen, and buttons and ports (mini USB) that make sense. It even has wireless charging built-in. As well, Nokia has created some incredible native apps that add a lot of value, includes Maps, Drive, Xpress (stripped down web browser that saves bandwith), City Lens (Google Street View on steroids), and more. Battery life is good, and the camera — an 8.7MP Nokia PureView with built-in image stabilization — is one of the best available for photos and video.
• The predictive text is the best of any device I've used, and it learns as it goes. I've typed whole text messages just by typing one or two letters of every word. Speech functions are also amazing and make it easy to dictate text messages, initiative phone calls, open applications like music, and so on. The Bing search tool has an audio search tool that works like Shazam, and a bar code/QR Code scanner that also has the ability to scan text and either translate it to another language or copy and paste it into a document.
• Settings and customizations are easy and intuitive. For example, I have my phone set in such a way that when I'm listening to music and a new text comes in the music fades and the phone reads the text to me. Using the microphone jack on the headphones I can then dictate a reply or do nothing so the music fades back in. Yes, you can do this on other phones but I think the execution is better on WP8.
• Microsoft's involvement also means you get a scaled down version of Office that is pretty handy, a good web browser, awesome integration of things like email and social networking through native apps and the "Me" app, and a "Kid's Corner" section that lets you pick which apps you want your kids to use. One of the most incredible features is the ability to pin anything to your start page in a little square window — a shortcut to a website, a contact, a specific music playlist, system controls like airplane mode and Wi-Fi, the game you're playing, anything.
There are drawbacks. The sync tools with my Windows 8 computer need a lot of work, and the actual integration of music — one of the main reasons I bought the phone — is clumsy. Some live tiles are immune to colour themes, which affects the overall appearance slightly. It's heavy. It heats up. Xbox Video has not made it over to the platform yet, so there's no way to download movies and television at this point other than Netflix. There are a lot of features and functions you have to figure out yourself, like how to update the operating system. Some have condemned the lack of apps, including the lack of Instagram, but nothing has been an issue to me.
Overall, none of the negatives seem all that important and there's nothing that can't be fixed in future updates. Overall, I have no problem recommending that people to at least consider WP8 on the same footing as they would consider Android or iOS.
