It’s not often I get stuff for free. Obviously, there’s Christmas coming up and people are doing it because they love you and whatnot but it’s rare people will actually give me stuff. That’s exactly what the lovely people at Microsoft did with this new Lumia 800.
If you’re not a fan of words, I’ve got a three-word visual review for you here:
But I’m guessing you’re here for a bit more of an in-depth review. Fair enough. Just bear in mind they’ve not paid me to say any of this stuff specifically, but I might have a bit of a bias into liking it purely because I didn’t have to fork out £400. Win some, lose some.
I had never touched a Windows Phone before getting this last week. This is an entirely new experience for me. I’ve got an iOS device and (up until last week of course) an Android device. So really, discounting webOS, Symbian and BlackBerry (lol) I’ve now got some experience with all three major mobile operating systems.
Is Windows Phone the best? From a usability perspective, it’s debateable. Now when I use iOS the icons feel pretty prehistoric, but at the same time iOS has simplicity nailed down. There’s not a lot graphically on Windows Phone, but it’s still more flair than there is on iOS.
But that’s stuff’s boring for people who aren’t nerds, so I’ll get right to the meaty part – the stuff it actually does. It’s got Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and whatnot already baked into the OS so there’s no real reason to download any other apps for those purposes other than maybe a more familiar layout. Of course, Windows Live and Xbox Live are both in there, too, but I don’t really use Windows Live or actually played any mobile games for Xbox Live yet so I can’t really comment. Although I can poke my avatar now, which is a great use of technology.
There’s not a lot of great stuff on the Marketplace, but that’s really up to us developers to sort that out for you. That’s also half the reason they gave us the phones, but I’d like to think the majority was out of love.
Build quality is wonderful, even if it does feel like a Nokia branded brick sometimes. I’m just used to my X10 midget phone, most likely, so that opinion doesn’t really mean much.
Overall it’s awesome and you should totally get one. Then pin me to your Start screen, because then you’ll see all my witticisms every time you use your phone (and who wouldn’t want that?)
