Going all-Microsoft - UPDATE: Got a Lumia 930; tis brilliant

[evilrob]

OK - quick update. I've had the Windows Phone for 3 weeks now. I think I covered everything in previous posts as I pretty much got my setup "just right" within a couple of days.

Windows Phone 8 OS is superb. The Nokia Lumia 920 is a lovely bit of hardware. I'm very happy all in all. If anyone fancies a change of mobile OS, I'm pretty sure you won't be unhappy unless you have very specific app needs. For all 'normal' phone stuff - calls, texts, photos, email, internets - it works beautifully.

I'm still holding off making any judgements on battery life because I'm using it far more than I used my iPhone so although I run it down to about 30% towards the end of the day, I suspect that's because it's still a new toy and that will level out over time. I've not yet exhausted the battery during the course of a day.

I've also not yet been awoken by any noises from the phone overnight, so my "one volume setting for everything" complaint has not proven to be a problem.

You will be able to close individual apps when the latest GDR3 update is rolled out (or sooner if you want to install it manually yourself - I'll wait until the official rollout as my phone is brand new so I don't want to do anything that might affect the warranty). However - I've overcome my app-closing OCD and just let the OS get on with it; not had any random crashes or slowdowns from having too many apps open - it seems to manage itself fine.

Next purchase was going to be a Surface RT, but then I changed my mind to spend a bit more and get the latest Surface 2. I've now changed my mind again, as Nokia announced the Lumia 2520 Windows RT tablet which looks the tits and will look lovely next to the Lumia phone, pictured here with optional keyboard case:

http://www.nokia.com/global/products/tablet/lumia2520" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

 

[evilrob]

I know I said at the outset I'd be keeping the Macbook Air as a main computer, but I installed Windows 8.1 Pro natively on it via Bootcamp and have been using it as my main OS in parallel with getting the Windows Phone. I like it.

Seriously considering selling the Air and getting an Asus Zenbook UX301 (aka Infinity) that comes out later in the year:

It all boils down to the touchpad - I think that Apple still have the best touchpads of any laptop out there at the moment.

 

[Cartman]

It's grate to hear you're enjoying your new toys

I have toa sk, have you had any isues whit cell coverage on your 920? Latly mine seems to drop out more than i can recal. May just be me noticing it more, but i feel it had something to do whit the grd2 uppdate.. Not shure if I should send it in to have it checked, or if there wil be a fix in the grd3 update.... Would be god to know I'm not alone or if. I am, that there actualy is a fault whit my phone

 

[evilrob]

Sorry, Adrian - I've had no cellular connectivity issues at all, either before or after updating to Amber.

 

[Cartman]

Wel, that's grate for you I think I'l be talking to the store next week...

Btw did you know that you can silence the phone witout holding the volume button down until it counts out? You can push the tiny set to vibrate symbol in the top right corner I to find the one volume for everything extremely anoying

 

[evilrob]

OK, had a Windows Phone for over a month now. The Nokia Lumia 920 is the best phone I've ever had - I'm completely sold on Windows Phone OS. I don't miss the iPhone at all.

Just waiting for this bad boy to come out now, then I'll report back on how I get on with a Microsoft tablet.
http://www.nokia.com/gb-en/phones/tablet/lumia2520/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

 

[ethanfitz]

OK, had a Windows Phone for over a month now. The Nokia Lumia 920 is the best phone I've ever had - I'm completely sold on Windows Phone OS. I don't miss the iPhone at all.

was exactly what i was like when i switched over to a windows phone

Really interested to see what you think about the Nokia Tablet. saving my pennies for a tablet at them moment and it is high on my list of choices :thumbs:

 

[Cartman]

Realy want the 2520 to.. But it has not been anounsed when it wil become awailable in norway

 

[Cartman]

Hey I got to ask, how are things going?

I ask because my wife gave me a Surface RT for christmas and I thought maby we could compare notes

 

[evilrob]

Nice! How are you finding it?

I've got no new toys I'm afraid - was waiting until the 2520 came out; you can now get it but only in Red and Black and I want a White one to match the phone, I'm also waiting for the Power Keyboard case as I want to compare it to the Surface Type keyboard cover and see which I prefer typing on.

 

[evilrob]

If Nokia don't get their shit together soon, I may well pick up a discounted Surface Pro 1 for around the same kind of money as a brand new Lumia 2520.

The Nokia Lumia 2520 is £399, whereas you can get a Surface Pro 1 64gb for £429.

I wouldn't have been interested in a Surface Pro at the original £700-800+ asking price but for £30 more than an RT tablet it might be worth a punt.

 

[Cartman]

that's too bad but yea,. you have to get the matching white my 920 is white to..

I'm loving it so far, upgradet it to win rt 8.1, that was a big deal, and made itt better.

so far, the only reaøl issue I have, is that it has slightly lover battery time then my ipad 2, I need to charge it every day, where as the Ipad could go a day or 2 depending on use.
and the internett explorer, althoug it is wery werry good, it has some issues with the land rover forum I'm on, other then that, It's werry good.

I got the type cover 2 that is back litt, and it is a werry good keyboard. the mouse is a little iffy as it has no real buttons otther than touch, but that's just a habit thing.

as far as apps go, it has everything I need, exept for a fev games I play on the Ipad, but I don't hold that against it.

office works well, and sky drive integration works like a charm, as long as your on wifi.

I got the 64gb one, an I'we downloaded werry much, and it's stil got loads of space, but luckely it can stil be expanded whit a memory card, and I can use an external hdd trough the usb.

the best feature thoug, is that you can plug your xbox 360 wierd controler innto it, and play nintendo games on a emulator you can download in the store

 

[Dal]

How you finding the battery life Rob? Colleague at work just got a 1020 and the battery life is 6 hours or something daft..

 

[Cartman]

I can use my 920 for 2 days before recharging, but I generaly charge it every day..

he probably has a whole lot of background tasks running. he should try turning off the once he does not use. to do this you enter settings, and swipe left. then the top menu shows the programs running in the background. some like the drive app, consumes a lott of power.

there is also a new update out for the 1020 now, he should download it if he hasn't already

 

[Dal]

He did the update at the weekend. I'll tell him about the drive app.

Ta.

 

[evilrob]

I can use my 920 for 2 days before recharging, but I generally charge it every day

This, really. Battery life is no worse than it was on my iPhone 5.

As Adrian suggested, first thing to check is to make sure the phone has the latest firmware/software via the 'phone update' section of the settings menu. Also make sure you have the latest versions of any apps by checking the app store; if there are updates available it will tell you in there. Also powering it down completely and restarting the device will kill any errant processes that may have become stuck in a loop or whatever (i.e. some buggy software, not necessarily at an OS level).

Alternatively, for a less drastic 'reboot' you can repeatedly hit the 'back' button to shut any open apps. There's really no need to do this on a regular basis, but it may help to rule out / prove a runaway app being to blame for excessive battery drain.

Your colleague should also try the following app (it's free unless you want to give the developer a quid or something to remove ads):

It's called Insider and they can push it to their phone from here or install it directly on the phone via the app store:
http://www.windowsphone.com/en-gb/store/app/insider/d9b7989e-1592-4f25-a556-4755c06bf2e9" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

It allows you to put a tile on the home screen with battery % / runtime left, allows you to put handy shortcuts to the settings to turn wifi/bluetooth/GPS/etc on/off, and also records your battery usage and gives you more information than anyone ever reasonably needs about where your battery power is going, which radios you had on at the time etc and plots it all on fancy graphs for you. It can also alert you if your battery is discharging faster than it really should (configurable - I have mine set to tell me if my battery has discharged by 30% or more in an hour) so you can investigate if you've got something running in the background without realising it.

My discharge rate is between 2.0% per hour and 5.0% per hour for light use or up to 10-15% if I'm playing a game or something - if your colleague is getting significantly higher than this, there's an issue. They may have a faulty or suboptimal battery.

As with any smartphone you should be sensible about turning off radios when not in use (Wifi, Bluetooth, GPS, internet sharing (mobile hotspot), NFC which is called 'Tap+Send' on Windows Phones etc), setting the screen to timeout after as short a period of time as you can tolerate, setting your email to poll maybe hourly instead of every 15 minutes. Also, if they spend a lot of time streaming music over 3G/WiFi this will cane the battery - Spotify, BBC Radio, for example. Battery life when listening to music synced for offline play on Spotify uses hardly any battery at all, by contrast.

My settings, for reference:
email+accounts: three e-mail accounts, my main one set to 'as they arrive' aka 'push' (Outlook.com) and the other two to set to poll every two hours. Gmail pulled support for push email on Windows Phone cos they're sneaky bastards - so if your colleague is using Gmail there's no point in having it set to less than 15 minutes. I only download email from the past 7 days, otherwise there is wasted data and energy synchronising your inbox because there will be more emails to sync if you choose a longer sync period obviously. You can always search for older emails if you need something from beyond the last 7 days, there's just no point in syncing your entire inbox every minutes / hours.

internet sharing: turned off

lock screen: time-out: 1 minute.

wifi - typically on all the time if I'm at work or home. If I'm out and about I turn it off, more for security than battery life.

bluetooth - typically turned off when not in use.

tap+send - off.

location (GPS) - turned off when not in use.

battery saver - on (this just stops doing anything not strictly necessary when the battery gets down to 20% - so just inbound calls/texts; it will stop polling your non-push email accounts, Facebook/Twitter/News updates etc.)

brightness - automatic (this reduces the intensity of the backlight appropriate to the conditions - is also nice for your retinas if you need to look at your phone in the middle of the night when it's pitch black).

display - battery saver brightness set to on (this reduces the maximum screen brightness when phone is in battery saver mode - i.e. 20% or less - to squeeze the most runtime out of that last fifth).

touch - sensitivity set to normal, double tap to wake set to on (there is a small battery life impact with this option but I'm OK with that; turn it off if you want to eke out every last drop of power)

glance - off

background tasks:
Swipe from right to left in the Settings menu to see the Applications settings and check which 'background tasks' are enabled - disable anything you don't want/need being able to send/receive data or perform operations ad hoc. For example the LinkedIn and Foursquare apps can pull in updates from your peers as they occur, and they will do so by default unless you turn it off in here. Obviously something like WhatsApp you would not want to disable background tasks for. Similarly if you like being kept up to date with the latest news headlines, you would keep background tasks enabled for your news app of choice (mine's Bing News). If they install the Insider app I recommended above, background tasks should be enabled for this so it can record your battery data.

 

[evilrob]

He did the update at the weekend. I'll tell him about the drive app.

Ta.

The Drive app is satnav software; it's unlikely he has this running - but if he does, that would certainly explain excessive battery drain as it will be polling his location throughout the day.

 

[Dal]

Thanks for such an in depth response Rob - much appreciated.

One thing that he's found this morning is to turn off the 4G bit as if that's constantly looking for a signal that isn't there, that'll probably not help the battery.

Cheers again.

 

[evilrob]

Thanks for such an in depth response Rob - much appreciated.

No worries.

One thing that he's found this morning is to turn off the 4G bit as if that's constantly looking for a signal that isn't there, that'll probably not help the battery.

Cheers again.

I just checked my mobile data settings - I was also set to 4G. I'm with Three which isn't 4G yet, I'm sure setting it to 3G will help a bit, but it certainly hasn't caused me any battery woes in the time I've had the phone, which is a good few months now.

 

[Cartman]

Your right, 4g or lte sucs masive amounts of power compared to 3g. So if you don't get 4g in your aerea, just turn it off.

My settings are

Wifi: on

Bluethoot : on

Tap and send : off

Location : on

Mobile data : on 4g

Internett sharing : off

Lock screen : 3 min

Toutch : normal, wake on tap off

Background tasks : battery info, bing wether

E-mail: set to colect every 30 min

Power saving: on at 20%

Glanse: on set to (i belive glanse) comes on when i take it out of my pocket, or hold my hand over it.

Brightnes : auto