The Nokia Lumia 900 review

The Nokia Lumia 900 has the weight of two technology behemoths and Windows Phone fans on its polycarbonate shoulders. Ars sees if the flagship smartphone can do them all proud.

<a href='http://meincmagazine.com/gadgets/reviews/2012/04/the-nokia-lumia-900-review.ars'>Read the whole story</a>

 

[name99]

it should be near flawless like the iPhone

Really? Are we so quick to forget things like "Antennagate" and "Glass everywhere makes the phone both a bit slippery and prone to breaking"? iPhones have been far from perfect, and the iPhone 4, while I liked it, had some pretty critical flaws that weren't even cosmetic right out of the gate. Compared to those, I personally think the Lumia's weaknesses are miniscule.

it's important to distinguish between REAL problems and bullshit problems.
Antennagate and "screen breaks all the time" were as much bullshit problems as today's entry in that idiocy sweepstakes, "OMG the iPad3 is so hot it's going to burst into flames" and previous entries like "non-replacable batteries are a disaster" or "flash storage is going to fail after a year of use".

The complaints that I am seeing against this phone are not of that sort. They are not the hyperbolic nonsense of the bullshit complaint; they are rather a list of niggling irritations that ultimately lead to the question: "OK, why bother with this phone rather than iOS or Android" without (for most people) a compelling answer.

 

[name99]

I've never understood why consumers who have nothing to do with a corporation, except giving them money for products, are so interested in sales or how well certain products from certain companies fare in the market... Some of these deluded fanboys just need to die.

PS: Who owns the ugly finger nails in the photos? Get rid of that bullshit you put on your nails.

Casey is young and a girl. She is fully entitled to have fun with her life, and if that includes putting decorations on her nails, or dying her hair multi-colored, or whatever, so be it.
There'll be plenty of time for her to live a more staid and buttoned-down life once she hits middle-age.

And, just as a friendly hint, "You have ugly finger nails. Get rid of that bullshit." is generally not a winning line, or a winning attitude, when it comes time to try to find a partner of your own. You're probably a decent person, so try to work on softening these rather coarse edges of your personality.

 

[name99]

Please provide some real life examples of apps that make use of this. From the screenshots I see, I see nothing but email/SMS count and weather, and little things like that. I feel people keep talking up this Live Tile idea but it's really nothing special at all. An Android widget can be 1x1, 4x4, or anything in between, and can show you absolutely anything. Sounds a lot more useful. Or if you don't want that, you can put 16 icons in that space just like in iOS. I'm not sure how you improve on that really.

Apart from various built-in apps (pinned people, Me tile, Calendar, and others), the Twitter client I use (Rowi), Flickr, and Weather Channel all demonstrate things that you can't do on iOS--that is, they display more than just a single number.

It's certainly not the case that every app will have some useful purpose for its live tile, but there's certainly a lot more that's generally useful than iOS currently permits.

Android widgets are capable of all sorts of things, of course.

Not trying to get into a pissing match here, rather asking for real information:
Can you not argue that the stacked messages on the iOS lock screen are basically the same thing? Twitter like apps can send those and thereby create the same effect.

Obviously there are differences.
- A tile can use graphic elements that a lock-screen notification cannot (though I suspect if you actually did the work and use Emoji and Unicode icons you could do some amazing things ---- like those DOS "windowed" apps of the past that used the edge and corner glyphs in the IBM character set).
- And a tile can be persistent in a way that lock screen notifications are not once you unlock.

But in terms of how the features are actually used, to get quick updates at a glance, are they really that different?

 

[Braumin]

On a side note, what weather app is installed in the 7th screenshot down from the top (the one with the nails)??

http://static.arstechnica.net/2012/04/0 ... -intro.jpg

Looks like The Weather Channel app. It's not Accuweather, Weatherbug, or the MS weather app.

Yeah it is Weather Channel. Not the best weather app by a long ways - check out Weather Flow:
http://www.windowsphone.com/en-US/apps/ ... 0c1635bbfa

The best weather app ever. Live tile is awesome.

 

[Braumin]

But I thought the CPU didnt matter with WP7? Well, thats what Microsoft keeps telling everyone anyway. They even rigged a horrible contest to "prove" it. (and failed in epic fashion!)

If by failed, you mean won almost every single time, then you are right.

 

[name99]

It's an nice attempt at a Smartphone, but it still smacks of being a beta "me too!" product. Not being able to rearrange the App Icons is idiotic, and it's a shame to see that MS are still using the Zune colour palatte, although the colour does go well with Casey's nail polish

I am not sure what you mean by not being able to rearrange the app icons, but you can pin and arrange the tiles on the homescreen. The app list is done using jumplist, which I think is very quick. If I want to load Facebook, then I just slide left, click on the letter "a" and then select "f" and then select "facebook". It seems a lot of steps, but I can do each step very quickly, so the total time looking for facebook app is not much. Plus, I also have the facebook app pinned to the homescreen.

On Android and iOS with the pages of screens, I would have to slide left (or right) until I get to the "f" section, and then search around for facebook. And most of the time when the icon is blaring at my face, I still can't find it quickly. On WP7, each step is more well defined. Of course, on both of these OS, you can just add an icon on the main home screen like WP7.

If this really is a problem for you, on iOS, why don't you just use the search screen instead, to launch apps? If I go to the search screen and type Fa, I get the facebook icon appearing at the top of the list pretty damn fast.

It's silly to obsess about such minor things when the competitors (at least iOS --- I don't know about Android) offer what is essentially exactly the same capability.

 

[Psychophant]

"I've never understood why consumers who have nothing to do with a corporation, except giving them money for products, are so interested in sales or how well certain products from certain companies fare in the market... Some of these deluded fanboys just need to die."

It's nice to know if a product line has a decent chance of being viable 1-2 years down the road. Many people aren't going to buy a Windows phone simply because the data points to the fact that it isn't doing as well in the marketplace as android and iOS. I don't think they'd care if it had 25% market share and Microsoft was losing billions on it.

 

[name99]

Just wanted to stop by and probably restate this point by emphasizing that oleophobic screens are merely coated and said coating normally wears off within a few months, depending on several factors.

This was clearly NOT the case for both my iPad1 and iPhone4, both of which I bought pretty much on the day they were released, and which I have used constantly since then.

Of course, it wouldn't surprise me if other brands do, indeed, skimp on the quality of their oleophobic coating.

 

[name99]

Emails don't provide a toast notification. If they did it would help because I would not only be notified, but the toast would presumably give me details about the notification which would allow me to decide whether or not to ignore it.

If there is a method to get toast notifications for emails I'd be glad to know how I could enable them, it would alleviate a big annoyance I have with the platform.

Ah, I understand. That was an explicit design decision by Microsoft, under the premise that receiving email should not be an interrupt-driven task (which, if you look at the research about how to most effectively manage email, they're right). I get why you would want that, but they do have very good reasons not to do that.

And there's the problem both Microsoft and Apple have; you have to do things their way. This would be a great place to have an option; allow the user to turn on notifications if their workflow calls for it. But MS has decided that email should not be an interrupt-driven task, and if you think differently, tough titties.

It's probably a stupid idea to complain about how "Apple makes you do things their way" in the context of notifications and email, where Apple goes overboard in allowing you to customize exactly which notifications you want to receive and how you want to receive them; and likewise for how aggressive mail should or should not be about pulling in updates.

Just saying --- kinda undermines your rant and all, the facts being the precise opposite of what you claim.

 

[name99]

It is a touch screen device. No oleo coating? WTF are they thinking?!

I have two iPhone 4. His "oleophobic coating" is a marketing bulls-t. It just doesnt work. Never.

Alonza. You have seven posts on Ars. Of these
- four are about how awful OSX is and the stupidity of its users
- one is about how iPad sucks, and
- one is about how iOS sucks

Now we are supposed to believe that, with all your Apple hatred, you went out and bought not just one but two iPhones?
Here's a suggestion: Why don't you just stop wasting our time with your childish lies?

 

[EpsilonVector]

"I've never understood why consumers who have nothing to do with a corporation, except giving them money for products, are so interested in sales or how well certain products from certain companies fare in the market... Some of these deluded fanboys just need to die."

People spend an enormous amount of time with technology and depend on it to accomplish things. Thus, the quality of this technology greatly affects their own quality of life. When the technology is good, and their quality of life is improved, it makes them fans of the people who made it, and once you are a fan of someone, you root for them.

 

[heartburnkid]

Emails don't provide a toast notification. If they did it would help because I would not only be notified, but the toast would presumably give me details about the notification which would allow me to decide whether or not to ignore it.

If there is a method to get toast notifications for emails I'd be glad to know how I could enable them, it would alleviate a big annoyance I have with the platform.

Ah, I understand. That was an explicit design decision by Microsoft, under the premise that receiving email should not be an interrupt-driven task (which, if you look at the research about how to most effectively manage email, they're right). I get why you would want that, but they do have very good reasons not to do that.

And there's the problem both Microsoft and Apple have; you have to do things their way. This would be a great place to have an option; allow the user to turn on notifications if their workflow calls for it. But MS has decided that email should not be an interrupt-driven task, and if you think differently, tough titties.

It's probably a stupid idea to complain about how "Apple makes you do things their way" in the context of notifications and email, where Apple goes overboard in allowing you to customize exactly which notifications you want to receive and how you want to receive them; and likewise for how aggressive mail should or should not be about pulling in updates.

Just saying --- kinda undermines your rant and all, the facts being the precise opposite of what you claim.

I meant as a general design philosophy. This specific example of fuckery is, indeed, limited to MS.

 

[heartburnkid]

That's the thing. Workflow isn't 100% subjective. Hell, my actual job is telling people how their workflow is terrible and they're wrong for doing it that way, and then fixing their business processes and workflow to work better. That's what human factors engineering is about.

I'm not saying that MS is the be-all end-all, I'm just saying that they made a decision, based on their (considerable) research, that they were going to use their resources to develop other things, instead of interrupting notifications for email. That's an entirely reasonable decision for them to make.

If you don't work that way, that's fine. There are other smartphone systems with different ways to work. I'm not here to tell you that iOS and Android are bad. They're not, at all. I'm just saying that WP7 works, and works well, and has a reason for doing things the way it does.

Yes, but people ask you for help with their workflow (I'm presuming you don't just break into people's offices, study how they work, and shout, "WRONG!"). Nobody asked MS, and when people bring up that the MS way doesn't work for them, here you are shilling about all the research that went into it, trying to give people unwelcome advice, telling them how wrong they are for wanting a choice. Nobody gives a shit about MS's research. People want to work the way they want to work. If not having email notifications is a dealbreaker for somebody, "Well, you're wrong for wanting it" isn't exactly going to endear you to people, you know?

 

[tesseractive]

I think Engadget's review got it right: given the price point, the 900 should be considered a mid-range phone. And as a midrange phone it is very, very good. Like the 710 is very good as a lower-end phone.

Of course this means the WP fans need to admit that WP doesn't have a real high-end phone yet and that's no easy thing to admit for a fanboy.

It's like admitting that most ultrabooks aren't as good as the Air. But they also are cheaper so they shouldn't be compared directly.

Exactly! Right now the 900 is being crucified for having interior parts that don't live up to its sexy exterior. But for $100 (free if your new to AT&T) it's a great buy. I would love to see this phone compared to the other Android phones available for $100 on contract.

Well, Verizon has the HTC Rezound for $50 on contract, with a 4.3" screen with a whopping 720p resolution, a 1.5 GHz dual-core CPU, 1GB of RAM, and 32GB of storage (counting a 16GB microSD that can be swapped for a larger one).

That doesn't mean the 900 is a terrible phone, but the claim that its interior parts are equivalent to the best comparably priced Android phones is way off.

That is a good price. It is a temporal promotional price though, normally it sells for 200 or more.

I just figured it was marked down because the Galaxy Nexus and Razr were outselling it. Usually prices on phones don't go back up.

 

[thesearchforbigfoot]

Nokia doesn't have any kind of exclusivity deal with MS do they? They could still back out and go with Android? Because Windows Phone is pretty much dead in the water. But Nokia does make great hardware and I would love to see a Nokia phone running ICS.

 

[name99]

That's the thing. Workflow isn't 100% subjective. Hell, my actual job is telling people how their workflow is terrible and they're wrong for doing it that way, and then fixing their business processes and workflow to work better. That's what human factors engineering is about.

I'm not saying that MS is the be-all end-all, I'm just saying that they made a decision, based on their (considerable) research, that they were going to use their resources to develop other things, instead of interrupting notifications for email. That's an entirely reasonable decision for them to make.

If you don't work that way, that's fine. There are other smartphone systems with different ways to work. I'm not here to tell you that iOS and Android are bad. They're not, at all. I'm just saying that WP7 works, and works well, and has a reason for doing things the way it does.

Yes, but people ask you for help with their workflow (I'm presuming you don't just break into people's offices, study how they work, and shout, "WRONG!"). Nobody asked MS, and when people bring up that the MS way doesn't work for them, here you are shilling about all the research that went into it, trying to give people unwelcome advice, telling them how wrong they are for wanting a choice. Nobody gives a shit about MS's research. People want to work the way they want to work. If not having email notifications is a dealbreaker for somebody, "Well, you're wrong for wanting it" isn't exactly going to endear you to people, you know?

Actually "Well, you're wrong for wanting it" is a perfectly good response to many situations.

A big problem with the US is that it is populated by an enormous number of idiots who insist that nothing ever change, no matter how stupid it is. That's why we still don't have metric, we have pennies and other small coins, we still have an obsolete payments system (checks and signature, not PIN credit cards) etc etc. The US could do with a whole lot more people being told, loudly "YOU'RE AN IDIOT FOR WANTING THAT".

I'm no particular MS fan, but as a general principle, if you're so impatient or immature that you're unwilling to use a better tool because you couldn't be bothered to spend a day adapting to a new (provably better) workflow, well then you're probably not going to do especially well in life.

 

[heartburnkid]

I'm no particular MS fan, but as a general principle, if you're so impatient or immature that you're unwilling to use a better tool because you couldn't be bothered to spend a day adapting to a new (provably better) workflow, well then you're probably not going to do especially well in life.

But again, in many cases, "Better" is subjective. Just because some research department figured that no notifications is "better" for some percentage of people, doesn't mean it will be better for everybody. Especially with something small like this, there is no valid reason not to simply give users the option. Then you satisfy both camps.

Personally, I think that the software that I can configure to have an unobtrusive alert when I receive an email is the better option. But then, sometimes I receive urgent emails.

 

[Penforhire]

Just a side note on iOS (iPhone) icons -- They aren't entirely "dead." I get notification/alerts on some, maybe not as flexible as Android icons but they aren't purely static.

 

[Chikahiro]

Nokia doesn't have any kind of exclusivity deal with MS do they? They could still back out and go with Android? Because Windows Phone is pretty much dead in the water. But Nokia does make great hardware and I would love to see a Nokia phone running ICS.

As I remember, they've got a deal with Microsoft (believe it was in the billion $ range) for going exclusively Windows Phone, get more ability to customize the phone/OS than other OEMs, etc. It was claimed that with all the competition with Android, it would be a lot harder to differentiate themselves or stand out.

While the 900 is a very nice phone (and I'm eager to get mine), I don't believe that Nokia (LTE aside) really got a chance to flex what they can do yet. When Apollo comes out, well, then we'll see. Personally, I hope they don't get too crazy - I don't want OS fragmentation, and some of the alleged designs Nokia is working on do worry me. The new update being worked on that lets WP7 run on half the RAM bugs me too.

I bought into WP7 because it represents, to me, a middle-ground between iOS and Android. I get a good, consistent experience with the OS, software I like (love Zune-player), at the time it seemed that MS was going to be tough with carriers concerning updates (which is looking more uncertain now), I got to choose from a variety of OEMs/styles, and a lot of the design outright appealed to me (including the baseline for hardware). While I do appreciate OEMs and carriers wanting more points of differentiation, I look at them and how they (IMO) ruin Android phones, making them into the OEM PCs of the smartphone world where a smart user pretty much HAS to root the things to get all the updates? No, sorry, I don't trust them. I personally feel they've not really a good job of differentiating WP7 phones even with their available options (microSD storage, keyboards, apps, etc). I didn't go Apple because I want more choice than their one size fits all approach. All three have their pros and cons, and for what *I* wanted, WP7 had a good balance of the two.

I personally never thought or expected WP7 to "do well" or be an iOS/Android-killer. All I hope is for it to, in time, become a profitable 3rd place in the smartphone market for MS and its partners. I continue to hold that hope, and hope RIM can turn around. I want the smartphone market to be rich, diverse and competitive rather than having only two options...

 

[Anticipat3]

I'd also like to throw in a request for comparing the device to Android as well as iOS. The iOS comparisons made are spot-on and insightful, but as a Galaxy Nexus owner I was really interested to see how WinPhone's first true "flagship" stacked up against it, and was rather disappointed that Android is scarcely mentioned after the first page.

Another comment I've seen several of and that I wholeheartedly agree with is the notion that it really should be mentioned that it's extremely unlikely that WinPhone 7 units will be able to upgrade to WinPhone 8 later this year. A guarantee of being able to always receive updates promptly to run the latest software was a huge factor in my decision to pick a Nexus phone, and choosing a phone that comes with a 2-year agreement while your software will be outdated in 6 months is something I would never even consider, regardless of how good or bad the phone was. I'm sure most other readers here feel the same way.

Finally, I feel like it should be mentioned that while the phone stacks up quite well against an iPhone4/4S, you're comparing a brand new flagship product to a phone that was released a year and a half ago. This is a huge part of why I was disappointed not to see more GNex comparisons, in many of the areas where the article claims "about as good as an iPhone is good enough," a comparison to the GNex would have been warranted -- the most obvious area where this should have been mentioned is the screen and size/weight (it's a bigger, heavier phone with a smaller, and much lower-resolution screen... is this not a huge turnoff to other folks as well?)

While it would be a bit silly to compare the phone to speculated iPhone5 specs, you can bet that the iPhone5 will stack up pretty evenly if not favorably against the GNex, and that it will arrive within the next 6 months. In this sense, the Hardware in this phone is similar to the Software in that it stacks up pretty well against the competition's previous-generation of products, but is missing all of the new features of the latest generation of Android and iOS devices. As another user above said, a phone with a Single-Core Processor, 512MB RAM, and 800x480 screen was where Android and iOS flagship devices were at in 2010.

 

[kot_matroskin]

Wow, Apple fanboys going out of their way bashing this phone. This means that it will be a big hit, especially internationally where its pretty much just Android now (because you know, when you dont have that credit card, you arent going to buy overpriced Apple products. Most of rest of the world is forced to buy things they can actually afford to pay in full for with cash).

 

[davethepak]

Hmmm.....

16gb? Thats a deal killer for me. Yeah, I know, skydrive...thats nice.
I fly a lot, and I use my phone as an entertainment device, and skydrive does not work at 30,000 feet....over the Atlantic....

Overall sounds good, but seriously, I get why apple did not put a memory card slot - so they could overcharge you for a phone with more storage...but this thing? I need either an option for more storage, or I need another phone with more storage...its 2012 guys, not 2001.

 

[Walt French]

It is a touch screen device. No oleo coating? WTF are they thinking?!

I have two iPhone 4. His "oleophobic coating" is a marketing bulls-t. It just doesnt work. Never.

Alonza. You have seven posts on Ars. Of these
- four are about how awful OSX is and the stupidity of its users
- one is about how iPad sucks, and
- one is about how iOS sucks

Now we are supposed to believe that, with all your Apple hatred, you went out and bought not just one but two iPhones?
Here's a suggestion: Why don't you just stop wasting our time with your childish lies?

This is the real genius behind the US's First Amendment rights: you have no reason to stew in the basement because the President is a Muslim (or whatever); you can get up on a soapbox on a street corner and enjoy all the appropriate feedback from people who will give you a Word To The Wise about your puerile fantasies.

It's a bit harder with instant identities, but we'll get there.

 

[Walt French]

"I've never understood why consumers who have nothing to do with a corporation, except giving them money for products, are so interested in sales or how well certain products from certain companies fare in the market... Some of these deluded fanboys just need to die."

People spend an enormous amount of time with technology and depend on it to accomplish things. Thus, the quality of this technology greatly affects their own quality of life. When the technology is good, and their quality of life is improved, it makes them fans of the people who made it, and once you are a fan of someone, you root for them.

I think it can be more rational and less behavioral psychology than that.

For instance, a writer who never knew that Moto tried to use its GSM patents to quash the iPhone back in 2007 the way they kept Japanese cellphones out of Europe in the 90's, might broadcast the “Apple as Patent Aggressor” line, in the same way that a propagandist might (except without the intention to deceive). That'd make developers who care about freedom (approximately all of 'em) see Apple's OTHER restrictions in a more evil light; in turn that could lead an Apple customer to enjoy fewer apps. There's obvious network / self-reinforcing effects that mean that over the life of the product, it's less valuable to the Apple customers.

Others can certainly come up with pro-Android or pro-Flash or pro-WindowsXP or pro-almost-anything examples, and they'd be more or less true, too. Especially graphics developers whose livelihood depends on Flash, fr'instance, might be upset at watching their skills being slandered down the drain due to ill-informed hatchet jobs joining the genuine concerns. So yeah, people get upset.

Sure, a lot is sticking up for the home team, or responding to red meat marketing messages. And some is certainly to prevent having to face having not thought something through well. But there can be method.

 

[lukeskymac]

It's overall absurdly slower than a 4S. Often it gets its ass handed to by the iPhone 4. Yet there's no mention of obsolete hardware in the "bad".

Against Android, yes, there are stutters and random second rate software bugs. But not on iOS. This is a glaring deficiency. And if it was from Apple, the comments would be exploding in snark remarks.

 

[Walt French]

Wow, Apple fanboys going out of their way bashing this phone. This means that it will be a big hit, especially internationally where its pretty much just Android now (because you know, when you dont have that credit card, you arent going to buy overpriced Apple products. Most of rest of the world is forced to buy things they can actually afford to pay in full for with cash).

A recent survey suggests half of American households qualify for your “Apple fanboy” status. But only a tiny fraction of them ever come to Ars. Yes, there are a LOT of people who like Apple stuff, but 99.99% of them are damned unlikely to feel threatened by even the most extravagant pro-WP7 claims I've seen.

OTOH, we DID see similar responses to the Moto Xoom, the WebOS Tablet, the BlackBerry TouchPad. “All the Apple fanboys” found some nice features and a bunch of lame ones. And a couple of Can't-Surmount-This type failures. So unless your definition of success is what any of those enjoyed, you're drawing a comparison that doesn't exactly flatter your belief that the 900 will be a huge winner.

 

[lukeskymac]

"Wow, Apple fanboys going out of their way bashing this phone. This means that it will be a big hit"

I applaud your logic. NOT.

 

[TheFerenc]

You know, I own an N9 running Meego -- which this phone is physically identical to -- and an HTC Touch 7 Pro running windows 7. I absolutely adore the N9, though admittedly that's more due to the open nature of the OS rather than the hardware, though the hardware is REALLY nice.

For general usage, I honestly enjoy the way I interact with Windows Phone. There are definitely some things I find it lacking with, including some of the gesture support of Meego, but it's simply different. Not worse, not better, just different.

Once you get used to that difference, it's actually pretty sweet.

Now, the N9/Lumia 900 with a slide out keyboard a la the Nokia E7? Where do I sign my soul away?

 

[name99]

Wow, Apple fanboys going out of their way bashing this phone. This means that it will be a big hit, especially internationally where its pretty much just Android now (because you know, when you dont have that credit card, you arent going to buy overpriced Apple products. Most of rest of the world is forced to buy things they can actually afford to pay in full for with cash).

This seems a very strange reading of the situation. You do realize that this phone validates most of Apple's design decisions --- the very same decisions that were considered crazy and backward and user-hostile when undertaken by Apple?

The hardware has, for example, a built-in battery and no SD card slot. And a limited amount of RAM. And a go-slow attitude towards ramping up the number of cores (some might say too go-slow).

The OS take security seriously, with consequences for sandboxing and the app store; it takes battery life seriously, and so restrictions on multi-tasking; and it takes seriously the attempt to reduce the importance of the file system as the center of the user's computer world. All just like iOS.

 

[moonshine]

I've never understood why consumers who have nothing to do with a corporation, except giving them money for products, are so interested in sales or how well certain products from certain companies fare in the market... Some of these deluded fanboys just need to die.

PS: Who owns the ugly finger nails in the photos? Get rid of that bullshit you put on your nails.

And when did you become the CTO of the planet?

Your 38 posts here are mostly drivel as well. Why don't you follow your own advice? On second thought, I don't need to wait, I'll just block you...

Seriously, I saw the headline and thought, "I hope Casey did this one" and sure enough! It's funny though because she had almost opposite opinions on everything compared to Joshua Topolsky's review over on The Verge. He loved the style, didn't like the camera, etc. Opinions FTW

PS: Who owns the ugly finger nails in the photos? Get rid of that bullshit you put on your nails.

Ah, I'd forgotten who was complaining about Casey's fingernails. Blocked.

LMAO. Catching feelings over a post online? To the extent of blocking?
You lot belong to the category of humans who cry over a video game ending.
You must have no lives, go outside often.

If you're being a dick on purpose - bravo.

Otherwise, STFU while the adults talk. Capiche?

 

[Chikahiro]

This seems a very strange reading of the situation. You do realize that this phone validates most of Apple's design decisions --- the very same decisions that were considered crazy and backward and user-hostile when undertaken by Apple?

The hardware has, for example, a built-in battery and no SD card slot. And a limited amount of RAM. And a go-slow attitude towards ramping up the number of cores (some might say too go-slow).

The OS take security seriously, with consequences for sandboxing and the app store; it takes battery life seriously, and so restrictions on multi-tasking; and it takes seriously the attempt to reduce the importance of the file system as the center of the user's computer world. All just like iOS.

Nice way of looking at things. I personally mellowed on some of those issues, but that's just me and my usage. My Palm Centro and Samsung Focus had no need for additional batteries due to power concerns, although yanking it for hard resets was useful once in a while. I think 16g is a reasonable amount of space (upgraded my Focus from 8g to 16g as its one of the only WP7 that can accept microSD cards). Not sure on the amount of RAM, although that does tie directly into multitasking/task-switching.

Trick is there's a bit going on here that's more tied to the OS than anything else. As I understand the OS, more RAM won't really benefit much right now as apps all stay within a certain size. WP7's predecessor had actual multitasking, but that got ripped out with WP7 and task switching brought in with WP7.5. I hear conflicting reports whether or not the WinMo kernal can actually make use of multiple cores or not, but Apollo (WP8, based on WinNT's kernal) allegedly will. As such, having multiple core hardware might not make sense right now if the OS can't handle it or it isn't officially supported by MS.
I'm personally not familiar enough with how iOS does things, so if you'd like to go into more detail, I'd appreciate it. To be honest, while iOS and Android aren't really my tastes, I feel that right now the overall platforms available are pretty good. As such, its more a matter of finding the best match for you and what you want, yeah? I chose my WP7 based on aesthetics and fascination, but I know that an iPhone, Android, Blackberry or even a Palm Pre would've served me perfectly well. As a consumer, I think that's a pretty darn good place to be.

edit: I should mention that the Samsung Focus was considered by more than a few people to be the best of the launch WP7 phones, and I feel it still holds its weight favorably. The main reasons I'm upgrading are the screen size, improved camera and LTE/hotspot built in, plus I really do want to support the platform (for only $100, why not?). Not the most rational reasoning, I realize, but I really do love WP7 (not that I expect everyone else to, or even understand why - as a former OS/2, BeOS, Dreamcast, NGPC, etc., fan, I'm a little off).

 

[SleepDirt]

People want to work the way they want to work.

That's a really bad habit to develop. Things change -- that's the cost of innovation & progress. People should focus on being agile / adaptable instead of being slaves to habit. If something is 40 pixels further to the left than you'd like you might be able to spend hours 'fixing' it but that's a really terrible use of your time. Better to just deal with it and move on with your life. If you watch how young people learn technology this is exactly the approach they take. They don't sit down with a bunch of preconceived notions about how they want something to work. They just learn how it works and use it as such. That's the only way you can master new technologies and keep up with innovation. On the other extreme you have the old people who love their 'workflow' of 'I have to click on blue E to open my home page or I can't check mah Yahoo!' and are absolutely baffled when they can't find the blue E. Which one is going to scale better in the future? Anyone who plans to live a few more decades should really focus on being agile because a lot of things are going to change.

 

[Deleted member 14629]

This seems a very strange reading of the situation. You do realize that this phone validates most of Apple's design decisions --- the very same decisions that were considered crazy and backward and user-hostile when undertaken by Apple?

The hardware has, for example, a built-in battery and no SD card slot. And a limited amount of RAM. And a go-slow attitude towards ramping up the number of cores (some might say too go-slow).

The OS take security seriously, with consequences for sandboxing and the app store; it takes battery life seriously, and so restrictions on multi-tasking; and it takes seriously the attempt to reduce the importance of the file system as the center of the user's computer world. All just like iOS.

Nice way of looking at things. I personally mellowed on some of those issues, but that's just me and my usage. My Palm Centro and Samsung Focus had no need for additional batteries due to power concerns, although yanking it for hard resets was useful once in a while. I think 16g is a reasonable amount of space (upgraded my Focus from 8g to 16g as its one of the only WP7 that can accept microSD cards). Not sure on the amount of RAM, although that does tie directly into multitasking/task-switching.

Trick is there's a bit going on here that's more tied to the OS than anything else. As I understand the OS, more RAM won't really benefit much right now as apps all stay within a certain size. WP7's predecessor had actual multitasking, but that got ripped out with WP7 and task switching brought in with WP7.5. I hear conflicting reports whether or not the WinMo kernal can actually make use of multiple cores or not, but Apollo (WP8, based on WinNT's kernal) allegedly will. As such, having multiple core hardware might not make sense right now if the OS can't handle it or it isn't officially supported by MS.
I'm personally not familiar enough with how iOS does things, so if you'd like to go into more detail, I'd appreciate it. To be honest, while iOS and Android aren't really my tastes, I feel that right now the overall platforms available are pretty good. As such, its more a matter of finding the best match for you and what you want, yeah? I chose my WP7 based on aesthetics and fascination, but I know that an iPhone, Android, Blackberry or even a Palm Pre would've served me perfectly well. As a consumer, I think that's a pretty darn good place to be.

edit: I should mention that the Samsung Focus was considered by more than a few people to be the best of the launch WP7 phones, and I feel it still holds its weight favorably. The main reasons I'm upgrading are the screen size, improved camera and LTE/hotspot built in, plus I really do want to support the platform (for only $100, why not?). Not the most rational reasoning, I realize, but I really do love WP7 (not that I expect everyone else to, or even understand why - as a former OS/2, BeOS, Dreamcast, NGPC, etc., fan, I'm a little off).

Just to clarify, the WiMo kernel gained multitasking after WP7 was forked. They never ported it back in, because they made the decision to change kernels.

 

[Walt French]

…having multiple core hardware might not make sense right now if the OS can't handle it or it isn't officially supported by MS.
I'm personally not familiar enough with how iOS does things, so if you'd like to go into more detail, I'd appreciate it. To be honest, while iOS and Android aren't really my tastes, I feel that right now the overall platforms available are pretty good.

This all seems very reasonable and informative. I think many are concerned that the 900 is planned for near-instant obsolescence. I certainly expect that WP8 will be able to use multi-core hardware; its inter-app communication feature would seem to benefit from plenty of RAM and having a relatively slow browser is just shooting yourself in the foot in 2012. And given that Microsoft is pretty hardcore about minimum requirements for WP7, I don't see how they're going to try putting power-hungry WP8 features onto a machine with as modest specs as the 900.

While the phone meets reasonable expectations, it seems pretty clearly designed to support ZERO growth in those expectations. Today, you can edit a video on your phone & slap it onto Facebook pretty quickly. People do that, and like it, but it's not competitive on this device. More CPU would make it possible; more RAM would likely, too. Maybe Microsoft can speed up IE just by software, but that speedup will be aimed at WP8, so even if it comes to WP7, it might be architected primarily to benefit from multiple CPU cores and just not help much on this phone. Ditto, if other phones have a fair amount of raw CPU, game designers will have to put a fair amount of time into tweaking a design for WP that preserves the play features and view; that means fewer quality products. And all these in turn spell a vicious circle of weak apps, few customers, low demand, low profit incentive for everybody. That can starve a platform, but fast.

 

[kot_matroskin]

People want to work the way they want to work.

That's a really bad habit to develop. Things change -- that's the cost of innovation & progress. People should focus on being agile / adaptable instead of being slaves to habit. If something is 40 pixels further to the left than you'd like you might be able to spend hours 'fixing' it but that's a really terrible use of your time. Better to just deal with it and move on with your life. If you watch how young people learn technology this is exactly the approach they take. They don't sit down with a bunch of preconceived notions about how they want something to work. They just learn how it works and use it as such. That's the only way you can master new technologies and keep up with innovation. On the other extreme you have the old people who love their 'workflow' of 'I have to click on blue E to open my home page or I can't check mah Yahoo!' and are absolutely baffled when they can't find the blue E. Which one is going to scale better in the future? Anyone who plans to live a few more decades should really focus on being agile because a lot of things are going to change.

You mean people should work the way Apple wants them to work?

 

[heartburnkid]

People want to work the way they want to work.

That's a really bad habit to develop. Things change -- that's the cost of innovation & progress. People should focus on being agile / adaptable instead of being slaves to habit. If something is 40 pixels further to the left than you'd like you might be able to spend hours 'fixing' it but that's a really terrible use of your time. Better to just deal with it and move on with your life. If you watch how young people learn technology this is exactly the approach they take. They don't sit down with a bunch of preconceived notions about how they want something to work. They just learn how it works and use it as such. That's the only way you can master new technologies and keep up with innovation. On the other extreme you have the old people who love their 'workflow' of 'I have to click on blue E to open my home page or I can't check mah Yahoo!' and are absolutely baffled when they can't find the blue E. Which one is going to scale better in the future? Anyone who plans to live a few more decades should really focus on being agile because a lot of things are going to change.

You mean people should work the way Apple wants them to work?

No, people should work the way MS wants them to work. In this thread anyway.

I'm sure there'll be a thread about how people should work the way Apple wants to work eventually.

 

[Deleted member 14629]

I'm sure there'll be a thread about how people should work the way Apple wants to work eventually.

Unpossible. There are no Apple fanboys on Ars.

 

[mobinga]

I've never understood why consumers who have nothing to do with a corporation, except giving them money for products, are so interested in sales or how well certain products from certain companies fare in the market... Some of these deluded fanboys just need to die.

PS: Who owns the ugly finger nails in the photos? Get rid of that bullshit you put on your nails.

Casey is young and a girl. She is fully entitled to have fun with her life, and if that includes putting decorations on her nails, or dying her hair multi-colored, or whatever, so be it.
There'll be plenty of time for her to live a more staid and buttoned-down life once she hits middle-age.

And, just as a friendly hint, "You have ugly finger nails. Get rid of that bullshit." is generally not a winning line, or a winning attitude, when it comes time to try to find a partner of your own. You're probably a decent person, so try to work on softening these rather coarse edges of your personality.

Well done. Captain "save a girl". Now please shut up.

I've never understood why consumers who have nothing to do with a corporation, except giving them money for products, are so interested in sales or how well certain products from certain companies fare in the market... Some of these deluded fanboys just need to die.

PS: Who owns the ugly finger nails in the photos? Get rid of that bullshit you put on your nails.

And when did you become the CTO of the planet?

Your 38 posts here are mostly drivel as well. Why don't you follow your own advice? On second thought, I don't need to wait, I'll just block you...

Seriously, I saw the headline and thought, "I hope Casey did this one" and sure enough! It's funny though because she had almost opposite opinions on everything compared to Joshua Topolsky's review over on The Verge. He loved the style, didn't like the camera, etc. Opinions FTW

PS: Who owns the ugly finger nails in the photos? Get rid of that bullshit you put on your nails.

Ah, I'd forgotten who was complaining about Casey's fingernails. Blocked.

LMAO. Catching feelings over a post online? To the extent of blocking?
You lot belong to the category of humans who cry over a video game ending.
You must have no lives, go outside often.

If you're being a dick on purpose - bravo.

Otherwise, STFU while the adults talk. Capiche?

Yeah, I would. Don't you have a Mass Effect ending to cry about?

 

[Deleted member 14629]

Well done. Captain "save a girl". Now please shut up.

You were the one that decided that somehow nail polish was relevant to a phone review. Don't get all pissy because someone called you out on making a fucking retarded comment.

 

[runsch]

Just recieved my phone, AT&T has removed Nokia Drive and Maps.

I'll be returning the phone, as this was the one item in my mind that set it above others.