Windows Phone Lumia 635
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Someone asked me to post about my new phone in anther thread, so I'll keep some running notes as I continue to use it.
As you can see this is a fairly plain phone. No front camera, no light for the rear camera, comes with 8 gigs internal storage, more than half used by the OS and pre installed apps.
One thing I noticed right of the bat was the back is different from any phone I've owned in a while. The back is more like a case and just a back cover. It fully surrounds the sides and back of the phone. it even provides a bit of protection to the screen if dropped on an edge (though I don't know really how much).
Turning it on the first time it of course wanted to join my MS profile - it's suppose to make roaming between devices easier. As this is my first Windows Phone I didn't see an immediate benefit to logging in, but who knows, my second phone my be awesome because of this work.
I'm not a big apps user, but I was able to get my Office 365 account added without to many issues. Since this is a secondary device for me, I was setting this using only WIFI, not cellular, so the phone didn't set the time/date correct. This led me to issues with SSL certs. Once I manually set the time/date those problems went away and I was able to get Office 365 without errors (or any other SSL sites I visited.
*Note - now that I've moved my CIM card to this phone, my cert errors have returned to Office 365, I'll post when I get that resolved.Connecting to Facebook was easy enough, and fairly quickly it prompted me to download the messenger app. I was surprised that the messenger app required me to log in separately - I didn't recall my Android doing that.
Next I went on the hunt for the Starbucks app - wait what? There's no official Windows Phone app for Starbucks. There is a third party one, but I'm not sure I want to give them my information. I've read several reviews about the SBUX app, but haven't made up my mind on it yet.
The last major thing I need to get installed a podcast app, perhaps this weekend.
I'll also be looking at how ODfB works as well as normal OneDrive.
Parting words for today, the lower screen resolution does not bother me. I can read everything on screen without issue, but man do I miss the larger display of the Galaxy S4. If I find I really like this phone, I might be looking to pickup a used Lumia ICON.
That's all for now. -
@Dashrender Does this have Windows 8.1.1 on it? If so, the native Podcast app is pretty good,.
The ICON is a top tier device if you decide you like the Windows Phone OS. Awesome camera, very speedy and 32GB. If it were expandable via MicroSD card, I'd be happier for a few more years with it.
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It's 8.1, not 8.11 according to about phone.
there are no updates available when I have the phone check.
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@Dashrender OK, so it may not have the podcast app. I used to use Slapdash but it stopped being supported and the native one has been good enough for me. Try Podcast Lounge...
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@Dashrender said:
It's 8.1, not 8.11 according to about phone.
there are no updates available when I have the phone check.
You can always get 8.1.1 through the Developer Preview and it has been fairly stable...
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@Dashrender said:
Next I went on the hunt for the Starbucks app - wait what? There's no official Windows Phone app for Starbucks.
This is going to happen to you alot with the Windows phone. The apps selection is horrible and there are many bogus apps that Microsoft allows in their store. I guess they are so desperate for apps that they just approve everything
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@IRJ said:
@Dashrender said:
Next I went on the hunt for the Starbucks app - wait what? There's no official Windows Phone app for Starbucks.
This is going to happen to you alot with the Windows phone. The apps selection is horrible and there are many bogus apps that Microsoft allows in their store. I guess they are so desperate for apps that they just approve everything
That's my take on it. To get their app numbers to something near reasonable they fill the app store with spam and malware. There's nothing real in there.
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@scottalanmiller said:
@IRJ said:
@Dashrender said:
Next I went on the hunt for the Starbucks app - wait what? There's no official Windows Phone app for Starbucks.
This is going to happen to you alot with the Windows phone. The apps selection is horrible and there are many bogus apps that Microsoft allows in their store. I guess they are so desperate for apps that they just approve everything
That's my take on it. To get their app numbers to something near reasonable they fill the app store with spam and malware. There's nothing real in there.
When I first installed Windows 8.1 on my PC (About 1 year after it came out) I searched the Windows Store almost daily for a month. I haven't launched the store since. As bad as the Windows Store was, I see absolutely no reason to ever launch it again.
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Nice review. Looking forward to more of it.
@ everyone else. We have covered to shortcomings of the store in the other Windows Phone thread. Can we please move on?
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This thread should be moved to the Reviews group.
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OK some weird things about Windows Phone:
The built in Podcast app is actually pretty good, except for one thing. The last few days the play stream has just died in the middle of playing. The app hasn't crashed - it shows the podcast is still being played, but the counter isn't actually moving. When I stop/pause play, the whole thing starts all over again. This has happened over several different episodes of the same podcast. I haven't tried any other podcasts yet.
Facebook - Damn this version is lacking! No way to block things you don't want to see, can't add people to groups through the app (when you choose that option it takes you to the browser version of FB). And the notifications are insane! Everything someone likes something or posts, etc I get a notice. It seems that FB notifications are all or nothing. What's even more strange to me, MS wrote this app, not Facebook itself.
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@Dashrender said:
OK some weird things about Windows Phone:
The built in Podcast app is actually pretty good, except for one thing. The last few days the play stream has just died in the middle of playing. The app hasn't crashed - it shows the podcast is still being played, but the counter isn't actually moving. When I stop/pause play, the whole thing starts all over again. This has happened over several different episodes of the same podcast. I haven't tried any other podcasts yet.
Facebook - Damn this version is lacking! No way to block things you don't want to see, can't add people to groups through the app (when you choose that option it takes you to the browser version of FB). And the notifications are insane! Everything someone likes something or posts, etc I get a notice. It seems that FB notifications are all or nothing. What's even more strange to me, MS wrote this app, not Facebook itself.
Re the FB app...
But the shake to refresh is neat!
Not that this makes up for its shortcomings. I should also mention that I've never been overly fond of any FB app on any platform. -
Maybe I'm a simple FB user - but the Android one (the only one previously I've had any experience with) worked pretty well. Like the Windows phone though - clicking a link in email often did not take you to the FB app, instead took you to the webpage, which seams to lack a lot of function compared to the android app.
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OK I think I know what the problem with the Podcast player is - it seems that it likes to refresh the podcast (or at least do some type of check) when you launch it again after the app has been offline for a while. Unfortunately for me, I'm normally kicking the app off as I'm walking out of my office at work, or at home - which of course are when I'm leaving WIFI and moving to cellular data. I'm guessing the app is not handling the transition well.
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Would you buy another Windows Phone?
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@IRJ said:
Would you buy another Windows Phone?
That's a question I ask myself a lot but I do that with all my phones.
Very interested to find out what @Dashrender has to say
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Yes I would. The device does everything I need it to do. I can only hope that developers will continue to add real useful things in the future.
Are there problems, sure. But my Galaxy S4 wasn't super awesome either.
I think with a more powerful device some of the small amount of lags (very rare though) will be solved.. i.e. the podcast player will be better I think.
