tiistai 19. marraskuuta 2013

Withdrawal Symptoms

It looks like I'll be without a Windows Phone 8 device for at least a few days as I borrowed my Lumia 620 to my niece while taking her iPhone 4S with shattered screen to be taken into service (there are more and cheaper repair shops where I live). This means I had to pop my work SIM back into the company-issued Lumia 800, and if WP8 feels limited every now and then, just try using a WP7 device after getting used to WP8. There's nothing here! No Here Drive+, just Nokia Drive. 6tag? Not going to happen. Kid's Corner? Nope. And the list goes on and on.

Now the most relevant question is that can I wait to get my 620 back or will I go and buy a better WP8 device before that. Especially the 925 has been quite lucratively priced lately...

Fortunately I have my iPhone, too. I wouldn't tolerate having just a WP7 device as my only phone since that means I'd be locked out of way too many nice apps. The WP8 non-upgrade was a real death blow to many otherwise fine handsets.

sunnuntai 3. marraskuuta 2013

Could I Switch? - But Do I Have To?

One of the reasons I started pondering about possibly switching my daily driver phone to a Windows Phone device was the seemingly superior cameras available in the top range Lumias. However, in various tests it has become clear that the camera improvements in the iPhone 5s are rather remarkable, too. So I might be able to gain a clear improvement to my phone's camera just by upgrading my iPhone 5 to iPhone 5s and avoid all app replacement issues I'd have with a Windows Phone.

However, I'd still like a larger screen as well. There are rumours about the iPhone 6 having a larger screen (or at least a larger variant being introduced alongside a device much closer to the current form factor), but even if those rumours turn out to be true, the device is still almost a year away provided that Apple sticks to their typical release schedule. If the iPhone 5s had a larger screen, I think I would've got one already as the camera improvements in the current 5s would be welcome indeed. Sure the megapixel count is not Lumia 1020 grade and there aren't that many manual controls or as extensive options for re-framing and zooming the picture after taking it, but for instance burst mode and dual-LED flash would be welcome alongside one of the areas where the 5s beats Lumia, and that is the speed of actually getting the camera app ready to shoot. However, maybe Nokia or Microsoft improves the startup speed with some future software update. In that case the Lumia 1020 could become rather irresistible.

Tough decisions, especially when you don't quite have the funds for two flagships.