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[WINDOWS PHONE] Windows Phone 8. From Very Small to Sorta Small.

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Posts

  • JazzJazz Registered User regular
    Hey, Windows Phone peeps. I finally convinced my mum to dip her toes into the smartphone world, but in the interests of not blowing tons of money on a phone and then her deciding she can't live with it, we settled on getting her a Lumia 435 because the reviews seemed very good for such a staggeringly cheap phone. This is my first foray into Windows phones (I had an iPhone 4S for four years and recently migrated to a newer Android phone, an LG G4), so I've been interested to get a feel for it as I set it up for her and played around with it a bit. WP seems pretty nice, honestly, and the little 435 seems like an absolute little trooper of a phone for the price. Nice display, remarkably responsive, etc. The camera is poor but that's to be expected at the price point, and it's still better than her old dumbphone camera and is probably good enough for the odd Facebook snap.

    Any handy tips or app recommendations you guys can give me to get me and my occasionally tech-challenged mum started? I'm pretty sure that most of what she'll use is already on the phone, but you never know. Thanks in advance. :)

  • Some_tall_guySome_tall_guy Registered User regular
    You can get your basic apps like facebook and such, but the app store is seriously lacking.

    I personally use very few apps so the windows phone works out pretty well for me.

    LOL ZEALURKS
  • ErlkönigErlkönig Seattle, WARegistered User regular
    You can get your basic apps like facebook and such, but the app store is seriously lacking.

    I personally use very few apps so the windows phone works out pretty well for me.

    I'm not entirely sure what a 'healthy' app landscape looks like, but if it's just more of what's already in the Windows Phone store, I'm fine with it being "seriously lacking". I guess maybe if we knew the general idea of the kinds of apps Jazz is looking for, that might help. But, if it's generally things like YouTube, Pandora, and things of that nature, the Windows marketplace has got you covered. And, even some specialized apps will be available (just checked out a theodolite app that a former coworker of mine used on his iPhone, and it turns out the Windows marketplace has a comparable program)...so it all boils down to saying "it depends what you're looking for".

    But, I think the core set of apps (for me, anyways) would be:

    Pandora (if you don't like Groove...you philistine)
    YouTube (gotta get your daily cat videos and John Oliver/Stephen Colbert in)
    Amazon Kindle
    Netflix (only if you have a Netflix account) or Hulu Plus (again, only if you have account with them)

    | Origin/R*SC: Ein7919 | Battle.net: Erlkonig#1448 | XBL: Lexicanum | Steam: Der Erlkönig (the umlaut is important) |
  • SynthesisSynthesis Honda Today! Registered User regular
    edited December 2015
    I make major use of 1Password, which does work. Likewise, there's a Crunchyroll app for more video streaming (though annoyingly, no Amazon Instant Video, which is a bummer).

    I'm still convinced that Metrotube is STILL the best Youtube app on WP (and as good as any Youtube app I've seen on any platform), though its live tile is once again broken.

    Synthesis on
  • amnesiasoftamnesiasoft Thick Creamy Furry Registered User regular
    People are concerned with the lack of official apps. Not that the official YouTube app is even worth mentioning ever, regardless of platform.

    Windows Phone 7.8.10 Mobile Series has some amazing third party apps.

    steam_sig.png
  • ErlkönigErlkönig Seattle, WARegistered User regular
    The funny thing, though, is that even though I mentioned the official YouTube app (and I do have it installed), I don't even use it. Now that YT has moved away from Java, the actual site works just fine on mobile. I was just tossing out core apps that I have installed (or know about) that might be of interest to a casual, occasionally tech-challenged mum - of which, there are quite a few official apps (Amazon Instant Video notwithstanding).

    | Origin/R*SC: Ein7919 | Battle.net: Erlkonig#1448 | XBL: Lexicanum | Steam: Der Erlkönig (the umlaut is important) |
  • Apothe0sisApothe0sis Have you ever questioned the nature of your reality? Registered User regular
    So my 950XL doesn't work with my old charging cradle

    FFFFUUUUU

  • JazzJazz Registered User regular
    edited December 2015
    In all honesty, I guess we've still got to figure out how her usage of the phone is going to go. Facebook came baked in, so that's good; now I've had a short while to observe her usage of it, that might actually be enough for now, as it goes. She's getting on well with it, just still trying to adapt to a touchscreen instead of of physical keys, especially for typing. She's thinking of using a stylus like she does on her tablet.

    Still impressed with the 435; it's a real cracker of a budget phone.

    Thanks for the comments, all are appreciated. At least the trade-off with an app store that's "lacking" is (probably, I've not actually looked yet) not having to wade through multiple haystacks of crap to find the one needle of goodness like on iOS or Android. Swings & roundabouts, as the saying goes :)

    Jazz on
  • ErlkönigErlkönig Seattle, WARegistered User regular
    Jazz wrote: »
    In all honesty, I guess we've still got to figure out how her usage of the phone is going to go. Facebook came baked in, so that's good; now I've had a short while to observe her usage of it, that might actually be enough for now, as it goes. She's getting on well with it, just still trying to adapt to a touchscreen instead of of physical keys, especially for typing. She's thinking of using a stylus like she does on her tablet.

    Still impressed with the 435; it's a real cracker of a budget phone.

    Thanks for the comments, all are appreciated. At least the trade-off with an app store that's "lacking" is (probably, I've not actually looked yet) not having to wade through multiple haystacks of crap to find the one needle of goodness like on iOS or Android. Swings & roundabouts, as the saying goes :)

    I gotta admit that I was having trouble with the whole touchscreen "typing" too. Learning the whole "don't tap the individual keys, but slide your finger across the letters making up the word" thing really helped speed up my texting/internetting (of course, the time saved in typing gets burned off during the QA process (I've read enough of the Autocorrect Fails pages to just let my texts/e-mails go off without a thorough re-reading)).

    | Origin/R*SC: Ein7919 | Battle.net: Erlkonig#1448 | XBL: Lexicanum | Steam: Der Erlkönig (the umlaut is important) |
  • JazzJazz Registered User regular
    Erlkönig wrote: »
    Jazz wrote: »
    In all honesty, I guess we've still got to figure out how her usage of the phone is going to go. Facebook came baked in, so that's good; now I've had a short while to observe her usage of it, that might actually be enough for now, as it goes. She's getting on well with it, just still trying to adapt to a touchscreen instead of of physical keys, especially for typing. She's thinking of using a stylus like she does on her tablet.

    Still impressed with the 435; it's a real cracker of a budget phone.

    Thanks for the comments, all are appreciated. At least the trade-off with an app store that's "lacking" is (probably, I've not actually looked yet) not having to wade through multiple haystacks of crap to find the one needle of goodness like on iOS or Android. Swings & roundabouts, as the saying goes :)

    I gotta admit that I was having trouble with the whole touchscreen "typing" too. Learning the whole "don't tap the individual keys, but slide your finger across the letters making up the word" thing really helped speed up my texting/internetting (of course, the time saved in typing gets burned off during the QA process (I've read enough of the Autocorrect Fails pages to just let my texts/e-mails go off without a thorough re-reading)).
    I had a friend who'd got so used to that (with Swype, I think it was?) that when she switched to an iPhone it took her a while (and more than a few swear words) to get the hang of having to actually "type" on it; ironically she's now gone back to Android, but I don't actually know which method she uses now, I'll have to ask her.

    My first touchscreen device I typed on was an iPhone, which doesn't (or at least didn't) offer the sliding/swiping option, but the "typing" method was very natural for me. Now I've moved to Android too, but I've not tried a swiping method yet; I might one day, just to try it out.

    I totally hear you about proofreading, though. I didn't find the iPhone autocorrect problematic at all, in all honesty, but my Android phone can be a little baffling (and heavy-handed) with its autocorrecting. Maybe it just needs more time for the parser and dictionary to figure out how I phrase things.

    As for my mum, it's really a simple case of her being used to the tactile feel of a physical keyboard. To complicate things, she's rather attached to having acrylic nails; so I've been trying to get her used to either using the flat of her finger or, arguably better (especially on a small phone), the side of her thumb, which is how it naturally falls when using the phone one-handed. But she's pretty good with the stylus, to be honest. She's happy to use her finger or thumb if it's something like making/answering a call where the button on screen is quite big, but I can see where she's coming from with the keyboard on the fairly small 435 screen (I also remind her that she can rotate the phone to landscape to make the keyboard bigger).

    She's getting the hang of it very well, though, all things considered. And the resizeable tiles on the WP main screen do make it nice and easy to keep the important stuff up front and easy to hit.

  • NosfNosf Registered User regular
    edited May 2016
    I had really wanted one of the new Lumia phones since my ATIV-S had worked so well. We didn't (at the time) have budget dollars and it isn't like providers in Canada do much with Windows phone so I had to settle for a Samsung Galaxy S6 when we transitioned to a new provider. (No sd card slot? How barbaric.) Anyways, a few months go by and we're told we have end of year money to spend. We put in for a bunch of things and I pushed for a Lumia 950XL and the dock for continuum testing, which we got to my surprise. Thing is pretty great, it feels way more responsive than the S6 and typing my pin works reliably, whereas with the Galaxy often I'd type too fast for it I guess, and it would fuck my pin up. One of our wireless APs went down at a site on the second floor and when I went over, none of the local users' iphones could get on the wireless from downstairs....but the Lumia did. It's actually become a running joke around the office when iPhones fuck up that I happen to show up and act puzzled because my Windows phone is working fine.

    Naturally, apps are a problem ... I guess? I dunno, it's a work phone so I use it primarily for email which it does quite well and no twitter or games or shit. With my Galaxy I'd tried a few different mail apps and was pretty confused when Gmail didn't support exchange, unless I side loaded something which seemed like some bullshit. The only app I'd say I miss is the AC:Black Flag thing, since I was playing it at the time and it was a stellar way to make some in game money.

    The only downside is now MS is running a buy one, get one free on the Lumias which seems pretty crazy and previous purchases don't apply.

    Quick edit: One thing that I'd forgetten which was nice is updates! I get updates on my phone because it isn't tied to the garbage provider. When I had my Galaxy I remember looking for the android 6.0 update...which rogers doesn't even have a listed date for, except on 3 phones.

    Nosf on
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