Nokia has recently released its first Windows 8 OS phone and I’ve had the good fortune to try out the Nokia Lumia 920. It’s a bit bigger than the old-school Nokia that I was used to but it’s certainly worth it!
First up – I have never used a smart phone except very occasionally to make phone calls and help my daughter play some games. So I’m not familiar with the Android, the Apple, nor the earlier Windows operating systems. So, while I was excited to be offered the chance to review the Nokia Lumia 920, I was a bit apprehensive about how I’d learn to operate the phone. Despite being a total beginner in regard to smart phones, I am reasonably technologically savvy and use Microsoft products daily as well as other software.
When I received the phone, I was very excited as I unpacked it. I’d read a lot about the new Nokia phone and at first glance it fulfilled all of the descriptions I’d read; large but very attractive with nice lines, it felt comfortable in my hand. There is a lot of information out there about the Lumina 920 so I won’t repeat what can easily found elsewhere. Instead I’m going to focus on my experience of a first time smartphone user. If you want to know all the technical information you can find it here (http://www.nokia.com/global/products/phone/lumia920/).
After turning the phone on, I followed the start-up instructions which all went well. However, this phone requires a micro sim card, and my existing sim card wasn’t compatible with the phone, so I was forced to skip some of the start-up steps. I know it’s a phone, but I wondered why the phone didn’t default to using the wireless to access some of the applications on startup when it didn’t have a sim card installed.
The next morning I went into the local Telecom shop to transfer my phone number to Telecom. It took a couple of minutes to fill out the transfer authorisation and after working his magic, the salesperson told me that the number would transfer over possibly that afternoon but definitely by the next day. I waited with baited breath and the phone number was transferred by 3 pm. So I was happy with the service in the Telecom shop and very happy to have the switch over happen so quickly.
Adding credit to the phone involved ringing an 0800 number and this was also nice and simple. I was able to set myself up on the Big Value Pack which gives me sixty minutes of phone calls, 500 MB of data and non stop texts each month.
I was resigned to spending a bit of time transferring my contacts onto the new phone, as last time I changed phones I had to download some software from Nokia, copy the contacts from the old phone and then copy them onto the new phone. The whole process took about 20 minutes, including my mistakes so I was anticipating a similar length of time again. However, I was forgetting the magic of Bluetooth. All I had to do was pair the two phones and the whole process was completed in less than two minutes. I was pretty impressed at how easy it was to copy over the contacts and fear of losing your contacts certainly shouldn’t hold you back from switching to this phone.
We have young children who occasionally are allowed to use their Mum’s smart phone and on the day I received the Lumia 920, our eldest daughter had accidentally purchased some game applications – much to her mother’s frustration. One of the really great things about the Windows 8 operating system on this phone is that it anticipates that children will be using the phone and they have created a separate play area where children can only access the games, videos and pictures that I’ve selected. As a dad, I think that this is a particularly great feature of this phone. We haven’t used it much yet, but I anticipate this Kid’s Corner being a fantastic feature that might even save us some unexpected expenses!
Two days after receiving the phone I am comfortable using it. The switchover to a new network was pleasantly easy and the Windows 8 operating system has been intuitive to learn. The phone works well and I’m enjoying learning to use it more effectively.
This phone was kindly provided for review by Telecom New Zealand
