{"id":18914,"date":"2013-01-14T21:47:51","date_gmt":"2013-01-15T05:47:51","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.wapreview.com\/?p=18914"},"modified":"2013-04-29T08:10:14","modified_gmt":"2013-04-29T15:10:14","slug":"lumia-920-review-by-a-linux-user-part-1-first-impressions-and-gmail-google-contacts-and-calendar-integration","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/wapreview.com\/18914\/","title":{"rendered":"A Linux User’s Nokia Lumia 920 Review – Part 1: First Impressions and Google Apps Integration"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Good<\/a><\/p>\n

@Nokia_Connects<\/a> has loaned me a Nokia Lumia 920 to try out for a couple weeks. Here are my initial impressions. Warning, I’m not a Windows user. My desktop OS in Ubuntu Linux and I use an Android phone. But I was curious to try the Lumia to see what Windows Phone 8 was like and whether I could use it productively without a Windows PC.<\/p>\n

Physically the Lumia 920 looks a lot like a larger version of the N9 or Lumia 900. The screen even curves down into the sides of the body like the N9. My Lumia is white and the hard polycarbonate body has a smooth polished surface that looks great. \u00a0 It looks slippery but it’s not. The smoothly rounded sides fit securely and\u00a0comfortably\u00a0between the palm of my hand and my curved fingers and I never felt in any danger of dropping the phone.<\/p>\n

The Lumia 920 has a minimum of exterior ports and buttons. There’s a 3.5 mm headphone jack, and slide out micro-SIM tray on top and a micro-USB charging and connectivity port on the bottom. There’s nothing on the left side. The right side has three buttons: top to bottom they are the volume rocker<\/em>, power-lock\/un-lock button<\/em> and a dedicated camera<\/em> button. Except for the slide out SIM tray there are no visible seams or gaps any where on the phone. The 2000 mAh battery is not user replaceable and the Lumia, which has 32 GB of internal storage\u00a0memory,\u00a0doesn’t support memory cards.<\/p>\n

The Lumia’s 4.5 inch 1280 x 768 px IPS screen is one the best I’ve seen on any phone. Blacks are really black and whites are pure and bright. \u00a0Colors are well saturated and accurate. The screen has a wide viewing angle, colors and detail hold up well when viewing the screen at an angle. The screen also performs really well in bright sunlight. The phone really cranks up the brightness in bright situationsand there seems to be some sort of very effective anti-reflective coating at work as well.<\/p>\n

As I mentioned I don’t use any Microsoft software or hardware. Until I got the Lumia I’d only spent a few minutes playing with Windows Phone. I expected to hate the Windows Phone OS but ended up enjoying the experience for the most part. High points were the the OS’\u00a0stability\u00a0and the responsiveness of the user interface.\u00a0Transitions between screens and apps\u00a0are very snappy and animations are buttery smooth.<\/p>\n

The Windows Phone 8 user interface is refreshing different from Android, Symbian, iOS or anything else. The main UI element is the Live Tile<\/em>, which can be a shortcut to an app or file or an animated widget\u00a0displaying\u00a0things like the current weather, upcoming calendar events or a slideshow of photos from your gallery. \u00a0Tiles can be moved and every tile can be re-sized to fit into a 1×1, 4×4 and 4×8 matrix.\u00a0Although the interface is different then anything I was used to, it has the apparent simplicity and intuitiveness that are the mark of good user interface design. I was able to get up to speed with the basics of calling, messaging, email and the camera in just a few minutes without needing to look at the 16 page quick start guide, which is the only documentation packed with the phone.<\/p>\n

I’m a T-Mobile user and the loaner Lumia was locked to AT&T. \u00a0I’m using a SIM from Red Pocket Mobile<\/a>, an AT&T prepaid MVNO. Red Pocket uses different APNs than AT&T for data and MMS. Both APNs use a proxy. \u00a0Unlike with WP7, iOS and Symbian Belle, all of which hide or\u00a0disable\u00a0the MMS APN,\u00a0\u00a0I was a able to easily enter all the required settings.<\/p>\n

AT&T doesn’t allow their pay as you go or MVNO customers to use their LTE network so I couldn’t test the Lumia’s LTE speeds. Using HSPA+, the Lumia 920 generally\u00a0achieved\u00a0data speeds of a little better than 6 Mbps down and 1 Mbps up.<\/p>\n

In contrast to the openness of its APN settings, just about everything else \u00a0about Windows Phone seems tightly locked down. \u00a0Unlike with Android or Symbian the only way to install apps is through the Windows Store. There’s no side loading \u00a0and there aren’t any alternate app stores. There’s also very limited access to the phone’s file system. \u00a0There is no pre-installed file explorer and none is available in the Windows Store. \u00a0Third party apps can create and save files in their own private area of the file system but the only way to share files between apps seems with SkyDrive or other cloud storage.<\/p>\n

I have Outlook.com and Skydrive accounts but don’t really use them. \u00a0Cloud services I do use \u00a0include Dropbox, Gmail and Google\u00a0Contacts\u00a0and Calendar. I expected some issues\u00a0connecting\u00a0the Lumia with those cloud services but it went better than I expected with Gmail and Google Calendar and Contacts. I was able setup my Google account on the Lumia relatively easily. Here’s the drill:<\/p>\n