Reviews and Trials

[Bart]

Hi guys,

Now that Shezzaz and Jubbing have the hot new Lumia 800 in their hands, it’s time to ask any burning questions you’ve got about the device. Our winners will be posting answers to some questions we had and they’ll be checking in from time to time lend a hand and answer your questions.

Please post a reply in this thread with your Lumia questions and discussions so we can fill you in!

Cheers, Bart.

[CM: We've published the amazing reviews from Jubbing and Shezzaz on the blog, full details here]

[shezzaz]

HI GUYS! How exciting!!!!!!!  I've got some answers to a few questions below! Anything you want answers to just post and I'm happy to answer as best I can!

1.    1. What is your unboxing experience, what was it like opening up the Lumia 800?
It was 10am yesterday and our door bell rang! WOOOOOOO!!! I signed for my parcel and may have done a super quick shuffle to the desk so I could start unboxing!

I opened up the box and immediately threw the Lumia on charge. First thing I was impressed with was the fact that the phone comes with a protective cover "in the box" so you don't have to go out and buy one! Straight away that was a big plus (even if it is a small thing) so I threw that on after I popped my sim in.

Now for those of us without Iphone 4's and newer smart phones the new Lumia requires a micro sim.. (half the size of a normal sim card) I didn't realise this but was just lucky that my Iphone 4 also uses a micro sim so I changed my sim over and away I went!

First thing was to transfer my contacts. This was a relatively easy process, if you have stored your contacts on your sim card it is literally a matter of copy and paste. I then went through and registered the phone with windows live and my email account so I could access all the goodies and updates etc..

The way the phone stores contacts is in a tab or tile called "People" it merges all your windows live and facebook contacts. This is something I am finding a bit hard to get used to as personally I have a lot more contacts on facebook than I would like in my phone. However, in saying this.. I haven't yet worked out if I can turn that feature off.. which I probably can!

Anyway, first impressions.. Slick, not too heavy, shiny (which is always good!), nice size screen!  


2.    Have you changed any live tiles? Settings? Made a new one?
I have!!!! I have shuffled the live tiles around to what suits me better and deleted a few that I won't be using regularly. I have gone through and played with ringtones and message alert tones and downloaded a few games. I have created a group in "people" of my close friends and family and I have pinned that as a live tile on the front page which I am finding very handy when it comes to making calls etc..

3.    Camera time! Taken any photos? Low light? Bright sunlight? On a yacht in the middle of a storm? How is the camera, any thoughts?
CAMERA!!!!!! The most exciting thing on any new mobile phone! So far so good! Yes, I have taken a few photos in different light environments! I love that it has a flash that actually works and doesn't just white everything out in low light levels! The picture quality is great! I'm very impressed! Video, not as much.. I have taken a couple of videos and on the phone when playing back they look ok.. A little shakey and the sound is very tinny.. I'm not sold on the video yet. However, this is all only after one day of use! So I will get back to you with more info soon!

[jubbing]

Finally after an entire long weekend of biting my nails eagerly anticipating the Lumia 800's arrival, I missed the delivery! So I went to the post office to pick it up but when I went they hadn't received it yet (oh the horror), but luckily it arrived 30 minutes later! So, I've got my views on it as well! I also knew I needed a Micro-sim for this phone so I had gone earlier and got one, just to be ready.

1.   What is your unboxing experience, what was it like opening up the Lumia 800?

Without a shadow of a doubt, this is one of the most goregous devices I have ever had, or unboxed for that matter of fact. Nokia is known for their phones build qualities, and it shows here. That curved screen, that ploycarbonate build, that amazing feeling in your hands when you hold it for the first time all adds up to one thing - wow. In fact, this phone is so good that I've put my Samsung Omnia 7 away in a drawer because even though it has a bigger screen, it just can't compete with the Lumia 800.

The phone is just mesmarizing to look at, and you can see that here in this promo shot I took for my website - Lumia 800 Picture. It's like the light warps around the phone in order to make it look even better, and having owned 7 phones in the last 8 years I can assure you that it doesn't happen this often.

The best thing about this phone is that despite a solid polycarbonate built, it's actually quite light. No maybe not as light as the iPhone 4S or anything, but I can assure you it will take much more of a beating than the iPhone ever will (in terms of dropping it). The phone generally feels like heaven in your hands, and I never want to put it down because of it's curved built (the edges curve inwards).

As well, you can see my unboxing video here - Youtube

2.   Haveyou changed any live tiles? Settings? Made a new one?

I straight away moved the 'me' tile up to the top because having used a Windows Phone 7 device before, I know that's the tile I'll be using the most. As well, I went around re-shuffling the tiles to what I thought I might need the most to what I didn't need, those I unpinned. I'm really excited to try Nokia Drive, which is basically my free GPS in the phone! Always great, but it seems I need to purchase a holder for that purpose in the future.

I've also gone ahead and downloaded a few extra apps, a few of which I thought I might find useful in the future such as maybe a cooking app or running app. I'll obviously be experimenting more with this as time goes on. 

3.   Cameratime! Taken any photos? Low light? Bright sunlight? On a yacht in the middle ofa storm? How is the camera, any thoughts?

Well I haven't managed to get onto my yacht yet (not for another 15 years perhaps haha) but I've only taken one or two pictures to see how fast the camera is. I have to say, despite my Omnia 7 being a WP7, it actually blows it away with the time it takes to open the camera to autofocusing to taking the picture (obviously I touch the screen for the fastest photos).

As the days go by, I'm most certainly planning to take more and more photos on this. That 8 megapixel camera sounds so good, and I've got a very busy weekend ahead of me so I might just take the Lumia 800 along, show off a little and take some great shots. I'd be interested to see how well it takes pictures in low light, as when you're out you take a lot of those.

Overall? I'm excited. If you want to ask my any questions, ask me here or on twitter (follow me @jubbing) or on my website's facebook page! Personally, I'm already under the impression that this is the phone you should get, but like I said we'll find out as time goes on!

[frogger2]

Got my Lumia 800 a week ago and I absolutely love it!!!

However i see in the Noklia forums that there is now a software update available (1600.2487.8107.12070) that can improve battery life (among other things).  See http://discussions.nokia.com.au/t5/Nokia-with-Windows-Phone/New-update-available-for-Lumia-800-1600-....

Can you let us know when Vodafone will be making this update available?

[jubbing]

---

frogger2 wrote:

However i see in the Noklia forums that there is now a software update available (1600.2487.8107.12070) that can improve battery life (among other things).  See http://discussions.nokia.com.au/t5/Nokia-with-Windows-Phone/New-update-available-for-Lumia-800-1600-....

---

I actually just forced my update to get 12070. The battery life on it is SPECTACULAR! It was already decent, but now with that update it's just wow. Now do remember that forcing any upgrade may cause problems down the road, but as I checked this doesn't void your warranty as it's just a firmware update. How to here - (it's easy and straightforward as long as you read the instructions). If you're unsure PLEASE WAIT! There's no rush!

Here - {link removed}

[frogger2]

Thanks jubbing.

Does anyone know when the update will be available via 'official' vodafone channels?  If that is going to be soon i'll wait, but if it is ages away i'll look into the manual update process.

[Tim_H]

Hi Guys,

Thanks for your posts. They sound amazing! And even more importantly you're loving the phones. Looks like we've found the right people to get to know the Lumia 800 a little better!

Looking forward to seeing what you guys think over the next few days and very excited to see your final reviews.

Congratulations once again, and a special thanks from me. Your mini reviews are so much fun to read.

Jubbin,

I've removed the firmware link from your post. I'm afraid we don't allow discussion of third party firmware and updates. Even when available elsewhere in the world, we have a comprehensive testing process to ensure a quality experience for both you, and anyone else on the Vodafone network.

Thanks for understanding

Tim

[frogger2]

So when can we expect the comprehensive testing for this update to be complete and the update available to vodafone subscribers?

If there is a better forum to ask this question please let me know.

[jubbing]

Not a problem Tim, I was hesitant to put the link up in the first place

[Tim_H]

---

frogger2 wrote:

So when can we expect the comprehensive testing for this update to be complete and the update available to vodafone subscribers?

If there is a better forum to ask this question please let me know.

---

There's no better place to ask

We're currently waiting on the update to be received from Nokia and testing to begin. We'll update the blog as soon as we lay hands on it.

Tim