The second time I get to mention this today !!!!
Microsoft Finds gun, gets hole in foot.
Microsoft has ensured that its unwanted Lumia phone division won’t upstage its Surface team next week, by posting details of the phones to its own UK Store website. It’s the latest in a series of “accidental” leaks, meaning the new Lumia flagship will be rather familiar by the time it is officially unveiled in New York at the …
That's what happens when you get to buy something on the cheap - you don't appreciate it and don't care if it's a flop.
Coincidentally, that's pretty much how privatisation of state and public enterprises went on here. Corrupt managers would run a company down so that a "businessman" could come and buy it for next to nothing. The said businessman, if he is a major player, has already done it dozens of times and doesn't really care about the company. He appoints new management with the instructions to cut costs and investments and maximize short term profits. It goes on for some time, but almost inevitably the money dries out, which is when the remaining (by that time no more handful of) workers is laid off and assets sold.
Nothing to see here, move on, move on.
As an ex windows phone user getting on for 2 months, along with most of the populations of the world, I don't really care now what Microsoft are doing / not doing on a Lumia phone, if I have a regret it is that I should have jumped before.
if I have a regret it is that I should have jumped before
Imagine the similar regrets of Microsoft shareholders, who saw them pay $10bn for Nokia's phone business two years ago, and now have something that is worth diddly squat. And in 2014 alone, the key executives trousered $152m for their "services".
I suppose you do have to pay the going rate to get the best talent, and with the likes of HP and IBM also looking for obscenely over-paid, incompetent squanderers it's a tight C level labour market.
The thing is I love my Lumia 635.
I did want something a little bit better. Not vastly better. Just something that closed the gaps, like a forward facing camera and a light, for example. IMHO if Microsoft set the specification for this device it was another example of shooting aimed at foot. No forward facing camera, in the age of Skype and (shudder!) selfies. But at the time I got this, a year ago, there was nothing that was a bit better and wasn't vastly more expensive.
So maybe a mid-range jobbie is what I need.
I don't want flashy stuff. I don't even want Android CrApps.
I do want a smart phone with reasonable functionality.
I picked up a 640 - the bog standard one - locked to AT&T for my wife whilst in the states, which AT&T kindly unlocked for me. Just under $80, and it's a superb phone: responsive, decent camera (with live pictures, imagine that!) SD card slot, 4G LTE... I'm genuinely impressed. It'll update to 10 when it's available, but right now I'm more than happy with it, as is my wife. Whether this is the sweet spot for Windows phone, I don't know, but I certainly think that device is pretty much getting it right. Will be interesting to see what extras the top end range pack in, and the price point...
@Robert Grant, we have 3 Lumnia 630s and a 1020 here. The battery is starting to go on the 1020 (running the beta of Windows 10 on it probably doesn't help either). I'm really looking forward to the two new phones. Shame the price wasn't shown as well. I hope there isn't too long a wait.
The new Nexus phones look nice, but I prefer Windows to Android.
I recently bought a Lumia 640. After several Android devices over the years I have to say I love the Lumia. Bloody cheap and yet does everything I need or want and I really like Windows Phone. Far more satisfied with it than the Galaxy S3, S2 and HTC Desire that preceeded it.
Seriously? I own a Lumia 640 and the device is pretty but, previously, I owned a no name Chinese Android with similar specs (A7 quad core, 1GB RAM, 720p screen) that cost me 105€ two years ago and I was happier with it than the Lumia (sadly, I dropped it down a flight of stairs and something inside broke). Lumia is lacking certain basic features that I've had on Android for ages, such as performing an automatic quick search while inputting numbers into the dialer, or swipe input in my language (both supposedly to be fixed in W10P) and a bunch of other small or not so small niggles. Also, Android actually has better multitasking. It may be down to the app itself, but switch from the current app to the music player just to change the song and then switch back and there's a good chance that the OS has already hibernated the original app. Also, not sure about the paid apps, but free ones are usually as crappy if not worse than those on Android (where at least you have more choice to pick and find an app that got it the closest to the way you want it).
Sadly so.
I've got two phones, a Lumia 520 and a Moto G. This started as a Android/Lumia/Android transition over the years (preceded by a decade of Nokias, culminating in a S60 based 5800).
Although I liked my 5800, having picked up an Android tablet in 2011 (Asus Transformer TF101), when the 5800 started to die, I decided to try an Android. Most of the decent Android phones at the time were hideously expensive, so I grabbed a cheapo $130 or so Gingerbread (LG P500H) which showed promise. It was dog slow, and very limited as a smart phone. I'm not complaining; for $130, it was great phone, if not a terrific computing device.
The Lumia 520 was $99, and beat the pants off the LG 500, and really showed the difference between a $100 WinPhone and a $100 Android. At the high end, Android may have overshadowed WinPhone, but on the cheap devices, WinPhone really did shine.
However, eventually cheaper Androids appeared, and the $150 Moto G caught my eye. There are still things I prefer about the Lumia: the smaller 4" form factor, the tiles (when they work, which was not always), and the microSD slot amongst them. And, of course, the excellent HERE maps. But as more and more apps got added to my Moto G, and fewer and fewer of them had WinPhone versions (seriously, even KeePass implementations on the WinPhone are limited, feature wise), the Lumia was finally relegated to backup car phone, a role that a battery-sipping, offline GPS laden phone with the decent Sygic dashcam app ($10) was suited perfectly to.
However, with my last birthday, my friends noticed I was GPS-less and dashcam-less, and decided to rectify those matters with gifts. So, with my new TomTom GPS and generic 1080p dashcam, the Lumia has moved into the glove compartment, still a car phone, but now only hooked up to the battery once a month to retain a charge.
I still keep any eye out on the Lumia world (if for no other reason that I still have a $25 credit at the Windows Phone store and I can't find anything worth spending it on), but I find the offerings less and less compelling.
Oh well. I still have my second Betamax machine (the first died after a decade of use) and my OS/2 2.0, 2.11, and Warp 3.0 CDs in the basement as well. They all served me well, but their time has come and gone (or is going, it seems for WinPhone). De moritus nil nisi bonum.
No comments because Orlowski article. Moderated.
I'm almost certainly going to buy that 950XL, by the way. WP works well. This is a flagship with a removal battery and an SD card slot, not to mention native handwriting support.
Oh, and it doesn't have Stagefright or give out all your contacts and photos without even entering a PIN
> give out all your contacts and photos without even entering a PIN
Fixed already in 9.0.2 and rolled out probably to a larger portion of the user base (including me and I am hardly some bleeding edge beta tester type) than the much more serious stage fright bug which is only partial fixed and reported months ago to Google. Granted its an embarrassing security issue for Apple but not a wtfpwnd like Android's.
Funny; I'm also newly feeling that about the whole OS, all MSFT services, and MSFT itself. How many times do they promise and how many times do they lie. Newly aka.ms/msa governs all their stuff; so newly, its Paragraph 3 Code of Conduct which only they adjudicate; and newly, uniliterally, they assert the right to slurp all one's private data and to bork, remove, publish one's private data. Which newly, makes one subject to lawsuits from all third parties whose data is on one's machine; for those third parties, did NOT consent to aka.ms/msa on one's device.
So I regret that I didn't jump ship before. But at least no private data gets slurped. Never again will trust them, and clearly the incompetence in management will never again arise, either.
So newly learning to use Linux online, for newly turning off all Windows updates, and keeping the Good Olde Windows.. offline.
Second time?
I think more than that. Or else once. Which phone was the first windows CE PDA with a phone built in. People made smart phones (with various OS, not just CE and Symbian) long before they were called smart phones and MS had CE in phones long before they messed up Danger/Sidekick.
It's only the second time they bought a phone division.
Coming from Symbian scene, that is exactly what Nokia did too. Nokia was selling well and their trolltech/Linux strategy was working, as last resort they had Android compatibility card to play.
I think it all happened because developers and advanced users didn't see OS vendor commitment. Why waste money and time on a platform with no future?
For example, I use Android while I hate Google and their little spy games& tactics. I am a potential customer and all I see is a company shipping phones without a front camera.
define cheap, but yes i get your point.
It's nice to see some future proofing, I think Microsoft are looking to build a phone every 2-4 years not release one every 6 months. I approve of that strategy and falling phone sales hint so as well.
Quite happy on my xperia Z 4 years old
The highest capacity MicroSD cards are 200 GB from SanDisk, and an announced but impossible to find 512 GB MicroSD card from Microdia. Full-sized SD cards haven't reached 1 terabyte as far as I know, just 512 GB.
So the odds are not good that 2TB MicroSD cards will be pretty cheap or exist in six months time.
are caring everyday....
I am an old man hoping MS die before I do.... I supported Windows from 3.1 to XP. Hence the bitter taste and anger that still lingers, I have a long memory. I still use Win7 on one machine and I am very happy with it. Its good for games and the one graphics package I use that will not run under Wine.
Microsoft has more spare cash than God. They don't give a damn about "failed" phones - they'll keep on trying different things until they get it right. That is the Microsoft way.
BTW - I can think of a lot of phone manufacturer executives who'd give their leftie for the same share of the smartphone market that MS has. A little bit of a lot is still a lot!
As Microsoft Windows phone can't compete, Google and Apple happily share the whole market and do whatever they want.
You have only 2 choices, actually you don't really have a choice. Certain people will only buy Android, others will only buy Apple based on their usage patterns.
Well if you don't mind butt ugly phones the shambling corpse of BB is still out there. Supposedly all these non Android Linux phones are supposed to be coming or out there but good luck with that. Yeah its a depressing market place in a lot of ways.
What Microsoft and even Samsung fails to understand is, Apple is a OS/Apps vendor who happens to design the hardware which those apps will run on.
They aren't understanding what is wrong to begin with. Steve Jobs did understand what was wrong at Apple and fixed it.
I wonder to what extent the Microsoft that was known for an everyday workhorse OS (Win 98 to 7 ) followed by a vile and derided OS (8). And for the everyday workhorse Office package (Win 2003) that was replaced with the much less friendly line of Office 201x products has simply made it impossible to succeed in a phone market that is balanced between fashion and usability.
i.e. The older OS and Office weren't fashionable.The later ones aren't sufficiently usable.
However good the WInphones may be there just isn't anything to love about the brand.
And maybe that's because they don't seem to care about what their users need, preferring to give users what they imagine we ought to want.