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Windows Phone 7 |OT|

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What I ordered:

Lumia 800 red case
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What I got:

Samsung Galaxy S2 case
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UraMallas said:
US Cellular has WP7s? Not in my area, at least...

Edit: Never mind, they do. HTC Pro. How is that phone? My Mom is looking for a new phone.
Click to expand...

The phone is fine except for a few things:

1. The speakerphone and in-call volume are too low and prone to distortions making it very difficult at time to hear unless in a quiet room.
2. Spring loaded flip-up up keyboard sucks. I'm constantly trying not to press any buttons while opening the keyboard and failing most times.

The bad thing is that on the touch pro 2, these were done right. A shame they went backwards in the design department.
 
How easy is it (or is it even possible) to unbrand a Samsung Omnia 7? I've got one cheap off Ebay to replace my HTC 7 Pro but it's T-Mobile branded and I'm on Three. I'm guessing I'll have to pay for a code for a sim unlock which is fine but I fancy getting rid of the T-Mobile splash screen etc if I can.
 
maximum360 said:
The phone is fine except for a few things:

1. The speakerphone and in-call volume are too low and prone to distortions making it very difficult at time to hear unless in a quiet room.
2. Spring loaded flip-up up keyboard sucks. I'm constantly trying not to press any buttons while opening the keyboard and failing most times.

The bad thing is that on the touch pro 2, these were done right. A shame they went backwards in the design department.
Click to expand...

There is a 'hack' for the volume issue, at least for Samsung devices.

http://pockethacks.com/volume-increase-hack-for-windows-phone-7-samsung-devices/
 
Sordid said:
How easy is it (or is it even possible) to unbrand a Samsung Omnia 7? I've got one cheap off Ebay to replace my HTC 7 Pro but it's T-Mobile branded and I'm on Three. I'm guessing I'll have to pay for a code for a sim unlock which is fine but I fancy getting rid of the T-Mobile splash screen etc if I can.
Click to expand...

You can flash an unbranded rom.
 
Windows Phone Marketplace passes 60,000 published apps

Loving the trend. Here's to having a sales chart that begins to look like this sometime in 2012.

It has taken 25 days to go from 50,000 to 60,000 items, compared to 40 days to go from 40,000 to 50,000.
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BTW, I'm thinking of working on an app or two. Anyone have any requests? I do software for a living but haven't had any mobile experience, figure it's time to pick it up.
 
@PG2G

I've said this before but I'd love to have a metro styled version of myfigurecollection website, having their whole figures database as an app would rock.
 
MCD said:
@PG2G

I've said this before but I'd love to have a metro styled version of myfigurecollection website, having their whole figures database as an app would rock.
Click to expand...

I'll browse it a bit and take a look. Good that they actually do have an API. Will let you know if I do anything and have any questions.
 
I think at first they were going to do a facebook/twitter style of Skype app (where MS worked with them to create the app), but then they were in the works of acquiring skype. At that point, they can't 'talk' with skype about integrating it into their plans, since that's against the law or something. Once the acquisition went through, there was no point in working on the 3rd party app (I'm guessing), so they scrapped it.

Now, I'm assuming we see the twitter/facebook style integration into the O.S. with the next iterating of WP.

EDIT: Tight integration of a service like Twitter/Facebook/Skype into the O.S. is not an easy task.
 
lastflowers said:
I think at first they were going to do a facebook/twitter style of Skype app (where MS worked with them to create the app), but then they were in the works of acquiring skype. At that point, they can't 'talk' with skype about integrating it into their plans, since that's against the law or something. Once the acquisition went through, there was no point in working on the 3rd party app (I'm guessing), so they scrapped it.

Now, I'm assuming we see the twitter/facebook style integration into the O.S. with the next iterating of WP.

EDIT: Tight integration of a service like Twitter/Facebook/Skype into the O.S. is not an easy task.
Click to expand...
They confirmed that the app is still coming.
 
Looks like Wordfeud is coming February 1st. Not quite Words With Friends, but I imagine its more popular than Words By Post
 
Is there a better sports app than the ESPN one or TheScore Mobile?

Both are pretty mediocre and don't take advantage of WP7.

It would great if there was one that had a live tile that showed the scores or time of game for your favorite teams.
 
Darth Tigris said:
I personally still don't understand the main benefit of using apps like these. I use Fuse and tie into feeds for any news site I want. What's the appeal, especially considering that it's a pay app?
Click to expand...

ElNino said:
Same here, except I use Weave. I've tried dedicated apps before (Engadget, WPCentral, etc) but I always just go back to reading all of my news in Weave as it is much easier to keep track of everything I follow in one app, and Weave is generally very quick to update the feeds.
Click to expand...

I've own both Weave and Fuse. And while the glitz of Fuse initially drew me in, I find Weave's layout far superior in everday use. It's fast, smooth, and laid out in a very logical manner. And while not as showy, is very professional (clean) looking with some nice little animations to keep it from looking sterile (I love the way pivot headers animate). If you are a fan of the entire Metro design language, I think Weave is definitely a great usage of its aesthetic and features. Really its only major shortcoming is the lack of the promised gReader capabilities being in there yet. I corresponded with the developer yesterday though, and he stated we should see it in February or March at the latest. It will be near perfect at that point.

Probably the only other thing I'd like to see is a way of breaking out categories to separate sites. As it stands, a category aggregates all of the linked sites into one overall feed. Granted you could simply make a category for each, but it would become too much quite fast. For this reason I also use some of their other free apps that share Weave's layout and functionality. Stuff like Tech News Now, World News Now, WP7 News, etc. So the way Pulse handles things in that regard is certainly nicer. If you look at the upcoming features list though, they are promising some 'surprising new UI enhancements', etc., so maybe they'll have something like this. It would be great to be able to view categories by actual feed. Basically a 2-layer list. Hopefully something like that will be the case.



As far as disregarding certain specific apps like WPCentral though ... I actually use that regularly as well. While stuff like Weave and Pulse do a great job with feeds, the good site apps add a whole lot of more functionality. For example, a feed reader can get you audio and video embedded in an article, but that's only if it's part of the feed. Many sites have separate podcast and video content on their site that isn't part of a traditional feed. Having direct access to that sort of content is compelling. WPCentral has direct access to reviews, podcasts, apps, videos, games, wallpapers, etc.

Moreover, WPCentral does a really great job in fleshing out the extras that go along with an actual article in a news feed. They have a 'More' section that includes image galleries, links, and direct access to the market to download the app (assuming it's an article about a specific app). Then they also have a 'Comments' section where you can discuss the topic at hand. It's direct access to the actual comments section from the website at the bottom of each article (though it's not as fleshed out).

Those sorts of features make it invaluable to me. Obviously though only a few sites have apps that are this feature-rich. For sites without it, I rely on Weave or its siblings.
 
Raistlin said:
I've own both Weave and Fuse. And while the glitz of Fuse initially drew me in, I find Weave's layout far superior in everday use. It's fast, smooth, and laid out in a very logical manner. And while not as showy, is very professional (clean) looking with some nice little animations to keep it from looking sterile (I love the way pivot headers animate).
Click to expand...
This has been my feeling as well. Fuse may look better but Weave is much nicer for usability. Even when I'm in a relatively poor signal area I can get hundreds of news items to the device within seconds, while some of the images will load as I go.

The only downside I can see is that custom categories/feeds appear to limit the amount of news they will download, while pre-made feeds on the cloud servers get much more. It's not a big deal when I'm browsing my feeds thoughout the day, but if I miss a couple of days it means there might be some news items that I don't see from my custom feeds.
 
brotkasten said:
TechRadar interview with Aaron Woodman:
http://www.techradar.com/news/phone...technologies-until-they-re-a-benefit--1056739

Nothing has changed:
- Android will always have the newest hardware
- New hardware features when they're needed and benefit the user (Like Apple does it with the iPhone)
- Nokia will lead the way on pressing for new hardware features and are eager to differentiate.
- Updates are still on track, the table was only necessary because of the NoDo backlash
- Still giving out free blow jobs to developers
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?! I was about to rail on Microsoft after reading your summary but the article itself was more open to question

Oi:
New features like NFC and wireless charging and other advancements will come faster now that the operating system is more mature, says Woodman. "Even a year ago when we first brought the product to market we still had some key gaps that we had to cover to get competitive and that's taken a lot of time. I feel like we're there now, so that frees up resources to look at those innovative pieces.

"And Nokia has now said 'all of my innovations that I can think of that will differentiate me at the hardware level will be focused on this platform'; that's going to bring a great amount of innovation."

Nokia won't be the only partner adding new hardware features, but their commitment has made a supporting more features worthwhile. "It's going to push us to start to prioritise some of those innovations with hardware that we might have deprioritised because we weren't sure whether we would see a hardware partner take advantage of it in that time frame."

Microsoft will still pick and choose which new hardware features it supports...
Click to expand...

I understand Nokia still has the right to modify the OS, right? That said, I'm unhappy at the first hardware feature the Nokia/Microsoft team has coughed up. LTE is more a carrier oriented feature that a consumer one (and it's only available to a small number of the potential smartphone users, completely excluding Nokia's home base).

It's not so much the lack of adoption of new hardware features as it is the lower capabilities of the existing hardware they do support. Why do Windows Phones on average have worse battery life than phones from other platforms? Why can't a Windows Phone have the best smartphone camera?

Microsoft was supposed to offer the best of both worlds. Instead it's the blandness of the iPhone and with none of the diversity of the Android. I still have hope that while WP might not pull ahead of Android phones that it'll still reach level with the iPhones. As it is, two years after the retina display, even RIM offers a Blackberry with a high ppi than anything in the WP camp.
 
Greyface said:
Why do Windows Phones on average have worse battery life than phones from other platforms? Why can't a Windows Phone have the best smartphone camera?
Click to expand...
The only bad battery-life I've heard even mentioned is the 800, which seems to be a Nokia firmware issue. The rest of the stuff I've heard about WPhones are that they have really good battery life.

I know my trophy lasts between 1 completely day [7am-midnight] or 1 1/2 days (charge the next day at noonish)
 
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