Given the huge impact that it’s had on our lives It’s hard to believe that the iPhone has only been in existence for 5 years. My smartphone journey started 7 years ago with an i-mate JAM device running Windows Mobile 2003, it’s funny but it did most of what I needed even then, which is essentially Outlook on the go. That said it was clumsy to use with a silly little stylus pen and a miniature version of the Windows desktop operating system, using it was fiddly to say the least.
I remember getting my hands on my first iPhone and being absolutely blown away, it transformed the user experience, every detail seemed perfect and it opened up a world of new apps and even made browsing the web a pleasure.
I’ve been an iPhone devotee ever since and I’ve never considered moving to another device until I started hearing other iPhone devotees saying great things about the new Nokia 820 and 920 devices which run the new version of Windows mobile. The general consensus seemed to be that the new iPhone 5 was lacklustre, overpriced, and had been caught up and even overtaken by Nokia and Microsoft Windows mobile!
This coupled with the fact that I’d heard that Outlook/Exchange integration on Windows mobilewas superior to any other platform led me to decide that it was time to give a Nokia phone a go.
To be honest for the first 2 or 3 days I wasn’t sure. There is a transition period, not surprising considering how familiar the iPhone was, so things definitely take a bit longer to start with until you’ve learnt your way around. I don’t think the user experience is quite as intuitive as the iPhone, one of the most remarkable things about the iPhone is that you could give it to a 3 year old and they would be whizzing around it in no time. That said, it doesn’t take long to become comfortable with Windows mobile and once you are comfortable it’s quick and easy to use.
Nearly a month on and I am very pleased that I made the move so I thought I share my top 11 reasons for preferring it to my old iPhone!
- It feels faster and more responsive. I’ve installed dozens of apps and it still works like it did the first time I started it.
- The screen is superb. It has a polarization filter (which makes it easier to view in sunlight), gorilla glass (that just doesn’t seem to mark or scratch) and it’s beautifully crisp and sharp.
- The camera is simply amazing, far superior to any of the iPhones, and it can be engaged very quickly by pressing a button on the side.
- The People app which consolidates contacts from social media, exchange contacts into a single address book and provides a 360 degree view of their activity e.g. social posts, call history.
- I can have live tiles for different folders in my exchange mailbox (so a tile showing me if I have new mail in my inbox and another tile telling me I have new mail in another folder that I monitor.
- The ability to quickly switch to a view of my exchange e-mail which is unread or flagged
- The ability to turn my Outlook out of office off and on from the device.
- The fact that e-mails I send from my phone show as being replied to or forwarded in Outlook (not so on iPhone!).
- Nokia Drive sat nav software is superb. Its free, has worldwide support and it doesnt rely on a data connection for navigation it works entirely on GPS so if you use it abroad you don’t get huge data bills and if you don’t have a data connection you still get brilliant sat nav.
- The tight integration with Microsoft Office which means that I easily synchronise all my documents between SkyDrive, Office 365 and SharePoint and access them from any device or computer that I use.
- The predictive word feature which works in messaging apps and when working in Microsoft office documents is absolutely brilliant. It knocks spots off anything else I’ve used and it saves me a heap of time!
