I first dipped my toes into the WP8 waters with the purchase of a 8X some months ago. I had been a WP7 user since the pre-Mango days (I jumped on when NoDo was a thing) and bowed out when Microsoft announced that they were pulling the plug on everyone who bought into the Lumia 900 marketing blitz. Nonetheless, I loved WP7 as it were, and I thought WP8 would be better. Alas, it seems it is not so.
Here are my reasons why I have one foot out the door.
The update situation is a total mess. Microsoft could have easily matched Apple here, and I have no idea why they didn’t. We have low end phones and high end phones shipping with GDR2, but the bread-and-butter phones like the 820 and 920 remain unknown as far as when GDR2 is actually going to be released. We have a loose timeframe, but I’m guessing the carriers are going to royally screw that one over super hard.
It feels like Microsoft really doesn’t care about WP8. Xbox Music has been broken for many. Microsoft has even acknowledged a lot of these problems. Hell, I’m not even sure GDR2 will fix these issues. I know if the iPhone had half of the problems that we’re having with Xbox Music, they’d have it fixed an order of magnitude less than almost an entire year later. (Windows Phone 8 released in November, which was 10 months ago.)
Things are constantly broken. Being on an unlocked Lumia 920 on T-Mobile, I sort of partially expect some things to not work, like HSPA+ and LTE. (Both work, surprisingly.) However, some things that I feel shouldn’t be broken, are in fact broken. Hotspot never works correctly (I have to use the whole “install a foreign keyboard trick, and it usually breaks from within a few hours to a couple of days), and if hotspot isn’t completely busted, then MMS usually is. Even with the correct settings. At least on an Android/iOS device, hotspot and MMS work just fine as long as the APNs are correct. On Windows Phone? Not a damn chance.
Hardware choice on T-Mobile is kind of uh, garbage right now. There’s either the 521, which is as budget as they come, the 925, which is capped at 16GB onboard storage, and the 8X, which has the same problem as the 925. I’d love love love to have the 925, but I’ve tried to live in 16GB before, and it fills up extremely quick for me. I’d switch to AT&T, but I can’t afford it. I really want the 1020 as well, but if my experience with an unlocked 920 is any indication of what to expect with an unlocked 1020, then I don’t even want to go there.
And this one is more of a Nokia problem…but I’m putting it here anyway because it’s heavily influencing me ditching my 920…
Nokia’s quality control needs some work. My original 920 had the dust under the glass issue, and the replacement (which Nokia swears on their life they checked over and over to make sure it was sealed) is having the very same issue. If I need to send it back again I’m going to be without a phone for two weeks, again, and I’m going to somehow have to convince AT&T to unlock my phone a second time. According to a question thread I posted a while back and a few people I’ve asked personally, most have just resigned to constantly blowing their 920s out with compressed air.
This. is. not. okay. for. a. $400+. phone. Maybe if this were a cheapo budget Android phone it would be fine but this is a flagship device. It’s almost like when Verizon tried to “fix” my old Droid with a band-aid. (If you think I’m lying, I’m not. Google “droid band-aid”.)
I’m not sure where to go from here, or if I should even spin the wheel with Nokia again, or wait for GDR3 and hope it makes things better. Some sage advice would be appreciated. I’m at the end of my rope.
This is a guest post by Mohit from Mytechpartner.com