Behold the Lumia 535 NOTkia: Microsoft wipes Nokia brand from mobes Microsoft is finally putting its own brand on the phones it makes and sells itself. The Windows giant's latest Lumia 535 drops the Nokia branding completely – as expected – and will instead sport a proud "Microsoft" front and rear. The device itself is unremarkable except for a very aggressive price: it's a mere €110 (£86) …
Why are Microsoft even trying. I have only ever seen 1 real person with a Windows phone...
Their lack of apps, lack of customisation, overhyped camera performance that seriously under delivers, and bug ridden OS means that the only people that end up with them, are truly the mungnuts in this world, that walk into a phone shop as asked to be sold whatever is left-over.
Speaking as one of the 'mungnuts' who purchased a 520 last year I have to disagree somewhat on your observations on the Windows Phone. I haven't felt the need to install every last app under the sun, so I'm quite happy with the quantity of apps on offer. Customisation? Never been up there on my list of priorities. I've never been under the impression that my phones camera is ever going to take any award winning pictures, but I can't fault it for what it does. The OS is rock solid - I've never had any issues with bugs - both with versions 8 and 8.1 of the OS.
Ah yes. Us mungnuts.
Feel like I need to join you in defending against the ramblings of the ill-informed.
I've had a 1020 for the last few months and it is the only phone I've ever had that I am actually pretty enthusiastic about.
My previous Androids all did the job until they ran out of storage (HTC Desire) or the latest Android update rendered the battery unable to last half a day (HTC One X). Add on to that the inability to unload all the crapware that gets bundled with the phone and the tendency of aforementioned crapware to start up at random and suck on my battery life,
WinPho has all the apps I need, but the wife stuck with Android as it was missing some she needed so app selection is very much in the YMMV category.
Build quality is rock solid.
Battery on moderate use will easily go more than a full day.
The OS has never crashed, not even when running Windows 8.1 Developer Preview. My wife's Android however, and mine but to a much lesser extent, crashed on an almost daily basis.
The physical camera and associated apps are excellent and give me far better quality images than I will ever really need.
There are a number of other nice features such as a Kids Corner so I can hand the phone to the kids and they will only have access to their apps and nothing else.
If you want a phone that is simple to setup/use and just works, WinPho beats Android in many respects. If you tinker with your phone, then you're better off with Android.
The 'it's Windows, therefore it sucks' posts are getting really old now.
I've had a Lumia 820 for quite a while and have never understood this argument about lack of apps. It comes with pretty much everything I need already installed. Add a fitness app (plenty of those) and I'm pretty much covered. Apps developed because phones didn't have full browser functionality. The Windows Phone has that and consequently I need almost no specialist apps for any services - I just use their website.
The only group of people I see as suffering from a lack of apps are those who want to play lots of new games on their phone, that's it. I'm curious to know from one of the critics what large lack they see in apps on the Windows Phone. Perhaps someone here could enlighten us "mungnuts" which I assume is something like mungbeans, but really don't care to know.
I guess you have never used the phone in anger then. Never seen a Windows Phone that's been capable of not dropping out audio when playing to a bluetooth speaker (or headphones), they all randomly reboot several times a week, the proximity sensors simply don't work. Don't expect to be able to phone banking with the key tones, you will end up throwing it in the trash, as it can't work out it's not next to your head any longers.
It's cheap crap. Landfill Windows Phone if you will.
>>"I guess you have never used the phone in anger then. Never seen a Windows Phone that's been capable of not dropping out audio when playing to a bluetooth speaker (or headphones), they all randomly reboot several times a week, the proximity sensors simply don't work. Don't expect to be able to phone banking with the key tones, you will end up throwing it in the trash, as it can't work out it's not next to your head any longers."
None of that has been true of my WP8 device which I have been using for quite a long time (over a year, at least). That's the problem with posts like yours - when there were very few WP devices around, you could get away with it because people didn't have direct experience. Now there are loads of us who know for a fact that what you say isn't true of our experiences. Why the hate and mud-slinging?
Having had my 520 for well over a year now with the Dev preview I have yet to come across any of the issues you have had there. I used to use android and my work phone is an iPhone 4s, I can confidently say with the experience using winphone it is easily the best smart phone i have owned and I plan to upgrade to the 535 as for the price that looks amazing.
Try owing a winphone before hating on them just because it is cool to hate Microsoft
Yes, proximity sensors do go nuts with a screen protector, they sorted that on the 920, but havemt fixed it on my 930, this is a pain, but a snip of screen protector material' and its fine again, not perfect, but its not the end of the world...
This 930 is my second windows phone and I am more than happy with it, I can use tones fine with most telephone services, well, I haven't found one that doesn't work - the caveat is having the sensor issue addressed. It has randomly restarted, but then the iPhones that I've owned for 4 years have all done that and my partners iphone sometimes requires a reset to resurrect it.
Customisation? What are you comparing it to? An iphone? Which allows you to change the background and that's all? Can you resize an icon? Can you group notifications from a VIP? Can you see at a glance emails from several different accounts without opening an app or using a notification centre? no other phone allows the level of customisation that you can achieve on a windows phone.
My windows phone is able to use the microphone inside my Bluetooth speaker, the iphone cant. I can't think of any tome the winphones have disconnected from a Bluetooth speaker or had dropouts with the car hands free... in fact the car mode and quiet hours features are something that I really value, over and above the extra apps that are available. But each to their own...
No, there aren't many in the wild, but they are there.... but like my cars, I don't follow the sheep and like a little individually... the supermarket car park is full of black VW golfs of some description, they work well, hold their value, but are mind numbingly samey.
I got a 520 as a second phone last year. So far I've used it in anger in the UK and 'down under' no issues at all.
Good quality calls, certainly not dropped any, and the sat nav alone saved me a small fortune in rip off charges from car hire companies.
Then again I've never obsessed over brands. If it does what you need its good.
And another one talking out of his arse.
I use Bluetooth audio at home and in my car, it *always* works and sounds great. My phone has been working continuously for the past several months. Last reboot was initiated by myself, an app was misbehaving (nothing to do with the phone, or the OS).
I use phone banking on an almost daily basis and the problems you describe simply don't happen.
I don't believe a word you're saying and I seriously doubt you actually ever owned or used a winphone.
I hate Apple, I love bashing them, but I stay away from topics I'm not 100% sure about and I do appreciate that some people love their devices (heck, I even advised my mom to get an Iphone, as I thought it would be the right device for her). Perhaps you should do the same?
I loved my Windows Phone (Lumia 820). It was easy to use, even though the screen resulution sucked (my choice, I could have got a better one but did not want to spend the money on the day) the software used it in such a way that you really did not notice that much and it was reliable.
The only reason I got rid of it was that we replaced our boiler and the new one came with a smart thermostat. Which needs an app. Which was not in the store. Normally I would say that there are no apps that are deal breakers, but in this case...
Hopefully Bosch will release one for WP and I can go back to it with my next phone!
Seen plenty. Not the majority, but I know many who have them (all Nokia) and reasons being are...
* Cheap
* Reliable
* Great build quality
* Better battery life than Android
* Excellent camera
All depends what you want from a phone really. Some are not fussed about having millions of utterly garbage apps available to install, or want to bling their phone up with Bieber customisations. They just want a phone to actually, you know, call people, and that has a few of the social app bits, email, and not much else.
Typical customers are people looking for cheap, students, kids, but also a lot of older folk who find Android just a bit overwhelming with too many features and customisations or differences between each brand. I recommended a Lumia to my parents for this very reason.
Not saying I'm a fan, and I'm on Android myself at the moment but it's only a few apps missing that stop me from switching. I was a long time Nokia fan and still much prefer their build quality and battery life so I'd love to switch back. Except they're not Nokia any more.
And can't say from what I've used of Windows Phone that it's bug ridden. Plenty of bugs in my Android phone though.
It no secret that in the mobile phone market, Microsoft are the 'bottom feeders'. The only commercial success they've managed in smartphones is at the 'budget' end of the spectrum. They know it and everyone else knows it. Which is why they've announced the Lumia 535 as the first 'Microsoft' branded smartphone and not made some Quixotic play for dominance with a 'high-end' Lumia device as the first 'Microsoft' branded smartphone. To try and fault Microsoft for playing to their strengths is misdirected.
Well, the only Lumia 520 I have ever seen in the wild was the one my Mum got from Virgin Mobile as replacement for her previous handset.
By the time I got down there she had connected to her wi-fi for browsing, started adding contacts and already made phone calls. She's 68. Only things I had to do was set her data to wi-fi only and rearrange the tiles. The biggest surprise for me however was how much it made iOS on my iPhone 5s look so old hat.
Both Android and the iOS UI is old hat.
The idea of skeuomorphism is about 20 years past its sell by date. On iOS the icons at least look vaguely uniform, on Android they're ugly and all over the shop.
Tiles beat icons by a mile. Not to mention the tile can be resized and what information can be display varies depending on size. Plus some of them flip over and show other useful information.
Hater's gonna hate eh?
I have a Lumia 1020 and it's a great device. The camera is still the best you can get and when it was new, it amazed reviewers. Lumia camera's have been proben to be among the best, so if you say they're crap, you're talking out of your arse.
Bug ridden OS? please specify those bugs. I'm on my second winphone and am yet to encounter any serious bugs, so please tell me what bugs you refer to (talking our of your arse again).
lack of customization? and what exactly would you want to customize? I find the level of customization possibilities to be more then sufficient.
lack of apps? Perhaps that's the only valid point you made, though I have a hard time believing that an app landscape containing hundreds of millions of apps is better then one that "only" has tens of millions.
You sir, are a hater.
Not a fan, or owner for that matter, of a WP device, but I certainly don't consider their users mungnuts (whatever that means) They are simply people that look for some specific qualities on a device and the Nokia offerings provides these. Same for BlackBerry users. What's so wrong with that?
Not a great fan of Microsoft in general： except their few genuine innovations, DirectX, DLLs, object linking and embedding, sure, the latter now leads to idiots making unreadable spreadsheets that have nothing to do with what a spreadsheet is for, and Microsoft didn't invent the DLL concept, but they did lead the way in introducing it.
I prefer OpenGL, but it wouldn't be what it is without concepts from DirectX,
but really, who cares how many 'apps' they carry for their phones?
This looks like fair value for the many fbook, twit, instagram addicts of the world.
I have found precisely one Android 'app' so far that I am really interested in downloading and paying for, but won't do so until I see a much better description of its specs.
Games? I still prefer to carry a separate machine for that, I am sure there must be exceptions, but I see Android and iPhone games people are playing on trains, just a mindless distraction for two minutes, generally graphic design with no character, very low difficulty. I see DS and PSP games, some look interesting.
>>except their few genuine innovations, DirectX, DLLs, object linking and embedding
Although you might be using incorrect punctuation and colons are intended somewhere, I'd appreciate if you could share with everyone what exactly innovative was there about the DLLs, object linking and embedding. As for the Dynamic Linking, it's been first implemented even before Unix, since Multics, if I remember correctly.
I've got a 925 and I love it. Music is free and the TV app I got from the store for free is awesome (I can watch free live F1 in Russian or Spanish). Lucky I've got all you can eat data as a race is over a gig's worth of slurp. Satnav built in and a pukka camera. My GF has an iPhone 5s and it looks old fashioned and clunky and is as fast as a pensioner with a dodgy knee. We both hate it. I've got a Droid 4.1 tablet and I way prefer the Win 8.1 interface, so Master Troll sling yer hook.
They seem good, but have 2 flaws that prevent me from a purchase.
1) Too small text/fonts. Can't read a thing on them, the GUI is wonderful, but text on them is so small, I wonder if it was made for ANTS.
2) No direct access to memory/SD cards. I've started to give up on SD card slots on some devices, but I'd still like some real "HDD" and file structure emulation. This will become less so with cloud backup, but nothing beats having a memory card in my pocket for quick and reliable data/transfers.
Oh, and it's Microsoft... but I've got no real hate for their hardware/software combos. :P
Crashes less than iOS and is as simple/straightforward to use. If I find I'm lacking an app I'll write it (although Rudy Huyn is doing a good job bettering other apps). Camera beats the spots off Samsung. Build quality is second to none.
What is interesting, having used both a 520 and a 925, is that a 520 is surprisingly good. Really, it is. The screen difference is ignorable, its performance is great and the only really discerning points are the cameras. Oh, and my technophobic partner can quite happily use one. My only issue is that when I force her to upgrade she'll be moving to an 8X0 for the camera button.
@TechnicalBen
1) Swipe the screen down, hit all settings, scroll down 3/4 of the list, hit *ease of access* and you've got a slider, you can pick your own text size.
2) Click Store, type "Files", install to give you on phone access. Plug the phone in and it uses MTP which is even good enough for the car stereo in my economically priced car. Also, you have their touch sharing and beamer software...
This Nokia 6030 (c2005) that I carry, makes and receives calls, sends and receives text messages, if I leave it on permanently the battery last a week. The wife has some Samsung S3 thing which I don't see does anything more useful than the 6030. And yeah I know all about app for this and app for that, but really if you actually need any of that your life is really fucked up.
Now various colleagues have tried showing me differently but whenever they try, the thing they are trying to demonstrate either doesn't work or is so cumbersome its useless, or they can't connect to the wifi/web, or they discover they are about to run out of battery.
@AC
"Why are Microsoft even trying. I have only ever seen 1 real person with a Windows phone..."
Because without Windows Phone, the next generation of IT decision-makers will grow up using Phones and Tablets based on Android(Linux) or iOS - neither of which is MS - home PCs usually PCs in the past are being sidelined by Tablets and the future decision makers will buy what they know...
Interesting pricing going on right now. This seems to undercut it's siblings while offering more. Also, for example, here in Europe, the Lumia 830 is only 40 euros more than the Lumi 730 while offering significantly more, even the Lumia 925 is cheaper than the 730! It seems that there will be worthy phones that are not going to sell because the price point is wrong...
When will we get a hands on?
"Microsoft's brand has consistently ranked higher than Nokia's (according to Interbrand anyway) and over 110m Xbox consoles have been sold"
Except that Xboxes (360s at least, not yet seen an XB1 in the flesh) aren't conspicuously stamped with "Microsoft". In fact, there are many who claim that the reason the Xbox has enjoyed the success it has is because of its separation from the Microsoft name.
Perhaps if this - and all Windows Phones - had been marketed as the "XPhone" to be a companion device to the Xbox then maybe the whole platform would be doing rather better! But I can't see having "Microsoft" stamped all over doing any favours for the device here...
"Except that Xboxes (360s at least, not yet seen an XB1 in the flesh) aren't conspicuously stamped with "Microsoft"."
Not especially on the console itself, however every controller and every game box have the MS logo in a fairly prominent place, and the Microsoft logo is shown on the 360's power on screen.
It's not like they're totally hiding their branding, like Sega did with the Dreamcast..
They could have stuck with Lumia - at least it's got a couple of years of history and Nokia didn't want to keep that trademark, MS have got other trademarks such as Xbox, Kinect, Surface, Bing, OneDrive, and Skype, and there's no rule that it has to be called Microsoft or Windows.
You'd think that after Xbox being a success without the Microsoft name someone would realised that the same would apply to their phones. Perhaps everyone who's spent that long at MS has been fired already, who knows.
I, too, have heard the Nokia / Japanese comment from friends and family. Nevertheless, I'm sure Americans will learn where Finland is as soon as Putin pops round under the guise of re-unifying Karelia. After all, they all know where Crimea is now too.
Anonymous, because, well...
HEY! I'm an American!
But sadly, you are right. Most of the Americans who are shitty their pants over Crimea don't know what content it is on... some think its next door to us. They watch a lot of NewCorps crap - sorry you got the same pricks in your country.
Also very sad, is that a lot of Americans THINK that China is NORTH of the USA... Not Canada.
I'm sure Americans will learn where Finland is as soon as Putin pops round under the guise of re-unifying Karelia.
Madame Victoria Nuland-Kagan, please go back to your inside-the-beltway psycho grottothink tank.
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