My experience of using a Windows phone 8.1 OS based smartphone. NOKIA LUMIA 525

Nokia Lumia 525

This blog post is about my experience of using a Nokia branded phone running on Microsoft’s Windows phone operating system.

 

Windows phones have started to gain market share slowly but surely in past 2 years or so. Nokia made a decision in 2007 to go with the newly launched Windows Phone operating system instead of then launched Google's Android. Rest as they say is history, a very terrible one for Nokia to look back.

In Just 4 years, the company which had ruled the mobile handset world was bought by Microsoft and now in 2014, the brand of NOKIA is dead. But Microsoft has made sure that they carry on the legacy of Nokia in form of highly durable and phones made of highest quality.

I was using a Samsung Galaxy S II for 3 years before Samsung decided to discontinue Android support and updates to it. I then turned to a Sony Xperia C smartphone but was terribly unimpressed with the phone. The MediaTek processor was unable to handle the 5 inch screen and the overall working opf the phone. There were many other problems with the handset apart from the one I mentioned.

I tried finding a decently mid-range phone for around 15,000 INR, but the processors etc were not good enough to handle the tasks and the battery life was just abysmal. Fed up with this search , I turned towards the options of Windows based phones. My search in them found me Nokia Lumia 525, a sub 10k smartphone with a Snapdragon 400 processor and 1GB RAM. It had a 4.3 inch screen with corning gorilla glass, 8 GB internal memory and expandable memory up to 64GB.

I bought one in June 2014 from a retail store and was surprised to see the performance of the phone in just couple of days usage. The OS was buttery smooth to use and was very fluid. The display was crisp and the 5 MP back camera was capable of capturing fleeting moments perfectly for my liking. The Windows 8 app ecosystem admittedly was behind the Android app ecosystem, but it had all the apps I required such as M-Indicator, SBI Freedom, Whatsapp, Facebook etc. July brought the Windows 8.1 Cyan update to my phone, which transformed it into a very capable phone good enough to beat Android phones in 15k category.

Windows phone 8.1 or Cyan brought a host of goodies with it. Features like the action center or the notification bar, File Manager for Windows, capability to install apps, games, photos, music, movies directly to the SD card without having to move them everytime was a boon, which Android still doesnot allow its users to do.

It also allowed users to uninstall any factory app which came with it. It saved a lot of internal memory for me and it also made multitasking a very easy job on the phone.  Call quality was superb and the data connection was just wonderful to work on. The option to directly connect to a 3G network instead of searching for 2G by default was nice one. The list of settings on the phone is a long one and I have heard some Android users, who have experienced this to gripe about it, whereas they want more options in Android.

The user experience is a refreshing coming from Android to Windows phone. The apps are arranged in a long list to better facilitated one hand usage, but it can be sorted out alphabetically also. The 1GB RAM was more than enough to handle highend games likes Asphalt 8, FIFA 15, Dead Target and regular games like Subway Surfers with ease. The wonderful contrast ratio on the phone lead to beautiful display experience.

This was about how it felt using a Windows phone for the first time. It takes some days to get used to the interface, but once you do, it is an experience which you will never forget. Personally, I felt that the argument of the app gap between Android and Windows is now a moot point, since most of the essential and daily use apps are present on the Windows store. Unless you are an app junky and try every needless app, you will be quite satisfied with the app selection on the phone, which is still growing. For gamers, it is a hard wait, but developers are slowly realizing the growth of Windows phone and are releasing game titles on a more frequent basis.

I would say I didn’t regret my choice to go with Windows based Nokia phone and would continue to be a Windows user. Unless Smartphone manufacturers come up with a way to give a Samsung Galaxy S5 or Nexus 5 like experience in under 15k. My only concern is the very low resale value of Windows phones in India. A 10k Windows phone with 6 months warranty was sold for just 5500 INR, whereas a similar Android phone would have gone for 7500INR.

But if you want to experience the no lag experience and wonderful screen in your mid-range budget, go for a Lumia phone. You will love it.