August 26, 2014 at 19:37Lumia 1520 - or how to stop eating apples in 5 days
Last week one evening an unusual box appeared on my desktop with a mysterious shaitan-device inside of me. Shovel, I thought, but the lack of a handle in the box dispelled my doubts. “Yes, this is one of the flagships of Nokia - Lumia 1520!” - I realized, looking at the beautiful contours of the device inside, its mirror-black screen and the inscription on the box “Nokia Lumia 1520”. Deciding not to miss the opportunity to use this device, I set aside the apple product No. 5 and began to come up with a plan, according to which I have to experience the maximum capabilities of the device in “combat” mode in 5 days. It turned out approximately the following:
1. What kind of device is this Nokia Lumia 1520?
2. Windows Phone 8.0 - the first acquaintance with the OS after Windows Mobile 6.0
3. Windows Phone 8.1 Developer Preview - Reveal the Lumia 1520 in a New Way!
4. A typical business day with the Nokia Lumia 1520 - how is it?
5. “Let's go for a walk” - or the Lumia 1520 camera is on the walk.
6. And if this device is like that, and then like that?
“It turned out pretty richly,” I told myself, and with a confident press of the power button I sent myself to the wonderful world of Lumia.
1. So what kind of device is this? - Come on, tell me not to languish!
I tell you. I do not languish. I will not go into a boring and uninteresting list of technical specifications, which by the way can be examined in detail on the Nokia website , so I will be brief: Nokia Lumia 1520 is Nokia's flagship smartphone, officially shown to the public on October 22, 2013 at the presentation in Abu Dhabi. Externally, the smartphone did not represent anything revolutionary - just a classic monoblock with a 6-inch touch screen, just an alloy of
2. Windows Phone 8.0 - the first acquaintance.
The last time I used the device on the mobile version of Windows in 2009 and it was the legendary ASUS P535 communicator that worked on Windows Mobile 6.0. Since then, much has changed - the classic Windows interface has undergone significant changes - the string controls have been replaced by tiles, the kind of folder navigation that we have been familiar with since windows 98 has been substantially redesigned, applications that at that time were almost indistinguishable from their PC counterparts Redesigned to reflect current trends. Therefore, I experienced little difficulty in mastering a new operating system for me, but no more than when I mastered iOS. But despite such significant changes, the general logic of Windows has remained unchanged - the desktop serves to store elements on it - programs, links, documents, contacts, etc., which require quick access. You need something else - please swipe to the left and here's a alphabetically sorted list of all the applications on board. As for me, its implementation today is not the most convenient, but more than acceptable. Today, the Lumia 1520 comes with the Nokia Lumia Black update package, which includes various applications and innovations from Microsoft and Nokia. In addition, services from Yandex were preinstalled on a “clean” phone - search, taxi, schedules, disk, metro. A trifle, but nice. Using the Nokia application “Data Transfer”, you can easily connect to your old phone and transfer the data available for transfer to the Lumia 1520. However, in the case of the offspring of Steve Jobs, only contacts can be transferred - all messages remain where they were . It's a pity, I really do not want to lose the correspondence accumulated for 3 years. In addition to the specialized application from Nokia, in my opinion, it is easier and faster to transfer all contacts using a regular outlook-account. And for the future it will come in handy. In general, windows phone is aimed at tight integration with Microsoft services, and therefore those who use Microsoft's legal software on their PC will not have problems synchronizing data with a smartphone. Using OneDrive, documents and photos will sync seamlessly. OneDrive office and cloud storage applications are installed by default on the smartphone, but I would like to note the unstable operation of cloud storage on Windows Phone 8.0, apparently due to the fact that 8.0 was originally honed to work with the previous version of storage - SkyDrive. Looking ahead, I’ll say that there are no such problems at 8.1. But let's not talk about the old. At the moment, a new update is being prepared for 1520 - Windows Phone 8.1 with the Lumia Cyan package and Microsoft quite officially allows users to try the new Windows Phone 8.1 - which I decided to do.
3. Windows Phone 8.1 Developer Preview - Reveal the Lumia 1520 in a New Way!
Installing the Windows Phone 8.1 Developer Preview update on the Lumia 1520 is very simple:
1. Register as a developer on appstudio.windows.com/en-us?stay=1
2. Download the Preview for Developers application from the Windows Market
3. Login to it.
4. Reboot the phone and download everything that appeared in the update section.
5. Rejoice!
During the update process, the phone will reboot several times. During the update process, all data and applications on the phone will be saved, in extreme cases, you will need to re-authorize in applications that require authorization. Let's see what is clearly new:
Notification Center- A classic “curtain” that hides quick access to control wireless networks, air mode, turn-off lock and brightness adjustment. Also there is a list of all unprocessed notifications.
Updated desktop - there are much more opportunities to customize the appearance of your desktop. Now, instead of plain tiles, you can use a background image, and the ability to combine tiles into folders allowed you to store many times more information on a single desktop than before. Now you no longer need to frantically flip through the desktop to find the right tile. Animation folders - bewitching. Now you can endlessly watch not only how the fire burns and water flows, but also how the folders in Windows Phone 8.1 are animated
Evil tongues used to spread rumors that the Lumia smartphones desktop cannot be configured “as your heart desires.” I answer: now it is possible. Here's what you can do if you wish with the desktop (screenshot kindly provided by GrantM ):
But despite the previous innovations, in my opinion, the most necessary and perfectly implemented was the appearance of the Word Flow keyboard . Typing words without lifting your finger from the screen is something! I had never used anything like this before, but I got used to it in just a few minutes. The quality of text recognition is astounding - after all, the decades that Microsoft spent on the development of the Russian version of Word makes itself felt. Short words are recognized on the fly, complex words also do not cause recognition problems, except for one thing - the phone sometimes “thinks” for a second and a half. We write this to the lack of an unofficial release and continue to enjoy the device. I would also like to note the following “trick” - the dictionary itself picks up the names, patronymics and last names of contacts from the notebook. This is unrealistically convenient.
So. Windows Phone 8.1 Developer Preview is installed, configured, and tested. We put the phone on charge and go to sleep - tomorrow is a normal working day - a typical test of any device for "lice".
4. A typical working day with the Nokia Lumia 1520 ...
At 7 a.m., on the phone 100% charge - it's time to go to work. The route is normal - on foot to the minibus, then on traffic jams to the subway - half an hour in a crush and still walk to the office. It’s quite an ordinary such route for most residents of our capital. How will we entertain ourselves on the road? Right. First of all, music. And the applications available “by default” in Windows Phone 8.1 - “Music”, “Podcasts” and “FM Radio” will help us with this.
By obvious triviality, I don’t want to consider the FM Radio application - I’ll leave this for the worse. And I'll start, perhaps, with the application “Music”. Navigation through the collection is excellently organized - gestures scroll through a circular menu - sorting songs by album, alphabetically, genres and artists. Visually, everything is organized very well too: large tiles with images of albums, large letters for alphabetical navigation. The window with the currently playing composition is my respect. Everything is stylish, simple, concise - nothing more.
Probably not worth reminding that any self-respecting music lover should throw away any headphones that come with the kit for any phone. There they are dear. Instead of the native wired “plugs” I used the Parrot Zik wireless headphones. A year and a half ago, they were positioned as headphones only for apple lovers, but not so long ago, the manufacturer added support for them and Windows Phone devices. With these headphones, the music on the Lumia 1520 began to play in a new way. Everything works perfectly. No complaints. You do not feel hurt. We are going further.
Here is the subway. Acceleration-braking of the companion "minibus" was replaced by a relatively smooth ride. It's time to watch the video. Video navigation is organized, in my opinion, not very successfully. It really hurts to be able to navigate in landscape mode - just 3 clips would fit into one line. And so the third line is cropped and a third of the screen is occupied by useless information.
But this flaw comes to naught when you turn on the video itself. The chic 6 ”high-resolution screen does not leave indifferent. Watching a video on the Lumia 1520 is very comfortable. Organization of the player - do not dig. Again - nothing more. Only video. Just the sound.
So, we got to work - what do we do next? Of course, you need to check the mail, see the seals and read the Habr. On board Windows Phone 8.1, pre-installed IE behaves more than adequately - for the entire day of use, glitches were noticed only when working with one online store. It works smartly, the screen when viewing is not cluttered with anything superfluous. See for yourself:
The quality of communication using the cellular network was wonderful - throughout my way the connection did not break, although the speed changed, which is quite natural. But the biggest issue for me was the work of Wi-Fi. “I’m a fool or I don’t have skis,” I told myself. Wi-Fi connection quality was not just bad. It was disgusting. We watch the test:
And this is on the home 100Mbit channel ... Pichal and nothing more. Even a device with an ever-bitten logo behaved much more sane on a Wi-Fi network - up to 40Mbps, but it lost a lot in 3G connection stability.
Sitting on social networks with lumia 1520 is a pleasure. On a large screen, you can display a large amount of information without the need for scrolling. Very comfortably.
I would like to mention the Khabrahabrov application for Windows Phone - its functionality is much wider than the functionality of the same application for iOS. There is a real superiority of the mind over the intellect.
I also really liked the "native" news app - Bing News. Previously, I used the news application from Mail.Ru and it completely suited me. I liked the Bing news a bit more for the following reasons - it is more objective in terms of providing information, in my opinion the presentation of information in it is better organized, and most importantly - it was preinstalled in the “default” system.
Well. We sat in social networks, got acquainted with the news, Habra read. So the working day is coming to an end. We return home the usual route, having run along the way to several shops. What was my surprise when, upon arrival home, I found a charge level of 54% on the phone! And this is with the constantly active 3G. Incredible. I have never seen such a thing on a black metal-glass rectangle. In the best case - no more than 10%, in the worst - remained without communication. The next day, I still managed to discharge this perpetual motion machine to a value close to 0%. It took 2 hours 45 minutes to fully charge (up to 100%) from the native charger. For comparison, iOS - supported hardware was charged from 0 to 100% in 1 hour 30 minutes. Faster, but works less offline. A mess.
5. Camera Lumia 1520 on the "walk"
Nokia Lumia 1520 is equipped with a 20MP camera controlled by the standard application - Nokia Pro Cam. Unlike most analogs, with this application we can adjust the photo shooting settings manually: focus, shutter speed, sensitivity, white balance and brightness. The most necessary parameters. Another distinctive feature of the Lumia 1520 is the ability to save captured photos in RAW format, which allows them to be processed on a PC in the future to achieve better photography results.
And in order to test all this in practice, I decided to go to the park and take some photos. I’m never a photographer, so I am primarily interested in the process of how to take the best possible photo in the minimum time and with a minimum of effort. Well, let's see what happens. For comparison, we will take pictures from the same angle using the “Antonovka” of the 5th model. So, what do we have (Backfill question - what photo was taken on what?):
(Answer to the question: the first photo was shot on Lumia 1520, the second on Iphone5)
I can not say that the camera in the Lumia 1520 is the most successful. In my opinion - photos taken with the Cupertin device are slightly better, but in fact, in one, in another case, the photo is far from ok. Want a good photo? - A DSLR to help us. Well, or at least the Lumia 1020 camera phone. But for some trashy photo shoot, the Lumia 1520 will work fine.
6. And if this device is like that, and then like that?
We looked at examples of the classic use of the smartphone, but I was wondering what can be squeezed out of it so-and-so, which is rarely paid attention to. And I did it - using the Data dashboard mobile for labview application, you can access the main sensors of the phone, and use their readings later, for example, to control a robot built around the phone.
How this is done specifically - maybe we’ll consider it in the following specialized posts, but now it’s time to round out ...
Instead of a conclusion.
Despite some “tenacity” of this review, I tried to show the functionality of the Lumia 1520, which will almost certainly interest ordinary users. As for me - I was happy to use this device instead of iPhone5 for 5 days and personally noted for myself both the pros and cons of its use. Of course, it is not entirely correct to compare devices of different classes, but you can still try. Did I immediately run to the store for 1520? - not. Will I recommend it to my friends? - Yes. So, there is very little left - go to Settings - Information and, by clicking the "Reset Settings" button, observe two rotating gears on the screen, which, subject to your thoughts, rotate in one direction or the other ...