For 10 days, Senior Tech Analyst and Mashable's resident Apple fangirl Christina Warren will trade-in her iPhone 5 for a Lumia 920 running Windows Phone 8.
About nine hours ago, I locked my iPhone 5 in my desk drawer. It will remain in that drawer for the next 10 days. In its place, I will be relying on Nokia's Lumia 920 running Windows Phone 8.
Most of my day with the phone has consisted of getting my various accounts and necessary passwords, authentication tools and banking information onto the new device. I've also had some time to test some apps and I have some early impressions on the hardware.
Hardware Thoughts
As Emily Price said in her review, the Lumia 920 is a large phone. While its screen size is consistent with most other large-screen Android devices — including the Nexus 4 I have on my desk — it feels a bit bigger because of its thickness and heft. This isn't a problem so far, and it hasn't impeded my ability to use the phone, but I certainly prefer a smaller form factor.
Aside from that, the hardware seems snappy and the battery life will get a further testing during the week. The screen is particularly vivid and its colors are some of the best I've seen on a smartphone.
Getting In-Synch
Before I could start using the phone in earnest, I needed to get my sensitive and important data imported first.
I was worried this would be a complex process, but it turns out, it just took some time.
First, I needed to make sure I could get a working authenticator app to work with my various accounts that require two-factor authentication (for Google Apps, Last Pass, Dropbox).
That was easy enough to do and the AuthenticatorG app in the Windows Marketplace worked just fine.
Next, it was time to add in my various email accounts. We use Google Apps at Mashable and I have a few separate Google Apps accounts myself. Moreover, I also wanted to bring my iCloud email over, since it's the email I usually use with my mom.
Adding the accounts to Windows Phone was easy and my Google accounts even synced my contacts and calendars too. I had to do some additional wrangling to get my iOS contacts synced with Google (it required a setting within OS X's Contacts), however the process was surprisingly hassle free.
Next, I needed to get my passwords on my phone. I live and die by my password manager and getting it working on my phone is an absolute requirement. While 1Password doesn't have totally robust Windows Phone support, its app does support viewing and synching passwords (you just can't edit or add in new entries).
Because I store my 1Password file in Dropbox, I needed to use those credentials to login to the app. At first, the two-factor authentication on Dropbox seemed to work against me, however, Dropbox ended up sending me an automated email with a link to my secret phrase (to use to login with 1Password) and all was right with the world.
For whatever reason, not all of my password items appear accessible in the app. Moreover, I find the whole UI cumbersome. Because I so frequently access passwords on my phone, I may have to consider moving to LastPass for my personal passwords for this 10-day period.
All things considered, the data transfer process was much easier than I had anticipated. At this point, I feel confident that all of my contacts, calendars, passwords, generator keys and email accounts are on my new phone.
Getting Social
After finalizing the main data movement, my next step was to start installing social apps on the phone.
With Windows 8, Microsoft has enhanced its Me Hub to act as a way to easily update your status on various social accounts and check out notifications and memos. I added my Facebook and Twitter accounts to the system and was pleased that I could post directly from within this hub.
While the Me Hub is good for acting as a way to send updates, it's not an ideal way to have conversations or browse news feeds. For that, I needed to download stand-alone clients.
The Facebook app for Windows Phone 8 suffers from some of the pre-native slowness I saw on iOS, but it's usable.
The Twitter client, however, is kind of a mess. I'm now trying a variety of different Twitter clients (MoTweets, MeTweets, Rowi), but have yet to find one I really connect with. I'll give this more time this evening.
As for other social networks, there is no Instagram on Windows Phone 8, which is a real shame. There are apps that replicate the experience, but without being able to post to my feed, I feel kind of lost.
Nice Surprises
One of my favorite surprises of the move is that my contacts automatically linked with multiple profiles on Facebook, Twitter and Google — without me having to intervene. That means that my mom's vCard from my iCloud is linked with her Facebook info and that on the contacts card, I can see her Facebook updates, photos and more. The same is true for all of my contacts and its a feature, I really, really like.
I also like how quickly the cloud synching — even with Google's end — is on the phone. It feels like true push, just like with Android.
I also want to give a shout-out to the Windows Phone community for suggesting apps for me to try. Keep it up!
"I Miss My iPhone" Moments
While the first day of going to the Lumia 920 has been less complicated than expected, I've still had my share of "I miss my iPhone" moments.
Many of these issues are with apps. It's not just that there aren't as many apps for Windows Phone — it's that finding out what apps work and which ones don't is difficult if not impossible.
For instance, I'm a huge fan of Instapaper and while there are a number of unofficial clients in the Windows Marketplace, it isn't clear which app works well and which ones don't. I don't really have the time to test every single app to see which one still works and which one is just abandonware. This is also true for Twitter clients.
I'm also not really used to the flow around Windows Phone. With iOS and Android, I can multitask and switch between apps effortlessly. The process is a little less natural in Windows Phone — requiring the holding down of the back button to cycle through open apps. I'll get more into my issues with how backgrounding, concurrent sessions and pause and resume works with Windows Phone later in the week — but for now, it really messes with my ability to quickly move from one app to another.
As I prepare to head home to Brooklyn, I'm also going to miss Spotify. The Windows Phone app isn't compatible with Windows Phone 8 (but it might get updated as early as this week) and I haven't had time to configure Nokia or Xbox Music. As a result, my commute home will be tuneless.
Follow Along
You can follow along my Living With Lumia journey at Mashable and see my real-time updates on Twitter.
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