Nokia Lumia 710 - £99.95 (+£10 topup) - SIM FREE at CPW instore and online!!

Dreamnine

I don't think Nokia has anything worth buying except, maybe, its patents.

Microsoft will probably continue churning out Windows phones no matter how bad they are as its smartphone business is just a tiny portion of what it does. Plus it will just spend and spend.

Windows Phones - not including Windows mobile - have around a 0.66 percent market share of all smart phones, behind Android, iOs, Symbian, Rim, Meego and even Bada, I think. I could be wrong - they may be the 6th, not the 7th ecosystem currently.
http://www.forbes.com/sites/adriankingsleyhughes/2012/05/25/even-linux-has-a-greater-smartphone-market-share-than-windows-phone/

Don't get me wrong - I like the 710s hardware, that's why I bought it, ( I have a history of using doomed platforms, the Blackberry Playbook for one) but the phone is only worth £100, with the freebies, no more than that. The new 610 is perhaps worth £50 or £60 unlocked.

chanz4

Bought one today, not bad

starM

Hi, How long it takes for mobiles.co.uk to email with dispatch notification? I ordered it this morning and it said delivery will be tomorrow before 1pm via RM. Just received one email showing order in process - when I log into their website its still showing order in process not dispatched.

Regards

chanz4

It will be when they upload to carrier, so anytime now

MattLFC

Dreamnine wrote: »

Nokia is fast heading to oblivion - I bought this phone because I needed a second mobile and it's worth the money for what it can do, but I'm under no illusions about the OS being any good. It's poor compared with Android, Symbian, ios or even Meego.

Actually, you never bought one; why would you, when you have cheaper alternatives you could be buying, that run droid and Symbian?? Another Android fanboi spamming a crock of !!!!, who has probably never even used iOS "properly" and still thinks Windows Mobile is akin to Windows Phone, you people are really boring. Anyone who makes a statement that Android is a better OS than Windows Phone, have obviously never used one or the other, and are simply feeding off the opinions of others. Both OS's have their plus-points, however the "better" OS, comes down to what type of user the person is, and how they want to use their phone (ie. do they just want a phone that's simple to use, and simply "works" without any real control over the OS or geek standard features, or do they require geek-standard control, hackability etc, but are prepared to put up with laggyness, freezing, and an awful GUI). Android is a screwed up mess in comparison; ICS is "nicer", but is still somewhat proving unsuitable for phones in general, most phones are still shipping with Gingerbread, which in terms of UI, is nothing short of awful in comparison to iOS and Windows Phone. Android's lack of limitations is amazing for power-users, if I wanted to hack into peoples wifi networks, and have complete control over my OS, droid would be the way forward, but with that you have to put up with laggyness, crashes, complicated workarounds when things go wrong, and 99% of people are not power users.

I'm actually guessing from your statement there, that you've never used Symbian Belle or Meego as well; how can either be better, if app developers simply aren't interested? Meego could have been a wonderful alternative... but no, the UI is not up to the same standard. It's a nicer UI than Android, granted (that doesn't take a lot though), but nobody cares for it since Nokia effectively killed it at the N9. Symbian Belle is really nice, but was too little, too late, and again, for all intents and purposes, it's dead, and the UI can still be laggy, and nowhere near as clean or as intuitive as Windows Phone.

Here's your wonderful friend Forbes - http://www.forbes.com/sites/timworstall/2012/05/21/windows-phone-outsells-apple-in-china/, oops, it appears your friends are confirming Windows Phone outselling the iPhone in China... "Windows based phones are outselling Apple‘s iOS based phones in China only two months after their release." - yes, there is technical reasons for it, but nevertheless, it's happening!! - as for the marketshare you are referring to, it is for Q1 '12 of course, and everyone within the industry is more interested in Q2 and Q3 to see how much impact Nokia are making. The 900 wasn't even out in Q1, but is receiving a massive push from AT&T in the US, and over in the UK, both Phones4u and CPW have been pushing the platform, not to mention the bargains that can be had on Nokia devices both here, with networks themselves (Vodafone started these price-crashes) and on contract.

The only reason droid is selling so highly, is because manufacturers are throwing the OS onto cheap, antiquated hardware, that is pretty much unsuitable for it, and given the choice was previously limited to either Android or iOS, and consumers where becoming less aware of Symbian and unaware of Windows Phone/WebOS/Maemo/Bada, anyone not looking to pay through the nose for an iOS device, simply went for a sub-£200 droid device. Now the eco-system is established, it's an uphill battle for anyone else to break into the fold, and it's fair to say without Nokia's alliance, Microsoft would be considering the future of Windows Phone. Ultimately, it's expected that Google will reign in droid, Motorola needs to start paying it's way, and right now, nobody wants to know about it, because Samsung are the big name in town. That's the reason Meg Whitman is convinced WebOS has a future as an alternative OS to Android, if Google pull any cheeky manoeuvres with Android, manufacturers won't be hanging around. Samsung are already visibly nervous with regards the future of Android, having recently vowed to take-on Microsoft & Nokia's alliance in the Windows Phone sector full-steam once WP8 is released... if Windows Phone is as dead as you make out, the question has to be, why would they even bother?? Nokia have stated all along, they want to get to the point whereby they can be launching sub-£200 devices, to compete in the budget droid market, hence the launch of the 610.

Microsoft are a business, and Windows Phone is there to make money. Why do you seem to be of the bizarre opinion that Microsoft just want to spend investors money, running the risk of lowering share-price and dividends, supporting an OS that they have no belief in, just for some personal crazy ideology held by Steve Balmer?

I also find it amazingly interesting how you know the split market share detail for WinMo and WinPho, yet IDC (the boffins who compile the marketshare data) do not have this data themselves. WinMo is all-but-dead in the consumer market, and though Microsoft are supporting it for corporates who are still using it, it's on a life-support-machine, and pretty much finished as an OS... it's sales were dwindling even before Windows Phone was late to market.

Now, I'm sure you will enjoy using your droid device because they're not overly bad, but please stop fabricating stories, simply because you wish your droid device could run as solid and stable, and with the UI fluidity as iOS and Windows Phone.

buscape

Dreamnine wrote: »

I don't think Nokia has anything worth buying except, maybe, its patents.

What about it's experience and brand recognition in developing markets? Know what the 'next billion' is?

Dreamnine wrote: »

The new 610 is perhaps worth £50 or £60 unlocked.

What are you basing that on?

Dreamnine

Dreamnine

I would scarcely have said I bought one if I hadn't

Nice, pretty interface..but that's about all as far as I am concerned. I use ICS Android on my Sony, and am familiar with iOs, so I'm not a fanboy for any particular platform.

This Nokia is a cheap beater phone, and that's all. The Chinese sales figures are pure Microsoft lies, as I said. You may want to check Tomi Ahonen's blog again as you clearly don't know what you're talking about. http://communities-dominate.blogs.com/

Guys_Dad

MattLFC wrote: »

Actually, you never bought one; why would you, when you have cheaper alternatives you could be buying, that run droid and Symbian??........................................

.....................Now, I'm sure you will enjoy using your droid device because they're not overly bad, but please stop fabricating stories, simply because you wish your droid device could run as solid and stable, and with the UI fluidity as iOS and Windows Phone.

A very interesting piece. I don't know much about the Lumina range, although I do have a good friend who loves her 800.

The real point here is the lesson of history and it really doesn't matter what is the best technology or who has the lead, when one brand captures the public imagination, it has a period of market domination.

I am thinking about standard gauge rail winning over Brunel's wide gauge, Sony Betamax losing out, Alta Vista losing out to Google, Novell being swept away by Microsoft networking., original Apple PCs with CPM losing out to Microsoft. And Myspace lost out to Facebook, with Loyus 1-2-3 disappearing as Excel came along. And where is Netscape? etc etc.

So Apple have the Iphone and Google have Android and, for the moment, they are flavours of the month and have knocked RIM's Blackberry out the ring. Can Microsoft win a large market share? I think they need a killer app or rock-bottom prices to do that to shake users away from the big 2.

Sure Microsoft are a big player, but I remember when IBM ruled the computer market and dictated direction.

I think we are luck to have such a varied choice and am willing to bet that, in 10 years time, another player will have grabbed a huge market share.

Who? If I knew, I would be buying their shares now!!!

Dreamnine

An interesting read....101 limitations of Windows Phones - to me the most annoying one is having my phone call ended by getting a Calendar reminder, happened this morning and just terminated my call although the reminder did pop up onto the screen...Anyway most of the below won't bother me, but might some people - I'll continue using Android.

1. No true multitasking for 3rd party apps - they re frozen in the background.
2. No Divx/Xvid video codec support. Zune will convert with loss of quality.
3. No mass storage mode.
4. No micro-SD card support.
5. Only support up to 16GB storage.
6. No filemanager. Directory system is totally opaque.
7. Need Zune to transfer files. Zune will only transfer photos, videos & music. All other files need to email/upload to yourself.
8. Your contact details are automatically uploaded to cloud service whether you like it or not.
9. Limited to 800x480 resolution.
10. Voice search is hardwired to Bing.
11. Cannot use any MP3 file as ringtone except those with strict constraints.
12. Cannot set static IP address so no connection to ad-hoc networks.
13. No VPN support for this “corporate enterprise” phone.
14. Cannot sync directly with Outlook without syncing to Cloud
15. Totally closed OS, cannot sideload apps outside MS Marketplace.
16. System font size cannot be changed.
17. Images and photos cannot be renamed in the phone.
18. Windows Live ID account cannot change country once set.
19. No centralized notification page.
20. Alarm clock cannot work when phone is turned off. All Nokia Symbian and Meego phones can do this.
21. The idle screen is completely blank and cannot display time or notifications.
22. Only photos allowed as email attachments, documents not allowed.
23. Bluetooth does not have rSAP protocol which is the most common protocol for car audio streaming.
24. Cannot stream audio from video to Bluetooth devices (No A2DP).
25. No support for full on-device encryption required for secure applications like mobile banking and online payment.
26. Cannot use Bluetooth keyboard.
27. Cannot silence ringtone or alarm by flipping the phone.
28. Very limited customization option.
29. Cannot be upgraded to WP8 (Apollo)




USABILITY ISSUES
30. No always visible status bar for battery life, signal strength, carrier, 2G/3G wi-fi, Bluetooth on.
31. Taskmanager has no option to shut down apps you don’t want running in the background.
32. Search and Back button cannot be de-activated in apps or games and easily touched by accident which interrupt your user experience.
33. Lockscreen need to be activated to show missed call/sms notification.
34. No way to close an app except pressing back button all the way to the first screen.
35. Tiny fonts in messages is very hard to read for those over 45.
36. Cannot create and save playlists on the phone.
37. Playlist can only be edited when you are playing it.
38. Cannot search your music collection on the phone, only in the Marketplace.
39. Cannot close music player, can only pause. Music player on lockscreen will stay until you reboot. Be careful not to touch it in a meeting.
40. No draggable progress bar for current track playing and no indication which track in an album is currently playing
41. Cannot lock screen orientation.
42. Online and phone contacts are mixed together with no ability to filter.
43. Cumbersome dialing with no smartdial. Not able to enter alphabets into dialler for name lookup.
44. Cannot save draft sms messages.
45. Call history only show phone number type. If a contact has multiple phone nos. for a type the number used is unknown.
46. Cannot recognize phone numbers in sms or email to save or use as calling number.
47. Text messages can only be deleted one by one or the whole thread.
48. Cannot select multiple pictures for deleting, sending or uploading. They must be done one at a time.
49. Clicking on the Me Tile doesn’t take you directly to your notifications it takes you to your profile, a serious usability blunder
50. Apps are listed alphabetically with no way to group by category. Can be hard to find if you don’t remember the name.
51. Calendar scheduler has no weekly view and monthly view is non-zoomable.
52. No peak time/off-peak time scheduling for email downloads to prevent unnecessary email downloads at overnight.
53. If both wi-fi and data connection are available which one it chooses to use is unpredictable. User experiences don’t agree with Microsoft that it “typically” choose wi-fi over 3G.




FEATURE LIMITATIONS
54. No video call.
55. No haptic feedback for keyboard.
56. No Swype.
57. No flashplayer support.
58. No support for Java apps.
59. No call recording or app to do it.
60. No call blocking or app to do it.
61. No screenshots or app to do it.
62. No auto wallpaper changer and no app to do it.
63. Totally locked down os means apps which interact directly with hardware not allowed. This excludes a whole range of useful apps
64. No equalizer for Zune music player.
65. FM radio doesn’t work on speaker.
66. IE browser has no text reflow, no download capability and no offline reading.
67. No 3rd party browsers allowed except those based on IE.
68. Volume up/down buttons cannot be used to zoom in camera (sign of an immature os)
69. Cannot open zip or rar files received as email attachment.
70. Cannot send or receive video by MMS.
71. Office Mobile has much less features than 3rd party Office editors like SmartOffice, QuickOffice and Polaris. Shame on you, Microsoft!
72. No native Google maps and Bing maps is useless for most countries outside U.S.
73. Email time stamp does not show the year.
74. Wide difference in apps availability in different markets and users locked to one market.
75. Not all Bing features available outside U.S. especially Local Scout




DUMB AND DUMBER
76. One volume control for all functions including media playback, ringtones, alarms, notifications.
77. Wi-fi disconnects when screen sleeps.
78. If you receive a text message when talking on the phone an audio alert will blast your ear at the full volume set. All other phones will give a soft beep.
79. Can only enter one mobile phone no. for each contact. Mobile nos. entered in other fields will not accept sms.
80. Cannot send/receive MMS without enabling 3G data connection. MMS does not use 3G data.
81. Phone cannot be charged when off.
82. Need to be plugged in to wall charger to sync wirelessly (a funny definition of wireless).
83. Oversized fonts for headings waste screen space and result in low information density
84. Phone will wake up and display sms content on lockscreen when locked – a privacy violation.
85. Phone can be rebooted without entering security code.




FEATURES EVEN DUMB PHONES HAVE BUT WP7.5 DOESN’T
86. No bluetooth file transfer.
87. Cannot handle USSD codes necessary for prepaid users to obtain services.
88. Cannot filter call history into Missed Calls, Received Calls, Dialled Calls, Recent Calls, etc
89. No way to backup or export call history
90. Cannot show call duration in call history.
91. No way to edit MMS profile to work with a carrier in the OS. Need an app which is not available in all markets.
92. Call history does not group calls by contact.
93. Call history does not show the time of call for calls older than current day.
94. Cannot set custom sounds for different types of notifications.
95. No ringer profiles.
96. No silent option (no vibrate and no ring) from ringer menu. Need a trip to settings and another trip to revert.
97. Cannot send/receive contact as a csv file.
98. Cannot backup sms to PC.
99. Cannot save contact to SIM card.
100. Cannot change alarm ring tone or use a MP3 file.
101. Cannot set alarm snooze interval.


BONUS SHORTCOMINGS
102. Unable to read long names in audio and video playlist as they get cut off
103. Zune does not allow user to add or update podcasts directly from the phone
104. Zune can only be installed if you have an internet connection
105. Alarm does not revert to speaker if headphones are plugged in.
106. Forwarded emails cannot be edited
107. OS does not reduce volume of text message alerts when using headphones
108. All photos automatically upload to Skydrive have resolution reduced (no option) and lose their EXIF information
109. Wifi- hotspot and internet tethering not integral features in the OS but need to be provided by manufacturer on a case by case basis.
110. Internet Explorer has no Forward/Backward button for page views.