Best Kept Secret in Technology

Every once a while a technology product comes along which is just an absolute bargain.  And very often those bargains are unknown to the general public.

The one that I want to tell you about today is the Nokia Lumia 520 (or 521) smartphone.  I’m sure you’re thinking, “but I already have a smartphone!”  But I’m suggesting this not as a replacement for your current smartphone, but rather something that is neat to own in addition to your smartphone.  But it would be a great thing to own for anyone who doesn’t already have a smartphone of their own.

Nokia Lumia 520 Nokia Lumia 521

Most of the time when you buy a cell phone you have to buy it with a contract, or pay out the nose for it up front.  Most smartphones, if you buy them outright, will cost $500 or more, and if you don’t pay that out-of-pocket it is figured into your monthly bill one way or another.  The Lumia 520 and 521 are inexpensive (both are easily less than $150) and don’t require you to sign a contract or even activate the phone.  But why would you ever do that?

Well, consider all of the things that people like to do with their phones… browse the web, check for email, listen to music, watch videos, play games, get driving directions.  Imagine being able to do all of that without a monthly payment.  Zero.  None.  No contracts, no monthly payments, ever, unless you want to.  That’s what’s great about these two models of phone.

A few scenarios…

Much of the time when you want to listen to music, it is music you already own – you don’t need an active Internet connection to stream it.  Maybe you have an iPod Touch that you listen to music on.  But those start at $229.  The Lumia 520/521 play all of your music just like the iPod Touch does – and in my opinion does a better job of it.  And they are a lot less.  And with an iPod, if you run out of storage you have to buy an entirely new device.  With the Lumia 520/521, if you run out of storage you can buy a Micro SD Card (up to 64 GB) and pop it in.  The Lumia 520 + a 64GB of storage is less than half the cost of the cheapest iPod Touch.  And it has an FM radio too, which the iPhone does not.

Now say you want directions from A to B.  Yes, I know that smartphones already do that.  But to do that they nearly always require Internet access and a data plan.  Because the Lumia 520/521 runs Windows Phone 8, you can pre-download maps (state-by-state or country-by-country) at home over WiFi before you leave, and store them on the device for use even when you don’t have Internet access.  You get door-to-door directions, like a dedicated GPS unit, for a lot less than a dedicated GPS unit.  And unlike the budget GPS units, it even knows how to pronounce street names so directions are specific – “turn right on Juniper Avenue” instead of “in 300 yards, turn right.”  If you do activate the device as a phone or tether it over WiFi to a smartphone or tablet, you even get up-to-the-minute traffic information, so it can route you around problems.  And I actually believe that Nokia Drive is the best navigation software out there for any smartphone.  It’s fast, accurate, and touch-friendly so it works great in the car, and best of all, it’s totally free.  And since it doesn’t require a data connection, it works in the middle of nowhere when your cell phone won’t.  (Nokia, incidentally, owns Navteq, which easily has the best map data anywhere – easily besting Apple [cough] and Google – and this is where the map data for Windows Phones comes from.)

Watching movies is easy too.  Since you can pop a Micro SD card in, you can store a lot of video for the kiddies to watch in the car.  It isn’t the biggest or best screen, but it’s more than adequate.  And at 800x480 pixels, a lot higher resolution than you’d get from an Android device in the same price range.  Most of those are 320x240 – or maybe VGA if you’re really lucky.

Say you’ve got a kid that is bugging you about wanting an iPod Touch or iPhone to play games on, but you’re not excited about the cost.  These two Nokia phones do an excellent job of playing games.  It’s true that you won’t get the same selection of games you get on an iPod, but you also aren’t shelling out a ton of money for something that is probably going to get lost, broken, or stolen and have to be replaced over and over.  If one of these phones gets lost or broken, it isn’t that big a deal because they’re so inexpensive.


And of course whenever you’re in range of WiFi you get all of the benefits of a smartphone that you’ve come to expect.  It will check your email (best email client on a smartphone I think), it will browse the web (not the best browser, but certainly more than serviceable).  And play games.
So why a Windows Phone?  Well, because in this price range nothing else comes close.  Apple doesn’t make an i-device for less than $200, and anything in that price range running Android is just, well, a downright ugly experience.  The 520/521 might be the slowest Windows Phones out there, but they aren’t slow.  They feel very fast.  They’re certainly a lot faster than anything running Android at three times the price, and faster than any Apple device more than a year old.  And they don’t feel cheap like many similarly priced devices do.  They feel well built so they should hold up to the abuse that you or your kids throw at them.

The only difference between the two is that one is sold by AT&T and the other is sold by T-Mobile.  You don’t have to have an account with either carrier to buy one – just order it from Amazon or pick it up at Wal-Mart.  As of this writing, the Lumia 520 is only $59.99 at Amazon, and the 521 is $119.99.  Again, you don’t sign up with the carrier if you don’t want to.

These two phones are absolutely the best deal on technology out there today.  You get the functionality of a good smartphone at a tiny portion of what it would cost you to get it otherwise.  Nothing else even comes close right now.

The one thing to note is that these phones are locked to either AT&T or T-Mobile.  Which means you can’t just pop in a SIM card from the other carrier and have it work.  If you want to use one as a phone, only AT&T SIMs will work in the 520, and only T-Mobile SIMS will work in the 521.  So if you want to have one as a backup phone, buy the one that is tied to your carrier.  But, again, you don’t have to be (or become) an AT&T or T-Mobile customer.
They also only come with 8 GB of storage.  So you probably will want to consider getting a MicroSD card for additional storage.
Is this the perfect device?  Certainly not.  But for the price, nothing else even comes remotely close.
Bonus tip: If you do happen to be a T-Mobile customer, go to their web site or one of their stores and sign up for a free tablet account, even if you don’t have or plan to buy a tablet.  You get 200 MB of 4G data every month at no cost (and if you go over that data allotment they just slow you down – there are never any overage charges).  You can then use that SIM card in the Lumia 521 and use it to access the Internet on the phone without paying for a phone line – you won’t have to pay a dime in service charges, ever.  You won’t be able to make phone calls (unless you use an app like Skype over the 4G connection), but you can do everything else you'd be able to do on a smartphone, and it won’t cost you anything to do so.

Windows Phone 7

About 3 months ago I bought an HTC HD7 from T-Mobile to test to see if would meet my needs for a cell phone.  They were offering a deal where I only had to pay $99 and didn’t have to extend my contract, and since I had been curious about Windows Phone 7 I decided to give it a try.  I’ve wanted to share my thoughts, but I didn’t want to write a long drawn-out review, so instead I’ll just summarize some key points.

• It’s fast.  With the exception of a handful of apps (mostly games) that take a while to load, everything else about the phone is very fast.  Navigation from one place to another is just fast and fluid.  Compared to the iPhones and Android-based phones I’ve used, my WP7 is markedly faster.
  
  
• I like the interface.  Windows Phone 7 uses tiles on its main screen for launching its core feature set, like making calls, viewing texts and emails, calendar, etc.  Each tile is ‘active’ so it can display information tied to the feature provided by the tile.  So the email tile shows how many emails have come in since the last time I looked at them on my phone, the People tile shows pictures of those updating their Facebook status. The weather tile shows current temperature, etc.  You can create your own tiles, so the people I talk to most have tiles right on the front screen of my phone, which not only makes it easy to call or text them, but since those tiles are active, they are updated with current pictures, status messages from Facebook, and email information automatically.
  
  
• Along with that, the interface between apps is a lot more consistent than you find on other platforms.  Windows Phone 7’s Metro user interface is actually pretty slick, and an awful lot of developers are using it.  I won’t take time to describe how it works, but it is well thought out, and it makes navigation easier than on other phones.
  
  
• The Facebook integration is cool.  Right in my contact list I see status updates and pictures.  Twitter integration is coming in the fall, so we’ll be able to see Twitter updates right on a contact’s information screen (or their tile, if one has been created).  Since Facebook integration is built-in, it’s really easy to do things like upload photos and videos, because you do it right from the Camera app.
  
  
• There aren’t yet a ton of apps.  Fortunately, many of the most popular apps from other platforms are available.  There are some notables that I’d like to have that are missing, like LogMeIn, but there are very good apps for NetFlix, Amazon, Facebook, IMDB, all of the major news organizations, and YouTube to name a few.  The number of apps isn’t huge, but a lot of the more important ones are there.
  
  
• Having Microsoft Office onboard is cool, but I don’t use it much.  It’s still lacking a great way to connect with documents on the desktop if you aren’t using SharePoint.  Connecting to SkyDrive would be awesome.
  
  
• The email feature on Windows Phone 7 is easily the best that anyone is currently offering, especially if you’re someone who likes to use folders to organize your mail, or need the ability to search messages.  Email triage on WP7 is much better than it is on other phones.  It also handles file attachments much better than any other phone I’ve seen.  There isn’t another phone out there that even comes close when it comes to having great email support.
  
  
• Try-before-you-buy with apps is awesome.  There aren’t separate ‘free’ and ‘paid’ versions of apps.  You download one version to try it out (for as long as you’d like) and if you want to buy it, it’s usually a single button click to upgrade.  And upgrading from the trial to full version doesn’t require re-downloading; it just unlocks the paid features, and does so instantly.
  
  
• Xbox Live integration also has potential, but I’m not a gamer, so I don’t really use that very much.  If I were, it would be nice to play against others, or keep tabs on the status of an Xbox game I’m playing at home.  But having Xbox Live doesn’t really sway me at all.
  
  
• Stability.  This phone has never once crashed or locked up on me.  I’ve seen a couple apps crash here and there, but the phone always recovers gracefully.
  
  
• There are a lot of little things that are cool. 
  
  
  • The lock screen shows me how many emails and texts have come in that I haven’t read, as well as my next appointment, so I don’t even have to unlock my phone to see any of that information.
    
    
  • The phone doesn’t require a password to install app updates.
    
    
  • I love having a ‘back’ button.  No matter where I am, I can hit the Back button and go to whatever screen I just came from.  So if I’m reading an email message and it contains a web page link, I can view the page, then hit Back to go right back to the email and continue reading from there.  It works anywhere.
    
    
  • Having a dedicated search button on the phone is cooler than I thought it would be.  Many apps have their own search features, and the search button makes it easy to find it.
    
    
  • The on-screen keyboard is the smartest one I’ve seen.  Unlike other phones, which only offer correction of one word at a time, Windows Phone 7 looks an entire sentence at a time and will correct not only the word you’re currently typing, but other words in the sentence if a correction makes more sense in context.  Some might think this to be not very useful, but it allows you to absolutely fly through whatever you’re typing without stopping every time you make a mistake, letting the phone handle most correction for you.  It still isn’t perfect, but it is a better system than what is used on other phones.
    
    
  • Having a dedicated camera button is nice.  Even when the phone is off, I can press the camera button and the camera app loads instantly.  A second press of the button then takes a picture.  With most other phones, it’s easier to miss photo opportunities because by the time the camera app has loaded, the moment is gone.  On this phone, since Facebook is integrated too, from camera power off to taking a photo to uploading to Facebook is two button presses and two taps of the screen.
    
    
  • Wireless syncing with the Zune software is also nice.  If I’m in the living room watching a movie, for example, I can initiate a sync manually, or just plug the phone into a power source and syncing starts automatically. 
    
    
  • Background syncing is nice too.  Unlike most other phones, when it is syncing with the desktop it is still usable.  There are no visual indications on the phone that it is syncing with the computer.  There are a few restrictions… I can’t play music or install apps while it’s syncing, but everything else is fully operational.  I can still browse the web, make phone calls, play games, or read my email during a sync operation.
    
    
• There are a few things specific to the HD7 that aren’t available on other Windows Phone handsets that I like too.
  
  
  • It has a kickstand in the back to make it easier to watch video.  (I wish it would work in portrait mode as well as landscape, but having one is much better than not.)
    
    
  • I can set the phone to ring louder when it’s in my pocket vs. sitting on a desk.
    
    
  • I can put it in speakerphone mode just by turning it over face down.
    
    
  • When the phone rings, and I pick it up to see who it is, the ringer volume is automatically turned down (the act of picking up the phone turns the ringer volume down).
    
    
• I love having the Zune software on my phone.  Not just because it offers a much better interface than any iPod, but since I have a Zune Pass subscription, I have access to almost all of the Zune music catalog all of the time.  I don’t actually store any music on my phone at all.  If I want to listen to something, whether that be a particular song, album, or even an entire collection by a single artist, I just search for it in the Zune Marketplace and stream it.
  
  
  • What is really cool is using Shazam to tag a song playing somewhere near me, then using Zune Pass to download my own copy without buying it.  Since Shazam is linked to Zune, this is really easy.
    
    
• The built-in Bing search is nice (not quite as feature complete as I’d like to see, but that is supposed to be coming in the fall).  From the home screen, pressing the Search button gives quick access to device, web, local (nearby businesses, etc), and news in one fell swoop.  Searching for “hamburger,” for example, gives me search results for the web (Wikipedia, etc.), local (local restaurants that serve hamburgers, complete with driving directions), and news about hamburger.
  
  
• The built-in voice recognition feature is cool.  It’s powered by TellMe, so voice commands not only allow phone calls (“call Mom”), but web and local searches as well.  It’s essentially the Bing search using voice input.
  
  
• Battery life is actually very good, especially considering the physically small battery, compared to many other smartphones.  After a day of typical use, my battery still has about 50% charge remaining.
  
  
• It uses the Zune software on the desktop, which I love.  The Zune software is an example of how to do media management right.  Beats iTunes in every way (except OS X availability, which doesn’t bug me much). 
  
  If you haven’t tried the Zune software, just do it.  It’s totally free, and you don’t have to have a Zune device to use it.  It’s an order of magnitude faster than iTunes, is much easier to use, is just as feature complete, and much prettier.  If your iTunes library is still in its default location, the Zune software will even find and catalog it for you automatically.  Anyone with an open mind that sees it is very impressed.
  
  
• I haven’t dropped a single call with the phone yet.
  
  
• The web browser is okay.  Not great, but not bad either.  Nearly on par with the iPhone, but each device has its advantages.  Speed of scrolling and zooming is better on WP7.  Overall page download and rendering speed is somewhat better on iPhone.  Font rendering is better on WP7.  Page layout is noticeably better on iPhone.  The browser is certainly serviceable, but not a standout feature.  The upcoming Fall 2011 update for WP7 which will provide Internet Explorer 9 should go a long way in not only bring it truly up to par, but actually surpassing other smartphones in terms of browser features, page layout, and performance.

There are a number of things that drive me nuts.  I REALLY miss some of the features of my previous phone.

• I love the dial-by-name feature that my last 5 phones had.  Nobody understands what I mean until I demonstrate.  But if I wanted to dial myself, for example, instead of scrolling through a contact list to find my entry, or even using a search feature to find my contact information, at the dialer I could just type in my name on the number buttons (3684 for DOUG) and the contact would come up pretty fast, usually within 3-4 digits.  Of all of the ways I’ve ever seen to find entries in a phonebook, this is the fastest by far.  This same feature worked for partial phone numbers too, so if I remember that a phone number starts with 555, dialing 555 would show all phone numbers containing 555.  Windows Phone doesn’t have this feature (nor does Android or iPhone, for that matter).
  
  
• Custom ringtones.  I can set ringtones for individual contacts, but I can’t upload ringtones I’ve created.  I’ve used this feature extensively over the years, creating dedicated ringtones for individual callers using songs that have some sort of connection to that person.  I’ve heard this is coming in the Fall 2011 update for WP7, but haven’t seen confirmation on it.  Fingers are crossed.
  
  
• 5 of my last 6 phones had a feature that would automatically set the phone to Vibrate mode whenever an appointment on my calendar was active.  So if I had an appointment in my calendar from 12:00 to 2:00, the phone would go to vibrate mode at 12:00, and go back to the normal ringer at 2:00.  This one little thing made such a difference; I never had to worry about my phone going off during church, a meeting at the office, while doing sound for a concert, or while I’m on set shooting a video or recording audio in my studio.  Windows Phone (and likewise iPhone) doesn’t have this feature.
  
  
• My previous 5 phones all had great multitasking.  If I wanted an app (any app) to continue running in the background, I just didn’t close it; going back to the Home screen would leave the app running in the background.  If I wanted to close an app, I’d click the X in the upper right.  It was a very simple system, and it worked well.  Windows Phone doesn’t currently allow any third party apps to run in the background.  The coming fall update, thankfully, will allow any app developer to write certain portions of their apps to run in the background.  It’s a much better system than we get with the iPhone, which only allows certain features (navigation, audio, data upload, and VOIP) to run in the background.  The limited ‘multitasking’ of iOS bites me all of the time and it just makes me mad.  I’m really looking forward to having real multitasking again.
  
  
• Having the ringer and sound volume tied together bugs me.  On previous phones I could set the two independently… so my ringer could be set to a single volume level all of the time, and still be able to adjust music volume independently, for example.  I’ve missed more than a few phone calls because I had the phone volume turned down from watching a video or playing a game.
  
  
• While providing a lot of cool new functionality, the voice search is still missing features I had on my previous 5 phones and used constantly.  With my prior phones I could ask it “What is my next appointment” or “What time is it” and it knew what I was asking for and would respond vocally.  This was most useful in my truck, where I have a Bluetooth speakerphone kit.
  
  
• I also had my previous 5 phones set to read me incoming text messages and high priority email messages aloud.  This phone doesn’t do that.
  
  
• I really miss the WiFi tethering feature I had on my last two phones (or Bluetooth tethering from my last 5 phones) to provide Internet access to a nearby computer or other device.  Unlike most phones that offer tethering, the models I’ve had until now did it without a fee from the carrier.  The fall update for WP7 is rumored to have tethering, but I still have seen any official confirmation on that.  And I’ll have to pay a monthly fee to access it.
  
  
• As excellent as the on-screen keyboard is, I loved having Swype on my previous phone.  Being able to select different keyboards for different purposes would be nice.
  
  
• I miss having a dedicated Talk button.  Now I have to navigate back to the home screen and press the Phone tile, which takes longer.  On my last 5 phones, not only could I start a phone call at any time, but in certain contexts, pressing the Talk button would call the phone number of the on-screen contact, or the sender of the text or email message I’m currently reading.  Sometimes dedicated hardware buttons are just the right way to do things.

Other wishes

• I don’t find myself using the front facing camera on my iPod Touch or iPad very often, but it would be nice to have one in a phone for those few occasions where I do.  With Microsoft’s recent acquisition of Skype, I’d be surprised if we don’t see front-facing cameras in future models.
  
  
• I wish it had a dock-style connector so I could easily charge it, get audio and video out of it, and control it with a remote in my truck over a single connector. A Zune dock connector in addition to the now industry-standard micro USB would have been nice.
  
  
• Obviously, we still need more apps.  While there are quite a few to choose from, there are still a few key ones that I’d love to have that aren’t available yet.
  
  
• Not specific to Windows Phone, but T-Mobile’s 3G has slowed down in the last year.  It’s still faster than Verizon’s, but not as fast as AT&T’s.  I would have liked to have access to T-Mobile’s 4G network, but there are only a couple phones with 4G capability, and none are Windows Phone-based. 
  
• The camera, while good, is not great.  Definitely not as good as the camera in the iPhone 4, for example.  But pretty typical for a smartphone camera.

Overall I'm mostly more excited about what Windows Phone 7 can be more than what it currently is.  It is certainly a usable, competitive, and useful smartphone in its present state, but it is going to be a much better product after the Mango update that is supposed to be coming this Fall.  

Buyer Recommendations

So would I recommend a Windows Phone to someone?  For some, yes.  For others, no.  It depends on what you want out of a phone.  If you want the best music player you can get, absolutely.  If the idea of having streaming access to a multi-million song catalog of music all the time, yes.  If you primarily want quick and easy access to email, absolutely yes.  If you need Microsoft Office, again, yes.  If you need multitasking, not yet; wait until the end of the year, or go Android if you can’t wait.  If you need an app only available in Apple’s App Store, obviously, no.  If you’re a Facebook junkie, yes.  If you need a good camera, buy a camera and stop trying to use a phone; great optics don’t fit in something the size of a phone.  If you need WiFi tethering, go with an Android.  If you primarily want to browse the web, WP7 is okay, but some Android devices support Flash.

As it stands now, the reason to buy the different smartphone platforms are:

Windows Phone 7: High performance, very easy to use, very quick access to email, Microsoft Office, Xbox Live, Facebook integration, and access to Zune Pass.  If you want a smartphone primarily for email, WP7 is easily your best option.  Provides the best media playback experience.

Android: Real multitasking, tons of free apps, huge variety of phones.

iPhone: Tons of very good apps in the App Store, only device capable of playing paid video content from iTunes.  iTunes syncing for those who actually like iTunes.

Reasons to not buy…

Windows Phone 7: Number of apps is still low compared to the other platforms.  No multitasking of third party apps whatsoever.  Sync software on Mac has limited capabilities.

Android: Despite all of Google’s efforts, the user interface is still clunky and inconsistent, especially between apps.  Phone upgrades are sparse after newer models come out.

iPhone: Limited “multitasking.”  Still drops calls more than other phones.  iTunes is still an absolute abomination on Windows, not much better on Mac.  And Steve Jobs is still an evil man.