Rounding it Up

For the past six weeks you all have been putting up with my posts about the Nokia Lumia 710. My goal with reviews is to make sure that they integrate seamlessly into the content of the blog - how they work with my life,  - as opposed to being a hard sell. I think the PR folks that invite me to participate in various reviews prefer this approach as well.

BUT since the "white phone" does offer an opportunity for me to do a more comprehensive critique, I wanted to make sure to share some of the cool things and some of the quirks. I promise this will be my last post directly about the phone, although I have no intention of stopping using it. 

• Fun, Fun, Fun! The girls LOVE the phone. We have downloaded quite a few apps - from the previously mentioned Angry Birds to a talking dog to some game where you teach animal cubs to jump rope. When one of the girls has to used the BBerry for games as a consolation prize they keep complaining it doesn't work because they try to touch the screen. The downside of the easy touch screen is that 1. I never get to use my own dang phone and 2. LP inadvertently ordered the full version of Fruit Ninja because she clicked on something she shouldn't have.
• Voice Quality. Like my BBerry, I can plug the Lumia into the auxiliary jack in my car and hear the phone through the speakers (no, I do not have Bluetooth, I am not that cool). Now that my mom has learned the random 406 phone number assigned to the phone so she answers my calls, she tells me she prefers the voice quality from the new phone and there is an obvious difference. 
• Ease of Calling. Complexity of Hanging Up. The phone has a "people" function, where you can "pin" someone to your home page as their photo. The girls love to call the Hoos at work by clicking on his picture. Unfortunately, I have a hard time ending a call. The screen goes to black to save battery after a minute and you have to reinvigorate it in order to hit the end call button. Or at least I think you do. If there is an easier way, I haven't figured it out.   
• Cool Tools. The integrated GPS is cool, because you don't actually have to know the address of where you are going. You can search for the place by name (like "Westin Providence"), click on it and hit "get directions from my location" and voila! It tells you what to do. 
• Windows. The phone is on a Windows operating system. I can edit and create Word documents, Excel spreadsheets, and Powerpoints directly from the phone. It also works nicely with my Hotmail account and really simplifies functions like mass deleting. It syncs with my Hotmail and current work Gmail account way better than the Berry. Let's be honest, the fact that I can actually view any of these in format, as well as PDFs, makes it way more useful for me to work while not in front of a computer - which is pretty typical in my life as a working mom.
• Camera and Video. The camera and video quality are pretty good. All of the beach photos from my spring post were taken with it. We also use the phone to Skype with my parents and the girls love it.  The downside is that the camera is on the back, so they can't see themselves and my parents at the same time. The sound quality is good and the speaker does project very well.
  
• Battery Life and Charging. As is typical of a smartphone, battery life isn't great. It probably needs to be charged more often than my Blackberry, but I think that is because the kids use it more. It also really bugs me that you can not totally power the phone down when charging it. I thought that I was doing something wrong when the phone kept buzzing back on when I would plug it in. I even called T-Mobile! They reassured me that this was normal. I don't think it is normal that the thing can't really ever get fully-charged because it is on all the time. But maybe that is just me.
• It's a MAC MAC MAC and Droid World. The Windows App store and Zune application for managing the phone are easy to use and pretty comprehensive. Unfortunately, not a lot of developers are making Windows apps. I am sure this will change, but don't count on picking up that game of Words with Friends you have going on in FB from your phone. At least not yet.

If anyone out there is interested in hearing more about my experience or has any questions, please feel free to ask. The Hoos and I are eligible for an upgrade at the end of June, so we would also really appreciate insight from Droid and iPhone users about the pros and cons there. I would  really like to know if some of the cons I experienced are the Lumia or just par for the course with a touchscreen smartphone.