The Return of Steve the Smartphone n00b – 3 weeks on with the Nokia Lumia 800

Hi folks,

We’re back for an installment with Steve our Smartphone n00b. He was completely new to smartphones so we thought we’d see how he would cope with the new Nokia Lumia 800. We got a tripod this time around :p.

Previous episodes:

• http://mynokiablog.com/2011/11/23/video-steve-the-smartphone-n00b-and-the-nokia-lumia-800-day-0-unboxing/
• http://mynokiablog.com/2011/11/24/adventures-of-steve-the-smartphone-n00b-nokia-lumia-800-day-1-first-impressions/

We’ve both been extremely busy the past few weeks but we managed to catch up with him for a quick session to see how things were going.

This was, again, just a quick question/answer on a few things I had to ask, I did forget to ask many questions but on the whole the experience has been very positive.

Video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tCzdmA974FA

If you do have questions that we didn’t ask (I had a list and even then I missed them out), we can update this post with Steve’s answer.

With regards to email, I was surprised to hear he uses email a lot, reading all incoming mails and replying to the ones that needed replying to there and then from the Lumia 800. I didn’t ask about multitasking but you can hear it’s just a background part of his day doing multiple things at the same time. You’ll note of course he is very smartphone newbie on the browser portion saying it’s about the internet connection speed – that is true to an extent.

Oh I also forgot to film the bit on the camera. He said he really liked the quality of it. He loved the fact that you don’t have to unlock the phone, just lock press the camera button and even with the phone locked it will take a picture. Great when your phone is password protected, you don’t need to enter it in. Note the pictures in the Lumia 800 are still protected, you cannot flick through the entire gallery.

Steve on:

The keyboard – likes that it goes in landscape (lol). It works in portrait, but with his big hands he does sometimes miss, but the autocorrect fixes that (a big part of what makes the keyboard great is that it will autocorrect brilliantly).

Browser – +ve on the speed, but has switched to SurfCube as the main browser. Although he accepts it takes longer to start, he really likes that cube interface.

Calendar: He has synced multiple calendars, enjoys that he can edit from the phone or PC and they appear anywhere. Likewise if folks add stuff on facebook, it just appears there. Great as a lot of our events are organized through facebook.

Office: Not used much except for notes. He does like how Windows Live and One Note sync’d all his work he’s been doing for Uni on his PC to his phone.

Tiles: OK – likes that they’re live and adding new information but would like them to possibly be smaller as he wants to see more than 7/8 items at a time. He’s using it quite actively, changing what he wants to go there quite easily (not showed him how, he’s worked that out himself). He likes that the interface is simple and just two screens, instead of say 7 that his brother has. Apps are easy enough to find as they’re listed alphabetically and he does also use voice commands to launch apps. Speaking of apps, he’s found it easy to download and try new apps, uninstall apps once he’s finished with them (like several games he’s completed). I remember someone complaining not knowing how to remove apps, you just long press and uninstall – something Steve worked out on his own too.

Display: Great display, great outdoors (though not much sun here to test that out, on the rare occasions it’s great<<see our Sunlight test here) He finds the screen very responsive though it does get greasy being all touch.

Sound: The speaker quality is good, he doesn’t listen to music through it, more headphones but he does use it for speaker phone and notes that he can use it as a speaker phone with the phone on the table where as his previous experience has been to put the phone near his mouth to get a decent call.

Maps/Drive: I was surprised to hear he’s been using this and enjoying it. He likes the smoothness of the pinch and zoom. He uses Maps quite a bit, and this is to find out where he is around Manchester. No more needing to look on a computer first. He’s also used Drive a couple of times when his friends have needed Sat Nav in the car, and notes it is still picking up a lock really quickly and working well to get their destination. I’ve got a post on that possibly today on how I’ve been using Drive over the weekend. Nokia Maps and Nokia Drive are dispensable to me – something I have missed when I moved to a Omnia 7 but now can be happy being back on Nokia.

Battery Life: added this to the end of the video as I thought it was important. He gets a day and a half when he’s using it normally, but about 6 hours if he’s heavily and constantly using everything at the same time.  (e.g. music with the browser, then checking maps, then playing games).

Tags: featured, SteveTheSmartphonen00b

Category: Lumia