App Review: Top Task List for Windows Phone 8

050Go! Go! Go! It seems like all of us are on the go and multitasking throughout the day. Sometimes we overlook a simple or important task. I believe some organization is called for and the Top Task List app for Windows phones is here to do the trick!

Top Task List was created by Vladimir Pogrebinsky who really thought through of all the details for the functionality of this app. For each and every task, project or reminder   you can organize them by color, date and order of importance. You can pin your task as a tile to your home screen for a quick view to see what needs to get done as well as choosing a custom color for that specific tile. As far as creating your new task is concerned, I will tell you that it is easy breezy! You simply press the add button and begin creating your new task. When creating your new task you will see plenty of options to organize your new task. You can name your new task then add a note and even add a specific person or place to your new task. Another great feature is that you can take a quick photo to add to your task and the ability to add a specific task or a folder to the lockscreen. Continue reading “App Review: Top Task List for Windows Phone 8”

PSA: Unlocked Nokia Lumia 520 for AT&T on sale at RadioShack for $80 – No contract!

nokia lumia 521 review hands on somegadgetguy smartphoneJust a heads up for all you frugal smartphone shoppers out there. Nokia’s littlest smartphone is on sale at Radioshack!

The Lumia 520 is a handy entry level phone, basic specs, but Windows Phone runs very smoothly, and it’s one of the few Windows Phones with an SD card slot to expand the storage. On it’s own, it’s not going to “wow” anybody…

Until you look at it’s price.

If you shop it at Radioshack you can walk out the door with a perfectly capable dual-core phone with a decent screen, good battery life, and a 5MP camera all for $80. I know what you’re thinking. That’s NOT $80 on a two year contract. $80 out the door and you own it. Outright. It’s yours.

You could even shop a phone like this as a “weekender” if you didn’t want to take your nicer phone out for fear it might get messed up out at the beach or on a hike.

If you’re just looking for the basics, phone calls, email, some social networking, it’ll be hard to top this bang for buck player.

Lumia 520 on sale at RadioShack

Related:
Real Person Video Review: Tom Costello chats about his Nokia Lumia 521

Real Person Review: Tony Talks About His Nokia Lumia 925

nokia lumia 925 review (1) fatboy wireless charging sled somegadgetguyTony is a pal of mine in Florida, and he owns a Lumia 925 on T-Mobile. Having previously owned an iPhone, I asked him a couple questions about making the switch to Windows Phone.

What phone/phones did you use before the Lumia 925? Which have you liked? Which have you disliked?

The only other smartphone I’ve had was the iPhone 4. I did have a Motorola Krzr long ago, but there isn’t enough room on the internet for me to fit all my praise for that phone. Despite having switched to an entirely different OS now, I didn’t have major complaints with the iPhone and it really was quite a good device. One thing I did find frustrating was the restrictiveness of iTunes and the difficulty in using my iPhone as a mobile music library shared between my computers at home and work.
Thoughts on build quality, design, and ergonomics?

nokia lumia 925 review (4) rear back plate sled somegadgetguyThe Lumia 925 is just a beautiful phone. The colorful plastic cases of other Lumia models are fun, but I really like the sleek aluminum frame on the 925. The curved edges make it very easy and comfortable to hold in a single hand. My one complaint may be nitpicky, but I noticed the non-removable plastic back of the phone isn’t firmly attached near the top and has small but noticeable give when pressed. I don’t think I would mind as much if the entire phone were plastic, but this minor defect undermines the feeling of solidness given by the glass front and aluminum frame and slightly cheapens the experience in my mind. Continue reading “Real Person Review: Tony Talks About His Nokia Lumia 925”

Nokia Finally Officially Unveils the Lumia 1520 For Real, Lumia 2520 Windows RT 8.1 Tablet Unveiled at $499

lumia 2520 22I’m a little exhausted by Lumia 1520 leaks and rumor posts. Thankfully Nokia has made this thing real, so now we can talk about it again.

Soon-to-be-Microsoft-Employee (CEO perhaps?) Stephen Elop took the stage at Nokia World this morning in Abu Dhabi to show off Nokia’s new wares. The worst kept secret in tech made it’s appearance, and we all finally got to confirm what the rumors and leaks have been feeding us for a couple months now. Nokia is making a phablet, and the Lumia 1520 looks like it’ll be a formidable piece of gear.

lumia 1520 02The 1520 will sport a 1080p six inch display, the highest resolution screen ever put into a Nokia or a Windows Phone. The Qualcomm 800 is unsurprisingly confirmed as well, boosting Windows Phone into more current quad-core processors. Along with the GDR3 software update (now called Nokia Black), the screen size has allowed Nokia to add a third column of Live Tiles to the home screen. lumia 1520 03It’ll have 32GB of storage on board and will be the first premier Lumia to finally include a MicroSD card slot for expanded storage (up to 64GB). Nothing like walking around with almost 100GB of flash storage in your pocket to make you feel powerful. The purchase of a 1520 will also include an additional 7GB of Skydrive storage free.

lumia 1520 04The Lumia 1520 sports a new 20MP Pureview camera, something of a halfway point between the Lumia 9xx series and the monster 41MP Lumia 1020. It’ll sport optical image stabilization and oversampling software tech, which means we’ll probably get some of the zoom and crop capability from the 1020, and photos downsampled to 5MP for uploading online should look pretty good. Also of note, the camera app is getting a refresh. Dubbed ‘Nokia Camera’, most of the features from the separate Nokia Pro Camera, Smart Camera, and Video camera apps are getting rolled into one interface. I would expect the horsepower of the Qualcomm 800 to improve on the auto-focus and white balance speed of the sometimes pokey dual-core in the Lumia 1020.

lumia 1520 05

Continue reading “Nokia Finally Officially Unveils the Lumia 1520 For Real, Lumia 2520 Windows RT 8.1 Tablet Unveiled at $499”

Instagram and Vine finally officially come to Windows Phone

lumia 1520 09It was always the ultimate irony. The line of phones from Nokia featuring some of the most advanced camera optics were denied access to the world’s most popular social photo and video services.

No longer.

Announced this morning in Abu Dhabi at Nokia World, official Instagram and Vine apps are finally on their way to the Windows Phone App Store. IG will face some hearty competition from the third party Instagram solutions already in the ecosystem. Personally, I’ve been a big fan of 6Tag for uploading and sharing pics on my Lumia 1020. However, for those of you concerned about third parties having access to your log on, or you just really want that “pure” IG experience, you wont have to wait much longer.

Expect both apps to drop later this year.

lumia 1520 10

Google’s misguided denial of Windows Phone

windows phone microsoft google youtube app somegadgetguyBrand management is critical. You don’t want consumers interacting with services that show your company in a poor light. When you’re a services company like Google, your reputation depends on people having good experiences using apps like GMail and Youtube.

Which is why I find Google’s current strategy of ignoring Windows Phone so interesting. Yes, I understand the official reasoning, you don’t support an OS with so few users until it’s popular enough to force you to support it. Much like how Google NEEDS to be on iOS. Though it’s a somewhat childish corporate tactic ignoring Windows Phone, hoping it’ll just go away.

Unfortunately for Google, Microsoft is the new number three smartphone ecosystem, showing fairly strong growth in Europe, and by buying Nokia they open up an entire market of potential customers around the world. Plenty of markets where low cost Lumias will start to show up against locally-made entry-level Android fare.

We’ve seen Google end support for Exchange which upset how calendar and contact info was synced on Windows 8, and now their current squabble is over Youtube. Google has refused to release any of their own services as apps for Windows Phone. No Voice. No Maps. No Now. No Gmail. No Docs. Nothing. Many of these are being replaced by third party developers, but Youtube was special. Microsoft delivered a pretty decent Youtube app for Windows Phone. Google broke the app by revoking the developer key, citing some conflict that the app wasn’t “fully featured” enough.

Now it would seem that negotiations between Google and Microsoft have broken down even further. Now in its place, the official Windows Phone Youtube app (from Microsoft) is essentially just a web portal, a lame version of the experience you’d have firing up the browser.

And for what? 

You might win some people over to Android by making Google services painful to use on Windows Phone, but you’re equally likely to just piss other people off. For my own personal use, I try to only leave the house with one phone at a time. If I’m reviewing a Windows Phone for the day, what happens? I interact with Google services less. I post on Twitter and Facebook a LOT more than I do on G+. Funny how it works out that way.

And why?

Google doesn’t make money on Android directly. They make money on advertising and mining user data. Ignoring Windows Phone wont make it disappear. Microsoft is perfectly content to lose money building a reputation over years. Yes, you’d be developing for a smaller user base, but why not get that community’s data too?

Much like how Google will be sneaking Chrome OS onto Windows 8 computers,why not infect every Windows Phone with Google apps and services. If you really want to cut Microsoft off at the knees, take users away from HERE maps and Microsoft Office. Offer up better gaming services than the still somewhat lame XBox integration. Google might even be doing some of their hardware partners a favor as Microsoft makes more money per phone on Android patent agreements than it does on Windows Phone 8 licenses.

Let Microsoft do all the heavy lifting getting a device to market. Let them convince people that it’s a solid alternative to the current Apple/Samsung battle. Then take all their users away with software, clouds, and apps. Now’s the time to do it, while Microsoft is a weak third place competitor in the United States. This Trojan Horse style combat becomes harder as Microsoft becomes a stronger third place and consumers realize the Live, HERE maps, and Skype work pretty well…

Review: HMDX Jam Classic portable wireless Bluetooth speaker

hmdx jam classic bluetooth wireless speaker test review somegadgetguyYou asked for it! I’m covering even more audio gear!

Following the recent wrap up on the Jawbone JAMBOX, we’re taking a look at something smaller, and a little more affordable. It’s tiny. It’s cute. It comes in an adorable jam jar container, and for its size it packs a surprising audio punch. Can a portable audio solution for $32 compete against some of the other “premier” solutions on the market?

Let’s take a listen to the HMDX Jam Classic!

Shop HMDX on Amazon. What’s with all these speakers being named “Jam-something”?

Ask Juan: Can Windows Phone Compete with Graphics and Gaming?

From the Twitters:

windows phone xbox live gamingHey Yasi,

So here’s the deal, long story short, current Windows Phone Handsets will run at a deficit compared to current Android handsets when it comes to gaming. Microsoft’s hardware mandate pretty much guarantees that all Windows Phones will rock similar hardware. To date, that means Qualcomm’s older dual core Snapdragon chipset. Even though Windows Phone 8 is a decently lean OS which runs more efficiently than Android, and for day to day tasks you’d be hard pressed to see much difference in operation between WP8 on dual-core and Android on quad-core, gaming is one of those phone taxing activities where the extra horsepower comes in handy.

It’s not to say that the gaming experience is bad, far from it. I’m having a blast playing Halo: Spartan Assault, and Where’s My Water 2 was released on WP before Android. All things being equal though, playing the same game on Android and WP8, like Asphalt 7, I find levels load faster, game play lags less, and newer Android phones tend to run a little cooler than WP handsets. We’re just running into the upper limits of what this older chipset is capable of delivering.

Other comparisons become a bit more subjective. Some claim that the 1080p resolution found on newer Android fare looks better than the 720p screens on Windows Phones. Also, that the better graphics hardware means fancier lighting and particle effects. Both are certainly true scientifically, but I’ve honestly had a difficult time seeing a tremendous advantage on screens smaller than five inches.

It’s not all bad news though, as the Nokia Lumia 1520 phablet is rumored to be the first Windows Phone featuring both a 1080p screen and Qualcomm’s new 800 series chipset, pretty much catapulting Windows Phone up to the current ranks of the premier Android ecosystem. On phones rocking a larger than five inch screen that resolution bump becomes a little more noticeable in fine detail and clarity.

Thanks for the question Yasi!