Monday 17 December 2012

Poll: Which Windows Phone 8 Device and Why?

We finally have Windows Phone 8 devices on Bell Mobility here in Canada. With Monique’s Lumia 710 phone on Rogers we need at least one Bell/TELUS phone as Rogers has poor rural coverage.

The HTC 8X looks like a decent phone but at 16GB of internal storage with no way to add more it is out of the running.

That leaves the Samsung ATIV S and the Nokia Lumia 920.

Having looked at both there are plus and minus points for both.

  • Lumia 920
    • Camera setup is supposed to be the best.
    • Weight is a factor. The phone is _heavy_ compared to the Samsung.
    • 32GB of storage can be a bit small.
      • No microSD capability.
    • The colour choice is neat.
    • LTE bands are 700/850/1900/1700/2100 (Rogers)
  • Samsung ATIV S
    • Allows for 32GB of external storage to be added.
      • Bell version comes with 16GB of on board storage (96GB total).
      • Rogers version comes with 32GB of on board storage (indicates no microSD though).
      • Important for that large Zune/Xbox Music Pass library!
    • Phone is _really_ light.
    • The phone is quite large to handle.
    • LTE band(s):
      • 700MHz (Bell shows only one band)
      • 700/850/1900/1700/2100 (Rogers)

Any feedback would be greatly appreciated. :0)

Philip Elder
MPECS Inc.
Microsoft Small Business Specialists
Co-Author: SBS 2008 Blueprint Book

Windows Live Writer

4 comments:

Gregory Brewer said...

I am waiting for the Samsung ATIV S to be available in the US (I may even try and get an unlock Rogers version) for two reasons. First a removable battery and second the micro SD card.

Philip Elder Cluster MVP said...

Gregory,

I started my day over tea and writing this post. Live Writer sat open in the background until I found it after closing/minimizing some windows!

Yeah, I'm leaning to the ATIV S from Rogers too.

32GB of on board storage + microSD.
LTE Penta-band.

TELUS and Bell both limit LTE to one of five LTE bands/frequencies which is inline with previous practices. This greatly limits my ability to travel with the phone. :(

Thanks for your comment! :)

Philip

Anonymous said...

Using a Lumia 920 - fantastic quality build, the only negatibve you've got against it is weight - really, it's not that heavy and it does infact feel reassuringly weighty as opposed to a lot of these ultra-light things kicking around. it's not like you're carrying a dumbbell round in your pocket. I suggest the weight is because of the wireless charging component inside too, which is pretty cool!

Anonymous said...

I too am waiting for the Samsung ATIV S variant on Verizon here in the US. Expandable storage is a must...and if I can also get a removable battery, that is a plus as well. However, I must admit that I am also curious about the HTC M7 supposedly coming this way too. Granted, it is android, but between it and the Samsung we're looking at the best of the best that I'm aware of in the pipeline.