I have had the HTC S710 a few years back. It had Windows Mobile 6.0 After that phone I got an HTC Diamond 2. It ran Windows Mobile 6.1 and later 6.5. I loved both phones because I work all day on my Windows notebook and had it connected with USB to charge and sync my calendar and contacts with Outlook. It was awesome! But after a while Android kicked in and became very popular in a short time. My favorite phone brand started to release more phones with android OS than with windows OS. So I moved to an HTC Desire with Android 2.x on it. I rooted it and got a custom rom on it to cope with the limited app memory.
After a while I decided to make a native android app. It is Dutch and not that good, but it was worth the challenge and I learned a lot of it. After the HTC Desire got reboots because of the heating issue, I switched to a HTC Desire C. It was a cheaper phone, but had all the software that I wanted. It runs Android 4.x but the CPU (and RAM) seems limited and made the phone laggy. Even installing Zeam Launcher did not fix it. The HTC rom seems slow. All the eye candy.
Because my previous HTC Desire didn’t handle all the rom changes that well, I decided not to try moving roms again because of the heating issues that may occur. So what is next? A new Android phone like the Samsung Galaxy SII plus? Or perhaps a Windows Phone 8 with wireless charging? The Nokia Lumia 920 had a price drop and Nokia is known for great hardware quality. I have had Nokia’s before; the 5110, 3210, 5210 with swappable covers. The hardware and software never let me down and the battery was great! So why not try Windows Phone 8? I love windows 8 and am looking forward to 8.1. I work all day with Visual Studio 2012 and have 2013 preview installed. I know C# .Net and HTML5, so building apps is no problem. So what can be a problem? Apps (and small OS features)!
So Here is a list with my “can not live without apps”:
Facebook - http://www.windowsphone.com/nl-nl/store/app/facebook/82a23635-5bd9-df11-a844-00237de2db9e
Twitter - http://www.windowsphone.com/nl-nl/store/app/twitter/0b792c7c-14dc-df11-a844-00237de2db9e
Foursquare - http://www.windowsphone.com/nl-nl/store/app/foursquare/26cf3302-469f-e011-986b-78e7d1fa76f8
Instagram – not!! http://www.windowsphone.com/nl-nl/store/app/2instawithlove/448d94b7-5d54-4609-9a5d-66a15a14aa87
Google maps (navigation) – not !! bing maps or nokia navigation
Whatsapp http://www.windowsphone.com/nl-nl/store/app/whatsapp/218a0ebb-1585-4c7e-a9ec-054cf4569a79
Parkmobile http://www.windowsphone.com/nl-nl/store/app/parkmobile/0813d82b-661d-48b5-b345-1bb9f7ab8023
Sonos – not!! http://www.phonos.org/ really cannot live without a native sonos application!
Spotify - http://www.windowsphone.com/nl-nl/store/app/spotify/ca8d6603-a9ae-4a05-8643-baad091ecdd1
Gmail – no app but can work with default mail application
Google calendar - http://blogs.windows.com/windows_phone/b/windowsphone/archive/2013/01/30/synching-google-services-with-windows-phone.aspx
Dial contact shortcuts – possible
Barcode scanner (qr) – native and/or http://www.windowsphone.com/nl-nl/how-to/wp7/web/scan-codes-tags-and-text
Pdf viewer - http://www.windowsphone.com/nl-nl/store/app/adobe-reader/bc4f319a-9a9a-df11-a490-00237de2db9e or http://www.windowsphone.com/nl-nl/store/app/pdf-reader/8f6154d6-1b70-431a-a579-b6a43477e837
Chrome to phone – not, but no deal breaker
Dropbox – not https://www.dropbox.com/mobile I have over 25gb at Dropbox and will not re-upload it at Skydrive.
Fing network – not!! http://www.overlooksoft.com/download
Google hangout – not!! http://productforums.google.com/forum/#!topic/google-plus-discuss/y1yWzjDMyc4
Skype - http://www.skype.com/nl/download-skype/skype-for-windows-phone/
Paypal - http://www.windowsphone.com/nl-nl/store/app/paypal/75738196-1db2-49d9-afb1-d66a34d19fb6
Sms backup – native support, nice http://www.theverge.com/2012/9/3/3287430/windows-phone-8-backup-settings-sms-options
T-mobile travel and surf – not!! looks like a provider landing page where you can purchase the internet bundle for europe
Yatse (xbmc remote) – not!! http://wiki.xbmc.org/index.php?title=Windows_Phone_remotes
Youtube – not yet.. www.windowsphone.com/nl-nl/store/app/youtube/11e8d08b-f9ab-49a3-aac5-0f8efed8a8e5 or mobile youtube page
furthermore, I cannot live without proper A2DP support to stream my Spotify music to the radio in my car, but according to http://support.microsoft.com/kb/2770012 Windows Phone 8 does support version 1.2 Can someone verify that it works well with a Sony X-Ploid radio?
So dear reader, what do you advice? A Samsung Galaxy S2 Plus or Nokia Lumia 920 or something else? Both the Samsung as the Nokia support 4G internet.
The Samsung Galaxy S2 Plus with Android 4.x is now 260 euro and the Lumia 920 is 330 euro. The Lumia 520 is just 152 euro’s and is nice to use as test device for application development, because my notebook does not allow the Windows Phone emulator to run. My notebook has no Second Level Address Translation (SLAT) support and cannot run hyper-V. So I need a Windows Phone device to build apps for that platform. So what to do?
ps. Here is my phone history: Nokia 5110 –> Nokia 3210 –> Nokia 5210 –> Alcatel 511 –> Motorola T720 –> Sony Ericsson W800 –> HTC S710 –> LG Cookie –> HTC Touch Diamond 2 –> HTC Desire –> HTC Desire C –> Samsung Galaxy SII plus or Nokia Lumia 920??