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Nokia Lumia 920 Price and Review

REVIEW

A not-so-serious review first:

Lumia 920 >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> iPHone 5
32GB ---------------------------------------------32GB
$99------------------------------------------------$299

Master Maps-------------------------------------Mess-up Maps
Offline GPS---------------------------------------iLost
Public transit guide for global traveler ------iLonely and secretly flirt with Siri
PureView Camera-------------------------------PurpleView Camera
Clear lowlight photos---------------------------My party photos are drunker(fuzzier) than yours
Anti-scratch--------------------------------------Full-Scratch
Survives a fall-----------------------------------The poor pretty thing!
Gets the job done-------------------------------What job?
Good for normal people-----------------------Good for Apple worshipers
Nokia: "Sorry, we will update"-----------------Apple: "You're holding it wrong!"
Clear view under direct sunlight--------------Is my phone on?
4.5" viewing asset-------------------------------Squint retinally
Wireless charger--------------------------------Where is my this-year's-special cable?
Touchscreen wearing gloves-----------------Cut a hole on glove

A more serious review follows:

Having used the phone for a while now, I'd like to provide a more objective assessment. I give ratings below first, followed by detailed explanations. The rating numbers are on a scale of 10. A score of "10" means it is not only the best but also has no apparent need to improve, and a score less than "10" just means there is room to improve but does not necessarily mean another product is better. The numbers in the parentheses are for iPhone 5 as a reference.

RATINGS------------- Lumia 920 (vs. iPhone 5)

Call Quality --------------------10 (8) Uncompromising call quality from Nokia, a true phone company
Instant Messaging------------10 (10) Big improvement over WP7; group messaging and MMS
E-Mail-----------------------------9 (7) WP8 has the best enterprise-ready e-mail client
Skype and VoIP calls----------9 (7) International VoIP calls a reality with on WP8
Contact Management---------9 (6) WP8's multi-contact aggregator and integrator the best
Entertainment-----------------10 (10) Too much already, what more could you want
Social Networking--------------9 (8) Facebook integration is an edge
Web browsing------------------9 (8) IE10 is outstanding
Shopping------------------------7 (9) Comes from Apple's apps edge
Navigation-----------------------8 (5) Apple's first Maps is actually impressive, but see discussions
Productivity---------------------6 (3) Not there yet, but at least WP8 can do some work
Screen--------------------------10 (8) Lumia 920 has the best looking screen consumers have ever seen
Camera--------------------------9 (7) In its own league
Build quality-------------------10 (8) You might have trouble to say goodbye to Lumia 920 two years later
Thermal performance---------8 (8) Competitive
Battery life----------------------5 (5) All need improvement badly in this area
OS reliability--------------------9.9 (9.5) WP8 never even freezes, much less crashes
OS fluency----------------------9.5 (9) Ice-skating with WP8, and floor dancing with iOS, I much prefer the former
OS flexibility/customization---8 (8) Android is the king
OS refinement------------------7.5 (9.5) Microsoft is still no Apple on refined details
OS apps ecosystem-----------6 (9.5) iOS rules for now
Current Fashion Index--------0 (11)

To ease your reading, I'll put the conclusion first before the detailed sections.

CONCLUSION: Laying aside the nitpicking, I am in love with my Lumia. There are so many great phones today that it has become a problem to choose one. But the top WP8 phone is the choice by both my brain and my heart. If I were a bit geekier, I might have gone with Android; and if I didn't have to work I might have gone with iPhone. But this is my phone. It's for a practical man with a taste. I hesitated when Lumia 800 came out, knowing that it would be incompatible with WP8. Now Lumia 920 is such an attractive package. I don't think I'll change my phone anytime soon, although I do hope that there would be some nice updates from both Microsoft and Nokia to make this phone even better.

1. CALL QUALITY

It is a phone after all. The call quality of Lumia 920 is absolutely top-notch. The voice is so clear it puts my landline cordless phone to shame. Nokia knows how to make phones. They are the true phone company. The HAAC microphones (Rich Recording Mic) are not your ordinary microphones on cell phones. A different league. The speakerphone is pretty good too, quite loud and clear. In fact I once had a conference call using the speakerphone with several people on my side, and it worked out fine.

2. E-MAIL

Overall, WP8 has the best mobile e-mail. Windows Phone has an inherent advantage in e-mail, especially work e-mails. Apple does not own a popular e-mail service, and can only support third-party e-mails. Android enjoys the excellent Gmail, but Gmail does not have a strong foothold in the workplace.

WP8 has deep integration of Exchange, Office 365's Outlook e-mail, Hotmail and Live Mail on Windows Phone. WP8 further has excellent integration with the popular Gmail and Yahoo Mail. All this results in an e-mail client that is more capable and efficient than other platforms. To name a few, contact management, contact synchronization, message management, message synchronization, file management, attachment management, folder management, conversation thread management, and e-mail search, are significantly better on Windows Phone e-mail. The difference is far deeper than appearance. If you handle e-mails with some degree of sophistication, you will appreciate the difference.

I travel with both my iPad and Windows Phone. Unless I am using my computer, I usually reach out for the Windows Phone for e-mails instead of the iPad, despite the fact that the e-mails on iPad have so much better readability. This wasn't the case before when I used an iPhone. To just read a recent e-mail, the iPad is an obvious choice. But you don't just read a recent e-mail. Work e-mails have history and threads, and they need to be searchable, and fully synchronized with your computer, and that's where the Windows Phone shines.

For example, if you just read or deleted an e-mail on you phone, you want the status to synchronize with the server and other devices, otherwise you end up paying attention to the same e-mail too many times or having to delete the same e-mail multiple times. For another example, if you need to search to find an older e-mail which is not stored on your phone (due to memory conservation, mobile devices do not download and keep a copy of every e-mail in the past), you want your mobile e-mail to give you an opportunity to search e-mails on the server. WP8 does these perfectly.

I also like the fact that Windows Phone has a separate live tile with a customized icon for each e-mail account. I don't like the idea of mixing my work e-mail and personal e-mail in the same box, or even under the same icon. I need a clean definition of territories. Of course, if you intend to combine e-mails, you can do that as well on WP8. Flexibility.

3. SKYPE AND NON-CELLULAR SERVICE DEPENDENT PHONE CALLS

Skype, owned by Microsoft now, is an important function on WP. Microsoft also makes a Skype app for iOS, but the app is still not nearly as good as the integrated Skype on the Windows Phone.

If you use Skype Pro and/or Skype Out, you can actually make phone calls anywhere in the world as long as you have Wi-Fi or cellular data connection. I'm not talking about Skype-to-Skype calls. I'm talking about calling real phone numbers. (This works only with Skype Pro; the free Skype account can only make online Skype calls). No cellular phone connection is required with Skype Pro on Windows Phone.

Take an international trip you will understand what I'm saying. Being able to call home and work at international airports *without* a SIM card for the local service is a major convenience. Even if you already have got a local SIM card, using Skype Pro on Windows Phone to make calls on the 3G/4G data service is still a great convenience because it costs only two cents a minute, less than 1/20 of the cost for international calls made on a regular cell phone. It also works other way around. You can make international calls from the US using Skype Pro on your Windows Phone for two cents a minute.

Cheap international calls anywhere on your cell phone (and enjoying the integrated phone contacts) - I hope this concept registers with you.

4. CONTACT MANAGEMENT

The People Hub on the Windows Phone deserves a separate mentioning. This is by and large the best contact management on a cell phone (WebOS users might have an issue with the statement). It automatically integrates all the contacts from different sources (e-mails, Skype and Facebook) and provides the best accessibility and connectivity on a mobile device.

This significantly betters iOS, which has a pretty address book and good editing capabilities, but very little beyond that. When it comes to multi-source contacts integration, accessibility and connectivity, the People Hub on WP is much superior to iOS's contact management.

For example, iOS address book has links to internal phone numbers and e-mail addresses, but basically that's it. It does not have active links to external phone numbers (e.g.,contacts pulled from e-mail accounts), Skype contacts, and Facebook friends, etc.. In the People Hub, all these have active links, meaning that they provide a single click connection. In addition, People Hub pulls contacts from Skype, which iOS does not do at all. If you use Skype, especially Skype Pro, you'd suffer a disconnection on iOS.

Both address books link contact addresses to maps, but the Apple maps is essentially dysfunctional in this respect. Apple hasn't really spent time to make sure this function actually works (they have been focused on making the thing look pretty). It doesn't work most of the time. Unless you have entered the contact address in a particular manner, clicking the address will result in a "not found" on the maps. The People Hub works perfectly with maps. Under the hood, this is actually a search algorithm issue, not a user interface issue. Like Google, Microsoft knows search. It shows.

5. PRODUCTIVITY

Windows Phone 8 wins this important area hands down, not because it is so good, but because others are so bad. The major thing is the Office App and OneNote App, and their integration with the excellent and generous (but underrated) SkyDrive. This allows Windows Phone to do the most essential things for productivity. WP8 further integrates Office 365 and SkyDrive perfectly. If you or your company subscribe to Office 365 and use the cloud versions of the OneNote, Office, Outlook, TeamSite and SharePoint, the productivity is boosted to a whole new level. The iPhone and Android simply cannot provide that kind of productivity. Even if you don't use Office 365, getting the Windows Live and Skydrive would already be the best productive user experience because of the integration with the Web version of Office.

I hear people say that they can use an Office-emulating app to do some work on the iPhone (or Android). But no. For serious work, it simply doesn't work. You open a document (Word or PowerPoint, for example), do a slight editing, thinking that you have saved a bit time working on your smart phone, but only to later discover (or be told by an upset colleague) that you changed the subtle aspects of the formatting and styling of the document. That doesn't work for me, nor for anyone I work with. Work environment cannot allow this. The fundamental difference is that the Office App on WP8 and Office Web version have complete compatibility with the traditional Office, while other apps don't. They are built on different foundations. Microsoft's mobile renditions of Office may lack many features of the full Office, but they are completely compatible with it, and that's extremely important. When it comes to work documents, compatibility is more important than feature set.

Overall, if documents and e-mails are just different ways of casual "instant messaging" to you, the iPhone is fine. But if documents and e-mails are a work tool to you, Windows Phone is the way to go.

6. NAVIGATION

First of all, for those who miss Bing Maps, your Windows Phone still has it. It's only two taps away: tap the Bing search button (hardware button on the right side at the bottom), and then tap the "Local Scout" button (on the left side of the three on the search page).

In addition to Bing Maps, Nokia offers a set of navigation apps including Nokia Maps, Nokia Drive, Transit, and City Lens. They together offer excellent navigation, better than Bing Maps alone, and also better than what iOS has to offer.

Apple's first map is actually impressive with good features and of course great looks. But as Google has said, doing maps is hard. It's years of exercise versus a morning makeup. Currently, Apple Maps does have a problem. The reports of Apple's terrible map performance are related to map data inaccuracy and map search algorithms. Those Apple fans who refute such reports by claiming that they haven't experienced any problems are missing the point. Unlike other software in which a test is usually universal, your map test results only have to do with the location you tried, and only proves that the map is OK in that one location. When there is a problem at another location, there is a problem. And Apple has a lot of such problems reported. The company acknowledges it. They're not fools. I don't know how fast Apple can improve on that. Data and fundamental algorithms are far more than just doing some programming to add skins. They might need to shell out a billion dollars to buy up.

Compared to the excellent Google Maps, Nokia's navigation solution is mixed. It's worse in some ways, but better in other ways. Google shines on map data, especially in the North America segment, no question about it. Google's superiority in search is also reflected in its maps. The app overall feels more mature and advanced, further boosted by is far greater user base (which they earned).

But Nokia has several important things on its side. The segmented downloadable maps for off-line GPS is a unique and significant advantage for Nokia. The reliable integration with contact addresses (People Hub) is another. The multi-angle approach of Nokia's navigation app set suits user's particular need better. Nokia also has comparable map data (although arguably slightly inferior North America segment) and mature map algorithms.

Nokia's navigation solution comes with several separate apps. In comparison, Google puts everything under Google Maps. I like Nokia's way of tasking. The Nokia apps are meant to be connected (they need to work more on that). You start with one app, but may transit to another when you need it. If done right, Nokia's approach could directly put the user at the best leveraging angle depending on the actual situation, using a specific app with the most suited user interface to maximize the user experience. Some people complain about it either because of their unfamiliarity with this design or their dissatisfaction with the current execution. I hope Nokia doesn't change this good concept, but just keeps on perfecting the apps and improving the integration under this framework.

An often overlooked but significant feature Nokia offers is downloadable maps segmented according to regions. Once downloaded to your phone's local storage, the maps are fully functional off-line even when you don't have any cellular network or WiFi access. That could be a matter of getting or not getting to the destination. If you don't think this is important, I don't know what is. Even when cellular network is present, the off-line GPS map means big savings on your data usage.

With the downloaded maps, the navigation on Lumia 920 may replace standalone GPS units. It has vastly better user interface to start with. Address search, which is probably the most frustrating thing on standalone GPS units, is far better on Nokia Drive. The overall user experience is superior despite its lack of a few features. But if you need a dedicated GPS unit constantly mounted in the car, that's a different story.

If you happen to be at a place without a car (Americans, have you traveled to other places in the world? People don't always drive), try Nokia Transit, which provides detailed guide for public transportation of cities around the world.

Nokia takes navigation seriously. They have had an excellent maps tradition and accumulated expertise with Symbian-based cell phones. Considering that they jumped on the WP ship only recently, I'm confident that they will make this whole thing even better in a quite fast pace.

7. THE SCREEN

Both Lumia 920 and iPhone 5 have gorgeous screens, but the Lumia is still better. The viewability under direct sunlight is noticeably better on Lumia 920. Both are extremely clear for text and webpage rendering, but Lumia 920 works much better in the portrait mode because of its greater viewing dimension.

And Lumia 920 has touchscreen capability when you wear gloves. This may come handy in very cold winter outdoors. But for me, the usefulness is more than during the winter. To protect my hands from suffering painful skin and split fingernails, I often need to wear a glove on my right hand while I'm doing air traveling. Lumia 920 is the only phone that I can use wearing a glove. It is not a gimmick at all.

8. THE CAMERA

Lumia 920 has the best cell phone camera on the market, leading by a significant margin, except for Nokia's own PureView 808 which is a different type of device. I say this very objectively. Those who don't see the difference either didn't test it under right conditions, or simply can't tell the differences in photo quality. Lumia 920 is the only smartphone camera that can take decent concert (or party) photos and videos. Its lowlight performance is at least two ISO stops (that's 4 times) better than the iPhone 5. This is primarily due to Nokia's unique pixel binning technology further combined with image stabilization. Neither Nokia nor Apple makes the camera sensors (Sony does), but the photo quality is not only about the sensor itself. Nokia has a tremendous technological and patent advantage in this area.

By the way, stop comparing which camera has more megapixels. High MP is a trick used by camera makers to tax on consumer ignorance, and in most cases has very little correlation to picture quality. On cell phones in particular, there are several reasons why it's meaningless to pursue higher MP count. First, no tiny lens on a cell phone is capable of optically resolving pixel numbers beyond 5MP. I challenge you to find a scientific test to prove otherwise. Second, because of the very small sensor sizes, low light performance is a far bigger problem than the number of pixels. Third, you don't need more than 2MP on a cell phone. Generally, photos taken by smart phones are only used for screen viewing instead of making large prints. Even 2MP would be plenty. For web posting, a high-quality 1MP photo would look far better than a lousy 10MP photo.

I'm not saying that a smaller pixel number is a good thing in itself. On the contrary, I'm just saying that for a given sensor technology, pixel density is the best sacrifice to make if the goal is to take better pictures with a cell phone camera sensor. Most consumers don't realize that for any given sensor technology, an increase of pixel density comes at the expense of lowlight performance and dynamic range. (Many people intuitively reject this notion, reasoning that it does not make sense that lowlight performance and dynamic range would be affected by pixel density as you can always downsample. But to understand this, you must stop treating pixels as abstract geometrical concepts but actual engineered photosites with optically dead physical boundaries. That is a different topic though.)

Every time when the sensor chip technology is improved, they usually have two options: (1) increase the lowlight performance and dynamic range by keeping the same pixel density, or (2) increase the pixel density (to get a greater MP count for a given sensor size) by holding back the real performance. Unfortunately they usually choose the latter because the MP count is a much more marketable gimmick.

So instead of honest value, we now have the madness of smartphones reaching and going beyond 10MP with little meaningful result but unnecessarily bad lowlight performance, poor dynamic range, and a big waste of storage, data usage and processing time. Had they focused on real performances on 2-4MP sensors with a generous sensor size permissible on smartphones, we would have now had much more useful cameras on these gadgets.

In this regard, Nokia is doing great in spite of (not because of) joining the megapixel race, again thanks to its pixel binning technology and image stabilization.

9. BUILD QUALITY

Nokia 920 is a marvelous piece of engineering and manufacturing. Both Nokia 920 and iPhone 5 have a premium appearance, only very different flavors. But the Nokia is without question tougher. I say this not because Nokia is heavier. They use different materials. In choosing materials, these two companies have very different philosophies. Apple always goes after materials that enable extremely slim and light products, while Nokia has always been concerned of durability.

If you are already conditioned to update your phone every year, you are an ideal Apple-kind person already. But still, hold your iPhone dearly and don't drop it. I have an iPad 3 that was accidentally dropped from a sofa sidetable to a hard floor head-down. I was completely shocked by the amount of damage it caused. I was expecting a dent on the edge or at worst a crack on the screen, but the whole thing was smashed like glass. That's when I discovered that the iPod 3 uses a glasslike material even for the frame, which looks great, but, just don't drop it.

So you might actually need a case for your iPhone. Lumia 920 does not need one. In fact, I can't imagine a case for Lumia 920 without ruining its gorgeous appearance.

10. THE DESIGN

This is completely subjective. But I personally feel iPhone 5 is too youthful and delicate, and better in a hand of a teenager, while the Samsung Galaxy S3 too rounded and has no character. I love the overall masculine (but gentle and absolutely not rough) and squarely straight style of Lumia 920. Go to YouTube to hear Marko Ahtisaari of Nokia articulating the design philosophy.

11. THERMAL BEHAVIOR AND BATTERY LIFE

The Nokia 920 does not run hot, thankfully. This is one thing I was particularly worried after the bad experience with the Dell Venue Pro which had disgusting thermal performance and power management.

Battery life is good, although not excellent, comparable to other top performers such as iPhone 5. If there would be an improvement that could persuade me to change my phone again, it would be a new phone that could last at least a couple of busy days without recharging. I am not a heavy mobile user, but I'm out on a trip quite often. The battery life of my cell phone is among the biggest mental burdens while traveling. Unfortunately, it looks like battery life is not what these companies are focusing on at this time.

12. APPS

iPhone wins by a large margin in terms of app number. Although a vast majority of apps are junk on both systems, there are some great apps on both; iOS just has more due to its sheer larger base. So it seems that most people will need to sacrifice a few apps by choosing Windows Phone platform for now. I'm missing quite a few useful apps on the Windows Phone, and make up the deficiency by using the iPad. Windows Phone also has some very good apps that are missing on iOS (in addition to Nokia apps and Microsoft apps), although not as critical.

The most important app I miss on the Windows Phone is a decent PDF reader. Microsoft rushed out its own PDF reader, which works for basic reading but has some serious limitations. I hope Adobe or a third-party releases a better PDF reader on WP8 soon. This is a big pain point.

However, none of these missing apps has the kind of importance comparable to that of navigation and productivity. To me, the choice is clear. I think it's misleading to do "bean counting" the small things of each system. You've got to have priority. If you need one function that has a dominating priority, then one million less useful "apps" would no longer matter.

Despite the relative minor changes in appearance from WP7 to WP8, Windows Phone 8 has got a much better foundation in the program architecture than WP7. With the Windows NT kernel and 90% source code compatibility with Windows RT, the app future looks good.

13. FLUENCY AND EFFICIENCY OF THE OPERATING SYSTEM

Windows Phone 8 on Lumia 920 beats iOS on iPhone 5 in terms of fluency and efficiency. WP has a hardware "Back" button in addition to the Home button, while iPhone has just a Home button. This has a significant impact on the flow of operation. I know this is rather subjective, but one thing that particularly bothers me on the iOS is that it requires you to always go back to the home button. You can't directly go back to another place you have just visited. You always have to go back home and start from there again. I remember Steve Jobs proudly making a big point out of it. Theoretically, going back home and then to the last app takes only two steps, but problem is that when you have multiple pages of apps, it causes a bit of hesitation to locate an app.

Both iOS's "double-clicking Home" and WP's "long-pressing back button" give you a nice quick list of the opened apps to simplify the selection of apps, but still the additional "Back" button functionality WP is very much appreciated.

Another thing that impacts the efficiency is the management of installed apps. The iOS manages installed apps in a simplistic way with much emphasis on the appearance not the functionality. Windows Phone has a much more sophisticated way. The installed apps are directly and separately searchable, and are also automatically organized under alphabetical categories that can be quickly accessed through a single page grid (which itself is accessible by a single swipe). If you have less than 20 installed apps, you will see no difference. If you have about 20-50, the difference would start to show. With 50-100, it becomes apparent, and beyond 100, the difference would be huge. The more apps you install, the greater the difference would be. So power users will find this an advantage on Windows Phone.

When you come to think of it, the above may be the reasons why the iOS is so intuitive for beginners, but less efficient for more experienced users. On user interfaces, these two things often conflict. I can see why many like the flow design of iOS, but I prefer WP8's flow much better.

14. CUSTOMIZATION

It almost sounds silly that one of the biggest improvements WP8 has over WP7 is adding some smaller sized tiles. Hardly innovative, but it makes a big difference, largely speaking against the old design. I don't like those big tiles. I simply don't think any app deserves that much attention, especially in such a uniquely precious small room. I customized my start page to have all tiles in quarter size except for the phone button. Thank you, Microsoft, for allowing such basic freedom. My start space is now much more efficiently used and no longer a victim of the almost tyrant "less is more" so-called clean design philosophy.

The level of customization further down is mostly on par with the iOS. Android would still have an edge over both, but I think this is got to a very reasonable level already.

But I do have one big complaint against Windows Phone: With WP8, you still can't turn off that stupid screen auto-rotation. You simply can't so far. No user settings has that. No app that does that. Even unlocked phone can't do that. Forgive me to call auto-rotation feature stupid. But it is one of those tech-things that make no sense on a mobile phone, precisely because a mobile phone is just so, mobile. The problem is that these device designers fail to understand that the proper (or desired) orientation of the screen simply cannot be determined by an orientation sensor. The sensor determines the orientation using gravity and the earth as the reference, not your body. As a result, the sensor can only detect the phone's orientation itself, not its relative orientation to the user's body posture, which is what actually matters. So it works properly only when you are standing straight, not when you are inclined or lie down. In fact, it always turns to the wrong orientation when you are inclined or lie down, so you have to fight it.

In practice, the non-switchable autorotation causes much more annoyance than any utility. It is OK if they just use it as a gimmick to attract feature counters, but it is not OK to have it permanently implemented and cannot be turned off. It's simply stupid.

I think the best solution is iPad 3's combination of autorotation plus a hardware-based button for a mechanical lock. It combines the best of both worlds. The iPhone has autorotation plus user manual options in the settings and apps, which is not as good as the iPad, but still much better than Windows Phone's autorotation only, whenever and wherever.

The reason why I make this auto-rotation issue such a big deal is just to make a point, not because the thing itself is so life-threatening. I can live with the annoyance. But the failure or overlook of such issues after all these years is very telling of Microsoft.

15. REFINEMENT OF THE OPERATING SYSTEM

When it comes to very fine details, Apple wins. WP8 has improved over WP7, but still no match to the iOS in its refinement of details. Company wise, and culture wise, Microsoft has not fully learned this art yet. Let me name a few:

(1) The input mode is still a mess despite an excellent keyboard. Although typing new text is easy, accurately placing the cursor to edit text is virtually impossible. Also, you can't quickly do a "select all" to copy and paste a text. It requires a painful maneuver to do so, many times more difficult than doing the same on iOS which gives you a selection in an automatically pop-up menu. Oh please, they struggled with this copy and paste thing from the very beginning and received a disproportionately great amount of criticisms, so you would think that they would have jumped all over it to not only improve it, but in fact over-improve it. Not at all. It's still a half cooked solution.

(2) The network status indicators on the top of the screen don't stay. They disappear transiently. You have to touch the screen in a particular manner to bring them back. You can't change that in the settings. This is useless frivolous design. The indicators don't occupy extra space at all when they are displayed, and their disappearance does not result in any benefit. It just makes the system fussy and less certain. My basic assertion is that cell phone's network status is a constant user concern, and being able to glance at these essential indicators any time gives you peace of mind, and is a good part of the harmonious "handset environment". Having to always struggle for such a simple thing is nonsense especially when the sacrifice is made for no purpose.

I think what happened at Microsoft was like this: One day, someone from Microsoft management shouted in a meeting: "Less is more! Less is more! Look at Apple, we need to learn from them!" And shortly after that, a Microsoft engineer came up with this idea of hiding the network status indicators...

Microsoft has done the hard part of building a very promising mobile OS, it shouldn't be so difficult for them to do these very basic and simple things right. It is obviously not an engineering issue. It is a product management issue.

Buy Nokia Lumia 920 for only $49.99
Nokia Lumia 920 4G Windows Phone, Black (AT&T)
b. Weiss