I've got Nokia Lumia 900 - 2

It's been 2 days with Lumia 900.
It's an amazing phone and I'll show you some of the features.

I'm comparing this phone to my old Android phone. iPhone may have some of these features, but I don't know much about iPhone, so, here we go.

This is what it looks like on the home screen. They call it "Start". Yes, that same start on the bottom left corner of your Windows PC screen. With Windows 8, when you press that "Start" button on the keyboard, a similar screen will show up.

This is the "Start" screen. There are more "tiles" on the bottom. The top right corner tile is "People". I'll talk more about it in the next posting. These tiles are fully customizable. Sliding the screen to the left will take you to the app list.

This is the app list. It's like "Start->Program" thing on the computer. As usual, there are a few apps from AT&T that I don't want.

Unlike the Android phone, you press those icons and hold for a few second, it will let you uninstall it. No rooting, no jail breaking, no unlocking required.

Since it's Windows Phone and somehow Google is not really into making Google Talk or Google Voice app, I installed 3rd party apps and they are working pretty much seamlessly.

This is what Email looks like. It lets you add many different email types. I have one Hotmail, one work email, and one Gmail. They all work fine. Plus, the large font and the layout makes it really easy to read and identify each email.

This is the account set-up screen. It lets you add whole bunch of things to it and it takes care of them all literally seamlessly. I'll show you what I mean by "seamless" next time.

I've got Nokia Lumia 900 - 1

Last time I mentioned I ordered it. Today I got it....and it came with a problem.
I'll tell you the problem at the end.

So, the box looks like this. Nothing fancy except it's made in Korea. Odd. I was expecting Finland or some Scandinavian countries.

Top view of the box. Just like any other AT&T smartphones.

I covered the IMEI numbers. I don't know what that is, but it looked important.

This is a SIM card key. You need it to open the card tray.

Things that came with it. I like the design of the charger. I guess they've got the design cue from Apple, but this one is much smaller.

This is it. I guess I should have put something else on the side for the size reference, but it's definitely larger than Galaxy S or iPhone 4S.

Bottom.

Top. The USB slot doesn't have a cover. The small pin hole on the right is the SIM card tray key hole. I haven't figured out what the other small hole on the right is. The far right is the headphone jack.

8MP camera with Carl Zeiss lens on the back.

One thing to note is that it didn't come with a wired headset that most phones come with. I guess they realized that most people use bluetooth headset nowadays.

The very first impression out of the box was "heavy", although I can't really tell the weight difference between this one and my old Galaxy S.

So, now the problem I mentioned on top.
It does not have data connection. Wifi is fine. It's just that 4G network connection is dead. Engadget reported there are a number of customers with the same problem. When I first saw the article I thought, "oh poor things. They just got the phone and have a problem already" and it turned out I was one of them.
Nokia said it's a software problem (Microsoft!!!) and the fix will be available after 4/16. They're offering exchange to a new phone, but I already personalized this one too much to switch today.
I guess I'll just stick to the wifi until then.

I'll write more about the Windows Phone experience in a few days.

Nokia Lumia 900

This past weekend Nokia released its flagship Windows phone called Lumia 900.
The price was $99.99, which was pretty decent for a flagship model (think about how much Apple charge for its iPhone), but still it wasn't good enough to open my wallet.

Nokia Lumia 900. (source: CNET)

Then my friend told me yesterday, it's $20. Ah! $20. It was Amazon wireless offering additional discount. I'm sure Nokia and/or Microsoft took care of the additional $80 discount.

Anyhow, since I really needed a new phone (my Android is suffering. I'll talk about it some other time) I ordered it last night and I'll get it tomorrow.

$20 for upgrade was a great motivator.

Since the new Windows Phone 8 will be out at the end of this year, I though I should wait until Christmas. But $20 for upgrade was just too good to miss, so now I'm waiting for the package to arrive.

Samsung 830 SSD -2, Performance

I know there are many websites showing how many mega bites per second you can read/write on your SSD.
Whenever I see that kind of info I get a bit puzzled because I don't understand what that means in every day usage.

So I figured I can compare my new SSD's speed to older HDD in minutes and seconds.

HDD vs SSD
Windows 8 installation:
This is the most impressive of all the measurements.
HDD took 5min 30sec, while the SSD did the same in 3min 21sec.
Installing Windows in 3min 21sec was a pretty interesting experience.

Windows start-up:
33 seconds until BIOS check, 15 seconds afterwards.
14 seconds until BIOS check, 20 seconds afterwards.
Well, I guess not having a moving parts has something to do with faster BIOS check (although 19 seconds difference seems a bit too long) but I don't know why it takes 5 seconds longer to load Windows.

MS-Office 2007 installation:
<3min vs <2min
Yes, SSD is faster.

Restart the computer:
1min 40sec vs 42sec

MATLAB start:
Usually people use Photoshop to test this, but I don't use it any longer. It turned out other lighter, smaller, and free programs work as just good. So no Photoshop loading test. However, I figured it takes quite some time to start MATLAB, so here it is.
20sec vs <4sec

Yes. Less than 4 seconds until it says "ready"

Yes, it's faster with SSD, and when I surf the web I can feel the difference as well.
I have a habit of opening 30-40 tabs on the Firefox at once and close them one by one as I read each page. With HDD when I move onto the next tab, there's slight delay in loading/placing pictures on the page. With SSD this delay is gone.


I start FireFox 11 by clicking the icon, and before my hand is off of the mouse and on to the keyboard, the window is open and ready to go.

If you're wondering if it's worth the extra money compared to HDDs, yes it is.
Get SSD for yourself soon.