News · 2 Nov 2012 · MTW Editorial Team
It’s been a year since I landed a full time job and stopped updating this site on a daily bases simply because I no longer have time to do so. Every once in a while I managed to sneak in a post when something really important pops-up (like the WP8 SDK leak here and here) but I must admit that the Windows Phone world wasn’t that exciting in the last year following the launch of Mango.
Fast-forward to this month and the launch of Windows 8, Surface and Windows Phone 8. Some may be wondering where is my Nokia Lumia 920, Windows Phone 8, Surface review etc.. Well, to put it simply: those things take time and I don’t have much of that lately. Others may not care but I sincerely want to do my best to give you a honest opinion about all those products especially after reading all the biased and link-bait drivel that is being posted on most major sites lately.
Let’s take for example the Nokia Lumia 920 review embargo that lifted today. Nothing’s more annoying than reading something passed as a review when it’s obviously nothing more that a piece written to generate quick hits. In case you didn’t know it; most reviewers didn’t have the Lumia 920 for more than 48h, which is a relatively short amount of time to form a final judgment on a product, some only got to handle it at the Microsoft Build conference in Seattle (see for example The Verge’s review where the camera samples where shot in the UK and the “review” mostly done in the US with a pre-production device using pre-production FW). Here, Nokia France only had three 920′s to hand out for reviews which is not a whole lot as you can image. But what’s even more laughable are some of the cons listed against the 920:
– The camera shots photos and videos with accurate colors so it’s not better than the competition who output images with more vibrant/incorrect colors (WTF?). The Lumia
– The Lumia 920 is heavy so it’s sucks (PocketLint’s “review”): No shit Sherlock? Everybody who had the chance to handle one since it’s announcement knows exactly how much it weights and the reason why. You want an OIS camera, Inductive charging, 768P screen, sturdy phone with worldwide LTE support? Then it’s going to weight that much. You want an DC-HSPA only, thin, light-weight handset with great build quality with the highest-PPI then you might get the Windows Phone 8X by HTC,. Want a super-light-weight handset so thin that they couldn’t pack enough antennas to support LTE everywhere, which comes already scratched out of the box and has crappy Mapping? Then get the iPhone 5. The thankfully has choice and there’s option for everybody. Unfortunately the Microsoft hate is so strong (and Microsoft’s PR is so lame..) that things will apparently always suck one way or another if you decide to get something coming out of Redmond. Some of those reviewers should also learn the definition of the word Ecosystem…
I could have gotten a Nokia Lumia 920 or HTC 8X review sample by now (or buy one) but I decided to wait simply because I’ll be on vacation starting next week and won’t be able to do anything with both handsets until I return in mid-November and using the device for 48h to type something down in time for the embargo is not what most readers deserve.
I’m not defending Microsoft or Nokia at all here. Simply do a search here and you will see how much I posted about all the issues I had with my Lumia 800 handsets (yes I actually pay for the devices I talk about here) or how much Microsoft sucks at marketing its non-Xbox products (why no talk at all about all the new Bing, Mapping features of WP8 during the launch event…seriously Microsoft?!). For example, why did Microsoft send out Surface review samples knowing that most “reviewers” would hurry up to write up their “reviews” in time for the embargo without bothering to update the 1st party applications or the OS (which fixes most of the so called performance issues)? Microsoft should have either got the updates out earlier or asked the editors to make sure to get the updated bits before submitting their work. But I guess that even this wouldn’t be enough as I have seen complains about Cut The Rope being somewhat sluggish on the Surface RT (especially in the game’s menu)…Well guess what? It’s exactly the same on my Samsung Slate 7 powered by a Core i5 with 4GB of Ram… You thought all those guys really used Windows 8, or all the products they write about ? Apparently not, or they would have noticed that something was wrong with the game and not the hardware.
Anyway, I should stop ranting and simply leave you with what we have available for now (the only reviews I personally wait for ar those of Anandtech…) hoping that you soon have the chance to handle some of those products yourself and judge them accordingly. As I said above I won’t have my device until after I come back from vacation so stay tuned for more and as usual if you have any question just fire me an email, a tweet or a comment below.
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