The Verge reviews the giant Nokia Lumia 1520:
Samsung and others have proven that there is a market for giant smartphones, warts and all. But that doesn’t mean that just any smartphone is better if it’s bigger, and the 1520 is a prime example of that. It’s bigger and faster than any other Windows Phone yet, but it’s not necessarily a better Windows Phone because of that. If all you’ve ever wanted in life is a Lumia 925 with a magnifying glass on top of it, the 1520 is exactly that. It’s a tour de force in resolution and speed, but it’s not a great smartphone or even a great replacement for a tablet.
And yet, it’ll be a better tablet than any Windows 8.1 RT device. There’s something poetic about that.
Sorry, deploying websites to the cloud with an RT vs a phone, working with Linux VMs and being able to easily RDP into remote servers
http://www.hanselman.com/blog/UsingASurface2RTARMToGetActualWorkDon…
I think it is more lack of imagination on your part Thom.
Edited 2013-11-18 22:13 UTC
Agreed.
It seems to me that for ages people complained that Windows was not dropping its backward compatibility to “invent” a new system.
Then, when Windows did, people is complaining that Windows… is not Windows anymore and that you cannot do all the things you were used to do with Windows.
Yawn… boring.
Among the complains, is that Microsoft push a locked ecosystem on Windows RT, And that the break is only applicable to 3rd party dev (where office on RT exists in the Desktop space of RT).
Plus capitalizing on the “Windows” brand for tablet is not such a good strategy for building an ecosystem that breaks backward compatibility.
Apple did something similar.
I see Metro as Cocoa, with Win32 having the role of Carbon/ClassicOS (Blue Box).
But at least there was a clear distinction between Classic Mac and Mac OS X, and eventually their tablet and phone iOS. Whereas with Windows you have either Windows 8, which is backwards compatible, Windows RT, which isn’t, and Windows Phone 8 which is almost an independent platform in it’s own right. Such similarly named and similarly looking systems just lead to confusion…
Yeah, there I agree. I bet marketing guys are the ones to blame.
I was having a conversation with the architect yesterday. He was saying he has 3 laptops 1 for work (Win 7), 1 home (Win 8) and a Chromebook.
He tends to the use the chromebook for pretty much everything and most of the dev is done in the cloud/remotely.
I been doing the same with Windows VMs. My main machine is pretty much just a thin client.
Personally I find it better to work this way and the old way of doing things (the official way at work) we are just bypassing because the rest of IT at work is just miles behind.
Edited 2013-11-19 08:19 UTC
OS/360 is the new future!
Nice to see you finally caught up to the 1980s (hehe). I think the only time I worked local was when I was at hughes/raytheon working on solaris in the mid/late 90s. Builds were always fully distributed.
Well, I don’t think they would ever scrap a brand so strong as Windows is. It would be insane.
I think you cannot apply to Microsoft metrics used for other companies. No other company do all the stuff Microsoft does, in basically any possible IT market. And in most of them, they are successfull.
That forces them to play this game considering ALL their activities while most companies only try to protect one or two core businesses.
Microsoft is currently leading desktop, office, servers, consoles, services and development fields. At the same time they need to grow their phones and tablets divisions without harming other ones, plus their advertising / search engines platforms.
Not as easy as manufacturing iPhones/iPads and being completely irrelevant in anything else… I guess.
Yeah, it’s so “easy” that MS is letting Apple eat away the most profitable segment(s). What a charitable bunch…
When did microsoft start to lead the server field? The last number i have seen was less then 40% markedshare in the server field, thats not leading in my world.
Appently they are loosing ground on the console aswell…
agree with this and everything pretty much in the thread.
I too do the same thing in that everything is VM based. Althought i would say it’s currently a toss up between a server hosting the VM’s and sometimes it’s my desktop. I love it because it gives me the ability to snapshot, move VM’s around and treat each work project/work tool as an appliance. i.e, i have a Visual Studio VM, i keep purely the dev tools together meaning that if i install a media app such as a video encoder i don’t have to worry about it messing up my VS instance.
I think youre correct that we are moving towards a mainframe and computing power rental space, as mentioned in the blog post he was able to pay $1.80 for a days worth of working.
I like the use of a surface to outline how powerful it can be, as mentioned an iPad could do the same thing, however i think the two main points or advantages with the surface is that,
The screen is a 16:9 aspect ratio which makes it easier to code on.
The snap feature is really useful and makes the machine multitask a lot better. I own an iPad and having to constantly switch between email, web and other productivity apps is annoying when sometimes i would love to run them together. I have a Galaxy Note 10.1 and this feature is really handy but a little limiting as not all apps support the side by side mode and it’s not true multitasking like the surface is able to accomplish.
The surface is looking more and more like an enticing work tablet.
When I saw how he was using it, I was thinking “that is a damn good idea”.
Wish I worked on the go to have an excuse to work like that 😉
me too, i was nearly gonna get a Surface but when i got down to it my current role just won’t justify it.
I think im in the situation of having a solution but no problem
I am locked down by too much BS brought on by some suits in the past. No fun.
I couldn’t help but notice how the Nokia rep tried to justify the lack of stylus (emphasis mine):
What a ridiculous explanation. As if someone in the market for a 6″ device would mind the extra bulge for a stylus. “I wish my phone didn’t have a stylus and therefore became a little smaller”, said no Galaxy Note owner ever. Nokia is simply incompetent to design a decent phone with stylus, and they are cowards for not admitting it.
I don’t like it. Windows Phone clearly isn’t optimized to take advantage of the real estate with compelling pen support (as opposed to Windows RT with fantastic handwriting support) and it seems even bigger than a Note 3 which is laughable and a miss for Nokia imo.
Looks like a rushed product. Try again.
Well haven’t they basically been rushing products ever since the whole ‘burning platform’ thing? “Let’s push out Windows Phone 7!” “Hey buds, you won’t be able to update to WP8” “Oops, uhm.. Hey, we’ll give out 7.5!”
Honestly, if you want to hear burning platform, that literally is what WP7 was.
Yep, and it sucks because I really, really liked my HTC Arrive. Even the 7.8 update didn’t fix all the bugs it had, and it simply was too unreliable for daily use after nearly two years of trying to ignore those bugs. It’s a shame, because the Windows Phone OS was so close to the perfect platform for me.
If they could somehow port WP8 to the Arrive and have it be stable and fluid, I’d run back to that phone in a heartbeat, even with Sprint’s slow 3G here. Sadly, there are no WP8 phones with four row, tilting keyboards that I’m aware of.
Huh, Nelson criticizing Nokia? You Okay?
It’s nice to finally see Nokia’s HW on par. I think the 929 is the device with the sweet spot for that platform. It’s a shame it’s going to be a verizon exclusive, as it could be a competitive flagship phone on all carriers.
I stopped down to AT&T store to check out the next 1520. I was struck by how large the actual screen is. It’s just too big to fit in your pocket and I would be almost embarrassed at whipping that thing out to make a call as it really feels like a small tablet. It’s definitely close to my 925 in operation but the camera is better, screen has way higher rez and I was taken back by the number of live tiles that were showing on the screen at one time. Anyone who calls this phone a 925 with a magnifying glass on it did not really use both phones extensively because there are many differences. The build quality seemed better to me than the 925, especially in the buttons despite being made out of plastic. I thought that this model would be a cool upgrade from the 925, but what I really would like to see is a 5 inch HD screen and an external memory card slot in a phone with wireless charging onboard and a thicker, squared form factor. The 925 is so thin with rounded edges that its more difficult to hold when taking pictures. A thicker unit would still be practical and would accommodate better camera, larger battery and a memory card slot. I think the upcoming 928 is the answer to this wish…but damn if I can get it on TMobile. I was also surprised to learn that AT&T carries the 925 now also, but in a different finish than the T-Mobile model. I’m not a big fan of stylus’ so this being left out is not a big deal to me.
Edited 2013-11-19 02:42 UTC