So I went to my local att shop today, and it seemed pretty busier than normal. All the staff were wearing blue Windows 8 shirts which I was very jealous of.
I quickly found the Nokia Lumia 920, and OOOOOOOOOOHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!! What a delicious device!!! It feels like the Lumia 900, but just more beautiful! It doesn't have a small screen bezel like the 900 and is more like the 800 but bigger, amazing! I honestly couldn't feel any difference in size or mass. The crap about it being too big or too hefty is just a bit idiotic as it just honestly feels like any other smartphone, but WAY more better! A nice improvement over the 900 screenwise is that the front buttons are moved up higher, like the 800 is, so when you have it landscape mode you can keep your thumb on it better and not hit Start or whatever. And I did try out the supersensitive touch screen, WHAT?! Witchcraft! It worked through my sweater and worked with my sweater zipper. Very impressive! But it seems like you actually have to press down on it a bit to make it work, like resistive touch screens. It seems like it's capacitive and resistive touch in one display. And did I mention it feels great in your hand?! Amazing! It's no where near the iphone where it's just slab or a rectangle, the Lumia 920 feels ergonomic.
I played around with the rest of the software, and I'm impressed. Kid's corner I know will be nice to use when my two year old niece gets ahold of my phone. I love the lock screen improvements where you can customize the notifications, and can use live images as the background too. But wow, using the Xbox Music app just goes to show that Microsoft REALLY needs to get their act together: it's better on Windows Phone than Windows 8. Even the live tile is better, it's more....alive. It's more animated, even when nothing is playing. Changing tile sizes, shoot! I'm going to have a fun time with that when I have my own! Simply put, holy frick, it's THE best UI on a smartphone EVER! You can have every app you have installed on the Start Screen, and only need to scroll a couple of times. The best is that it's side to side tiled with tiles. Not a single waste of screen space, where as static icons are wasteful. All are live, even when they're small. And when they're big, more info gets shown on it. I'm a huge email user, and I love that I can see lines from an email I just got, much like Windows 8's Mail app.
Speaking of the mail app, on Windows Phone it's all black instead of white, which I love as it just looks gorgeous. There is more of the accent colors throughout the UI too, which is a nice touch.
IT'S BEAUTIFUL!!
They didn't have the HTC 8X in stock or on display. They also had the Lumia 820, which is also a nice device. I must say, the new lineup of Nokia Lumia Windows Phones are the cream of the crop. The analogy is like Microsoft Surface Pro is to Windows 8 as Nokia Lumia 920 is to Windows Phone.
But I'm mildly conflicted as to what color I want for my Lumia. I'm thinking red but I wonder how it looks with blue tiles. But it would match my Surface Pro's red touch cover... and when I have my desktop rebuilt, I can change the LED color to red and have a red Start Screen.....
They also had the Samsung Ativ tablet out on display. I couldn't get the NFC to go between the Lumia and the tablet unfortunately. That is a pretty nice tablet though. I wouldn't buy it personally as I have no love to give to Samsung as of late.
Shucks, with Windows Phone 8 and new Windows 8 powered tablet PCs, it's like the dynamic duo of technology that neither apple or android can even attempt to attempt.