A Phone Affair

‘m notorious for my love of all thing Apple, something I’ve made no secret of over the last few years. I admit, I balked at the idea of an ‘iPhone’ the first time I heard about it, but to be fair, smartphones weren’t really a thing back then. But the moment I first laid eyes on the device I was in love and with each new iteration I all but drool over the new beauty. (You have to give Apple credit, they take some beautiful ad shots).

All that said… I have a confession to make. I’m thinking about having an affair with the Windows Phone 8. Specifically the Nokia Lumia 920.

I’ve been loyal to iOS since the iPhone 3G, roughly four years and two phones now, and while the software has seen quite a few improvements, I find myself wanting more, some kind of innovation that would make a phone stand out, and the more I read about Windows 8 the more I must say I’m smitten. Reviews call it daring, and bold while always highlighting that the app store pales in comparison to that of Android and iOS and I admit that’s a bit of a worry for me. For the sake of fairness Windows says it has about 125k apps currently and considering it only came out about a year or two ago I would say that’s not bad. The app store didn’t even exist until the iPhone 3G which was the second generation so… they’ve done fairly well in roughly the same amount of time.

Right off the bat the Nokia Lumia 920 has a few things going for it. It’s a hundred dollars less than the iPhone 5, while 32gb (vs. i5′s 16) and a 4.5 inch display. It took Apple 5 generations to finally decide to up the screen to 4 inches. There’s also the fact that technically Nokia’s display has more pixel density and a higher resolution camera at 8.7 megapixels rather than 8 on the iPhone 5.

Siri (arguably iPhone’s biggest selling point) is hit or miss. No one I know (and even those I don’t) likes Siri. In fact she seems more of a nuisance than anything else and while cute, she’s used for dumb things, no you cannot marry you’re phone. Stop asking. Apple fans (usually like myself) would argue that like most apps, as Siri gets to know you she improves. Also it is a beta application, but is being able to ask my phone questions that important to me?  Would I ever even use it? I had DragonGo, Google’s voice search thing and Siri before she was bought out by Apple and eventually forgot all of them. Just because it’s built in would it really be different?

The lack of apps is a bit worry some but with the way people are talking I think  Windows might actually have a product that could really go head to head with iPhone, if even I am interested, you know they’ve got to be doing something right.

So what this ultimately boils down too is… am I willing to give it a shot? Two years in phone time is ridiculously long… there are a thousand what-ifs, that can only be answered with experience. I want a change, and I know that the Windows 8 phone is definitely that. Can I take the leap, or is it better the devil you know?

I’d love to hear your opinion on either phone below. (Let’s try to keep the mudslinging to a minimum please.)