Category: Tech

So as my readers know, I recently got a new phone a Nokia Lumia 928, and one of its features is Qi wireless charging, one of the inductive power standards.  I didn’t review that feature at the time because wireless chargers are kind of expensive, and I can be kind of cheap, but as luck would have it a refurbished one went on sale, so I decided to give it a try.

So far all of you that don’t know wireless charging doesn’t mean that the charger just shoots electricity in to the air and charges things, but that all you have to do is set your wireless charging device on the charger and it charges it, so it is not that much different than a normal charger except you don’t have to plug your device in.  You just set it down.  At first I didn’t think such a minor change was all that big of a deal, but it turns out that it is much more convenient.

For instance, if your charger is on your night stand and it is dark in your room you don’t have to try and plug in your phone blind, or if someone texts you at night you do not have to fight with the cord to check the message, you just pick up the phone and look.  It is pretty great.  Plus you don’t have to worry about ruining the USB or device port on your phone by putting in the charger upside-down or sideways.

The charger itself is pretty standard.  It is a small black slab, though it comes in several other colors, and when it is charging something a little LED turns on.  It doesn’t just work with Nokia phones it will charge any Qi enabled devices, so some phones from Samsung and LG will work with it, or you can buy cases and battery kits for all sorts of phones and devices to make it work.

Considering if you pay full price for a Qi charger they can be kind of expensive, I would not recommend running out and getting one, but if they are on sale, or you find a good refurbished unit, or you get lucky both like me and both cases are true than they are fun to have, and they do add quite a bit of convince.  So like Ren and Stimpy used to say about Log, “It’s better than bad it’s good!”

I recently was upgraded to a new Lumia 928 on Verizon.  It runs Windows Phone 8 versus my previous phone that I hacked to run Windows Phone 7.8, and several Nokia specific apps.  Does it live up to my high expectations?  Yes it does.

The first thing you notice about the phone is it is pretty heavy compared to the new iPhones and Android devices, but not so heavy that you are going to drop it all the time.  The front screen is curved to raise the screen up from the phone, but still make it smooth on the edges.  It is subtle difference, but it does feel good.  On the back of the phone is a large speaker the camera and xenon flash.

Windows Phone 8 is a pretty major step forward.  The multitasking works better, you can add notifications to the lock screen, and download custom camera mods.  They got rid of any Zune references, and now everything is Xbox related: Xbox Music, Xbox Video, and Xbox Games.  They have also done a lot of work tweaking the software.  Everything just feels faster.

Nokia has been hard at work making custom apps for the Windows Phone 8 platform.  There is City Lens that lets you scan a city with the camera and it will tell you about any shops or restaurants that you may like.  Nokia Music which is Nokia’s version of Pandora, but there are no listening limits.  Nokia Maps/Nokia Drive+ is probably the most important because it gives you free turn by turn navigation, but it also lets you download the maps, so you can still use them even if you loose cell coverage.

Like with most high end Nokia devices this phone is all about the camera.  It has a modest 8.7 mega pixels, but the kicker is it has hardware based image stabilization so you can take better low light pictures, and not have them turn out all blurry.  The xenon flash helps you with action shots, but since it is so bright it can give people a weird look if they are close up, so it is best to leave it off.  It also has a front facing camera for Skype and self portraits, and it does an OK job, but the rear camera should do all the heavy lifting.

As far as the phone goes there is nothing to complain about.  The sound quality is good, and I haven’t heard any complaints from the people I have talked to.

If you haven’t guessed by now, I love this phone.  It looks great and works well.  It may not be as powerful as the latest Android devices, but I don’t play a lot of games on my phone so I wouldn’t notice anyway.  If you are looking for something different than an Android or an iPhone, this makes an excellent choice.