Lumia 900 Windows Phone
One of the exciting things about being a real estate agent is you can really integrate technology in a meaningful way on an every day basis. I don’t have all the gizmos and gadgets just to “have” them. I can’t imagine doing business without them.
I recently upgraded to the Lumia 900 which I think was new to AT&T when I got it, but not “new” generally speaking. I liked it so much that I bought matching nail polish and even matching outfits to go with it. 🙂 I do miss the Samsung Focus now and again, but my partner Kim still has it, so I can switch over if needed. So far I think the audio is better on the Focus as is the camera. The audio is a Nokia hardware problem…well, actually it’s as good as the iPhone I had before the Samsung Focus, but the Samsung product is superior to both the iPhone and the Nokia Lumia 900. Still…the Lumia is exciting for a lot of other reasons and I like both of my Windows Phones better than I did the iPhone…and that’s saying a lot.
I have not used Outlook for a long time having switched to gmail. One of the reasons is I deal with very large file attachments often and Outlook just couldn’t handle that well. Yes…maybe it was more secure, but thinking every home flyer or contract was “too large” to go into my inbox was a huge problem for my business. gmail never seems to block any of my emails with large attachments.
I switch back and forth from chrome to IE but generally only use IE when I “have to”, which is for contracts. That I “have to” kind of ticks me off, I have to say.
Well today we have a new “Outlook” experience, and I’m going to give it a whirl. Many of my clients work at Microsoft and I try to test out all the newest things and use them in my business. A fair amount of my clients work at Google as well, so I try both and use the best of each. The only product I have that is neither is my iPad, but I have to say the new Lumia 900 Windows Phone (coupled with some annoying NWMLS snafus in the newest upgrade) has all but made my iPad obsolete. But that’s another story.
Here’s what Microsoft has to say about their new Email Journey:
Where is the geeky post on this to let all the geeky agents at geek estate know about it? 🙂
Drew,
I’m saving that for after I have tested it out a bit. 🙂
I forgot all about Outlook. It was junkie with way too much going on to be quick, and easy to use. It took a long time to load, and some of what I sent was distorted by, I guess, grahic details.
If Microsoft were more stable, with less constant upgrades, it would be worth using products they produce. It’s like they can’t leave a good thing alone long enough to make tangible improvements.
I have to agree David. But that’s true of most things…take RCG and not leaving a good thing alone, as example. 🙂
My biggest pet peeve right now is the NWMLS “app” upgrade. I touched on it in the post when I said: “… but I have to say the new Lumia 900 Windows Phone (coupled with some annoying NWMLS snafus in the newest upgrade) has all but made my iPad obsolete. But that’s another story.”
I was so excited when the mls went to “all browser”. I went out and bought the iPad with the most memory and was HAAPIS to be able to use the mls inside homes from one to the next via my iPad, including clicking through to the County Records for the property.
Then one day it just dropped dead! I was in a house looking up the property across the street and it said “1 result”…but it would not SHOW me that “1 result”. All very na-na, boo-boo there is a result but we won’t show you what it is! I was royally ticked off.
I contacted the mls and was told I have to pay a monthly fee for the “NWMLS app” which is lesser than going directly to the mls the way I do on my laptop. The new “app” is blocking the ability to get a property without using the new monthly fee “app” feature. Totally ticked off about this, though they say it is the 3rd party vendor’s fault and they are hoping it will be fixed.
Related to this post as that is one of the main reasons I upgraded to the Lumia 900. The Samsung Focus is superior in some ways, but because I can’t get the mls in laptop view on my iPad anymore, I need to get that on my Lumia. The Lumia display is only slightly larger than the Focus display…but that little bit makes a difference when you are looking up all of the detail on a property.
Sorry for the rant…but that new NWMLS app has made my iPad all but obsolete, and the 3rd party vendor has forced the app purchase on everyone by putting the kabosh on the ability to pull up the site direct on an iPad in all its glory.
Another “upgrade” for the mediocre masses that is a downgrade for those who were using the superior method via the high memory iPad vs the scaled down cheap version of an iPad. Not only am I now paying for the app monthly…but I have a $1,000 iPad that is no longer of value in my business.
The Lumia at least lets me get rid of the monthly app fee and gives me more of what I need…that I used to be able to get on the iPad.
The Windows Phones run more like mini computers, so I can do everything on the phone (without apps) that I can do on my laptop. Invaluable tool in the field vs the iPhone…or most any phone that is not a Windows Phone.
One of my clients today is a phone app developer who is working on a social media interface for marketing that will cost $50 per month.
We talked briefly about Outlook, but he was saying somewhat the same thing. Everything he develops is only good for 5 years tops, after that it’s obsolete.
The good news is that all of that code becomes public domain because in his case it’s not worth bothering about. In the three years I’ve known him this is like his fourth venture, he started with some twitter interface, and still has that business.
For me it is the greatest thing in the world because WordPress allows me access to a ton of code.
The reason I was looking at this site today is that the Seattle Bubble was down, and I think Tim has also mentioned a spam attack.
I’m wondering what happened here with the SEO guy, and look forward to a post about that.
David,
We were banging the barrage of pingbacks into the spam bin faster than they could send them out. They just stopped cold all of a sudden. As far as I know there won’t be a post as Dustin was going to write the post if they didn’t stop…and they did. They didn’t say anything…just stopped. I thought the whole thing was interesting. Amazing that they were using a blackmail tactic really.