Nokia Lumia 800 For Free-ish

Very nice too

I only went into the Orange Shop to see what the phone looked like. I wasn’t really far enough into my contract to make it possible to do a upgrade right now. Except that the phone did look very nice. And I can probably find someone who will give me a few quid for my good condition Samsung Omnia 7 (which was until 30 seconds or so into the demonstration my favourite Windows Phone). But the deal clincher was a good one. Turns out that if you are an employee of the university you can get a 25% discount on your Orange phone bill if you take out a new contract. Which means that over a year I’ll save a goodly chunk of the upgrade price. So that was that. Where do I sign?

I’m now the very proud owner of a Nokia Lumina 800. The wheel has turned all the way round. I started out with Nokia phones all those years ago, with a lovely 7110 (the “Matrix” phone) and went through a number of Nokia devices before I jumped ship because the lure of writing programs for my phone just got too great.

And now I’m back with blue boxes. The packaging and presentation were excellent. The phone is a really, really well crafted object. It has quite a turn of speed compared with the Samsung (not that my old phone was ever much of a slouch). The camera is a step up too, and even takes reasonable flash pictures. I’ve got twice as much space for content and the screen is astonishing. It has the clarity of OLED but isn’t quite as “in your face” as the Sansung.

And it runs Cheese Lander.

Update on Tuesday, November 22, 2011 at 08:42AM by Rob

The bloke in the phone shop had a Windows Phone as well, an HTC Mozard. He said he hadn't bothered adding the Mango update yet. I told him to go straight home and do the upgrade. Like having a new phone I reckon.

Comments

[Andy Pierrepoint]

Glad to here you like the lumia rob, I too have the omnia 7 and am upgrading? (probably a bit harsh) to the lumia soon. (I'd like the cyan one) btw thanks for all the great wp7 vids. I have managed to get an app published..digiclockplus

[Jules]

I went into the a phone shop today to have a fondle, and they actually had 3 different WP7 phones on display, including the Lumia 800. An improvement, especially as the sales staff, actually seemed keen to sell a WP7 phone, which is a nice change. The Lumia really does look very well made and solid. I just don't get the two tone colour scheme, when not in Black.

But since I won another little LG WP7 Phone the day before at an App Mundi WP7 workshop gig, it would be a bit selfish to buy a new WP7 phone. So now I have 3 different WP7 phones to test my XNA 3D games upon. I could probably make more money selling off the freebie Phones MS handout, than from my games.

Hopefully 2012 will mean even better WP7 phones, but I will probably wait until I know more about WP8, which is about when my Orange contract is up.