I've been testing out the Nokia Lumia 1020 for over a week and last night I made the decision to sell my iPhone 5, cancel my Verizon account, switch to AT&T, and return my Nokia Lumia 925 to T-Mobile. There are five main reasons I made this move and understand these decisions were made to meet MY smartphone needs.
Earlier this year I had accounts on three networks so that I could better test out smartphones and write about my experiences. I am blessed to have a job where I get to play with the latest mobile gear before making informed purchase decisions, but I found that three lines were just too much and one line always sat idle. Last night I put my Verizon account on hold (with the intent to cancel later) and signed up for a new AT&T account with a yellow Lumia 1020 purchase.
Windows Phone 8 is increasing in market share and when I compare the apps I use daily there are just a couple missing. I do enjoy the metro UI and consistency in the apps though and for the couple I still want, I can get the data through the browser. I am blessed to write about smartphones here and get the opportunity to test out a lot of them. I am keeping my HTC One on T-Mobile and still think that is the best smartphone I have ever used, but I also want a great Windows Phone device.
The Lumia 1020 isn't perfect, but as I wrote before it appears that Windows Phone is holding back Nokia more than their inability to continue pushing the limits. There is a dual-core processor in high end Lumias and no support for 1080p displays, but these are current Windows Phone 8 limitations and not Nokia limitations. I look forward to future versions of Windows Phone and Nokia Lumia products and it seems that Microsoft and Nokia are generating excitement with devices like the Lumia 1020.
I was considering keeping my iPhone 5 on Verizon to see what came in iOS 7 while keeping the Lumia 925 and HTC One for T-Mobile and that probably would have been the sensible thing to do. However, where is the fun in that?
I think the Nokia Lumia 925 is the best piece of Nokia hardware produced running Windows Phone, but the 16GB internal storage is tough to deal with on a phone that captures great photos. It is likely we will see a Lumia 1020 successor later this year or early next year with a higher resolution display, quad-core processor, and other improvements, but I wanted this camera experience now and will make future purchase decisions when we see future devices.