Thursday, July 31, 2014

Is your Lumia 1520 slower after upgrading to Windows Phone 8.1?

I have just managed to get my phone to be upgraded to official Windows Phone 8.1 + Lumia Cyan.. Yay..!! :)

It took more than 30 minutes for the whole process to complete. First, there was update to Windows Phone 8 itself and then it would allow you to upgrade to Windows Phone 8. Overall, the process is very smooth.

However, just after upgrade, I can feel the phone is somewhat slower than before. After ensuring there is no more apps updating, I check on the battery saver that actually all the apps that have option to :"run on background" are now allowed to. I have to go through one by one to turn it off. After that, I can feel the phone back to normal with all the glory of WP 8.1. :)

To go to Battery Saver, just go to Settings > Battery Saver. Swipe to the right to usage, and you can see which apps that are allowed to run on the background. Some apps that are popular to suck all battery juice like Here Drive should be turned off to run on background, and only turn it on when you need to use it.

After choosing background to start screen, transparent live tile on 6" screen really look stunning.

Wednesday, July 16, 2014

Windows Phone 8.1 Keyboard: Where is my comma?

For one that has already used Windows Phone 8.1 will have a shock when they start to type and the comma is nowhere to be found. Instead, you either need to type "&123" or press long on ".". This is too troublesome to type even normal sentence.

Apparently, this can be changed easily. Just go to settings > keyboard > advanced, and check "Show a comma key when available".



I think it's better to display comma as default, and give option for user that needs bigger "space". If I don't really search into this, I will not know this can be displayed back and only can curse somebody at Microsoft for hiding the comma.

One changes that I like in addition to "swype" feature is the cursor key. Previously, you need to press and hold for few seconds then the flying cursor appear. Now, there is one small circle below the cursor, just press the circle and drag. Nice..

Windows Phone 8.1 + Lumia Cyan should land anytime from now

With all the greatness of Windows Phone 8.1 and Lumia Cyan, I have been waiting for the arrival to my Lumia 1520. Now Nokia has published the availability and status of the update on their own website at this link. Well, my Lumia 1520 under starhub status is "under testing". Hopefully it will not take forever.

Well, I have also been lucky selected by Starhub to test out the Lumia 930. Overall so far it is a great device, however, with a few complaints here and there, which I will post later. :)

Other "coming soon" stuff is BBM for Windows Phone. Currently this is under closed beta. It means only registered beta users can use the software now. I have tried to register, but there is no news until now. The app itself is available here, although I hit permission error when trying to install it on the phone.