My Favorite Apps and Features on Nokia Lumia 920 from AT&T

  • Article

I bought a Nokia Lumia 920 from a local AT&T store the day when it was first available in the U.S. and spent some time playing it this weekend. I really, really, really like the phone. I enjoyed many new apps and features of the “reimagined” device and would like to share some of them with you.

AT&T’s Visual Voicemail

You can now check voicemail as if you were playing your favorite music. Maybe a bit exaggeration. But the point is that you can easily select and play back a msg, or delete one. See my previous post regarding how to set up the feature. More info on AT&T website.

Nokia Drive+ (Beta)

Maps on my old Windows Phone worked well, but I have to admit that I always have my GPS handy for good reasons. With Nokia Drive, I can finally rely on the device to get to destinations. One nice to point out is that I download the USA maps (free), which is about 2.515 GB. Simply put it, my phone is a true GPS device now. More info on Nokia’s website.

image

Nokia Music

I can enjoy music now while away from my PC. I don’t have to download music beforehand. All I have to do is select “mixes” when I have “at&t exclusive”, “featured”, “top charts”, “pop”, “country”, etc. The music plays in the background if you use other functions or applications such as Nokia Drive. You can manage music play even if the screen is locked. If I want to keep the songs on my device, I can save them offline for a fee. More info on Nokia’s website.

Microsoft SkyDrive

Within the Office app, I can browse all docs including pictures on my Microsoft SkyDrive. They are just like docs on my device. And I can easily view and share them. It’s amazing! More info at Microsoft website.

Windows Phone External Hard Drive

My Windows Phone 8 device is an external hard drive when I plug it in to my PC. I can easily copy files between the Phone and the PC. I don’t need any additional software. Couldn’t be easier than that! Read Paul Thurott’s blog post to find out more.

image

Rather than repeating what people have talked about such as Kid’s Corner, I will mention one more design improvement on the Nokia device. The power button is now in the middle of the right side. This seems trivial but I have to tell you it’s not. On my previous Windows Phone, I often hit the power button by mistake when taking pictures, thus turning the camera off. Not very fun. This improvement fixes the problem. So, what’s your Windows Phone 8 experience if you have one?

Check out these Windows Phone 8 videos I just watched from pcmag.com: Holly at Home and Work for Will Arnett.