This time I am saying, people Hub is an unmatched experience:
Once you all set with your accounts etc, then its time to check out People Hub that is the biggest asset for Windows Phones and no wonder, you would have already heard a lot of praises for it from multiple sources. The first question is, what actually people hub is?
People Hub on Windows Phone is our old Address Book made alive or in better words, this is actually very close to what the address book should have been on a phone, when we call it a Smartphone.
Let’s see what makes People Hub so special ….
We geeks\bloggers might be of different opinions about the phones, but when a normal consumer look at a phone, then he\she wants it be the simplest piece of tech to him and yet be the most powerful way of communication. What a normal user does when buys a new phone? Give your phone to a nearby geek so that he may configure it for you, install the required apps and then guide you on how to make use of them. Is it the right way?
Windows Phone fulfill the same desire to make the phones as most simple and yet most powerful way of communication.
With People Hub, your address book is no more just text and addresses, but becomes something that is alive. Multiple services like Facebook, LinkedIn, Google making your addresses, joining them automatically, making meaning of addresses (just like Nokia), brining their updates, photos from social networks and the fun way of navigation, everything just works without making any of the efforts from the user side and at the same time, looks to be integrated in core of phone, not some apps.
With People hub on Windows Phones, You don’t only Call/SMS to your friends, but can sent Facebook messages/ chats to them, can reply to their most recent status updates on Facebook\ Twitter\ LinkedIn or can view\comment\like their Facebook photos as well and you do this all within the same app without altering the user experience. It brings numbers of friends from Facebook\LinkedIn Accounts (if public from their side) and by tapping on their addresses (if specified via any of the social contact), you can go Bing Maps and find a turn by turn route to reach them (No Nokia Maps Integration though, neither the navigation app seems to be working offline). Not only this but you can link as many accounts as you want. I myself linked around 12 accounts in one, while on my SGS, stupid TouchWiz doesn’t allow me to link more than five accounts.
Believe me, all of the above seems as fast as any phone I ever seen and Windows Phones seem to be kind of defining the upper most bar for the daily usages of smartphones in terms of speed of operation at least. Buy any one year old Windows Phone and still you wont bother if it is some single core or Quad core or if the RAM is 512 Mb or 1Gb.
I know, you will say “See.. another blogger going round and round about People Hub”. Even I was used to think so, but trust me, you need to live with it for just a week to know that why even worse Nokia haters start loving it within days.
Anyway, coming back over the details. there are three tabs\pages\sections within people hub.
1. People, that will have your picture and the most recent update of yours coming from the linked accounts by side of the picture. Below the same, you will find names of the groups that you might have created. Then it goes for the list of all names in your contacts cleverly designed with kind of Jump navigation by Alphabets.
2. What’s new, that will bring updates from all your social accounts configured, with picture previews if picture upload. You can reply tweets, retweet them (No conversation mode or reply to all or picture upload via People Hub though), comment on Facebook pictures, save them to phone or add tags on them.
3. Recent, that will bring the faces\names of people you recently interacted with or even just loaded their profiles in People Hub or looked at.
{picture}
You can post an update to multiple Social networks at once and can even choose every time that over which ones you wanna post the update.
With the latest version of Windows Phone, you also can create groups and can have separate tiles floating on your screen for those groups bringing up the status updates and pics uploaded by group members or even treat these tiles as small specialized address book of yours. Create a family Group tile, create a College group tile, create an Office group tile and so on.. and all these group tiles behave in the same way as People hub would have. Same features, same navigation, same pages and same experience all over, but this time just for the people within the group. Moreover, it adds one more section called Pictures to brings pictures from their social networks and also adds updates to be visible on the group tile as well.
Isn’t it neat and effective? Do the social profile of a common user involves any more activities other than this?
During the review of Nokia Lumia 800, while I was pleasantly surprised by the availability of online contents at an speed like never before, I actually tried to know that how the sync actually works. I mean its on Demand sync of content, timely sync or push? Confusion was because, it always seems to be updated and kept on scaring me that how much data it might be using. Later I realized that it syncs when I visit them or go on the more button (shown as three dots at right bottom) and tap refresh from there and syncs at timely fashion otherwise (couldn’t find the schedule anywhere though). More interesting part was, it downloads the pictures etc if we visit them so that it may remain available if we wanna see them offline. I couldn’t even find if any limit over this kind of cache or any kind of deletion schedule.
Lack of a data counter like app \ tile didn’t let me sure of exact data usages, but if one doesn’t consider that part then with floating tiles and animations all around within People hub, this is a tremendously beautiful experience.
While the same feature is great for users like me who always want to remain online and aware of data usages costing etc, it might be a different thing for the users without a data plan or a slower 2G or WAP connections. Though as much I seen of it, it seems to be highly optimized for that kind of connection as well. May be comments from Windows Phone users with 2G connections will put more light over it.
Nitish Kumar's Blog 
Holy shit! 24 pages? :-O Sorry man, I give it a pass.. I am too busy, like you 😦
Nice post. How about an option to display the post in one page? May make it simpler to read
You are just awesome dude… how the hell can u review soooooo much!! hats offff! even i own nokia lumia 800!! feels like reading n reading… (now in page 1)
Will consider to put a PDF file for whole post.
One hell of a review Nitish.
Thanks mate. Went out a little early than scheduled but hope I covered most of things
Looks like you can now publish a book on Lumia Review 🙂 Great Review..
Nice review , by the way about OTA , it’s a wp7 limitation and not lumia , soon wp in market currently supports OTA same is true about other few features.
Yup! The review is mostly about Windows Phone as a whole rather than Lumia only
Good post , though I must say I couldn’t read it in one go 🙂
Even though I havent used or tried any WP device for more than half an hour, I just hated UI and how it looks. I don’t think that perception of ugly,over simplified UI will change.
As expected and read all over for me 3 things stand out for WP. These can make it success.
1) People Hub
2) Brilliant Office Suite ( and its FREE)
3) Email
But sadly I feel Nokia is going away from their soul and going Apple way.
This may be good for company(I really doubt) but not good for industry as whole.
Suyog,
I had similar sentiments about WP UI before trying it myself. Even I mentioned once that I felt those uneven fonts as ugly. But trust me, views are bound to change once you allow it grow over you. Not all the praises going around are dummy.
Agree with Nitish, once I got my hands on Lumia 800, I didn’t like UI for few hours or a day and missed home screens. But later, started loving the UI and now I am a fan of UI. 🙂
People hub is exceptional as just like Meego it brings all social activities at one place and like WebOS it brings all the photos (even twitter ones).
So in all, people hub will effectively help people managing their social needs without going behind any apps that is a great thing for n00bs or even people coming from Symbian/Meego.
Second great thing is speed of UI that literally no offers either be Symbian or Android
Suyog, I’ll agree with Nitish.. in just two words…. you will see my views about it changing too… it’s actually a good UI. there are however some features that really were needed but if talking about UI, seriously I think if I was given more time with it I would been liking this UI. and I’ll not say like many out there that “Windows Phone 7.5” is not that good to be used.
But still I’ll say that MeeGo on N9 (for its given time) has been the most *Mature* smartphone OS (in most of the aspects) among all of them.
And Nitish; that really is great post above, I’ll try to read it completely 😛
Review is great for people want to know about the History, comparison , apps functionality , dimensions but drawback is too massive detail..
Very interesting article, Nitish. I’m very exited with Windows phone on Nokia, but lack of BT and file transfer worries me. Nokia has been great among other things because of its flexibility and versatility. Does is support USB on the go, like my N8? What about something small but GREAT in functionality, notification light? Man, I think Nokia should never get rid of this. It helps the user so much to see through a notification light, that you have a missed event.
Quite a thorough article on the Lumia 800(& upcoming 900)windows phone. The most important things for me are:i’m not going to sell a Rolls Royce to ride a better handlind motorcycle-ie,my Nokia E7-00 vs any Lumia! No storage! No tethering! No bluetooth! No sale!
One of the most comprehensive review of Lumia 800 I have read. sheer Brilliant.
Are u still using this device? How is the battery life holding up for you?
Any word on Lumia 900 launch date in india?
Thanks,
-Pankaj
The best review of WP that I have seen , kudos to u Mr. Kumar ! U r right , the Lumia 800 is beautiful ; it should be since it`s a copy of the N9 ! But that same design is also a problem in certain areas of the world ( more about this in a bit . ) .
i`ve always said that WP has potential but it`s still immature ( Takes 3 years to work out enough of the bus and work enough features in , to make the OS useful . ) , seriously late to the party and there r too many other OEMs trying to get a piece of the pie . In all fairness to Nokia , they haven`t had a chance to make an impact on WP yet , maybe WP8 will change this . Nor have the Lumias been out too long , though this is changing . So it`s still a bit early to say for sure .
That said , WP hasn`t exactly taken off yet , marketshare is still single digits . Nor do I like the Metro UI , though my issue with it is more function than form ( but I do think it`s ugly !) . I firmly believe that a homescreen should convey enough info to keep u current at a glance , and the Metro UI doesn`t do this . Even Windows Mobile could do this !
WP`s biggest problem , IMHO , is it`s requirements for a constant connection and Skydrive . Not so much a problem in developed countries , but in emerging markets with their infrastructure issues and the need to watch data usage, it`s a different thing entirely . I don`t think WP will do well in emerging markets ( It seems to not be … ) , though it also doesn`t seem to be doing well in many developed countries either , with the USA , Finland and Russia as notable exceptions .
Nor will do well in countries where the N9 was a success, most notably China , due to the problem that WP is functionally inferior to Meego , and Symbian , for that matter . even the new 311 is better from what I can tell !
For these reasons , I don`t see WP as more than moderately successful , assuming it takes off , of course ! Maybe WP8 will change this , ir really needs too ! cheers !
Mofo awesome! Never believed there existed a greater Lumia 800 fan than me! :p
Hmmm , no replies , can`t say I`m surprised lol !
On second thought , looks like the 10/19/2012 post MIGHT have a reply so I take back the previous remark , t least to an extent lol…
Every thing about Windows Phone OS is covered very well.