The W1 has better hardware than the 520&620 but are 4GB enough?

By francescob
in Windows Phone/Mobile

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francescob

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The Ascend W1 is sold at the same price of a 520 (200? taxed) but it seems to be superior to both the 520 and 620 in every way: it has a gorilla glass screen rather than plastic, a faster CPU (1.2ghz), a much bigger battery (1300mA/1470mA vs 1920mA), a front camera (the 520 doesn't have one), a LED flash (the 520 doesn't) and the arguably useless NFC. The only huge disadvantage it seems to have are the meager 4GB of internal memory of which only 2GB available for use. Will that be a problem like on the cheap android phones where the memory constantly runs out and since you can't often move apps to the SD you're forced to constantly delete everything or format the phone to free some space, or does WP8 allow storing messages, emails and apps on the SD? Also is Huawei a reliable phone brand? Anybody have experience with them?

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Darrian

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I don't know anything about Huawei phones. However, I have an HTC Trophy, and it does not have a micro SDCard slot. Not being satisfied with the available storage I opened it up and replaced the internal memory (a micro SDCard) with a higher capacity card (32gb). If you can open up the phone it's highly probable that you could do the same, but you probably won't want to buy the phone with that intention without knowing if it's possible first.

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Yusuf M. Veteran

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I have the HTC 8S which is a WP8 device with only 4 GB of internal storage.

So far, I have the following apps installed with exactly 612.11 MB left:

I'm not a huge app person but I have decent amount. The total app storage taken is 220.49 MB. The rest is taken up as follows: 12.97 MB for pictures, 1.83 GB for system, and 978.41 MB for other. The other storage issue is well-known and supposedly, there's a fix for it. If you're like me, then 4 GB will be enough for you. Also, you can only use an SD card for multimedia storage (e.g. music, pictures and video).

If you don't plan on using a lot of apps, then go for the Ascend W1. The specs are better and I haven't read anything bad about Huawei. The battery alone is a no-brainer for me. You don't want to use a device that won't even last you a day. Fortunately, I can easily get a day out of my HTC 8S with moderate-to-heavy usage.

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francescob

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I'm not a huge app person but I have decent amount. The total app storage taken is 220.49 MB. The rest is taken up as follows: 12.97 MB for pictures, 1.83 GB for system, and 978.41 MB for other. The other storage issue is well-known and supposedly, there's a fix for it. If you're like me, then 4 GB will be enough for you. Also, you can only use an SD card for multimedia storage (e.g. music, pictures and video).

I didn't know WP8 had such an annoying space wasting problem, it really sounds like the one 4Gb android phones have where messages, emails and internet cache leave no space for anything else. On my lumia the reserved partition is more than 2gb so that doesn't sound good at all. I wonder what the heck HTC and Huawei were thinking when they decided to save those couple of bucks on the internal memory.

If you don't plan on using a lot of apps, then go for the Ascend W1. The specs are better and I haven't read anything bad about Huawei. The battery alone is a no-brainer for me. You don't want to use a device that won't even last you a day. Fortunately, I can easily get a day out of my HTC 8S with moderate-to-heavy usage.

I think I'll just wait for other phones, the lumia 620 battery life is already horrible, the 520 is even worse. With Whatsapp and bluetooth enabled it'll probably have to always be kept on charge when I'm at home.

BTW: How the heck does the iPhone 5 manage to get more than twice the browsing hours of the 620 despite much higher specs and a smaller battery? Does the iPhone steals power from nearby devices or what? :wacko:

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greenwizard88

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BTW: How the heck does the iPhone 5 manage to get more than twice the browsing hours of the 620 despite much higher specs and a smaller battery? Does the iPhone steals power from nearby devices or what? :wacko:

The 620 is rated for 9.9 hours of 3G talk time, the iPhone 5 at 8.

Likewise, audio playback is 61 hours for the Nokia, 40 for the iPhone. I can't find any info for web browsing, but unless you can back up your claim I would assume the 620 is about the same or better than the iPhone 5.

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articuno1au

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I didn't know WP8 had such an annoying space wasting problem, it really sounds like the one 4Gb android phones have where messages, emails and internet cache leave no space for anything else. On my lumia the reserved partition is more than 2gb so that doesn't sound good at all. I wonder what the heck HTC and Huawei were thinking when they decided to save those couple of bucks on the internal memory.

I think I'll just wait for other phones, the lumia 620 battery life is already horrible, the 520 is even worse. With Whatsapp and bluetooth enabled it'll probably have to always be kept on charge when I'm at home.

BTW: How the heck does the iPhone 5 manage to get more than twice the browsing hours of the 620 despite much higher specs and a smaller battery? Does the iPhone steals power from nearby devices or what? :wacko:

The space issue is caused by auto-upload to skydrive. If you don't enable it, it's not an issue. There is apparently a fix for it, but I've not run into it on my 920.

The 620 is rated for 9.9 hours of 3G talk time, the iPhone 5 at 8.

Likewise, audio playback is 61 hours for the Nokia, 40 for the iPhone. I can't find any info for web browsing, but unless you can back up your claim I would assume the 620 is about the same or better than the iPhone 5.

This. As far as I am aware, it has comparable battery life. Where'd you find otherwise?

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Yusuf M. Veteran

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I didn't know WP8 had such an annoying space wasting problem, it really sounds like the one 4Gb android phones have where messages, emails and internet cache leave no space for anything else. On my lumia the reserved partition is more than 2gb so that doesn't sound good at all. I wonder what the heck HTC and Huawei were thinking when they decided to save those couple of bucks on the internal memory.

It's an annoying issue that should be fixed in future updates. And it seems to be even worse on higher-capacity devices like the Lumia 920 (32 GB).

I think I'll just wait for other phones, the lumia 620 battery life is already horrible, the 520 is even worse. With Whatsapp and bluetooth enabled it'll probably have to always be kept on charge when I'm at home.

BTW: How the heck does the iPhone 5 manage to get more than twice the browsing hours of the 620 despite much higher specs and a smaller battery? Does the iPhone steals power from nearby devices or what? :wacko:

If battery life is a concern, then you should consider the Lumia 720. It has the best battery life out of all the Lumia devices: 23.4/13.4h talk time (2G/3G), 520h standby time, 79h music playback. Compare that to the iPhone 5: 8h talk time (3G), 225h standby time, 40h music playback. I couldn't find a number for browsing time for the Lumia 720. The Lumia 920, however, has ~6h which is in line with other smartphones except for the iPhone 5. I don't know how Apple does it but you can squeeze out 10 hours of browsing time (on WiFi).

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vcfan

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the other storage problem is a bug. Its for temp files that don't get emptied properly. Theres an app in the marketplace that will free up some space. Its called shrink storage. It works by filling up your device with a file,i guess it goes in the temp folder,then releases the allocated space for the file. This in turn frees up a bunch of space. I used it,and my other folder was 4GB,it went down to 1.5GB.

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francescob

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The space issue is caused by auto-upload to skydrive. If you don't enable it, it's not an issue. There is apparently a fix for it, but I've not run into it on my 920.

This. As far as I am aware, it has comparable battery life. Where'd you find otherwise?

On this GSM arena test here: http://blog.gsmarena...-rather-poorly/

If battery life is a concern, then you should consider the Lumia 720. It has the best battery life out of all the Lumia devices: 23.4/13.4h talk time (2G/3G), 520h standby time, 79h music playback. Compare that to the iPhone 5: 8h talk time (3G), 225h standby time, 40h music playback. I couldn't find a number for browsing time for the Lumia 720. The Lumia 920, however, has ~6h which is in line with other smartphones except for the iPhone 5. I don't know how Apple does it but you can squeeze out 10 hours of browsing time (on WiFi).

The Lumia 720 is twice the price of the 520 though :(, if I had to spend 400? on a phone I could simply get a contract and have an included iPhone with it :o (those two phones are treated on the same league due to the price).

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