Has anyone who's posted so far actually ever been in a union? They don't just try to protect incompetence or continually raise pay rates (though, yes, they do tend traditionally tend to try to do that as well). They also enforce worker protection laws. They provide legal protection and legal insurance. They provide workplace representation, worker representation.

Seems like a bunch of turkeys voting for [Thanksgiving|Christmas]...

Totally agree - VS is a great IDE and one that really helps with code navigation, standards compliance and more. Gotta think the GP has no idea how to effectively use all of the features even the worst of modern IDEs bring. I suppose, if Eclipse is the best you've had, notepad++ looks promising but if you've used VS - there's no reason to use anything else.

What is such a pity about this is that it really doesn't matter how good this is, how bad the iPad is, how boring the Android is, or any combination of those 3 features and platforms. Apple will either continue to convince the world that the Emperor is fully dressed, Android will convince the world that cheap is good or MS will convince the world that, well, they shouldn't change horses mid-stream.

The three platforms all work just fine. I happen to think and hope that the Surface Pro will show the world that both bulky laptops and tablets in general are technology of the past, but for the majority of consumers the difference is moot. The real challenge here is ridding the world of java applets and flash videos and getting moved on to decent, compliant, reliable web standards... Then who cares what the medium is...?

Just thought I'd pop back... Stock price "plummeted" from 2.80 to 2.40 - it's now back up to 2.79 - as I said, easy 10% on your money...

Stock market swings are not a reflection of the consumer market, it's a reflection of how bankrupt that whole industry is...

Just sayin'

Buy a (relatively cheap) Lumia and you can use the industry standard for wireless charging and also NFC + open data transfer standards (bluetooth to the speaker systems for instance). Buy a (relatively expensive) iPhone and you'll be stuck with even more expensive accessories, with god knows what means of communicating with them.

I think some were still expecting a 20MP sensor and a tablet device.

I'd advise that the drop is entirely temporary and you can make yourself an easy 10% in less than a month by buying today.

Not in the 10k region but still - I appreciate the first post was a bit heavy on the enthusiasm - my guess is an enthusiastic MVP rather than anything more sinister..

A dual core CPU and a huge battery are pretty great hardware specs. Also a mechanically stabilized sensor mechanism could be very big news, especially if their software really does make innovative use of the available pixels. The point has been made recently that for PC usage (sharing on FB etc, 2MP is more than enough, for print 5MP is enough - IF THE QUALITY IS THERE.

I assume the stock has plummeted because until a few days ago everyone was hoping for a 20MP sensor and a new tablet to go with the phones. On the other hand - the markets are idiots - buy today, you'll be 10-15% richer by the end of the month if you sell at a time when they don't arbitrarily decide to mood swing again...

I am a bit disappointed that we loose the smaller screen model - the 820 doesn't really replace the 800, it's more of a slightly smaller variation on the 920 - which is a pity. I personally prefer to hold a smaller screen closer to my face... However, for the feature set that WP8 brings (NFC, more home/lock screen flexibility, better camera tech), I might just have to go larger.

Final comment as everyone takes a snipe at this. I have a lumia 800 and I'm looking forward to windows 7.8. I don't care that they're not giving me Windows 8 - the differences between 7.8 and 8 are the differences between the base specification of the current hardware and the next gen hardware (screen resolution, NFC etc). Microsoft are just being honest that their latest phones have features that their older phones don't support. Apple astroturf that fact and that causes heaps of faulty software that fails to cope well enough.

Love Windows Phone, like iPhone (though these days can't justify the cost), frustrated by having to sideload, hack and generally tweak Android whenever I use it.

Passwords are clearly a very bad idea - they just don't work for any number of logical, social and practical reasons. So it's great to see real thought going into alternatives. Although I think the overhead of 45 mins learning and other issues with this are a problem, I think the general premise must have something in it that would work well.

The fact we can recognise that we know something, even if we can't repeat it - e.g. you know if someone sings the wrong lyrics to a song even if you can't remember them yourself - MUST have some solution to this problem embedded in it somewhere...

It wasn't long ago that you'd have had to watch these on a laptop, at best hooked up to the TV for the duration of the show. Complete, probably, with AV, update and email pop-ups...

Now we just watch it on our $200 XBMC boxes, our XBOX 360, Wii or whatever device it is we normally hook up to the TV. We also get it in every room (Wii in the Playroom with Netflix + netflix kids, Xbox 360 in the main room, old xbox running xbmc in the kitchen, tablet everywhere else).

And that's even with a very limited selection of shows - just wait until the rest of the world catches up with content, Cable and Satellite will be converting all their resources to suing their customers MPAA stylee!

Opera on WM 6.5 was truly legendary. Though generally Safari on iOS equalled it, but on far far better hardware.

The Nokia N9 and the Nokia N900 had this integration feature for years. It's nice to have, but it was not and will never be a killer app.

There are no killer apps anymore

I know next to nothing about the N900 but killer apps need an ecosystem in which to exist. You can't just have one thing right and miss out on the other important stuff. Metro is an innovative UI that works really well. The marketplace has 50,000 apps. Who cares how many cores it has, the UI is responsive, properly written apps are fast to load and use.

Really, tell me how will the hardware manufacturers differentiate themselves when they ALL have to have the exact same OS and hardware specs, and they ALL have access to the same apps, etc.

This was pretty much my point. It's a problem MS have to get over. There's plenty they can do to achieve it. Manufacturers can use higher res, lower res screens (e.g. smaller, bigger). They can add keyboards. They can have better speakers, worse speakers, stereo speakers. They can have cool multi-colour polycarbonate shells. Or, they could do what Nokia is doing and write a few genuinely useful apps and parcel them with the device. I am of the opinion, as a developer, that if they can succeed with this, they've gone one over on Android (which is a royal pain to work with) and could easily get more market penetration than Apple.

Define properly conceived and integrated.

Yes, that was a rider to my main point so I didn't delve. I consider my WP7 device to be well conceived and properly integrated. It's a communications device and it covers most of the big communication services available to it and present them to me as one. I've not used the N900 but iPhone and Android certainly don't have it nailed as well as MS do.

Most consumers don't do "any amount of serious work". They read reddit, and update their status. They play games and compare scores. I'm not saying the tablet is right for everyone. I think some people will want a netbook (preferably with capactive touch screen, everything should have a capacitive touchscreen) and a cellphone. Some people might have a smartphone and a laptop, some might have every conceivable format of device (me for instance, that's likely me).

The killer app of the iPhone was capacitive touchscreen. You know, one that actually responded when you touched it, and for that matter, didn't when you didn't...?

To go with it, an OS that prioritised user input. That was novel.

iPhone is not, and has never been about all about being a "fashion icon". Sure, it's pretty, but that's just one of it's features.

Nokia have also released the Lumia 710 which is in (or close to) that price range I believe.

It's killer app is fully integrated contacts and social media. It's a hard one to understand though it's great when you've set it up and use it.

First.

The iPhone revolutionised the mobile phone market, essentially turning smartphones that had limited use and poor experience into things that are quick and reliable. Now we're tweaking and improving, it's hard for anyone to carve a niche. WP7's niche is that it totally integrates your contacts. If you know the same person in twitter, linkedin, your email db, facebook and more, WP7 seamlessly integrates them into the one person they are. That's it's killer app. The problem is that it takes more than a one-day test to really see this benefit so reviews are never going to "get it".

Second.

MS are keen not to make the mistake Android is making (or that they made in the PCmarket). They want to standardise the platform. This is easy for Apple/iPhone, they're the only ones making one. Not so easy keeping HTC, Samsung, Nokia and others to stick to one design. There's nothing for them to distinguish themselves in the market.

Roll on Windows 8 and tablets - then iPhone will be under serious threat. For most consumers, the tablet - if properly conceived and integrated - is a far better computer experience than the PC/Laptop.

(disclosure: I'm a devoted Lumia 800 and previously Samsung Omnia 7 owner)