Between you and me, I know what "just works" means in the Apple ecosystem. It goes back to being voluntarily imprisoned in the little sheltered garden. "It just works" in that context means you don't get to change the look and feel or run non-apple services in the background or a dozen other things that might make it not work. And for some people, that's fine.

In the Microsoft ecosystem, I suspect that "just works" means, "yeah, we know that previous versions didn't work very well. This one does. Trust us."

Right, exactly, as a marketing strategy, unsubstantiated claims of "it's great! it's easy to use! my kids fight for the privilege of using it!" kinda fall flat.

Not even iphone users fall for that, and they'll fall for ANYTHING. I mean, watching people huddling in the parking lot in the rain waiting for the store to open in order to be the first ones to exchange their 4 for a 4s, what was the marketing phrase? Not "it's great, it's easy to use", they already were convinced of that. One word: Siri. Now it could be argued that Siri proved to be largely pants, but it was at the time the major selling point for the 4s. And it worked.

What does Microsoft have that would sell the Lumia? Tiles. We've already got those on Android, thanks. Dynamic tiles. We've got Widgets, thanks, (something you, Microsoft, abandoned, remember?) and they're prettier than your tiles.

So, then, what?

You keep hearing "easy to use easy to use" could this be Microsoft trying to apologize for Windows Phone 6? Like the marketing phrase "have you driven a Ford LATELY?" Saying, yeah, we screwed up, but we're better now, honest.

If so, that's commendable; when you have a dark history, you first have to compete with your former self before you can compete with others. But that has to happen eventually, and then, what do you have to offer? The most product placements on prime time TV? (Does that even work anymore?)

Oh, and another good reason was, he got it for free.

The comment has been made several times (almost always anonymously) that there are *lots* of reasons to carry a Lumia. Ok, maybe that's true. I can think of one.

A friend of ours was an early adopter of the Surface RT. He carries it everywhere he goes and makes whatever use of it of which it's capable (mostly email and web, when IE isn't crashing). He has a very good reason to have gotten one early, and to still be carrying one. His paycheck says "Microsoft Corporation". His career depends on carrying the device and using it and being seen using it and most importantly, not complaining about it.

Those are good reasons.

Similarly, if your paycheck says "Microsoft Corporation", there's probably a Lumia in your pocket, for a lot of very good, easily substantiated reasons.

Otherwise, I'm thinking, not so much.

Mod way up.

The day seems a little brighter.

I think someone has already pointed out that Unix (OSX, iOS) and Linux (Android) are doing very well, thanks. And the reasons why Windows is the top desktop OS is a topic for another discussion, and has almost nothing to do with usability. (Even more so with the debacle that is Windows 8.)

Popularity is the metric of popularity. There are a lot of reasons why people aren't buying Microsoft's phones. Like me, they may have owned a previous model. (I'll never touch one again.) They may have toyed with one in the store and remarked on the unsophisticated, almost retro look of it. They may be concerned that the lack of marketshare will result in a thin ecosystem and ultimate abandonment. (Like Microsoft has NEVER abandoned a portable OS in the past...) And they may not choose to own one because nobody else does, and they'd feel silly carrying one. (I personally don't consider this a valid reason, but it does exist.) At my daughter's high school, Android is very popular because you can change the look and feel of the desktop. This is apparently very important to high school age consumers. With Win8 you can, what, maybe change the background?

Indeed. When the iphone was qualified as a company phone, you heard co-workers going (dial dial dial) "Hello? Damn." (dial dial dial) "Hello? Damn!" (dial dial dial) "Hello? DAMMIT!" and then Jobs told them they were holding it wrong, and some of them believed it. It's an odd, cult-like kind of mindshare.

You lost me there. Why would anyone who had version 5 or 6 (which were buggy, extremely difficult to use, and ultimately abandoned by M$) or 7 (also abandoned by M$), or knew someone with this experience, or even read about it, have any interest whatsoever in Windows Phone 8? (Or in fact any Windows phone?) Because they saw it on Hawaii Five-0?

Moreover, as an IT person with connections to the wireless department in a large company, my experience is that the execs will put up with almost any behavior from their iphones in order to carry one. Given inevitable issues, they're much more likely to drop them on a wireless admin's desk and say "fix this now!"

Begging for a Windows phone is extremely unlikely from a number of reasons. Not the least of which: Nobody wants to be seen carrying one. We offer iphone (most popular) Blackberry (used to be most popular, then tied with Windows for last place, and now with Q10 showing a solid third place) Android (second place) and Windows. (One model available, no takers.) So is so.

I think that to try to convince people having problems with their iphone, that switching to Windows is what you need to do to guarantee a trouble-free experience, is probably a lot like skating uphill, given what Microsoft has produced in this area in the past. (Both the products themselves, and Microsoft flailing about in the marketplace as they try to find something that works.)

In summary, that the iphone has issues (it does) is not sufficient reason to vault over the lip of the cooking utensil into the flames. And more importantly, I think, to your point, is that as a marketing gimmick, I don't see how this ("iPhone have troubles? Come to Windows!!") can work in the marketplace. Maybe if you wait another generation, the memory of the debacles of the past will fade.

They can not be standardized because any "Computer Engineer" without sufficient Electrical Engineering background is actually a Shit Engineer.

Almost completely untrue at every level.

The notion of a "personal relationship with God" is largely a post-Enlightenment concept, formed in the past three or four centuries. It is not "much of the point of Christianity", but rather, a modern protestant interpretation. The point of Christianity was defined many, many centuries before that, and to claim that Catholicism—the church from which all Christian denominations were ultimately derived—is not Christian is the height of absurdity, not to mention arrogance.

Catholicism (note the spelling) is, in part, a belief that there is wisdom in the masses (lowercase, meaning the body of the church proper, not the celebration) that cannot be gleaned purely through individual contemplation. For this reason, we worship together as a community. This does not preclude the personal relationship that you speak of, but rather strengthens it.

Veneration is not worship. The difference is subtle but crucial. No Catholic sees the pope as a god. Heck, the last one (Benedict) was downright unpopular among many Catholics. To even suggest that Catholics "worship themselves" or worship the pope is an appallingly inaccurate statement, even by Slashdot standards.

Finally, it is not true that the Church has always been corrupt. It, like all organizations of that size, may never have been 100% free of corruption, but there's a big difference between pervasive corruption and a handful of rogue elements acting improperly. The recent scandals are horrifying precisely because coverups of such actions by corrupt individuals are not the usual situation.

I think the digital-zoom capability argument falls on its face though. I've looked at the sample images. The camera is clearly designed to oversample. The entire technology is based around oversampling. The instant you start zooming digitally you lose that oversampling and the technology falls on its face.

The phone is designed to store smaller pictures, there's no point storing 40MP files. I guess a lot of people missed the point... photoshop isn't going to be able to do jack with a full 40MP file from this phone, you might as well let the phone process it down to a smaller format.

The actual sensor is not all that great. It's VERY noisy, even in good light, and the phone software is clearly doing a ton of noise-reduction post-processing. Oversampling works for some things, like the nyquist frequency limit, but it won't reduce noise appreciably compared to the same sensor designed with fewer, bigger pixels and a focus on noise reduction. Nokia's marketing is intentionally overstating the technology.

The phone clearly produces better pictures than other phones. It doesn't hold a candle to even a low-end DSLR, however. If you want to take good pictures you don't do it with a phone, not even this one.

-Matt