AndroidOne

Nokia 7.1, yes another Nokia for me…

So as you folks have read, The Nokia 6.1 was my first foray into the Android OS. Well again with the demise of Windows Phone, I decided to dip my toes in the water some time ago. I’m glad I did as the true demise for WP is a scant few months away.

I have zero regrets leaving the OS as Bill Gates and Satya Nadella pretty much told me… “Get on with life and move to Android or iPhone!” Satya prefers iPhone and Bill of course rocks an Android.

So I enjoyed the Nokia 6.1 greatly and since the wife was on WP as well, quite a few months ago I got the Nokia 7.1 and bequeathed her my 6.1. It was a frustrating move for her, and frustrating for me as well in the sense that I had to navigate her through this new world.

Mind you, it was only frustrating for me in the regard that I’m a naturally inquisitive person who loves tech. I only have to remind myself that the majority of people use smartphones as tools and have ZERO interest in “How things work and why!” Once I got that in my thought pattern, I was able to just dial it down and give only the information that was “sought.”

My 7.1 screen shot…

So in the long-run, I really like the shape and size of the Nokia 7.1 over the 6.1. It’s much taller and narrower making one-handed use a lot easier. And to me the overall shape and size makes it looks more elegant.

I got the “Blue” version which has the glass back and under that glass is a very “Navy” blue color. It’s so dark it does look black at a glance and you only see the blue when it’s in a great light source. The sides are a beautiful anodized blue with silver edges that’s quite nice.

So I was rocking this for a while, (it came with Android 8 (Oreo) and eventually received the Android 9.0 (Pie) OS.

I had a few monthly Security Updates that went well. But one update ended up “bricking” my 7.1. Bricked it to the degree that I could not rescue it what-so-ever as I tried every Voo-Doo approach I could to no avail.

I had to send it in to Nokia Service Center for them to bring it back to life. Thankfully I had my old HP Elite X3 to fall back on for phone calls and texting. Took about a full business week to turn it around, but my main gripe is this should not happen with a security update! And I’m not the only one, I’ve seen quite a few threads on Reddit showing the same scenario.

But, I am a fan of Nokia and most certainly of AndroidOne. So if and when this needs to be replaced, I’ll examine other Nokia options and now that Pixels have introduced more affordable option e.g., Pixel 3a or Pixel 3a XL… I’ll keep an open mind toward those as well.

Two weeks into Android…

So it’s been two weeks since dipping my toe into Android and the Nokia 6.1, so I’ll share my journey thus far.

I am very much impressed with the physical build quality of the Nokia 6.1, the solid aluminum unibody construction gives this phone a serious flagship feel. The fit & finish of the phone is incredible along with the anodized accents on the edges.

TheNewNokia6_hardware-phone

Haven’t run into any issues with the telephone making or receiving calls, the volume and clarity is fine. The only issue I did have was getting it to communicate with my ’17 MINI F55 to “read” incoming “texts.” But I finally did get that figured out with a few setting changes and an app. Setting change was to set the Bluetooth to “AAC,” that along with using Pulse for messaging and ReadItToMe for “text-to-voice” and things are operating OK. Still not as flawlessly with my old HP X3 Elite (Windows Phone 10), but it’ll do.

One huge gain is using my Vector Smartwatch with the Android app. It works much better that the Windows Phone version ever did, and provides better connectivity and features. So that’s a huge plus for me.

“The App Gap” I was in denial when major companies starting pulling out from WP and because of my devotion, felt I wasn’t missing out on anything. The apps that we never had or taken away from us on the Windows Phone platform are really nice to have on the Android, like “Tap-to-Pay (using any dang card you want),” “Bank of America,” “Amazon Alexa, Amazon Prime Music!”

androidone

Android just delivered a new app named “Files Go,” and this is a cleaning app for duplicate files, photos, and does a good job cleaning temporary files and cleaning up memory. Even though I have an SD card, this helps keeping the phones built in storage space trim.

While I’m mostly using Microsoft apps e.g., Microsoft Launcher and all the other apps I haven’t delved into using “Assistants” full blast yet. Just fooling around so far, Google Assist looks promising versus Cortana. But I’ll have to put both through the paces.

Love Edge and Bing on this phone. Waze on the WP was crap; Waze on Android is sprite and has more features.

The only thing I’ve yet to try out extensively is the camera, just played around but haven’t performed any real “photography” tasks to date. I’ll report back when I do.