Windows Phone dual SIM handsets - recommendations and reviews

[inquisitor]

Having ordered a Nokia Lumia 630 Dual SIM yesterday I thought we should have a thread where we can share our experiences with Windows Phone dual SIM handsets like we have been doing for Android.

As an advocate for open source platforms I don't really like Windows Phone but at € 129 the device was cheap, gives me the capability to test web applications on this platform and the reviews sound pretty promising. Compared to Android dual SIM phones in this price range the specs appear to be better and the OS is said to run smoothly, despite the small RAM size of 512MB, which is not true for the cheapo Androids.

[DRNewcomb]

While not exactly on topic, I have a Lumina 925 and am completely unimpressed with WP8. It quickly made me wish I had my Symbian phone. The only reason I ever use it is if I need T-Mobile's WiFi Calling.

[inquisitor]

Actually the Lumia 630 will replace my Nokia Asha 210 Dual SIM which runs Series 40, a crippled Symbian derivative, too. I hope I won't regret trading in the Asha 210's long battery life for the comfort of a touch-based OS and smartphone features. One thing that annoyed me most with the Asha 210 was its incapability to sync the phonebook with Google or any other cloud-based service. Instead it only supports some SyncML service provisioned by the network operator over the air (there's no way to manually configure your own SyncML server but settings must be received by SMS).

[Bossman]

Windows phones are just NOT it, period! I do not think there are a lot of windows dual sim phones anyway. I have a Nokia 521. I use it occasionally. I am just not fond of the windows OS. I just bought (yesterday) a new Moto G dual sim via ebay. This will be mainly for travels.

[DRNewcomb]

Originally Posted by inquisitor

(there's no way to manually configure your own SyncML server but settings must be received by SMS).

One of my big complaints about Nokia's Symbian-based phones was that important features (e.g. VPN) had to be configured by a network administrator and had not UI.

[rfranzq]

Originally Posted by inquisitor

Having ordered a Nokia Lumia 630 Dual SIM yesterday I thought we should have a thread where we can share our experiences with Windows Phone dual SIM handsets.....

Are there any other Windows dual-SIM phones? I did not know if there was even one. Thank you for starting this thread.

Originally Posted by Bossman

I just bought (yesterday) a new Moto G dual sim via ebay. This will be mainly for travels.

Start your own thread. Please. It will be good to have reviews of more dual SIM phones.

[inquisitor]

@Bossman
On my main phone (currently Huawei P6) I still cling to Android and would not even consider switching to another OS. I've briefly tested Windows Phone devices before, so my expecations are not too high.

@rfranzq
So far there's the Nokia Lumia 530 Dual SIM and the Nokia Lumia 630 Dual SIM which, according to very recent news, will soon be joined by the Nokia Lumia 730 Dual SIM: http://www.gsmarena.com/nokia_lumia_...-news-9281.php

[Motel75]

Surprised by the lack of love for Windows Phone here. In my experience, it's a lot more tightly coded and in many ways better-thought-out than Android. Among other things, having your start screen display useful information ("Live Tiles") rather than simply rows of icons (and information-only "widgets") is a big plus.

The reason why there are not many dual-SIM WP handsets is that the feature has only been supported from WP 8.1. The Nokia 630 is the first. But other manufacturers, such as Hisense and Presitigio, have dual-SIM WP phones. Expect more of them now that Microsoft has come to its senses on licensing (= now free) and hardware requirements (= same as Android).

[inquisitor]

After two days with my Nokia 630 I must say I really like the device despite its rather low resolution (854*480px which I hardly notice) as well as Windows Phone as an OS. It's fast, responsive and fancy - that could however change if I install more apps.
Surprisingly synchronization with Google (mails, contacts, calendar) works flawlessly out of the box (no app required) which I didn't expect after it was reported that Google had pulled the plug for the free Exchange support of GMail. Also Nokia's map application called "Here" is pretty neat. It comes with high quality maps provided by the subsidiary fomerly known as Navteq, is very responsive despite it is vector-based and allows stepless zooming. Actually I started hating Google Maps for having become so bloated that it takes ages to start up and to perform a search. Not to mention Google's bad map quality in many parts of the world including Eastern Europe where I regularly see street names from the communist era and missing roads despite the areas in question are already available on StreetView so Google should be able to gather actual data.
However what I dislike about WP is the still very limited choice of apps which on top are rarely free of charge. E.g. I could neither find a good FTP nor a SIP client that would be free of charge and even the paid ones have bad user ratings. But as my Windows Phone will mainly serve for voice (currently I don't even have mobile data enabled), I can live without that stuff, though it would be nice to have redundancy for the functions of my Android handset.
By the way, today I received an email from Nokia infoming me of a new platform where they will make beta versions of new apps available: http://lumiabetaapps.uservoice.com/

[UKSTEVE]

Zoiper is free for Windows phone - nice app, use it on Android and iOS...

http://www.windowsphone.com/en-us/st...c-578fa1660737

+Steve