Lumia 635 review: Could this be the low-priced future of Windows Phone?

I initially wanted to dislike the Lumia 635, only because I feel Microsoft’s Lumia phones can aspire to something better. But the phone delivers the basics, with one inexplicable omission: a front-facing camera.

Microsoft’s new Lumia 635 may be marketed as one of the first Windows Phones to be sold to customers with the amazing features of , but that doesn’t mean much:will soon roll out Windows Phone 8.1 to all Nokia Windows Phone 8 handsets. No, it’s the price that matters: $168 at T-Mobile, or $7 per month over 24 months. (The Lumia 635 is also available via AT&T for $139.) 

Why is the price so important? Because Microsoft said this week that the midrange is the company’s new focus. In July 18 report, analyst firm Chitika revealed that the Lumia 520 and Lumia 521  of the ad impressions to the Windows Phone platform. The new chief of Microsoft’s device business, Stephen Elop sealed the deal.

 “In the near term, we plan to drive Windows Phone volume by targeting the more affordable smartphone segments, which are the fastest growing segments of the market, with Lumia,” Elop  this week.

The Lumia 635 (right) alongside the Lumia Icon.

That puts new pressure on the Lumia 635.

No muss, no fuss

The Lumia 635 is an inherently basic phone; the 4.5-inch, 854x480 display even has something I’d forgotten about: visible pixels. The display is viewable in bright sunlight, but you’ll need to maximize the brightness, and there’s no adaptive brightness control to facilitate that. In general, it looks a little dull.

Viewed outdoors, the Lumia 635 screen is barely legible.

Inside is a 1.2-GHz Snapdragon 400 quad-core chip, which is no slouch. Still, don’t expect to run high-performance apps. Our SunSpider test averaged 1.47 seconds, about three times slower than the flagship . (Our Peacekeeper test failed to run.) But the 512 MB of RAM the phone includes means that you’ll be seeing the “Resuming...” message quite a bit as you switch between apps that the Windows Phone OS has suspended. I also noted several instances where the phone would simply lock up briefly, such as after entering the PIN to unlock it.

Mark Hachman

The Bing Health & Fitness app can now pull information on how many steps you’ve taken, directly from the phone.

But this phone has one feature other Windows Phones don’t: motion-data collection. This enables it to act as a pedometer in addition to tracking your distance traveled via GPS. That feature ties into the Bing Health & Fitness app, as well as other apps you allow. Personally, knowing I walked a mile or so is good enough for me; but for those obsessed with accomplishing 10,000 steps or more, it might eliminate the need for a separate fitness tracker. 

The Lumia phones' other selling point has traditionally been the camera, so I was surprised to find the experience with those phone rather middling. Lumia fans will be disappointed to find out that the camera hardware button on the side of the phone has been removed; in fact, the home, back, and search buttons on the phone are also screen icons now. (Only the power and volume rocker switches remain.)

What, no selfies?

As I mentioned up top, the front-facing camera is gone as well. You can forget about taking selfies with this phone. For me, that's almost unforgiveable in this day and age. Sure, there's trimming the fat to save a few bucks. But this is trimming the fun.

The rear camera, meanwhile, is just 5 megapixels—that's a far cry from the 41MP the offers. The one unexpected plus is that the notorious shutter lag—the time from when you touch the camera shutter icon to when it takes a picture—has disappeared almost entirely. And I found nothing to complain about save for the fact the photos looked a bit washed out, as the Nokia Camera app (not the other stock “Camera” app) includes all the lovely manual controls.

Nokia has removed the hardware camera button from the Lumia 635.

I discovered numerous other oddities and bugs, too. Although the T-Mobile version of the device supports its LTE bands and Wi-Fi calling, it failed to connect to T-Mobile to register it, popping up a “REG90 Failed to Connect” warning over and over and over. Apps loaded slowly, and although the phone shipped with a Hulu+ live tile, the app wasn’t actually installed.

These latter glitches could have been just the vagaries of a test phone. I hope so. Fortunately, the Lumia 635 handles the basics pretty well. Calls were fairly clear, and they connected quickly. My only complaint while surfing the Web was that the low display resolution made pages like SFGate.com difficult to read when the desktop page was preferred. And the camera, while basic, did the job.

I wonder, though, how many Lumia 635s will be returned when consumers discover the lack of a front-facing camera. That’s a real blow to the platform, especially when you factor in the lack of first-party apps in the Windows Store. Phones like the Lumia 1020, Lumia Icon, and Lumia 1520 have given Lumia owners something to brag about. Phones like the Lumia 635 will straddle the narrow line between value and mediocrity.

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Back It Up: Ensure Your Data Survives Disaster

Back It Up: Ensure Your Data Survives Disaster (photo: Pixland/Pixland/Getty Images)

 

It's astonishing when you sit and consider the measure of trust we have given our PCs. We spare our photographs, features, music, basic records, and all the more on our hard drives without the slightest hesitation. We assume that our machine will work, for quite a while, keeping our data secure and (to some degree) sorted out. Obviously, this trust is fortified by the true serenity you've accomplished from going down your PC all the time. You are frequently moving down your PC, correct?

Moving down a PC can appear as though its a confused errand, or that it will take a lot of time to keep up. Luckily, neither one of the statements is valid. Setting up and aintaining your reinforcement -on Windows or Mac- -is a basic process and should be possible in little time.

Local backups

Both Windows and OS X offer a local answer for going down your PC by regional standards -as such, to a hard commute that is close to your PC, either an organized commute or a USB joined commute. The setup procedure is really direct regardless of the fact that you have little tech information. I'll talk about how to do this for both Windows 7 and Windows 8 and in addition OS X for you Mac clients.

Before you can move down your PC, you're going to need an outside hard commute. Contingent upon the size and model of the drive, it may wind up being a pricey venture.

A decent general guideline when obtaining an outside hard commute for reinforcement is to get one that is about 1.5 times the extent of the hard commute in your PC. For instance, if your PC has a 500GB hard commute, purchase nothing littler than 750GB. This isn't a necessity, yet the greater commute size will permit the reinforcement project to store different reinforcements that compass a more extended time of time. This is perfect for circumstances when it takes you months to acknowledge you lost an imperative record, thus the document is on a more seasoned reinforcement.

Backing up a Windows machine(photo: Demand Media)

 

Windows 7 and Windows 8 every take an alternate way to deal with moving down your records.

Windows 7 clients need to set up what's called "Windows Backup." To do this, tap the Start catch and sort "reinforcement" into the pursuit bar. At that point tap on "Reinforcement & Restore." You can then choose a hard commute as your reinforcement destination. You can likewise set how visit the reinforcement procedure will keep running, with the most successive time being before a day. It's likewise a savvy thought to make a framework picture of your PC through the Windows Backup menu. Doing as such will permit you to load a clear hard commute with a definite copy of your present setup.

Windows 8 clients can point of interest of another element called File History. Document History makes an hourly reinforcement of your most vital records. In the event that you inadvertently erase a document, or just choose you need to begin once again on a task from a prior spare, you can then skim through and restore a record or whole organizer.

You can discover the settings for File History in your Control Panel, or via looking for "Record History" from your Windows 8 home screen. Once dispatched, you can then choose an associated or system drive to store your reinforcements on. You'll likewise have the capacity to control what records and envelopes are went down, how regularly and to what extent the documents are put away.

To restore a record on either form of Windows you have to relaunch the reinforcement program and scan through the reinforcement until you discover the document or organizer you require.

Backing up a Mac

(photo: Demand Media)

Apple's OS X working framework incorporates a component called Time Machine. Time Machine will move down your PC to an outside hard commute on normal premise. As your reinforcement plate starts to top off, Time Machine will naturally erase the most seasoned reinforcements; ensuring accessible space on the reinforcement circle at all times.

You have the alternative to utilize an associated or arranged outside hard commute with Time Machine. The first occasion when you join an outside hard commute to your Mac, Time Machine will dispatch inquiring as to whether you'd like to utilize the plate as a reinforcement circle. You can then take after the prompts and let Time Machine start the hourly reinforcements.

In the event that you erase a record or choose to begin once again from a prior spare point, you can enter Time Machine and restore the document with a couple clicks. You can even restore whole client records, settings and applications from Time Machine ought to a hard commute fizzle, or you buy another PC and need it to reflect your old PC.

Off-site reinforcements

Going down by regional standards is a helpful and simple technique for keeping your information safe. In any case, there are dangers: Your neighborhood hard commute can crash, succumb to a glass of water, or be inundated in a house fire. All of which will abandon you without your information. In view of that, we should discuss moving down your information to an off-site area.

In days of olde, off-site reinforcement implied duplicating your information to a drive that was then secured a sheltered 10 miles away. Nowadays, its a ton less demanding: You can simply utilize an online reinforcement administration.

There are a considerable measure of online reinforcement administrations accessible, yet I'll confine my dialog to only two of them: CrashPlan and Carbonite.

Both administrations charge a month to month or yearly expense to naturally reinforcement your information on remote servers through a subtle system introduced on your PC.

CrashPlan costs $5.99 every month for boundless stockpiling with only one PC, or $13.99 every month for up to 10 PCs. You can spare a couple of dollars off the month to month cost on the off chance that you pay for a whole year ahead of time. Any CrashPlan value arrangement covers Mac or Windows based PCs. You can read all the more about CrashPlan's estimating by taking after the connection in the Resource segment beneath.

Carbonite's evaluating begins at $59 every year for boundless stockpiling with one PC, Mac or Windows. From that point it goes up to $99 or $149 every year, including more reinforcement components however dropping Mac support. You'll likewise discover a connection to Carbonite's evaluating in the Resource segment underneath.

Both administrations will just take a couple of minutes to setup. You sign up, download and introduce the particular program and let it perform the beginning reinforcement. When set up the applications will keep running out of sight, unbeknownst to you, and reinforcement your information all the time. Should you have to restore your records, you can get to them through the application, Web website or cell phone application.

Which technique do you utilize?

In a perfect world - both.

Repetition is the name of the diversion with regards to going down and securing your information. It's justified, despite all the trouble to invest the energy and cash on an outer hard commute, and all the while go down your information to an online administration. Not just will you profit by having the capacity to rapidly restore a document put away on a neighborhood drive, however if you - paradise disallow - lose your outer hard commute in a surge or flame, despite everything you'll have the off-site reinforcement of your information to restore.

However, in the event that you need to pick only one strategy, run with an off-site administration. The forthright cost is lower (when contrasted with purchasing an outside hard commute) and you're information is decent and safe somewhere else.

 

Precautions for OoVoo

 

• Like other feature, sound and content talk programs, ooVoo has efforts to establish safety set up that keep your record from being abused. For instance, each ooVoo client has an alternate name and watchword that helps keep your record secure and keeps different clients from getting to your own ooVoo data.. Taking extra safety measures will help you keep your record and the data traded from it secure.

• Account Privacy

• A standout amongst the most essential safeguards you can take when utilizing ooVoo is keeping your record secure. While other ooVoo clients will include you with your username, you ought to never impart your watchword to someone else; nor if you let other ooVoo clients realize what email location is connected with your record. Keeping other individuals off your ooVoo record will help guarantee nobody gets entrance to your contact list and other individual information. In the event that you utilize ooVoo on a cell phone or PC and recovery your secret key for the system, consider watchword ensuring your gadget.

• Including Contacts

• Something else to remember when utilizing ooVoo is which gets in touch with you need to include. A few individuals use ooVoo to meet new companions, while others utilize it to identify with individuals they know, in actuality. On the off chance that you don't need outsiders to discover your profile and include you as a companion, open your Settings menu and alter your controls so you don't show up in hunts. You can likewise shroud your birthday and other individual data from other ooVoo clients here.

• Feature Chat

• When you do use feature visit on ooVoo, there's no ensure that the individual on the flip side isn't recording you and that there's no other individual in the room out of your scope of perspective. Never do anything while feature visiting on ooVoo that you wouldn't need other individuals to see. The most ideal approach to stay safe when feature talking on ooVoo is to just talk with individuals you know and trust. On the off chance that you ever feel uncomfortable amid a feature call, end it quickly.

• Other Security Measures

• When you're on ooVoo, never give out specifically distinguishing data to individuals you don't know, in actuality. Remember that neither the sound or feature traded on ooVoo is scrambled, so its critical that you don't share anything delicate, similar to bank passwords. In case you're dealing with an ooVoo represent your kid, consider setting up sure times when he can utilize the project, and after that be in the same space to screen the feature and sound that is traded amid an ooVoo session. You ought to additionally stay informed regarding his watchword, so you can see who is including your youngster as a companion on ooVoo.

Fotor for Windows 8 review: a fast and fun way to edit photos whether or not you have a touchscreen

Fotor is an “all-in-one” photo editing app designed for Windows 8 tablets. The interface aims to make it easy to edit your photos with a few taps and swipes, much like Google’s SnapSeed. See also: Best Windows 8 apps

To the right is a series of buttons which can be considered the main menu.

You can open an image (including RAW files ), then tap the Scenes button to quickly alter your photo with either the 1-Tap Enhance or a variety of ‘scene’ presets such as sand/snow, night and other lighting conditions.

Next is the Edit button which provides a range of basic adjustments such as brightness, contrast, saturation and colour temperature. Other sliders let you add a vignette or sharpen the photo. Above your image are arrows that let you undo and redo changes.

Within the Crop menu you can straighten your photo, crop freehand or choose from a selection of common aspect ratios.

Effects is similar to Scenes, but offers a more Instagram-like selection of filters to give your photo a retro look or another style. There are loads to choose between, but oddly no pseudo-HDR preset.

It’s just as easy to add a border to your photo although, as with other editors, the frame is applied within the limits of the photo instead of adding to its size. We’d prefer the option to choose between these approaches, as your preferred frame might obscure some details you’d prefer to keep in your image.

A nice touch is the inclusion of a tilt-shift effect, which can make your subject look like a miniature scene. You can choose the aperture size and radius. If you want a straight blur rather than radial, you can tap on the image and rotate and move the lines to match the foreground and background in the image.

On the odd occasion when you want to add text to an image, that’s simple too. As well as picking the font you can increase character spacing, rotation and transparency.

There’s also the option of a stroke in a different colour, but no way to change its thickness. There’s no colour picker, so you can’t match the text to a particular colour in your photo.

There are other limitations compared to a traditional photo editing application. You can only make full-image adjustments, so there’s no way to increase brightness in a particular area for example. That’s something you can do with Snapseed. Also, there’s no red-eye removal.

Don’t expect any advanced features such as layers or curves: if you want to do any complex edits, you’ll need to resort to Photoshop or similar. At least you can resize an image when saving it, so if you need it to be 1000 pixels wide, that’s no problem. There’s also a collage mode where you can arrange up to 9 images to either print or share.

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