I’ve been
using a Microsoft Lumia 635 smartphone since I got one as a review unit on
September 26, 2014. I had never owned a
smartphone before, so almost everything about this device was new to me. With significant input from a friendly and
helpful AT&T tech support person, I was able to set up and configure the
basic functionality of the system, and, on my own since then, with some
additional help from tech support, I’ve discovered more and more features that
make my life easier, more productive, and more fun.
Now I use
the quiet hours function in Cortana to block any calls or texts while I’m
asleep. I don’t even have to ask Cortana
anything when I first log in in the morning.
She provides weather and news on her own initiative. I can also ask her, “What’s the news?” and
she’ll display links and teasers for three breaking news stories and read me
the headlines. She can easily give me
the temperature and forecasts for the next week’s weather.
Right now,
she’s playing “Take me to Church,” by Hozier.
It doesn’t sound like a concert hall, but it’s nice music selected randomly
somehow for me and I like it.
Maybe it’s
already commonplace for billions of people, but I really appreciate the
capability that the Lumia 635 gives me to take a photo and send it directly to
someone or post it to Facebook. I can do
that with videos, too.
The phone
in the Lumia has revolutionized the way I relate to others on the phone. I used to have to hold the handset of the
stationary phone in my home office, which was very encumbering. Now, I set the Lumia down on the desk and turn
on the Speaker function and I can operate hands-free and speak into the air as
though the other party were there in the room with me. I get much better results (up to a point) when
I can relate to others telephonically from the attitude of comfort and control
engendered by my use of the Lumia 635.
I now know
how to enter new contacts into the phone without calling them first, just by
using the Save function on the phone’s virtual keypad. I can send and receive e-mails, and easily
attach photos I’ve taken to the out-going ones.
The screen miniaturizes and whisks e-mails off into the aether at the
top of the screen. It also “dumps”
deleted e-mails to the bottom of the screen.
Then there’s
the voice-to-text transcription function in Cortana, that lets me send texts by
dictating them, and to dictate my e-mail contents by voice and have it entered
into the system by Cortana as almost-flawlessly transcribed text. If I want to enter text by hand (by finger,
really), it offers usually helpful suggested next words that need only be
touched to appear in the text stream.
So now I
have a device that conveniently fits in my pocket and lets me take and upload
photos and videos of my surroundings and the people I meet, lets me communicate
by voice with anyone on the planet, keeps me informed about the weather and
news, plays music on command, reminds me of appointments, holds my calls, handles
e-mails, and does it all cheerily. What’s
not to like?
I’d
recommend the Microsoft Lumia 635 to anyone who’d also like to enjoy these
capabilities.
And I can’t
wait to get my hands on Cortana’s big brother, Skype Translator, which harnesses
Cortana’s speech-to-text and text-to-speech capabilities along with Bing
Translator to enable cross-language speech in real-time.
Meanwhile,
not many people have “liked” the Cortana Users Group Facebook page, at:
or, for
that matter, the Skype Translator Users Group, at:
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