It was back in April 2011 when I got my LG Optimus 7 (E900) second-hand from a good friend of mine. I needed to replace my workhorse, an HTC Blackstone running Windows Mobile 6.5 with a custom ROM. The Blackstone was still working but it was obvious that the battery needed replacement and maybe a refresh was also necessary as the menus were lagging even with a relatively light ROM.
I was new to Windows Mobile 7 but I found it really easy to learn; a nice start-screen, a list of installed apps and a variety of settings. That was all – no file managers, no hidden options, dead-simple menus. The hardware was really decent, featuring 1GHz (single core) CPU, 512 MB RAM & 16GB storage, along with a 3.8-inch screen. The phone itself was really sturdy and went through a lot of abuse but never even showed a sign of wear. Soon the OS was updated to 7.5 (the last one to be supported by the mobile) and the battery was replaced by a third party one. Everything was working fine, with some glitches due to the OS itself and not the phone (e.g. lack of Greek support for SMS, ringtone and vibration not working at the same time etc.). The camera was also lower quality than expected (at least worse than the one of my Blackstone) but I learned to live with it.
All good things come to an end, so was my life with Optimus 7. The second battery also started showing reduced lifetime, the power button did not always woke the screen up, menus started closing for no reason, voice command feature started switching on without my intervention (even during phone calls), apps were closing with no reason and most of these must have been due to my poor technical skills when replacing and gluing the Windows button back in its place after my youngest son had peeled it off. Lately, the battery was so swollen that it pushed hard the cover of the battery compartment from the inside and I missed the (lost) functionality of the Windows key…
It was time for a replacement; since I l got used to Windows Phone, I went directly for a Windows Phone 8 powered one. At first I thought about getting the cheapest Windows Phone, which was Nokia Lumia 520 at about 140 euros; despite the fact that I liked its large screen (larger than the 3.8-inch of the E900), I didn’t like the lack of flash in the camera. My next choice was Nokia Lumia 620 (at about 160 euros); it had a LED flash but no radio, which I sometimes use while commuting. The next in line was Nokia Lumia 720 (I like the Lumias, mostly for the apps that are bundled with; they surely provide added value to the phone). The Lumia 720 combined FM radio and LED flash, a better construction, larger and higher screen quality and better battery life (among others); it was also lighter and had a rather better camera. For 189 euros it seemed like a bargain to me, so I ordered it online and hope to get it in the next couple of days! The specs compared to my LG Optimus 7 are a bit lower (still 1GHz CPU but dual-core, same 512MB RAM and only 8GB storage) but according to the reviews everything is running smoothly, thanks to the specific OS.