vowe's choice 2013
by Volker Weber
I have seen and used a lot of great products in 2013. The Sonos Playbar has kicked up the TV to cinema level sound. The iPhone 5S finally brought convenience to PIN-locked phones. The iPad Air made me fall in love again with full sized iPads. The Lenovo Yoga 11 replaced an aging MacBook Pro, but was superseeded by the 13" Retina MacBook Pro. BlackBerry started out great with their new line of BB 10 devices, and then failed to sell them.
There is one device however, that stood out from the rest. It's the Nokia Lumia 1020. A lot of my work depends on photos and videos. I have been an early DSLR user, my first digital camera was a Casio QV-10. I own quite a few cameras from Canon, Nikon and Fujifilm. And yet, all of my professional photos are now shot with the Lumia 1020. It's that good.
But it's not only a good camera. Windows Phone has gained a lot of momentum in 2013. I now have every single piece of software on the 1020, that I would need, with one glaring omission: Sonos has proven itself as a laggard in software development. I love the devices but they need to put more effort in the controller side of things. No Windows Phone controller, no modern Windows controller, no iOS 7 optimized controller. I don't have information to share but I am pretty sure this will soon change.
The Lumia 1020 is the winner in 2013, across all devices I have used. What will 2014 bring?
Comments
A wearable gadget of some sort - iWatch? Glass?
I do not want to wear anything on my wrist, and certainly not on my face. Sometimes I am wearing something on my ear. That's dorky enough.
Der Sonos Controller fürs Lumia wäre echt der Bringer...dann fehlt mir nur noch Simfy und ich bin mit meinem 920 glücklich und habe alles was ich brauche...
As every year it was fun to read your opinion on the different topics you write about. Looking forward to continue reading in 2014!
Wünsche einen guten Rutsch und ein spannendes 2014!
Re Sonos and iOS 7, Apple appear to be accelerating things:
Make Your Apps Work Seamlessly with iOS 7
Thanks for your (not) blog this year, Volker.
I always look forward to reading what's on your mind and hearing about the kit you manage to play with. Good job :)
I think you need to go to the cinema more.
Engadget noted the Playbar isn't even a replacement for a home stereo, let alone a full blown movie theater. How much depth are you really going to get from a 3" speaker? They were complimentary, but let's not get too carried away.
Mike, my setup is a bit more elaborate as Engadget's. And I trust myself better than their reviews.
