Here we are again. Back To School. Except, to be fair, just like last year there is no Back To School for my family this year. We’ve got two parents who work full time and two pre-school kids in daycare.
Even in the summer. We did have a brief Back to Daycare experience at the beginning of this week as the kids returned after two weeks vacation. But Back to Daycare after a two week hiatus is nothing like Back To School after a summer. School supplies need not be purchased. New clothes consist merely of character tees featuring my kids’ current obsessions. We don’t snap a photo on the front stoop to show off the fancy new clothes, backpack and shoes, meant to be placed side by side with other first-day photos to show the progression of time. Instead, we rush around trying to get back into a routine that seems to have fallen apart in the two weeks that daycare was closed. I wonder why garbage day had to happen on Monday morning and why I never catch the right bus and why my kids just can’t eat their cereal quicker.
Ok. Maybe it does sound a lot like Back To School.
Each morning, after getting the kids dressed and then myself dressed, after I make sure the daycare bag is packed and try to find a minute or two to throw some food into my lunch bag, I pack my purse for the day by throwing in my electronics. These days, along with my tablet, keyboard, and reading material, I’m also carrying around a Nokia Lumia 635.
My phone feels like an extension of my body. I actually went to lunch yesterday without grabbing my phone from my desk, and I felt off. My hand kept reaching for my phone because that is what it always does but the phone wasn’t there. Needless to say, I rarely forget my phone. In general, I would say that my phone makes my life easier, except the reality is that it connects me more than it eases things. Were I to think about my life without a smartphone, it would be dark and dismal (and relaxing?) but I would also probably miss an appointment or two and I’d take even fewer pictures than I do now.
The Nokia Lumia 635 is a phone for everyone, and I think that is what makes it a really great Back To School phone. If my kids were old enough to consider giving them a phone, this phone would be high on my list. Heck, I even suggested it to my less-than-tech-savvy mother-in-law as a possible phone option for her. The Lumia 635 is a Windows phone and while switching to a new operating system is always frightening, I was amazed at how user-friendly the interface was and how quickly I became accustomed to it. On top of that, it doesn’t feel fragile like some other phones I have owned, and I feel completely safe using it without a case. (Confession: I’ve already dropped my Lumia on the sidewalk. It made it out with only a minor scratch on the corner of the phone. While I don’t suggest throwing any phone around, I think that speaks a lot to the Nokia Lumia 635′s durability).
My favourite part about the Nokia Lumia 635 and Windows Phone 8.1 is how customizable everything is. I hate to say it, but I’m totally a girl who is swayed by colour and customization. Not only did my Nokia arrive with a bright green back (LOVE it!), though I could get an orange, yellow, or black back for it as well, I could easily change the colour scheme of the whole operating system, choosing between a dark or a light theme, and then picking my main colour (purple it is). The home screen is stunning once it is set up to perfection. The Live Tiles of apps that you pin can be resized to create the ideal grid and they update based on new information from that app.
As a Mom, I can’t get enough of the Facebook lock-screen rotating image option. When I logged into the Facebook app through my Windows phone, it asked me if I wanted to let Facebook update the lock-screen. I agreed. And now, each time I turn on the phone, there’s a new photo that I once shared to Facebook. For me, that means that each time I wake up my phone, I see a baby picture, or a wedding picture, and it brightens my day tenfold. I have never ever had a phone bring me so much positivity like my Windows phone does. (Right now I’m staring at one of the first ever photos of Gavin and I’m nearly dying of the cuteness. The photo below is an early one of Cameron. Swoon!).
Those are all style points though, and while that is important to me, none of that really helps make my life easier. I’m good with technology. An easy phone doesn’t make life easier for me, personally. But the Nokia Lumia 635 has some features that really make it an asset in my life right now.
First of all, there’s that battery. I can’t tell you the number of times I have crawled into bed after a long day only to need to pull myself out again to get my cell phone from somewhere else in the house. Because I know that if I don’t plug it in, there will not be a battery charge to use it the following day. Heck, my previous phone couldn’t hold a charge for half a day, with the way I use it. But my Nokia can go two whole days without charging, and that is with me constantly refreshing my twitter feed every time I walk somewhere. Last night I was just too tired to bend over and pick up the charger to plug in my phone. So I didn’t. And my laziness had no consequences. As I type this, it has been 1 day and 12 hours since my last charge. The battery is at 23% and it estimates that the phone still has 7 hours of battery life left. Amazing.
The Nokia Lumia 635 also has some fabulous features that are making my incredibly busy life Back to Work slightly easier. Data Sense tracks my mobile data and if I want to limit that data, it will help the phone stay on track so that the allotted data lasts the whole month, instead of just shutting off data once a limit is hit. This phone is smart! And to prove the point even more, Wifi Sense is another feature that learns safe Wifi connections and will automatically connect upon entering that Wifi location. And I don’t mean that it will just do that at home and at work. I mean that it will automatically connect to wifi spots like Starbucks and McDonalds while also accepting all the terms of use behind the scenes so that I don’t have to. On top of that, it will share these safe Wifi spots with any other Window devices, which means now I totally want a Microsoft Surface.
While I didn’t get to go Back to School clothes shopping, and while I’m not filling a brand new backpack with fresh paper and pens, I did get to go Back to Work (after a week of vacation) with a new electronic toy which has definitely removed some of my previous stresses that came with being a mobile power-user. And, it looks good doing it.
I was compensated for this review and provided with a Nokia Lumia 635. All experiences and opinions are truthful and my own.
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