that is not true... most recent study show that nokia customers are on avergae more satisfied with their phones than other brands...

I have way over 100 apps on my phone and to be fair unless you are a social media junky and need official apps for everything I have not been missing anything... yeah sure the pinterest or snapchat official app are not here but everything else is here... and compared to android WP is 10 times more optimized for the hardware... now for gaming DX12 will be optimize for qualcom metal so it also brings something big to the table on that front... reducing battery drainage while improving performance while gaming on the phone (or smartglassing :P )

finally 8.1 is coming soon and will close the little gaps that still exist in terms of functionalities....

the HW you recommanded is great but android outright sucks... and no it's not an opinion, fact is this is the most unoptimized and buggy OS I have ever seen on any HW ever... I still have an old GS3 got an l920 and will never look back at android unless there is something major happening on one side or the other...

now don't get me wrong those phone he named are great and fact is you have more crap (apps) on the play store than WP store... but when it comes down to straight quality, security, stability and future evolution WP shines more....

so look at those and go check the L820 L920 L925 (some other US only model exist) or samsung  or HTC even

don't forget that with nokia you get great camera with it and a stand alone offline GPS with free maps.... if you are interested by those it brings even more value to the product...

so yeah with  your budget I'll go with shinobi-san or my choices... but wait a few days... cause they'll be anouncing new phones at build next week and if the release date is not to far off and you decide to go with a WP chances are the price of older model will drop and you might be able to afford a bigger model then .

sorry shinobi nothing personal or anything but WP rightfully deserves its place among the big three and already trumps them on some stuff... and it will only get better... honnestly I consider WP8 already ahead of iOS and I find iOs of better quality than android (even though if I had only those two choices I'd go with android bacause even if medicore it has more options) yeah I know it's complicated :P

I was actually thinking the same thing. I know new phones are going to be announcred soon (the s5 was already announced). 

well NOKIA will be at the BUILD conference so yeah more than likely... BUILD will be heavily focused on WP8.1 I believe so they'll probably make some HW announcement....

but don't get me wrong if you are all about the last trendy app WP is surely not the first one to get it on the store... if you look for the essential a good OS and generaly speaking good HW wp is a rather good deal especially if you have already a lot of MS product (windows PC, XB, onedrive, outlook, MS office) I have all that so it made sense for me... if your personal ecosystem is more apple or android centered apple or android might be better...

Your post seems a bit bias endimon. It's like you are trying to sell WP (and nokia) to noble. Thats not a great way to give advice imo. Saying android "outright sucks" and "WP8 already ahead of ios"....

My post was not anti Windows phone. But the two negatives i noted about the OS is 100% true.

Developers target ios first then android or dev on both. If noble's needs strays even a little bit off the most popular stuff then chances are it wont be on Windows phone.E.g. If he does mobile banking will hes banks app be on windows phone? Probably not. Will it be on ios? Yes. Will it be on android? probably. And so it goes for just about every app.Another example: Noble's favourite shop has a mobile app. Is it on windows phone? Probably not. But probably is on ios and android. This gets worse when you look at regions outside of the US.

As for the windows UI its very different from ios and android. Most people i have met who have changed over to WP do not enjoy the experience. This is anecdotal, i clearly said "in my experience".

I also did not say he shouldnt go with WP. I simply said he needs to be more cautious. Check if the apps that you need are on the platform and go have a feel for the OS.  The idea here is not to sell a platform but to give advice to a fellow member.

All this phone talk... I've been tempted to switch to WP.

Oh and I just noticed the poll, I picked 3.

So no one else has an iPhone here :D

And went with 4 in the poll, AAA wise.

I do currently.

If the Titanfall bundle sticks around I fear I might lose our bet.

Nice numbers for Titanfall's second week.