Nokia 1520 shortcomings and lack of proper support

Question

I have been given a Nokia 1520 as a gift (after i had suggested i liked it). I have owned it for 3 weeks roughly and it's been a total saddening experience. Amongst the countless issues i am meeting are:
- The infamous oversensitive display issue. Can't type any sms or email straigth without having multiple characters repeated over and over. This also means that while i try to scroll the screen i happen to open unwanted apps or unwanted links in the browser or in newsreaders. Also, trying to select a tile to resize/unpin it, it most often results in opening it countless times before i actually manage to unpin.
- Lack of a keyboard allowing me to input Traditional Chinese with Pinyin (It was requested in 2011, ie 3 years ago).
- Timed stroke writing for chinese characters means that if you are too slow (as most westerners writing chinese are) you can't even write characters (maximum timing is 0,8 secs).
- Lack of any form of quick input like swiping or so. Multiple issues also at downloading languages for the keyboard. A nightmare.
- The OS won't allow users to select single words or place the cursor in a specific position inside a word. This can be done in some places but not everywhere.
- Bing Translator honestly sucks and there is a huge shortage of dictionaries and language related resources in the market (nothing comparable to Pleco or Hanping
- Lack of a decent notification bar and a LED telling people they got mail or messages or calls when the phone is muted. This caused me to lose two important jobs.
- Very poor/shaky reception for the phone and Internet. Where my Galaxy Note 2 works full broadband, the Nokia connection goes up and down or is none at all.
- I took the device to Nokia Support Centre in Taipei and the person in charge was a kid who not only didn't know anything about the, now well known, issues of the device but he also got very arrogant, talking carelessly and with a very bad attitude and claiming "people shouldn't buy phones without being able to use them" and "if you tried it before why you complain now?". Tested the phone for 2 seconds and he decided it had no issues, so apparently no chances to have the phone sent for a repair/substitution.
Is this the path Nokia and Microsoft are taking with Windows Phone?
I am so disappointed that i am considering reselling the thing and going back from where i came from, IE Android.
It's a shame Nokia hasn't learned how to treat users yet. I am particularly disappointed at the defective device and at the attitude of the part time, lazy, sleepy teenagers they use in Taipei to cover the service making customers run (or worse since some of those guys really push your patience far above the limits, maybe they don't like foreigners or they are scared at speaking English, whatever it is, it's very uneasy and unpleasant). I have never seen such a bad service for a such a malfunctioning device in my life. I have owned maybe 20 or more devices to date (including old Windows Phones) and never had so many negative experiences piled up all together at the same time
I just wish i had been given a device with some other OS rather than a device with a Beta version of an OS supported by part time staff.

Answer 1

This would appear to be a genuine issue with the 1520. Do not have one so could not comment
- Yes indeed i can grant you it's genuine. Haven't sent an email in the last 2 weeks. Just too frustrating. 
I know there is several Chinese language settings but as I am not Chinese could not comment beyond this is not something Nokia could do anything about as it is a core OS issue and not a hardware/firmware one.
- Well, it's easy to see if you have doubts. Enter: Settings-Keyboard and go search for any form of input that says "Traditional Chinese with Pinyin (PinYIn is the romanization of chinese characters. You type say "Wo" and the chinese character for "I" pops up amongst other choices. This has been existing from day 1 in any decent keyboard. It has been requested at MS suggestion board 3 years ago. Is still to be implemented. I find it hard to think how they can sell these phones here (especially considering the relations between China and Taiwan and the fact they use simplified/traditional respectively). It's not only a mad marketing move, it's also politically sensitive. No one normal does that here, believe me.
There's several swiping keyboard shortcuts such as typing special characters or numerals (tap hold the 123 key and swipe to the desired character)
- Sure, then do one thing. Download any swiping keyboard on an Android device and then compare the speed at which you type and amend words. The WP keyboard is primitive. The fact you can't resize it combined with the screen oversensitiveness make it useless. Other Nokias are much much better, but you can't beat a real swipe keyboard, especially if you type as a profession. How can someone use such a keyboard on a device in 2014 is beyond me and and anyone else who has used an Android but even a Blackberry in old times. It's simply inefficient compared to anything else out there. Then we can argue on what we like or not but surely not on its lack of productivity compared to else (whatever else)
As long as the app does not use it's own code anywhere you want to enter text tap and hold to have the cursor appear and swipe to the location wanted.
- Then do a test. Take an email sent by someone else. Then go to the portion of text he sent you in the REPLY mail you are writing and try to select one of the SENDER's words. You'll see it's impossible. Then move down and try to select a single word of your reply. You'll see it can be done. Different menus pop up based on where you are or which app you are.
Same is TEXT PREDICTION. It works in some places, doesn't in others, even when you'd need it
Never used it, as far as I heard especially since tha latest (recent) update this got a lot better)
You don't. Try to be a foreigner permanently based abroad and the usefulness of these tools (Dictionaries, translators, etc.) will appear immediately, especially when you have to handle or even study characters based on ideograms. Now, Android (Which i insist in saying i don't like due to their philosophy), offers not only a good mobile translating app (including a function where you take a picture then just scroll your finger on the words you want to be translated and translation pops up in a moment) but if you don't like it you can also find a wide choice of tools (Pleco and Hanping being among them and their developers having no intention to expand on WP for now and some not even in the future). In this perspective, what for you is useless or secondary, for people like me (and other expats who do business and work abroad) is a killer application. Google got it. Microsoft and Nokia, it seems, don't.
Never understood the obsession with a notification bar when your apps and services all give up constant updates and notifications on their tiles. I would not want a blinking light on my phone ever. If you are unable to check your phone even once an hour that is really not the phone or OS problem. Don't try and pin your own negligence on the phone that just makes you look silly.
Let's try to be constructive. This OS must not be built based on what you as Blog Admin like or don't like. It has to be built to cater for a wide range of users. Now, you don't like that led because apparently your tiles make you happy. I, don't spend all my day watching tiles. I work too so the phone goes in standby and since it's permanently muted (no ring, no vibration), LED is key to understand when i get emails or sms' or other notifications. I am not asking a multicolour LED as in Samsung devices (which allow you to assign a colour and vibration combination to different accounts so you understand based on colour and vibration what is important and what is not; but at least a basic primitve LED telling people "Hey you got mail or SMS". If it's not a LED, a screen notification waking up the phone from standby would to as well. As far as i know it's not present. It was present in many Android devices as both standard or third party app since the very first basic versions.
So you use a Note2 and 1520 at the same time? this may well have nothing to do with the phone and it won't be the first time it turns out a WiFi router is actually at fault.
So what do you do? Go to Starbucks and tell everyone to stop using the free Wi-Fi because your Nokia 1520 needs a dedicated connection and i threaten to suit Starbucks for not letting the King have the whole bandwidth for itself?
Galaxy works fine. Nokia doesn't, especially when broadband gets weaker (Taipei has Wi-Fi also on Metro wagons and any restaurant or other outlet you may think of). Core point is everyone is there reading their content on their mobiles. I am there trafficking with settings and **bleep**. Ended up using my Galaxy which works fine.
Those are not Nokia owned nor operated stores, go complain to them
Let me explain you a basic of marketing so you understand when it's not the case to defend a brand beyond reasonable limits even when you administer their blog.
If i, as a customer, enter a BLUE SHOP carrying a big, huge, NOKIA brand with all people wearing Nokia shirts i (and the other 23 million users who almost stopped to buy Nokia in Taiwan) assume whoever is running it, is running it on behalf of Nokia (Officially or unoficially doesn't matter as they get the license to sell from Nokia in any case). So, if your licensee works good, people are happy and buy more; if the staff shows signs of laziness, arrogance, treating adults without respect, showing ignorance on device's issues (They didn't even know about the global issue of oversensitiveness or about keyboards...the phone was an alien in their hands), people RUN. And i did RUN.
If you combine the bad support with the fact that the device is actually malfunctioning and lacks a lot of basic functions that in 2014 are given for granted, i beg to think that the only users left once they try the phone for one or two weeks will be some Fans of the brand and a few people who need it to watch movies and take pictures but you don't need a phablet for that. When you sell a bad device and have an as bad support that instead of solving the issue denies it you are turning the market in a self-help environment where users get angered (And you can see how many there are about Lumias and 1520 starting to get on top of the list). So, as much as you and I may stay argue in your blog, i think that if this issue is not solved this OS doesn't have much future.
Finally, a phablet is a sophisticated device where screen size, hardware and software package combine to offer a certain experience that ranges from entertainment to work IN A GLOBAL CONTEXT (Not in your garden, in your living room or when you show off the device to friends to let them see all those useless tiles which you can't even interact with as they open when you want to resize them etc. due to the bad screen). It means the device must be ready and functional in your country or in mine or wherever you live. In this case, Galaxy and their cheap plastic trash got it right with the Note family. Others like HTC and Nokia are lagging behind and 1520 in this respect is not helping people who want to jump from Android to Windows Phone to make that jump.
Test the device simulating the job a professional user doess (typing mails all the time, text messages, interacting with web content, copy/paste, translating and sharing data, sending data to other apps in a snap), then multiply that for 7 days a week and then experience the frustration accumulating day after day. In my case, this is further amplified by the fact that i come from a device that has spoilt me allowing me to do things in a snap.
This phone, as is, is no game!