Relevant nuggets from the next gen of WP for Symbian phone fans

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Over on our sister site, All About Windows Phone, I've been summarising some of the answers that came out of the recent Q&A with the Lumia 820's product managers. Specifically, some questions that I asked on behalf of hardened fans of Nokia's Symbian-powered smartphones perhaps eying up the 820 or 920 as a future upgrade. And several of the answers, quoted below, are distinctly interesting, covering support of older headsets, microSD expansion and even AMOLED always-on clocks...

From the summary piece:

There is a microSD card slot in the 820. Is it safe to assume it will be hot-swappable? 

Tuukka @ Nokia: the battery needs to be removed in order to access the memory card

Will the 820 support 64GB SD Cards? SD XC?

Camilla @ Nokia: Lumia 820 supports up to 64GB microSD cards. SD XC is also supported

How does the microSD appear in the Lumia 820 interface? As an extension of internal storage? Is there any distinction made with where a file is?

Tuukka @ Nokia: the MicroSD is visible in 2 ways: there is a specific set of settings for it: you can set which data is stored in the card and also you are able to see free space on the card. secondly, in the apps, for example Gallery, the data in the device and card are shown to the user - so you can see all your content regardless where it is stored

Why do Nokia Lumia phones not work with standard Nokia multimedia headsets? Is this a Microsoft limitation??

Tuukka @ Nokia: the Lumia 820 and Lumia 920 support also the older Nokia multimedia headsets. we have incorporated an audio jack that is capable of handling both OMTP and AHJ headsets.

Re: speaker volume, guys.... Is it better than the 800/900's?

Tuukka @ Nokia: we have a totally new loudspeaker element on the Lumia 820 and 920 - the improvement is considerable compared to, for example, Lumia 800

Since the Lumia 820 uses an Amoled screen, will we see a comeback of the standby clock/ sleeping screen present in the N9 and Symbian devices?

For the standby clock and sleeping screen, we are definitely looking at the possibilities in that area
These answers directly address some of the showstoppers that have been preventing Symbian fans considering upgrading to a Nokia Windows Phone. In particular, the absence of storage expansion via microSD has been huge, with devices like the Lumia 710 having a sealed 8GB only. The multimedia headset thing is a pet peeve of mine, but it seems as if adaptive electronics in the new generation of devices will cope with both headset wiring standards.

Speaker volume has also been an issue, with many people finding the output of the Lumia 800 and 900 underwhelming compared to the likes of the speakers on the Nokia N8 and 808, so it's good to hear that this has also been addressed. Finally, although it doesn't sound as if some sort of AMOLED 'sleeping screen' will make it into the Lumia 820 at first, at least the possibility of inclusion at a later date hasn't been ruled out....

Source / Credit: All About Windows Phone