Can anybody recommend the best settings? I am very reluctant to allow the automatic option, but what are the implications of the settings in the custom option?
It seems to make sense to turn off automatic updates, because I would prefer to do that only when connected to my wi-fi.

But what about allowing my position to be transmitted to Microsoft? It's already beginning to sound invasive, so what others are there to beware of before I go any further?

Each app will ask you if it can use your location. I turned off the GPS to save power and they can use my location as they please It won't download updates via mobile network. It only checks for updates and reports if anything is available. You have to turn on Wi-Fi to download it. I have my work email on push notifications, the rest is on polling and that's about it what I configured. I also turned off data roaming, just in case I am abroad and forgot about it. Bluetooth off. NFC off.

As a newbie to Windows 8 I'm finding setting up the phone an absolute nightmare, The Nokia guide is next to useless, as it keeps telling me to press a button, without describing what it actually looks like. There isn't even a clear guide to using the keyboard, which is has tiny keys that are difficult to press accurately - I dread to think how you'd do it with gloves on.
I somehow keep turning the camera on as well and a circle appears that seems to signify something, but I can't work out what.
I foolishly thought I'd try to synchronise my email with it, but it only asks for an email address and password - now server settings at all, so it obviously can't find it.
I'll probably manage to make a phone call with it by Christmas.

It can retrieve settings for email automatically most of the time. If it fails you can enter details.

In Settings, go to email+accounts and tap on the email account you set up then you can change other settings. However, when setting up the account initially, the phone usually does a good job of retrieving the correct settings from the server. At least it has for me for my Live and pop3/imap accounts.

Also, the circle that appears in the camera app is the focus point. If you tap the screen where you want to focus, that circle will appear and focus to that point.

Agree about the keyboard. It is a little fiddly to use but the auto suggestion/correction does a decent enough job most of the time but I find it frustrating when I'm typing things and the wrong keys are pressed. I will usually backspace and retype rather than use auto correct. Not sure why?!

I am quite happy with the keyboard? But that depends on the screen size. I have Lumia 920, which is on the bigger side. But you can always use it in landscape, the keys are then wider.

It seems to me that it is so Microsoft biased that it makes it incredibly difficult to go down any other route. I tried entering the details of my email (via 123Reg), but it stops me at the first hurdle by saying that the account doesn't exist.

Then I tried to set up a contacts list - surely one of the easiest things imaginable but no, it wants me to log into a Microsoft account first, instead of simply creating it on my phone.

One of the options is to import contacts from a Sim card, but how on earth can you do that? Surely, you would have to take your own Sim card out first, which doesn't seem right. All I wanted was a simple dialog to appear so that I could type in the name and number, but it seems to be trying to make it incredibly difficult.

Generally, there seems to be an almost complete absence of menu options, so that if you're on a website, you can't save anything to favourites, or create the equivalent of a desktop shortcut.

As for that Bing button I'm going to have to make something to fit over that corner of the phone to knock it out of action. Can you actually uninstall Bing altogether?

Okay - bluetooth - I didn't even know my old C1-01 had it. Both phones recognise each other, yet when I try to transfer the contacts, the old Nokia it says 'Service not supported by other device' !!!!

a windows phone being biased to windows.

also i dont use windows phone, but this
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8Scv6figdpw
says its easy to save stuff when browsing.

Also have a look at
http://www.youtube.com/results?searc...nd+tricks&sm=1

for tips.

Thanks for that, but I nearly lost the will to live after sitting through this one - and I still didn't see what he was actually doing to close the apps

You don't close apps on smartphones.

Setting up a Windows Phone for the first time is no harder than setting up an iPhone.

There's a good guide here:
http://www.windowsphone.com/en-GB/ho...indows-phone-8

if you can't follow that, then post a list of queries, and I'll do my best to walk you through it.

i dont get why youre finding it so hard, ive never used a windows phone, but 5mins of utube and i could easily use one.

re closing apps/closing pages etc http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GZUUvgd-ke4

Surely you must be able to turn off the camera. I've had to shut the damned thing down by switching the phone off and it doesn't help that the button is very easily pressed accidentally. Why can't isn't there a simple OFF button at the botton of the screen? Surely that's a fundamental requirement? If you can't turn it off, no wonder the phone has such a short battery life.

I don't see why you're trying to overcomplicate everything. You don't turn any components on or off. It's all done automatically.

The camera is only turned on while you are using it and automatically turned off whenever you are not. You don't have to shut anything or press anything.

Tap the Back button. Or Home button. Think of the OS and apps as browsing. You go forward, navigate inside the app and go back or home. BTW you have to press camera button for quite a while to activate it. And there's also a setting where you can choose whether to activate it when the phone is locked.

As advised by IvanIV, you can use the back button at the bottom of the screen (arrow pointing left) to close apps including the camera. You can also press and hold the back button to bring up the task manager to switch between apps, then you can select them then press the back button till they're closed completely.

GDR3/Black updates which are due out fairly soon will add the ability to close apps directly from the task manager which will make things a little easier.

Tbh, it's fairly straight forward getting to grips with a Windows Phone. I came from a Symbian background before switching which couldn't be more different but I found it a breeze. What phone OS did you use before going with a Windows Phone?

There's no actual need to close the apps in WP8. They are suspended in RAM if they are not on screen. So they can resume faster. If memory runs out some suspended app is thrown out to make space for the new one. I have GDR3 and yes you can close an app from the task manager, but I had no reason to do so yet.

True, but sometimes in the interests of privacy, I like to close some apps...especially IE if there's nsfw pages loaded.

Thanks for staying with this, but I'm finding that there's no information required on even the most basic of subjects. For instance, how do you simply end a phone call? There's absolutely nothing on the screen to even hint at this and I had to wait until the other person hung up.

The moment you distance the phone from your ear screen turns on and there's a big rectangle there in an accent colour where you tap to end the call. What kind of a phone do you have?

It's a Nokia Lumia 520. I haven't noticed that, but I wonder what they thought was wrong with the old red telephone sign.

Seriously?

A giant red button that says "End call" on it isn't obvious enough for you?

http://forums.wpcentral.com/attachme...520calling.png

Do you seriously need a manual to tell you how to press that button? I'm beginning to think this is a troll thread.

That button is blue on my phone. I guess it depends which colour-scheme you are using.

I can promise you that these are serious questions and I have neither a red button nor a blue button to end the call, in fact there's hardly anything there at all. I tried the left arrow but I could still hear a humming and when I went back I was just in time to see that the other person had just hung up.

Thank you to those who explained that the apps close down automatically (I assume when you touch the left-pointing arrow icon). I haven't found it explained anywhere else, so how are you supposed to know that?

Has anybody managed to transfer their Windows Live Mail contacts onto a Windows phone? I've signed into Outlook both on my phone and through WLM, but synchronise doesn't do anything except update emails and the WLM export option will only export a csv file to elsewhere on my computer. I've spent hours searching for information about this and have only found other people describing similar problems, never any answer.

It's difficult to find out where the contacts are actually stored on the phone. If you go into one section (forget where) it says email and contacts, yet it only seems to list the ones I eventually managed to import/export via bluetooth from my old phone. I get the feeling that they're not actually on the phone at all, but somewhere in the ether. If they were in a folder it would be easy simply to transfer them via Windows Explorer.

I have around 200 contacts, so I definitely don't want to have to type the whole lot in again.

You synchronise contacts with an email account not with a computer. Best get outlook.com account, export the contacts from WLM and import them into outlook.com. Set up outlook.com account on your phone. The phone will download the contacts from there.