There are a thousand and one things you can do with your Nokia Lumia, but the likelihood is you don’t know the half of them.

Happily, help is at hand to help you get even more from your smartphone. Wayne Spillett our Social Media Support Manager or as we like to call him, here at Nokia Conversations, Captain Care has rounded up some top tips and favourite features from people who arguably know Nokia Lumias better than anyone. Nokia employees themselves. So without further ado, it’s over to our man in Espoo.

Thanks to the internet, we now have an unprecedented range of ways that we can share information: we have web sites, blogs, communities, Facebook, Twitter… The list goes on and on, whatever you want to know there is somebody somewhere on the internet that has the answer; but it’s not just customers, journalists and bloggers who are Nokia Lumia enthusiasts, we at Nokia are justly proud of our Nokia Lumias too!

For me, daily life has become easier thanks the Lumia and Windows Phone 8 for many reasons, but the greatest boon has been the complete integration of numerous types of account and synchronisation that simply could not be easier. I often have to reproduce situations that our customers encounter in order to find solutions or to be able to provide accurate information to R&D; and proper testing can’t be done on a blank device – I need the phone to have plenty of real-world data to work with. No problem with Lumia, it’s as simple as connecting to the office WLAN, tapping a few passwords and hey presto! One Lumia smartphone ready to go.

But there’s an unexpected bonus for a money-conscious northern Englishman like me. I have two Lumias in regular use, one with my +358 number and one with my +63 number, and both are syncing data with my Microsoft account, which means that my nearest and dearest at the other side of the world can send SMS messages to me on the +63 number, avoiding international charges; those messages sync up to the cloud and back down to my other phone whenever I’m near a WiFi network, and I can then reply using my +358 number which has a good international package – over a number of messages there are a fair few Eurocents and Pesos to be saved around the world and all the time the conversation thread remains intact!

This set me thinking: what do my colleagues like most about their Lumia phones? Well, here are five fellow Nokians who love their Lumias:

Maija Gaddi
Senior Vendor Manager
Espoo

We’ve no car in our family, so for me and my daughter HERE Transit is by far the best app out there. I no longer have to consult the printed timetables, or wait at the bus stop without knowing when the next bus is coming. I also avoid phone calls from my daughter like “Mom, can you check when the next bus is coming” because she has installed HERE Transit on her Nokia Lumia 720 and we’ve both pinned it to our start screen. I simply couldn’t do without it any more.

Guy Priou
Care Project Manager
Silicon Valley

The most important to me is to stay connected. I have 3 e-mail accounts, 2 personal and 1 work. My 3 live tiles are on the top of my screen so, at any time I can see if I have unread mails with just a glance. Then, if I do want to read and respond or just delete the spams I get in my Comcast account, I can usually check all 3 in less than 5 minutes and easily answer the important ones. Compared with the time it takes me to open, login, then select the mails via my laptop, this probably save me an hour’s time every day and I can do it no matter where I am. Likewise, my Calendar live tile shows me all the meetings & appointments I have coming up – I don’t have to login or open anything.
I also love the camera. Compared with anyone else’s phone and even some “real” cameras, mine takes the best photo. I took my Lumia 928 to Disneyland last year and of the 5 cameras that my family and I were carrying, they almost always chose my photo as “the keeper.”

Susanna Silvennoinen
Senior Manager, Sustainability
Salo

I absolutely adore my Lumia! I’m a marathon runner and I won’t leave home without it. When it’s hot, I wear it on an arm band, and when it’s cold, it’s in my pocket. I rely on it to track my route and tell my speed using apps like Runtastic and SportsTracker as I’m running, and play my favourite songs. I take pictures on all runs and post them on the Facebook group called “Today’s Run”. Immediately after the run I post my workout data on “HeiaHeia” to keep tabs of my mileage and times. When I don’t feel like going on a long run (let’s face it, Finnish climate is sometimes challenging), I head out and use the app “Zombies Run!” If I don’t run fast enough, zombies will catch me! The most crucial thing is to find the right place to play this game: deep in the woods it’s too scary, and close to traffic it’s dangerous, as the sound of zombies approaching sometimes makes me jump! This phone is the perfect running companion, but just as great on a business trip and when sneakers aren’t allowed.

Antti Koski
Business Process Lead, Source to Pay
Espoo

My most loved feature is the MyCommute live-tile in the main screen. I live quite far away from the office, need to take the busy Helsinki ring road every day. MyCommute uses live traffic information and alerts about possible traffic jams so that I can take alternative routes to avoid delays. Having the live tile in the homescreen gives you immediate info about traffic status in the morning and when leaving from the office. Another very useful feature is behind the “magnifying glass” search button – I can use the camera to scan and recognise text, and then translate it to my language. This comes very handy when I’m travelling, or working with documents in foreign languages.

Leonid Iakovlev
Lead Developer
Espoo

I’ve been an active user of smartphones since 1996 and I’m quite accustomed to having a access to a wide range of information on the go: internet, mail, chat, music, video, books, and so on. However, my Lumia 1520 forwards this to a totally new level – providing an all-in-one, two-way active access to global information, supporting both creativity and curiosity. It allows me to get rid of all those screens, boxes, wires and power supplies (like 30 kilos in total not counting 2 tons of paper books, VHSs, CDs and DVDs). What’s more, I’m a huge fan of its true HD screen, good storage options (with file system support with no file size limit), speediest always on the net, really good camera and microphones – and more. Until recently, I was forced to combine six or so devices but now I have been finally able to find one ideal device. Now it’s up to me to live as fast and furious as my smartphone!

So there you have it! A wonderful insight into how the people who help create the Nokia Lumia we all know and love use it themselves. Needless to say everyone has a favourite Lumia feature or app (I’m currently loved up with FlipMag Beta and my 1020’s zoom) so why share yours in the comments below.