Life meets #Lumia: OneTechStop’s Lenny Bonsignore

How does this Lumia aficionado, tech geek, mailman and the editor-in-chief of OneTechStop use his Lumia day to day? Hint: Cortana helps. A lot.

Lenny Bonsignore has been a fan of Lumia phones since their debut in 2011. His first Lumia phone was the Lumia 800, Nokia’s first device to use the Windows Phone operating system.

Then the editor-in-chief of the Nokia Innovation blog, he liked it so much that he convinced his family and friends to use Lumia phones. By his count, Lenny has converted at least 16 people to use Lumia smartphones. The writers for his current blog, OneTechStop, which covers Windows and other Microsoft technology, also use Lumia smartphones.

“They all love it,” he said, highlighting features such as Lumia Camera, HDR, and the phone’s intuitive keyboard with word-swipe functionality.

Lenny now calls the Lumia 930 his main phone, but he also uses the Lumia 830 and the Lumia 1520. His Lumia comes in handy in his day job as a mailman for the U.S. Post Office in New York City. And it’s not just to make phone calls.

At least five times a week, passers-by stop him to ask for direction to places like the nearest hardware store, the local diner, the public library.

“They think I’m a human GPS,” he said with a laugh. “People think I know where everything is. That’s where navigation and Cortana come up. I just ask her, ‘Where’s the nearest hardware store?’”

And yes, he also uses Cortana to help track people’s packages. Another feature Lenny loves is that his text messages can be read aloud–hands-free. This was possible even before the debut of Cortana, he points out.

“I’m on my headset 85 percent of the time, so that feature is really helpful,” he said.

As a Lumia super-user, we asked Lenny what his go-to apps are. In addition to apps and features such as Internet Explorer, Lumia Camera (“Rich Capture is one of my favorite features”) and Facebook, here are a few more:

GroupMe: Lenny has this app pinned to his Start screen. GroupMe’s LiveTile provides up-to-the-minute notifications and can be used not just on Lumia but all platforms and devices such as PC.

Tweetium: “It’s a full-featured app for Windows Phone,” Lenny said of this premium Windows Twitter client. “I love that it works with PC, too. It keeps me up to date.”

6tag: This full-featured Instagram app for Windows Phone has lots of features such as cool filters, HD video recording, sharing capabilities, and geotagging.

“I love the sharing on 6tag,” he said. “And you can actually use the whole picture instead of having to crop it. That enhances the application.”

Lenny highlighted two more Windows Phone features: The first is the ability to pin different tiles to his Start screen for easy access—unique to Windows Phone.

For instance, he has his home address pinned on his Lumia Start screen. “No matter where I am, I just tap it and HERE Drive comes up and it takes me home.”

And the other feature? “The Internet Explorer web browser is pretty darn good. A lot of people don’t know that.”

Thanks so much for chatting with us, Lenny!

Readers: How long have you been a Lumia fan? Are any of the above apps on your Start screen?