Nokia fan treks 400 miles for Lumia event

How much do you love Nokia? Are you ready to call yourself a serious fan of Lumia? How about getting up at 3 a.m. to drive 400 miles to be among the first to check out the brand new Nokia Lumia 920 and 820 smartphones with Windows Phone 8?
Aaron Hall from Youngstown, Ohio, did just that. The 32-year old system administrator saw the invitation for Nokia’s evening event following the announcement of the new devices in New York. He RSVP’d, got the day off from his boss and got into his Nissan Altima to drive seven hours across the eastern U.S.

“I worked seven days a week since Memorial Day so this is my time off,” Aaron explains to us when Nokia Conversations sat down for a chat.

He was the very first one to stand in line for the fan event, which opened at 6pm. A few friendly Nokia employees tried to make the waiting a little more comfortable, bringing him a chair and some lunch from a nearby restaurant.

“I originally wanted the Nokia Lumia 900 but I’m not eligible for an upgrade until December. Now I have my sights on the Lumia 920 – I want the red one,” he says.

Aaron says he used to only buy HTC phones but was disappointed by the lack of support from the company: “They just release a phone but never update it.”

He says this is a big contrast between Nokia and a lot of the other players in the industry.

“You guys understand what it’s all about. When you realized you had a data connection issue with the Nokia Lumia 900 you took care of it – and fast. Since then you’ve released other updates. Not a lot of companies act that way.”

Aaron can’t wait to get his hands on the Nokia Lumia 920, and he loves the style. “It’s unique and stands out,” he says.

He’s also excited about the PureView camera and OIS technology. “I see this as a killer feature. I think it will really stand out and I can’t wait to be able to show it off to all my friends.”

He admits that he would’ve loved to see more megapixels, maybe a whopping 41 megapixels like in the Nokia 808 PureView. “But I’m technical enough to understand that it’s not about pixels, it’s about quality,” he says.

Aaron left the event tooting a Nokia Play 360° Wireless Speaker and a Nokia Purity HD Stereo Headset by Monster. We can’t wait for him to hook them up to his Nokia Lumia 920.