Nokia Lumia 920

[Roland Deschain]

I've managed to tear myself away from the free trial on Netflix (wow!) momentarily to give my opinion of my new phone. First off I need to come clean. My name is Roland Deschain (on here), and i'm a Nokia fanboy. There, i've said it. I love Nokia, and have only owned 2 non-Nokia phones since my first mobile phone back in 1998 (ish). That's not to say that i've not used other phones belonging to other people, but nothing did it for me like Symbian. This has changed though, and this is an all-singing, all-dancing, Windows Phone 8 (WP8) device.

Operating System (WP8)

As I alluded to above, I loved the Symbian OS. Its layout was intuitive for me to use, and moving onto any other OS layout was a complete mission for me, which is why I was a little nervous that i'd have issues with WP8 at first, but I could hardly have been any more wrong. The OS is just as intuitive, if not more so, than Symbian. It is quick and responsive, which is obviously partly to do with the massive touchscreen the phone bears, and scrolling works like a charm.

The menu screen with all the pretty icons on it can be completely personalised, with app shortcuts not only placed onto it at will (as long as the app supports that feature), but also resized and moved into your preferred position. All it takes is pressing a finger down on the icon you want to move/resize, and you are presented with the option to do so. So simple.

Its drivers install automatically and easily to Windows Vista to browse folders for removing files from it, and placing files onto it. The file system is fairly straightforward, allowing the wonderfully simple drag-and-drop method of file transfer.

Screenshots are also easy to take, needing the pressing of the Windows key and the screen lock/power button, an easy thing to do.

Apps

I've been playing with the apps a lot, having not really had the opportunity to do so on previous phones, and have only had one issue so far, but that was because the Kerrang Radio Player app hadn't had WP8 functionality added to it.

That's not an issue though, as there are now around 150,000 apps available in the market place ranging from the usual Facebook/Twitter integration, through to Hotmail and other webmail clients, but that's not all. Games, fart machines, Family Guy quotes, BBC Radio stations, Reddit, Amazon, The Guardian, whatever you could wish for is there, and although it doesn't have quite the size of the Android Store, you can't go far wrong with this many apps.

Most are reasonably priced, but there are some I find to be overpriced, although if you shop around, you're bound to find a cheaper (or free) app doing almost the same thing. A nice feature is the related apps feature, which shows you apps similar to the one you've been looking at, and it is through this that the cheap and free ones are the easiest to find. This is not to say that the category and search options are bad, as they're not, but to make it even easier, this is one feature that is well worth having.

The addition of Xbox Live integration, along with the ability to import your Gamertag and True Achievements, was a nice touch, and certainly would have been a missed opportunity. What makes this all the better is that there are many games where you can earn Achievements to add to your Gamerscore.

Along with this is the new and improved Nokia Maps, which works like a charm, and maps can be downloaded for almost the entire planet for use offline, saving battery. Integrated with these maps in Nokia City Drive is a full-on Sat-Nav app, which is once again almost perfect. There are only 2 female and 2 male voices available for it as far as I know, and they're included, but I have yet to search for more voices, as there will hopefully be.

Hardware

What can I say about the hardware onboard except that it is awesome! The screen is 4.5!, more than large enough for comfortable viewing of files, and being capable of a 1280 x 768 resolution, always appears crisp and sharp. It shows up very well in sunlight, having almost zero glare, and although I have yet to test it in the height of summer, it has done very well on a cloudless Autumnal day here in dear old Blighty.

The phone itself is large, as it needs to accommodate all that touchscreen real estate, but the casing is not much bigger than the screen. The phone is heavy, weighing in at 185g, which makes it one of the heavier phones on the market, but all this I am now used to, as it really only took me a few days to forget that part. It's also reassuringly always in your pocket, as there's no mistaking that.

It's 4G ready, being compatible with most 4G bandwidths in the UK (and the US/Europe, as far as I read), but due to 4G's inherently oppulant price, i've gone for a standard 3G connection on T-mobile, but fear not. It has dual antennae inside it, and is compatible with wi-fi and internet sharing. At home I get blistering speeds over my wireless network, downloading 7MB files in a matter of a second or less, but with the dual antennae, this isn't really diminished much when on the move. I've tested downloads on a moving bus with no issue at all, so as long as there's an EE/T-mobile/Orange network nearby, I can use the data allowance with no worries.

And then there are the cameras. It has a pretty bog standard 1.3 Megapixel camera on the front, which is handy for videophone calls if you can be bothered to pay for them, but it's the back camera that is the star of the show.

This is an 8.7 Megapixel camera, and you're wondering what's special about that these days, but it is the inclusion of the Pureview technology so deftly used in the 808 (that 41MP behemoth from earlier this year) that makes it special.

This includes a Carl Zeiss lens, optical image stabilization, autofocus, and a dual-LED flash, which makes this camera able to take much clearer pictures with a little shake in the camera. The night vision is out of this world though. Taking a picture at night was so easy with Night Mode activated. The picture was so clear, and it picked the colour out, even in very dark conditions. You can change the f/stop value from f/2.0 to f/-2.0, ISO from from 100 to 800, aspect ratio, white balance, and conditions. The focus assist light is a major feature, and is what helps get a little extra detail.

The camera also has geo-tagging ability with Nokia City Lens, an app that you use to show where local points of interest are. You use the camera to look at a street, and it will create an augmented reality on the screen, tagging those places (not tried it out yet). There's touch focus on the camera too.

Battery Life

This is, so I am told, from above standard smartphone length to upper echelons smartphone length. For me it lasts a day with moderate usage, but i've had it up to 3 days with little unintensive usage (ie - light newsreader browsing). Games suck it dry, so be warned!

Design

I love the overall design of the phone. I don't think it's a little blocky at all, as some people have said. I find it easy on the eye, having the stately black version and not the gaudy yellow/white/cyan/red version, and something I can finally once again be proud of holding in my hand in public. The one complaint I would have of this phone is that the search button, which rather unhelpfully opens Bing (used for QR code and Barcode recognition), is situated in the wrong place for the right-handed phone user.

When you hold the phone in your right hand and type or punch the screen with your right hand at the same time, it is all too easy to press the search button with your palm. This necessitates more careful holding of the phone, but it's nothing major, just a niggle.

Overall

I would definitely give this a 9.5/10, as although there is room for improvement, all that improvement will do is make this phone perfect.

[Sibling Zono (anon1mat0)]

Enjoy your new phone! 
---
I'm so married to Android (and to Google's services in general) that I wouldn't consider WP8 (and much less iOS!). In fact, I got a Samsung Galaxy Relay to replace my aging G2 and I'm quite happy with it, specially with the AMOLED screen (black is truly black!), the full keyboard (with number keys) and the speed (now I feel the lag of my old G2). My wife wanted a bigger screen so I gave them a Samsung Galaxy Note (a very large screen for a phone) and she is quite happy with it. My son also has an Android phone so I can say I'm firmly on the Google camp. 

[Roland Deschain]

Thanks Zono. It's odd how attached we become to our gadgets and the way we're able to interact with them.

It would have been nice to try out Android on this phone, but it wasn't to be. It was this one I specifically wanted, so it was WP8 or not this phone. Not a hard call for me.

[Bob in a quantum-state-of-faith]

I'm with Zono-- I owned a Windoze phone prior, (a Windoze CE to be sure, not their best effort) and I had no real issues with it-- I used that phone for more than a year.   In fact, it was my first integration between my PDA device and my dumb cellphone (yes, I carried a Palm for several years).   

The think I loved best, was having a single phone book, that had advanced categories & such.

I went from Windoze CE to G1 (android) and avoided the whole apple thing.

I may or may not go with Win8, but I doubt it-- I'm even thinking of looking into the new Google laptop.  I like Microsoft, don't get me wrong (I have a Win7 box that I wouldn't part with willingly), but I've become used to Android's quirky way of doing things, and am (more than anything else) loathe to learn yet a different way of doing what I do daily.

I'm happy you like it-- I do hope Win8 phones make a dent in the smartphone market.

Why? 

Because it'll keep the other guys on their collective toes, and make them innovate.

Or else they go the way of...

.... that old Palm Pilot of mine did. 

[Griffin NoName]

The night vision is out of this world though. Taking a picture at night was so easy with Night Mode activated. The picture was so clear, and it picked the colour out, even in very dark conditions.

So I could take pictures of my bedroom when bored silly due to insomnia in the middle of the night. Sounds like a must have.

Does sound good. Sadly I cannot convince myself I need my phone to do any of the things such phones do. Which probably means I am insane.

[Swatopluk]

If you are then I am even more so since I do without even a 'dumb' cellphone.

[Sibling Zono (anon1mat0)]

If you are most of the time at home or close to a computer a smartphone is a poor replacement, but if you are on the move enough, it makes a huge difference. I work on IT and I'm responsible for a website 24/7 so regardless I need to be connected, but once you have the convenience of a smartphone, you start doing other stuff, like using the GPS when you drive to work/home because it has real time traffic information, or taking pictures that otherwise you wouldn't because in normal circumstances you don't carry a digital camera everywhere, or simply use it to listen music or even watch a movie on the gym. And the added value of a device that keeps you entertained during long waits, like going to the doctor or in line for XYZ reason. Can you live without it? Sure although I had Palm* ** devices before I had a cellphone (I only got it when it became a work necessity), and once I got my G1 there was no turning back, no more lost phone numbers and something to do instead of tapping my fingers when there was nothing else to do! Or opening a wikipedia article anywhere! ^__^

*I had two Casio electronic agendas before I got my first palm. Backing up that was a pain.
** I imagine it was a mix of corporate inertia and the closed/paranoid culture of development what killed palm. I was amazed when the Kyocera 6035 showed up and considered buying one, although it was a bit clunky (or the pretty but delicate Treos), but had they took advantage of the market and moved fast enough they could be around or even dominant. Hard to believe that was only ten years ago.

[Opsa]

Thanks for this information, Roland and Zono. I just have a cellphone, but I know that eventually I will give in and get a phone that is more than just a phone. It's the wave of the future.

[Sibling Zono (anon1mat0)]

And you can get some models pretty darn cheap, to the point that you don't need to get a data plan on your line and just use WiFi if you need to download stuff (like games or cache maps for the GPS).

[Bob in a quantum-state-of-faith]

*I had two Casio electronic agendas before I got my first palm. Backing up that was a pain.

You too? 

I went through several iterations of PDAs myself, including at least 3 casios.  The last one even had a serial interface, permitting backup & restoration (and creation too--once I "hacked" the very simple file structure) to a PC.  This was in the 80's, maybe the very early 90's?  I do not recall exactly.

The best I had, in that genre was a smallish one about the size & shape of a credit card.  I carried that everywhere, until I accidentally cracked the screen (it was pretty thin).   It was a no-name brand from Taiwan, as I recall.

Those were my years spent as a full-time programmer-- where my memory was stuffed full of code, and no longer had any room for trivia such as telephone numbers... meh.   I grew dependent on artificial memory at that point, including several digital watches with memory functions.

I'm still dependent on artificial memory, but I no longer wear a watch.  That's one tech I managed to get rid of-- I always hated stuff next to my skin, especially plastic. 

[Griffin NoName]

I had a Palm I never used - gift from son who got it free from his work.

My phone does camera and video, so not totally dark ages.

[Roland Deschain]

I missed the whole Palm Pilot era, not having a mobile phone until the late 90s or a PC until the early noughties, so can't reminisce with you on that, but as for something to hold things you can never remember (eg - phone numbers), or for something to do in long queues, it's superb to have something.

I usually take a book (or my eReader) with me so that I have something to pass the time, but now I have my new phone, unless i'm going away for long periods of time, I can just use my phone. It will take ebooks, so that's that problem solved, it can take music, it can take pictures, so it's handier to have just one device capable of all these things rather than 3 of them, more so for shorter periods of time.

It's not perfect in the dark, Griffin, just in low light. Even Nokia can't perform that type of miracle.

My phone does camera and video, so not totally dark ages.

If you turned up in the Dark Ages with even the most basic of phones, you'd still receive a warmer welcome than is entirely comfortable.

[Griffin NoName]

My phone does camera and video, so not totally dark ages.

If you turned up in the Dark Ages with even the most basic of phones, you'd still receive a warmer welcome than is entirely comfortable.

I'll call off the trip then 

[Swatopluk]

The risk may be lower than you think since the phones would not work without the transmission network.

[Griffin NoName]

The camera and video would. And if I took my laptop they could talk to eah other via USB. Of course, mine being an ancient phone, the battery only lasts a short time. But then we don't know how time works when going backwards.