DUBAI: Nokia – the image that crops up is of a giant slowly losing the race. The iPhones and the Galaxys seem to have stolen the thunder from this one time legendary phone maker. Till now, that is.
With the young, vibrant Lumia 920, Nokia hopes to gain lost ground – and soon.
Gorgeous, colourful and powerful the Windows 8-driven phone is a new breed alright. Sporting a one-piece polycarbonate body in bold colours, the phone boasts wireless charging and Dolby sound support. The 4.5 inch PureMotion HD+ display is the best in the business and the touchscreen is supersensitive.
Till now we have been navigating around phones via icons, but with Windows 8 you get live tiles, which updates all your interests in real time on the home screen. New Facebook posts, a tweet there, an email here, or a message – its all there on the home screen.
Nokia seems to have pulled out all stops when it comes to imaging. PureView along with optical image stabilisation makes for blur free images and videos even when you are on the move. We particularly liked the Smart Shoot feature (taking the best expressions of each person from multiple group photos and putting it into one composite image, or even obliterating unwanted objects or people from an image).
It is in low-light photography that the camera’s true character comes to the fore. The 8.7 megapixel camera (Carl Zeiss lens) can take in five times more light than competing smartphones without using flash, and we were able to capture clear, bright pictures and video indoors as well as night time shots. There’s also features like Cinemagraph where you can create a animated file from still images or stitch multiple images with Photosynth.
Nokia has always been strong in maps and along with Nokia Drive voice guided navigation, they have something called city lens where you just hold your phone in any direction nearby malls, restaurants, theatres, hotels, and other businesses pop up on your screen. You can find suggestions on where to eat. Then read reviews, get phone numbers, link to websites or create a list of places to visit another time.
Nokia has also bundled in its free music streaming service, that also works offline – download a playlist onto your phone and you can listen to it whenever you want.
Nokia has backed up all that jazz with some serious power under the hood. The Snapdragon processor CPU cores enable extra performance when you need it . The processor’s unique asynchronous technology enables each core to power up and power down independently, resulting in maximizing core performance level without wasting battery power.
This brings us to the question. Will it be the game-changer Nokia hopes it to be?
We feel that as a device it’s brilliant and can take on the iPhone or the Galaxy. But the real battle here is how people will take to the new Windows OS compared to Android and the (iPhone) IOS. The big plus here is that everyone uses Windows and the cross-device synergy will be an advantage to Nokia. Initial sales reports are quite encouraging with more than 2.5 million orders for the Lumia 920 across the globe, with the phone sold out in the US, Germany, Australia and elsewhere.
Only time will tell if Nokia breaks back into the top three in smartphones, but we feel Nokia sure has something to celebrate with this new baby.
Specifications
- Main camera: 8.7MP; full 1080p HD video capture
- Front camera: 1.2MP with 720p HD video
- Display: 4.5 inch Nokia PureMotion HD+ WXGA IPS LCD
- Processor: 1.5GHz dual core Snapdragon S4
- Memory: 1GB RAM; 32GB mass memory with 7GB free SkyDrive storage
- Battery: 2000mAh with integrated Qi wireless charging
