Nokia Lumia 920 Review and Spesifications - If there was one device the tech world is centered on for measuring Windows Phone success, it might be the Nokia Lumia 920 (currently available on AT&T; $99). Wireless charging, NFC, Super Sensitive Touch display. Greatly improves upon the Lumia 900, bringing top notch hardware, gorgeous design plus a formidable camera. Easily the top Windows Phone up to now. Limited carrier availability.
It's been almost a year towards the day since we reviewed Nokia's first Windows Phone now we're looking at its second-generation flagship, the Lumia 920 Since the Lumia 800 , Nokia's taken a fairly big role in improving Windows Phone's browsing a crowded (but lucrative) smartphone battlefield. The Lumia 920 dominated Nokia's presentation at Microsoft's Windows Phone 8 press event some time ago, with all the smaller Lumia 820 barely receiving a look-in.
Hardware
We'll be frank: Nokia has crafted one substantial smartphone. After that great curves and lightness of HTC's Windows Phone 8X (4.5 ounces), the Lumia 920 helps to make the scales tremble at 6.5 ounces. Granted, Nokia's Windows Phone flagship features a larger 4.5-inch screen, but that incremental difference (HTC's display is 4.3 inches wide) doesn't completely explain how different both the Windows Phones feel in-hand. Measuring the pair, the Lumia 920 is 0.42 inch thick for the 8X's 0.4 inch. Thankfully, Nokia has carried across several design licks through the Lumia 800 and avoids one in the hardware design complaints there were with its bigger brother. Along the flat top edge, you will find the pin-accessible micro-SIM slot (no nano-SIM as of this time), some tiny perforations that connect towards the secondary mic and headphone socket. Along the top from the screen, Nokia branding has on this occasion been ushered towards the right corner, while using earpiece housed above center in the screen. Underneath the screen, Nokia has installed Qi contactless charging for that phone's 2,000mAh battery. Well DC-HSPA+ (42Mbps) is additionally stuffed inside that polycarbonate shell.
The Nokia Lumia 920 has some with the most top quality features for Windows Phone 8. Although there are nevertheless minimum chassis requirements for that OS, most hardware manufactures have great leeway using this type of latest version.
Display
Coming in at 4.5”, the Lumia 920 has one of many largest displays for the Windows Phone 8 device, only bested from the yet-to-be-released Samsung ATIV S It also features Nokia's ClearBlack display technology (basically dual polarizers to relieve glare making the colors sharper), Super Sensitive Touch display and Corning's Gorilla Glass. This combo of high-end technology calculates well to the phone. While November isn't best time to check a phone's screen against full sunlight, we'd no problems while using screen outdoors or under harsh show floor spotlights.
Body
Like its predecessor, the Lumia 920 utilizes a polycarbonate shell. No creaking, no loose parts. Button had excellent tactile feel (far more so compared to the HTC 8X0 and travel in the button in your opinion is perfect.
He's not heavy, he's my phone
The Lumia 920 is 185 grams. In comparison towards the new super thin” iPhone 5, that's about 73 grams heavier. That sounds heavy though, right? As a popular image post on Reddit (produced by Victor P.) has stated, should you added 2 slices of deli turkey towards the iPhone 5, it'd weigh as being similar to a Lumia 920.
The reality in the situation is yes in comparison the Lumia 920 can be a big, solid phone and weighs one of the most. From our personal use, we'd no complaints while using phone's size and weight.
Under the hood
As we mentioned, the Lumia 920 is powered with a dual-core 1.5GHz CPU with 1GB of RAM and 32GB of onboard storage (no expansion). That Snapdragon S4 processor is very quickly, pushing the OS to your comfortable pace and allowing very swift app and game launches.
The speakers are placed around the bottom of these devices, containing the benefit of not being blocked when placed backside down (unlike the HTC 8X). One disadvantage to having the speakers for the bottom though happens when playing a game title and holding the product horizontally, you could possibly block the speakers. Battery life around the phone is decent. Even in case you don't discover the battery adequate, the wireless charging pad (as well as other accessories) makes obtaining a quick charge out with the phone effortless.
The PureView Camera
Here, Nokia targeting low-light performance in comparison for the over-sampling with the massive 41MP sensor found inside the PureView 808. Low-light performance is not short of astounding. The secret is really a combination of various technologies including a backside illuminated sensor (BSI), optical image stabilization (OIS), decent sized sensor and Nokia software tricks”. Don't get us wrong the Lumia 920 still does well specifically light balance. Reading around the Lumia 920's spec sheet, there's plenty to obtain us excited: an 8.7-megapixel backside-illuminated sensor paired with the f/2.0 autofocus Carl Zeiss lens, the return of Nokia's PureView branding, the promise of superb low-light performance, 1080p video capture, and (on both stills and video) optical image stabilization - the 1st floating lens and sensor in the phone which will ignore minor trembles while letting in light. Firstly, Nokia seems to be a little limited concerning how much it may bring to Windows Phone 8 camera UI. Noise artifacts are low (again, specifically in low light) and file sizes claim that Nokia hasn't compressed much away.
That brings us to another unique complaint: options.
On a great deal of Windows Phones, users can control such things as metering, saturation and sharpness through the Settings option. Ironically, the super advanced PureView camera for the 920 has none of those settings.
You really have ISO, white balance, image size (only 16:9 or 4:3), exposure value and Scenes but hardly anything else. That's a shame as typically we'd just tell individuals to bump sharpness to something higher along with this case, may also increase saturation (images are perhaps a little too neutral in color).
A bit soft and washed outside in color
Some everyone has asked concerning the Focus Assist Light (commonly called AF lamp on cameras). By default the Lumia 920 shines a light about the object before an image is taken, regardless in the flash settings. That feature is readily disabled by starting Settings and tapping it well and yes, even during low light with out Focus Assist Lamp the Lumia 920 still performs well.
And video? It's outstanding. The image stabilization is unlike some other phone today around the market. Even low light performance, whilst not as impressive as still photos, is greater than ideal.
The Lumia 920 in the evening
In conclusion, the Lumia 920 comes with an excellent camera-among the top seen on any phone today, specifically in low-light situations where other cameras easily are unsuccessful. Ironically it's during normal” situations (e.g. well lit) the location where the Lumia 920 becomes simply mediocre. It's not bad hardly as impressive. The good news the following is this generally seems to not be a fatal flaw of hardware but alternatively a deficiency of attention to post-JPG processing.
Accessories
The Lumia 920 includes a limited stock of accessories though Nokia and JBL have made several that are highly specialized. Things like the JBL PowerUp speaker features NFC pairing, wireless BT streaming and wireless charging. Folks on AT&T get yourself a free wireless charging pad, which we found to become an excellent addition. There's also a wireless charging are a symbol of your bedside and Purity Pro headphones. None of the items are cheap nonetheless they are top quality.
The Software
We're not planning to delve too deep to the Windows Phone 8 OS here. Stability - Although the firmware we had been running (1242) and OS (89903) technically usually are not finalized, we'd no significant difficulties with stability or crashes. Covering some familiar software highlights; Nokia Maps is an excellent app and free turn-by-turn navigation is actually difficult to sniff at. Xbox SmartGlass replaces the My Xbox Live app, handing you an alternate way to interact with your console. The full version requires an Xbox Live subscription (as well as a capable broadband connection), and throws up some touchscreen controls that map to controller buttons along which has a content browser. Nokia Music will continue to expand its music offering, despite obvious competition. Yep, Microsoft's cloud storage, while stitched in to the very seams in the Windows Phone 8 is usually rather unintuitive, specially when it comes to transferring pre-existing images to phone.
New Lenses for Windows Phone 8 as well as the Lumia 920
In addition towards the above, Nokia has embraced Lenses ” for Windows Phone 8, which might be thought of as mini-camera apps. Here they've got Cinemagraph, Panorama and Smart Shoot.
Cinemagraph requires a series of photos and makes animated GIFs, which might be uploaded to Skydrive or distributed to Email. The GIFs may be larger, often hovering around 10MB. While they certainly look really good (see our examples for the web version of the review), because you can't discover their whereabouts in action on Facebook, Imgur or Photobucket limits their usage. Panorama is Nokia's panoramic Lens for his or her Lumia line. So long as you pan slowly the app works perfectly.
Nokia Drive, Music, City Lens, Maps and Transit
If there's one other serious reason to take into account the Lumia 920, it has to get the apps. Nokia has built a whole ecosystem of super useful tools that greatly expand upon value of their Lumia line.
Nokia Drive+ Beta , which we've detailed before, can be an all-in-one GPS navigation system that works well with Nokia Maps. Those offline maps are shared between Maps and Drive+ too, reducing redundancy. While Nokia Drive began as an ok” navigation solution months ago, this latest version is pretty amazing. Whatever features it could lack, Nokia is continually improving it with frequent updates. Nokia Music allows that you download a couple of hours importance of music playlists, an unbelievable value even in case you already have Xbox Music. City Lens is Nokia's augmented reality app-also a Lens now in Windows Phone 8.
Performance and battery
Alongside that newer software comes fresher hardware - and also the arrival of dual cores on Windows Phone. The Lumia 920 packs single.5GHz Snapdragon S4 processor, meaning it's greater than capable of breezing through transitions, content-dense websites as well as the current crop of accessible games. We've tested the product on WPBench and AnTuTu, both Windows Phone 7 benchmarking apps which are not calibrated for that latest version as of this time. However, results line up while using HTC 8X nevertheless another impressive SunSpider score which has been borne out within our real-life experience while using handset; the product is over capable of rendering the desktop versions of web sites - something how the big screen is additionally well-suited to.
Wrapping it up
Enough while using review formalities: should you're here there exists a good chance you're already a Windows Phone user. Maybe even one that owns a Lumia. Nokia has i think taken all the top aspects from the Lumia 800 and 900 and enhanced it greatly using the Lumia 920. The device is way better built, feels nicer within the hand and packs a punch regarding raw specs. Throw in this low-light camera ability, fantastic video-capture, the super smooth and clear display and I am sold.
A lots of people when first holding it might quip, It's a brick” but right after they immediately notice how right it feels, commenting about the craftsmanship. On paper and when compared with other phones, the Lumia 920 does appear to possess some extra mass. As a hobbyist photographer, the 920's camera is extremely impressive. Because I mostly shoot in the evening anyway there the Lumia 920 is unmatched.
Whether oahu is the excellent audio quality, the extremely useful wireless charging or that curved display, the Lumia 920 can be a powerhouse of your phone. Others might discover some and that we'll be repaying close focus on what users have, but Nokia looks to did right using this type of phone. For all of such reasons, we enthusiastically recommend the Nokia Lumia 920.
