Nokia Lumia 900 smartphone review

Despite the fact that the Nokia Lumia 900 smartphone, which is about to appear on the Russian market, is well known from the already available Nokia Lumia 800 model, we still decided to make a detailed review of the model. At the last CES 2012, the smartphone won the “Smartphone of the Year” award, and not so long ago the public learned that Steve Wozniak praises Windows Phone and Nokia Lumia 900. In this review, we will try to tell in detail why.

Design

The Nokia Lumia 900 looks similar to the Nokia N9 and Nokia Lumia 800, differing in size due to the display. If the dimensions of the Nokia N9 and Nokia Lumia 800 with 3.7-inch displays were 116.5 × 61.2 × 12.1 mm, then the Nokia Lumia 900 increased to 127.8 × 68.5 × 11.5 mm due to the 4.3-inch AMOLED display. It is worth noting that at the same time the flagship unit has become thinner by 0.6 mm - a figure, perhaps a small one, but in the hands it is quite noticeable. A solid Lumia 900 looks not only because of its size, but also because of its weight: if the predecessor of the Lumia 800 weighed 142 grams, then this unit is already 160 grams.

The case of the device is made of the already familiar and well-proven in N9 and Lumia 800 polycarbonate. This material is extremely scratch resistant, does not slip in your hand and has a nice matte color. And thanks to the production technology in which the body is cut from a single piece of polycarbonate, the smartphone turned out to be shock-resistant. Two models will be available for sale: in a black and white case.
')
In the upper left corner of the front panel is the front camera for making video calls or creating self-shots on Instagram, which is about to be released under Windows Phone (well, for now you can use Bubblegum or PhotoFunia for these purposes). Right below the screen there are three mandatory interface buttons for Windows Phone: “Back”, “Start” and “Search”. They are conveniently located and do not interfere with the touch screen, there are no accidental keystrokes on the keys.

At the bottom of the device, under the grill, there is a loudspeaker. On the right are the glossy volume keys, the camera key and the key for turning on / off the smartphone. The left side of the device remains free of keys. At the top of the phone is a microphone for noise reduction, a tray for a micro-SIM card (now it is pulled out with a clip), and a micro-USB connector for charging the device and connecting it to a computer. And if the Nokia Lumia 800 micro-USB was hidden under the stub, then in the Nokia Lumia 900 it does not hide behind.

At the rear of the case is an 8 megapixel camera with dual LED flash. However, the camera of the smartphone, we will discuss in more detail below.

Screen

The diagonal of the AMOLED display of the Nokia Lumia 900 is 4.3 inches, and the resolution is 800 × 480 pixels. By modern standards, the screen resolution is not huge, but these are the limitations of the Windows Phone 7 operating system. However, the pixel density with such parameters is 217 dots per inch, which is more than enough for comfortable work. Thanks to the use of ClearBlack technology, the screen of the smartphone has large viewing angles and excellent brightness and color rendition, preserving its characteristics to the maximum even in very sunny weather. To protect the screen from scratches and chips in case of an accidental fall, Gorilla Glass protective glass is traditionally used. While in Nokia Lumia 800 this glass flows smoothly into the device case, in Nokia Lumia 900 it is framed with a thin plastic border around the perimeter. Such a combination of glass should improve the shock resistance of the smartphone in case of accidental fall. However, the screen is already durable enough that you can check it out by watching the video in which the Lumia 900 is used as a hammer are stupid people, but what can you do.

Cameras

As we have casually mentioned, in the upper left corner is a frontal 1.3-megapixel VGA-camera, thanks to which you can now make video calls. This is a rather timely and useful innovation, since Skype for Windows Phone 7 is now out of beta testing and is very stable. By the way, the interlocutors via videoconferencing via Skype declare that the front camera Lumia 900 produces a very high-quality image.

Of course, in addition to the front camera, there is a quality camera on the back of the screen. This 8 megapixel camera uses Carl Zeiss Tessar optics: a 28mm wide-angle lens with f2.2 aperture allows you to take quality shots, especially outdoors, while capturing more space in the picture. Frames can be made with 4: 3 and 16: 9 aspect ratios. When shooting in the dark comes to the aid of a dual LED flash. The camera allows you to record video in the resolution of 720p at a frequency of 30 frames per second. Separately, it is worth to highlight the remarkable sound quality in the received videos.



Focusing works fast enough, so you can catch an interesting moment on occasion. By the way, you can “reach out” to the camera when the phone is locked by holding the physical camera key located on the right side of the case.

Communication

Despite the fact that LTE is present in the American version of the Lumia 900 for the American market, the European model will be supplied to the Russian market only with the support of DC-HSPA + category 24, which in theory will develop data rates of up to 42 Mbit / s. In practice, all the largest Russian mobile operators have reported on successful testing of DC-HSDPA, but have not yet entered the protocol into commercial operation.

Also, Nokia Lumia 900 is equipped with Wi-Fi (802.11b / g / n) and Bluetooth 2.1 + EDR modules. Speaking about Wi-Fi, I would like to mention that if Nokia on Symbian didn’t want to connect to networks with WPA-Enterprise encryption without first setting up the phone, then the Nokia Lumia 900 joins such networks automatically.

To ensure navigation in the device, GPS and Glonass positioning systems are used. Thanks to the use of A-GPS technology, the cold start of the navigator is limited to seconds - in this case, the initial positioning is carried out by the identifiers of the cells and Wi-Fi hotspots. But even without the activation of the cellular network and the Wi-Fi turned off, the smartphone finds the satellites in about half a minute, although this period may differ in both directions depending on the time of the previous GPS activation.

Iron

Nokia Lumia 900 works on a single-core processor with a clock frequency of 1400 MHz, graphics Adreno 205 and 512 MB of RAM. Thanks to its excellent optimization, Windows Phone 7 on this hardware shows excellent performance - chasing the numbers will only increase power consumption and shorten the device operation time.

The device uses a BP-6EW 1830 mAh battery. In theory, its capacity is enough for 7 hours of talking, about 6 hours of watching a video and 60 hours of listening to music. The maximum standby time is 300 hours. In the field, the phone works more than a day with frequent calls, regular updating of mail and reading social networks, about half an hour of play, and occasional use of navigation.

The device has 16 GB of internal memory, of which 14.5 GB is available to the user. Although using the Microsoft SkyDrive cloud hosting service, you can increase the space for storing files for many more gigabytes.

Windows Phone 7 + Nokia applications

The operating system Windows Phone 7 has already managed to recommend itself well among users, even on Habré. There are many reasons for this: a qualitatively new UX system, excellent responsiveness of interfaces, constant replenishment of the Marketplace with new applications, and also a whole set of standard ones. About the last and talk.

Turning on the device for the first time, you will see applications such as the People Hub client, which unites all major social networks, Music + Video for listening to your music library and FM radio, Hotmail email client with preset settings for popular email services, Microsoft Office for working with text Word documents, Excel spreadsheets, PowerPoint presentations, and OneNote notes, Internet Explorer 9 with HTML5 support.



In addition to the applications listed, Nokia Lumia 900 is preinstalled with a range of branded Nokia applications. These include offline full-fledged Nokia Navigator car navigation and Nokia Maps walking navigation, the Contacts Transfer application for syncing your address book from other phones and Nokia Music Player with Mix Radio support - a Nokia music service with free streaming and saving genre music streams (mixes) for listening offline. In addition, in Mix Radio you can create your own mixes for receiving recommendations about music, similar to the work of your favorite artists. The Nokia Books app, presented at MWC 2012, appeared in the smartphone - a handy book reader with an extensive library that includes classic and modern literature, Russian and foreign works. Prices for Russian books are mostly kept around 50-100 rubles, foreign literature is more often more expensive - but there are exceptions everywhere.

Equipment

The phone comes with a Nokia AC-16U charger with a USB interface, a Nokia CA-190CD USB charging and data transfer cable, a simple Nokia WH-902 stereo headset, a user manual and a spare micro-SIM card tray.