Nokia Lumia 920 Full Review

Lumia 920 is Nokia's latest flagship smartphone based on Windows Phone 8 operating system. Prior to its launch in India it was surrounded by a lot of controversies related to a fake video about its camera's capabilities, and availability in oversee markets where it was unveiled in November.

Nokia Lumia 920 has moved on from all those hiccups, but can it make its presence felt in the very competitive smartphone market? Read this review to find out whether Lumia 920 has the muscle to fight competition, especially from Samsung and Apple.

Look and feel

On a weighing scale Nokia Lumia 920 will measure 185 grams and it has a 10.7 mm thick waist, which definitely makes it a bulky smartphone as compared to HTC's Windows Phone 8X. It also has a relatively big 4.5 inch screen with large bezel on the top and bottom, which increases its total height to over 5 inches.

The Gorilla Glass front of Nokia Lumia is gently curved at all the four ends, and it has three capacitive buttons - return, home and search, and a front camera on top.

On the right panel of Lumia 920 you will find a camera button, a lock button and a volume rocker. On the top and bottom panels you will find a 3.5 mm jack, and USB port along with speakers, respectively. On the top of the back panel you will find a camera with flash.

Lumia 920, which we got for review, was of yellow colour but it also comes in red, white, black and cyan models. It has a polycarbonate unibody shell and the top and bottom are flat and squared-off.

Pure View technology

Nokia Lumia 920 has adopted its famous PureView technology for imaging. It has an 8 megapixel rear camera with Carl Zeiss optics and dual LED flash. There's also a 1.3 megapixel front facing camera placed right next to the earpiece.

Two stand out features of the Lumia 920's camera capabilities are low-light performance and image stabilization, which make the device stand out in the crowd. Nokia has used what it calls floating lens technology, in which the whole optical unit is suspended on ting springs, which act as shock absorbers to take care of unwanted shaking of the hand.

Low light pictures taken by Lumia 920 are of amazing quality and are detailed. Similarly, video recording is quite a smooth affair as small shakes don't impact the picture quality.

The only issue with the camera is that if one plans to use the dedicated camera button for clicking snaps the hands should be steady, otherwise the pictures tend to be out of focus (I am talking about amateurs taking pictures).

Nokia has also added some software: Lenses, Smart Shoot and Cinemagraph to Lumia 920 to make shooting a better experience.

When you tap on Lenses it shows up camera app options like Smartshoot and Cinemagraph. Smart Shoot takes several photographs in succession and then allows you to select the best shot and then cycle through faces to get rid of blinks. Cinemagraph lets you add small animations to the pictures you have clicked, but sharing these animated pictures is an issue.

Display

Lumia 920 has a 4.5 inch IPS LCD display with 1280 x 768 pixel resolution that supports PureMotion HD+ technology, which Nokia claims reduces latency whenever you swipe screen. Well, this technology delivers what it promises as whenever you swipe the screen sharp transitions with crisp motion are visible.

Even in broad day the sunlight content on Lumia 920 is clearly visible and apart from that one can also use gloves (not the big leather ones) to swipe the screen and type.

Additional feature

There are two additional features that none of the other Windows Phone 8 smartphones have-one of them is Nokia Maps and the other is wireless charging, based on the Qi standard (one has to just put the phone on the pad that is connected to the power supply and the phone will start charging).

Nokia Maps is one of the best navigation apps in its class and especially if you are travelling to new places it's quite handy. We can't tell much about the wireless charging feature because we didn't receive charging accessories along with the device.

Music

If you are a music buff you have plenty of options for listening to your favorite music on this phone. You can access your music via the different music apps or via the Nokia store.

Nokia store has a good collection of songs and artists to keep you entertained. Occasionally, we had issues with downloading songs from the store but after reattempting we were able to download them.

Battery

We used Lumia 920 extensively for browsing, gaming and navigation and on a full recharge were able to get a day's use keeping all the connectivity options like data, WiFi and Bluetooth open.

Performance

The Lumia 920 based on Windows Mobile 8 runs on a Qualcomm Snapdragon 1.5 GHz processor. The main interface of Windows Phone 8 operating system is quite smooth and fluid. In the homescreen one has the options to resize tiles in three different sizes, which lets you add more titles and still keep things tidy.

The only major issue we faced while reviewing Nokia Lumia 920 was accessing the app store as it was down quite often, but whenever we accessed it we were able to find a decent number of apps. Though, as compared to other stores, it is just a baby.

Why you should go for Nokia Lumia 920

# Large responsive screen

# Maps

# Camera

# If you want to try out Windows Phone 8

Why you should not go for Nokia Lumia 920

# It's heavy

# App ecosystem is still in its infancy

# You love comparing Windows Phone 8 OS with Android and iOS.

Verdict

Nokia Lumia 920 definitely has a good design and is quite a sturdy smartphone. One will not face any issues with connectivity options like WiFi, Bluetooth and SIM connectivity. Accessing mails and browsing will be a nice experience. Camera capabilities are quite good but if more editing options had been provided it would definitely have been great.

A major pain point with this device, as a matter fact, is a problem with all Windows devices-that the app store needs to pull up its sock.Also, wireless charging does not come bundled with the device and if you purchase it separately you have to shell out around Rs 4,000 which doesn't make it an exciting proposition.

We also noticed that Nokia Lumia 920, in spite of having Gorilla Glass, gets scratched on regular use and during normal wear and tear the glossy finish will take a beating.

Mobile review: Nokia Lumia 920 Specifications
Network	GSM
Operating System	Windows Phone 8
Dimensions	130.3 x 70.8 x 10.7 mm, 185 grams
Display	a 4.5 inch IPS LCD display with 1280 x 768 pixel resolution
Input Method	Touchscreen capacitive
Processor	Qualcomm Snapdragon 1.5 GHz processor
Memory	1GB, 32 GB internal
Connectivity	WiFi and Bluetooth
Multimedia	Multi format audio video playback
Camera	8 megapixel rear and 1.3 megapixel front
GPS
Additional features	Nokia Maps and wireless charging
Battery	2000 mAh
Warranty	1 year
Price

Nokia Pureview 808

The fact that Nokia 808 PureView is the best cameraphone money can buy is sure as shooting. This won't even pass for a pun. The 41 megapixel sensor and the tack-sharp optics deliver what no other smartphone can match and we even saw it successfully stand its ground against much heavier competition.
The Nokia 808 PureView is on its march to becoming iconic, trashing the Olympus PEN E-PL2 Micro Four Thirds camera in our blind test and then matching the Canon 5D Mark III for resolution in the process.
Yet, both of those (admittedly, impressive) achievements came in tests that really played to the PureView's strengths. Strong lighting is where the host of tiny pixels can get the upper hand over fewer, if larger, ones and all the samples we gave you so far were captured in perfect conditions

.
It's far from certain whether the Nokia 808 will keep its perfect record once darkness falls and noise starts to show its ugly face. We are right there in the camp of the doubters too, so we had no other choice but put the PureView through a series of tests and see its true worth.
We've once again recruited a couple of elite rivals in the face of the Canon 550D and its APS-C sensor and the aforementioned Olympus E-PL2. The Galaxy S III is here too, to put the performance of the cameraphone in proper perspective.
Having mentioned the pixel size of the 808 PureView, we feel we need to make an important note here. Even though the 41MP sensor might lead you to believe otherwise, the size of individual pixels isn't any smaller than those of the Galaxy S III, or the iPhone 4S. Nokia have put a large (by cameraphone standards anyway) 1/1.2" sensor inside the PureView and there was no need to go to extremes to achieve the mind-blowing resolution.
It's only when you compare the pixel size of the Nokia 808 PureView sensor to those inside the DSLR and Micro Four Thirds cameras that you can call them small.
Now, let's cut to the chase and start with the shooting.

FLASH TEST

We start with the most common scenario. All cameras had their ISO setting set to automatic and flash was enabled. Each of the contenders was shot in its maximum native resolution, save for the Nokia 808, which appears twice on each set of crops - once in its full-res 38MP mode and once in the 8MP PureView mode we believe will be most frequently used.
We placed the subject about a meter and a half away from the cameras, as we doubt many will shoot such wide-angle lenses from much greater distance. Here go the crops.

The Nokia 808 PureView put its Xenon flash to great use, capturing an amazing amount of detail here. The native 38MP mode did show some noise, but nothing we can't live with, while the 8MP PureView shot is simply stunning.
The Samsung Galaxy S III cheated quite a lot there as it dropped its shutter speed to 1/15 which, combined with a LED flash, allowed it to keep the ISO at 200 only. However in real-life scenarios (when you don't have a tri-pod like we did) photos shot at this kind of shutter speeds are certain to come out blurred due to camera shake more often than not.
But even if we assume that every Galaxy S III owner is an experienced photographer with a super steady hand, its output is still nowhere near the PureView standards.
As for the two large-sensor cameras, the Canon 550D chose to underpower its flash and shoot at ISO 400, failing to match the 808 PureView. The Olympus E-PL2 did better and almost matched the Nokia smartphone in terms of resolved detail, but its photo came out with extremely poor contrast, which means the Finn got the first win for today.

No flash test

For the second test we disabled the flash units to get them out of the equation. That's hardly going to be as frequent a case as the previous one, but it was a good way of testing the 808 PureView performance in those scenarios when flash usage is simply pointless - i.e. when shooting landscapes or when the subject is reflective and the flash will ruin things.
Here go the two set of crops from the two images we captured.


Impressive, isn't it? The Nokia 808 in 38MP mode has the most detailed output and even its 8MP PureView mode showed quite a lot of fine detail. Granted, when using 38MP mode the Nokia smartphone images come out the noisiest, but it's the less irritating luminance noise, rather than the color patches that dominate the low-light shots of other smartphones and didgicams.
With the first shot the Nokia 808 PureView kept the shutter speed at the relatively easy to handle 1/25, but it did go the Samsung way with the second photo and dropped to 1/16. The Canon 550D DSLR camera stuck with 1/30, which should normally allow you to capture sharp photos at this focal length if the subject isn't moving while the Olympus chose 1/50 and 1/60 settings, which are certain to avoid camera shake and even motion blur on most occasions. However the higher shutter speeds of the Olympus camera meant that it needed to go for a higher ISO setting, which inevitably took its toll on the image

Key features

• 38 megapixel autofocus camera with xenon flash and 1080p@30fps video recording
• Two capture modes: 38MP/34MP full-res and 3MP/5MP/8MP PureView
• Camera features: giant 1/1.2" camera sensor, mechanical shutter, ND filter, geotagging, face detection, up to 4x lossless digital zoom
• Quad-band GSM/GPRS/EDGE support
• Penta-band 3G with 14.4 Mbps HSDPA and 5.76 Mbps HSUPA support
• 4" 16M-color AMOLED capacitive touchscreen of 640 x 360 pixel resolution
• Nokia Belle OS with Feature Pack 1
• Single-core 1.3 GHz ARM 11 CPU and 512 MB RAM
• Wi-Fi 802.11 b/g/n with DLNA and UPnP
• microHDMI port for HD TV-out functionality
• GPS receiver with A-GPS support and free voice-guided navigation
• Digital compass
• 16GB on-board storage, expandable up to 32GB through the microSD card slot
• Active noise cancellation with a dedicated mic
• DivX and XviD video support
• Built-in accelerometer and proximity sensor
• Standard 3.5 mm audio jack
• Stereo FM Radio with RDS, FM transmitter
• microUSB port with USB On-the-go support
• Stereo Bluetooth 3.0 with A2DP
• NFC support
• Smart and voice dialing
• Scratch resistant Gorilla glass display

Main disadvantages

• Symbian ecosystem lags behind Android and iOS
• nHD resolution wears thin on the 4" screen
• The phone is quite bulky and heavy
• Relatively limited 3rd party software availability
• microSIM support

The 808 PureView has no business with cameraphones as we know them. It can look down at any of the smartphone flagships of the competition and make fun of their so-called advanced camera tricks. But guess what - it doesn't. It's so much better than that.
And of course the flipside is that the smartphone is not of the same order as the cameraphone. The Symbian-powered Nokia 808 PureView knows darn well it cannot match the quad-cores, HD screens and the app stores of the competition.

Retail package

The Nokia 808 PureView comes with all the essential accessories in the box. Ours came with a rather big charger to be used with a data and charging USB cable. We would've liked the stylish round chargers of the N9 and the Lumia line, but it's not a big deal.
The stereo headset has a Call key built-in and comes with a choice of three different sets of earbuds of different sizes. An NFC sticker and a leather wrist strap with suede padding complete the contents of the box.

What's in Nokia 808 PureView's box

Nokia 808 PureView 360-degree spin

Here's the Nokia 808 PureView in all its glory. It's not exactly fresh out of the gym, and the massive camera bump makes it look like it's been in an accident. Multiple accidents? It's certainly not a bad-looking fella, though.

Design and build quality

Nokia are sticking to the classic white and black, and red for special occasions, we presume. No fancy paintjobs like pink and lime. Also gone is the full-metal body of the N8.
The all plastic build is not necessarily a bad thing, considering that at 169g the 808 PureView competes in the super heavyweight division. Plastic was definitely the way to go here.

Nokia 808 PureView and its daddy
The Nokia 808 PureView has a surprisingly coarse finish that almost feels like machined metal, only not as cold. It is nice to the touch and has great grip, which is a must for such a hefty, and top-heavy, piece of gear. We don't miss the aluminum unibody of the N8 because, believe it or not, the 808 PureView easily puts any metal-clad phone to shame. The feel is solid, bordering on lethal. The Nokia 808 PureView desperately lacks sophistication but it doesn't feel like it'll break in your hands.
It's not hard to guess that this kind of camera will require plenty of extra space. At 123.9 x 60.2 x 13.9 mm, the 808 PureView is just a millimeter thicker than the Nokia N8, but that's not taking into account the large hump at the back. At its thickest part, where the camera is, the 808 PureView is 18mm deep.
Despite the size and weight, the device doesn't feel weird in the hand. It didn't take long to learn how to balance the top-heavy phone in portrait. That's where the grippy finish of the rear was most welcome. One scenario where it's not the most comfortable of handsets is typing in landscape mode. And even that's not too bad.

The Nokia 808 PureView in black
Above the display we find the secondary camera for video calls, alongside the proximity and ambient light sensors, and a centrally placed earpiece.
Keeping up with the times, the 808 PureView packs a 4" AMOLED display, with a layer of Gorilla Glass for extra protection. It's a nice choice for screen meant for viewing photos.
So, assuming at some point you will stop ogling the monstrous camera at the back, the front is where your attention will be. Unfortunately, Nokia could've done better than nHD resolution.
360 x 640 pixel screens weren't exactly top of the line two years ago, and they most certainly aren't today. The display has grown up to 4 inches, taking the pixel density down to 184 ppi. With some rival smartphones able to offer nearly twice this number, the 808 PureView has no excuses.
But not everything is ruined. AMOLED offers great sunlight legibility and perfect indoor performance. Not least, the aspect ratio is spot on 16:9. Deep blacks and saturated colors are the technology's trademark features. Although it's not as impressive as Samsung's SuperAMOLED Plus, it's more than competitive elsewhere.
And here's how the Nokia 808 PureView did in our dedicated display test. We couldn't measure the values at 50% brightness since the ambient light sensor couldn't be turned off. You can learn more about the testing process over here.

Samsung Galaxy Tab 3

It looks like the Samsung Galaxy Tab 3 is alive in an 8-inch variant, according to benchmark results showing up online
According to the benchmark results for a device going by the model number GT-P3200, Samsung's second new 8-inch slate will sport a 800 x 1280 resolution, 1.5GHz processor and Android Jelly Bean, version 4.2.1.
You'll need to take this information with the recommended sodium chloride as benchmarks can be faked, but a third generation of Galaxy Tabs arriving this year isn't hard to believe.
Samsung is expected to launch a host of new devices at MWC 2013 in Barcelona - or possibly even sooner - and TechRadar will be there keeping an eye out for the Galaxy Tab 3 8.0 and co.0

One of Samsung's rumored Samsung Galaxy Tab 3 units has been detailed in a benchmark.

The GT-P3200 was recently listed on GLBenchmark's database, with the 7-inch tablet apparently sporting a resolution of 1280 x 800 pixels, which is the same resolution featured on Google's Nexus 7.

The system-on-a-chip is listed as simply SMDK4x12. An Exynos-powered Galaxy S3 showcases the same model number in the database, so the GT-P3200 will either sport a dual or quad-core Exynos system-on-a-chip clocked at 1.5GHz, accompanied by a Mali-400 MP graphics unit.

The aforementioned 7-inch Galaxy Tab 3 will make its official debut alongside a 10-inch slate during MWC this month (February 25 to 28)We will hope for the best tab in the world.

Lava Iris N501-A 10K Competitor.

Sony Xperia Z - Dust is not all.

The Sony Xperia Z is the phone that's set to propel the Japanese firm to the head of the phone charts - and if it went on specs alone, there's a good chance it would manage it.
We're looking at yet another redesign from the Sony design studios - from the Sony Ericsson Xperia Arc to the Xperia Z, we've had four iterations of the smartphone aesthetic.
The Sony Xperia Z has been unveiled at CES 2013 claiming to deliver the 'ultimate viewing experience'.
Fitting into this mantra is the 5-inch full HD Reality Display (1080 x 1920) sporting Sony's own Mobile Bravia Engine 2, which uses technology borrowed from its TV range to produce a crisp, vivid display.There's more too, with the Xperia Z the first smartphone (or superphone) from Sony to feature a quad-core processor – clocked at 1.5Ghz and backed up by 2GB of RAM meaning Android 4.1 Jelly Bean should run like a dream.


Round the back is a 13.1MP camera capable of recording 1080p video and a single-LED flash, while on the front is a 2.2MP snapper.
Smartphone staples such as Wi-Fi, Bluetooth 4.0 and A-GPS are all present, as is NFC, 4G and a 2330mAh battery.
Sadly the Sony Xperia Z only comes in a 16GB variant, but it does sport a microSD slot to expand on this and, as an added bonus, the handset is dust- and waterproof.
The Xperia Z certainly looks like a stellar device on paper, but the proof as they say, is in the pudding.

It's refreshing to see another top level manufacturer putting the option on there, and especially so when you consider the minimal thickness of the phone too.
As you can imagine, HD video looked simply superb on the expansive screen, and we can see the Xperia Z will be a really decent mobile for movies on the go.
The first phone to perform such a trick is the Sony Xperia E, a more budget offering, but the difference between these two is that the Xperia Z can intelligently decide which apps should be able to communicate and which shouldn't.
The user will have to specify which apps they think should be able to run under the lock screen, for instance Facebook Messenger or Skype, but Sony still thinks that battery standby life could be improved by a large order of magnitude with this new technology.

Early verdict

There's no doubt that Sony has stepped up its game with the Xperia Z. We were pretty unimpressed with the screen quality when we first saw the handset sitting nonchalantly on the table, and if you're not using the phone straight on, then you may not think you're staring at a top-end smartphone.
But that aside, the rest of the device impressed us hugely. From the premium design, the weight and industrial casing and the larger edge-to-edge screen to the high-end Exmor RS sensor and Bravia Engine 2, there's so much that Sony will be able to tout on its marketing literature.
We're getting used to our hands on reviews yielding promising smartphones these days, so we'll reserve a lot of judgment until we get our final review sample in. But based on our early look with the device there's definitely a lot of positivity surrounding it, and the fact that Sony has finally joined the big boys with a powerful smartphone is enough to pique our interest at the very least.