Smartphone Review Nokia Lumia 900

Despite the fact that the Nokia Lumia 900 smartphone, which is about to appear on the Russian market, is familiar with the already available Nokia Lumia 800 model, we still decided to do a detailed review of the model. At CES 2012, the smartphone won the “Smartphone of the Year” award, and not so long ago, the public found out 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 is similar in appearance to the Nokia N9 and Nokia Lumia 800, differing in its large size due to the display. Whereas the dimensions of the Nokia N9 and Nokia Lumia 800 with 3.7-inch displays were 116.5 × 61.2 × 12.1 mm, the Nokia Lumia 900 increased due to the 4.3-inch AMOLED display to 127.8 × 68.5 × 11.5 mm. It is worth noting that at the same time the flagship device has become thinner by 0.6 mm - the figure may be small, but quite palpable in the hands. The solid Lumia 900 looks not only due to 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 body of the device is made of the already well-known and well-proven in N9 and Lumia 800 polycarbonate. This material is extremely scratch resistant, does not slip in the hand and has a nice matte color. And thanks to the production technology, in which the case is cut out from a single block of polycarbonate, the smartphone turned out to be shockproof. Two models will be available for sale: in black and white.

In the upper left corner of the front panel there is a front camera for making video calls or creating selfie shots on Instagram, which is about to come out under Windows Phone (for now, you can use Bubblegum or PhotoFunia for these purposes). Right below the screen are three mandatory Windows Phone touch-sensitive interface buttons: “Back”, “Start” and “Search”. They are conveniently located and do not interfere with working with the touch screen, there are no random keystrokes.

On the bottom of the device, under the grill, is a loudspeaker. On the right are the glossy volume keys, the camera key and the key to enable / disable the smartphone. The left side of the device remains free of keys. At the top of the phone there is a microphone for noise reduction, a tray for a micro-SIM card (now it can be pulled out with a paper clip), and a micro-USB connector for charging the device and connecting it to a computer. Moreover, if in Nokia Lumia 800 micro-USB was hidden under a flap, then in Nokia Lumia 900 it is not covered by anything.

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

Screen

The diagonal of the AMOLED display in Nokia Lumia 900 is 4.3 inches, while 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 these parameters is 217 dpi, which is more than enough for comfortable work. Thanks to the use of ClearBlack technology, the smartphone screen has large viewing angles and excellent brightness and color reproduction, preserving its characteristics to the maximum even in very sunny weather. To protect the screen from scratches and chips in the event of an accidental fall, Gorilla Glass has been traditionally used. If in Nokia Lumia 800 this glass smoothly flows into the device case, then in Nokia Lumia 900 it is framed by a thin plastic edging around the perimeter. Such a glass connection should improve the impact resistance of the smartphone in the event of an accidental fall. However, the screen is already strong enough, which can be checked by watching the video in which the Lumia 900 is used as a hammer - stupid people, but what can you do.

Cameras

As we already mentioned, in the upper left corner there is a front 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 has now left the beta testing stage and is very stable. By the way, video conferencing via Skype say that the front camera Lumia 900 produces a very high-quality image.

Of course, in addition to the front camera, there is a high-quality camera on the back of the screen. This 8-megapixel camera uses Carl Zeiss Tessar optics: a 28-mm wide-angle lens with an f2.2 aperture allows you to shoot high-quality images, especially outdoors, while capturing more space in the picture. Shots can be taken in 4: 3 and 16: 9 proportions. When shooting in the dark, a dual LED flash comes to the rescue. The camera allows you to record video in 720p resolution at a frequency of 30 frames per second. Separately, it is worth highlighting the remarkable sound quality in the resulting clips.



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

Communication

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

Nokia Lumia 900 is also 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 models on Symbian did not want to connect to WPA-Enterprise encrypted networks without first setting up the phone, then Nokia Lumia 900 automatically joins such networks.

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 a matter of seconds - in this case, the initial positioning is carried out by the identifiers of cells and Wi-Fi hotspots. But even without activating the cellular network and turning off Wi-Fi, the smartphone finds 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 runs on a single-core processor with a clock frequency of 1400 MHz, Adreno 205 graphics and 512 MB of RAM. Due to its excellent optimization, Windows Phone 7 on this hardware shows excellent performance - the pursuit of numbers will only increase power consumption and reduce the device’s operating time.

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

The device has 16 GB of internal memory, of which 14.5 GB are available to the user. Although with the help of Microsoft SkyDrive cloud hosting you can increase the storage space for files by many, many gigabytes for free.

Windows Phone 7 + Nokia Applications

The operating system Windows Phone 7 has already managed to prove itself well among users, even on Habré. There are many reasons for this: a brand new UX system, excellent responsiveness of interfaces, constant replenishment of the Marketplace with new applications, as well as a whole set of standard ones. We’ll talk about the latter.

When you turn on the device for the first time, you will see applications such as the People Hub client combining all major social networks, Music + Video for listening to your library and FM radio, Hotmail email client with predefined settings of 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 these applications, Nokia Lumia 900 also has a number of Nokia branded applications preinstalled. These include the full-fledged offline car navigation “Nokia Navigator” and the pedestrian navigation “Nokia Maps”, the “Transfer Contacts” application for synchronizing the address book from other phones and the Nokia Music player with support for Mix Radio, Nokia’s music service with free streaming and preserving genre music streams (mixes) for listening offline. In addition, in Mix Radio you can create your own mixes to receive recommendations about music similar to the work of your favorite artists. The Nokia Books application presented at MWC 2012 appeared on the smartphone - a convenient book reader with an extensive library that includes classical and modern literature, Russian and foreign works.

Equipment

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