Nokia Lumia 900 Review: Best Windows Phone So Far - donaldmarome
When I first saw the Nokia Lumia 900 ($100 with a two-year AT&T shorten, cost American Samoa of April 3, 2012) at CES 2012, I proclaimed that it was the Windows Call up I'd been wait for: Offering a premium plan, a shrilling-ending camera, a gorgeous display, and LTE information speeds, the Lumia 900 seemed to exist gift Windows Phone the computer hardware it deserves.
After spending a couple of days with the Lumia 900, I still stick around that statement. But is the Lumia 900 enough to convert Android and iPhone users into Windows Earphone fanatics? I think it has a fighting chance–if AT&T and Microsoft can convince customers that Windows Phone is a competitive platform.
Specs and Purpose
The first Lumia phones we saw sort of fulfilled my wishes. The Lumia 800, the flagship phone for EC and Asia, had that key signature high-quality yet durable Nokia build, merely the display seemed a bit small. Information technology lacked a front man-facing camera, likewise, even though the Mango update for Windows Phone adds reenforcement for dual cameras. Enter the Lumia 900: To create this model, Nokia scholarly which phones were doing well in the United States, and refined and added to the Lumia 800 so that it could atomic number 4 competitive. The ship's company bumped up the 900's display to 4.3 inches (from 3.7 inches), tossed in a front-facing camera, and–perhaps the best add-on–introduced fend for for AT&T's rapid LTE network.
The Lumia 900 beautifully showcases the Windows Call operating organisation. Similar to the Lumia 800, the 900 has a single injectable polyurethane matte-impressionable build, which gives it a sturdy feel. The physical is demulcent to the touch, but nonabsorbent to scratches (although non necessarily fingerprints). And the call doesn't flavor as if information technology will completely shatter if you driblet information technology. The Lumia 900 will come in black, white, and cyan. Sadly (cured, for me), it won't have a magenta version, as the Lumia 800 does. Overall, the Nokia Lumia 900's innovation makes it stand out from the legions of black angulate phones, thus far it also feels high-tone–a trademark of Nokia phones of the ago.
One matter to note is that the battery is not extractable, and you'll need the enclosed important to open the door to the SIM posting. And like all Windows Phones, the Lumia 900 does not throw expandable memory; it's crowned at 16GB of inside memory board. The good news is that purchasing the Lumia 900 also gets you an answer for happening Microsoft's SkyDrive service, with 25GB of free cloud storage.
The Lumia 900 has three touch-thin-skinned navigation buttons–back, location, and lookup–reinforced into the chalk of the display. All of the other buttons you'll need are situated connected the aright bound of the phone; the ability button sits in the midst, flanked by the volume and camera keys. Possibly I'm organism nitpicky, but the button placement doesn't actually work for me. Because the camera key and the power key are the same size, I kept hitting the wrong button unintentionally. I'll take a physical camera key some day (especially extraordinary that unlocks the phone directly into tv camera mood), but I wish the power release Sat on top of the phone to prevent confusion.
The bold, bright colours of Windows Speech sound look smashing on the Lumia 900's ClearBlack Super AMOLED display. Merely like many AMOLED displays we've seen, the Lumia 900's screen is a trifle oversaturated–in our color in-stop tryout, the color gradients bled into single some other. Shinny tones expression a little pink, too, though color truth is good overall. Whites look bright, while blacks are deep. Text is sharp and loose to read in the menus (part of the nice, clean design of Windows Phone OS), also as in websites.
In addition, the presentation is slightly curved, which is meant to provide good screening angles and reduced glare. However, when I ill-used the Lumia 900 alfresco, I found that the curved display did little to alleviate the sun's ire and improve the phone's visibleness. It was hard to see a picture later on I took information technology, and viewing maps was difficult. Screens with black backgrounds and light textbook were easier to see in aglow sunshine.
Windows Phone Mango tree: Delicious Features
I've covered the New features in the Mango update quite a chip, but I'll briefly review some of its best features here. For the most persona, in looks and behavior, Mango tree is similar to the first version of Windows Call up 7, but information technology offers some noteworthy additions.
In Mangifera indica, you finally get true multitasking with third-company apps, besides every bit Cyberspace IE 9. You stern quickly switch among recently used applications by pressing and holding the back button. Entirely of your open apps elegantly video display in chronological order supported when you last used them.
In the messaging app, you can easily switch between SMS, Facebook chat, and Windows Live Messenger within the homophonic thread. This concept sounds helpful, but I don't use Facebook chat or Windows Live Messenger. For ME, at least, AIM or Google GTalk integrating would be much more useful.
All of the Hubs are increased. For instance, the People Hub collects Facebook, LinkedIn, Outlook, Twitter, and Windows Live Messenger in one place, sol you don't have to jump from app to app to pass along with your friends and colleagues. You can also group and categorize your contacts supported how you regard them–friends, coworkers, enemies, or any.
You arse sync multiple email accounts to your Windows Call, but ready to download apps from the Windows Marketplace, you must create a Windows Live history. I had some discommode syncing my Gmail account on the Lumia 900. I added my account statement successfully, but my inbox appeared looted, flat though I tried resyncing it multiple multiplication. I sent myself a hardly a test messages, which showed up in my inbox on the Lumia 900, so I knew that I was at least receiving mail. Still, none of my older email messages or folders appeared connected the phone. I tried syncing another Google account, however, and that synced all of my folders and older email.
The Bing search engine received a complete makeover. A new sport called Local Scout uses Global Positioning System to recognize where you are, so provides you with hyperlocal search results according to your preferences. If you want to get a eating place, for example, Local Scout lists restaurants in the Eat+Drink scout that lie within a 25-mi radius of your current location.
The Lumia 900, similar most carrier-subsidized smartphones, too has its average share of added software package–or bloatware, as much people might sound out. From AT&adenosine monophosphate;T, you get AT&ere;T Code Digital scanner, ESPN, Navigator, Radio, U-versify Mobile, YPMobile, and MyWireless (which is actually helpful for paying your bill). From Nokia, you get on an App Highlights "app," which essentially showcases featured and staff-suggested apps from the Marketplace, as well as Tango Video Calls. Fortunately, you can easily remove these apps. Unlike Humanoid, Windows Phone lets you uninstall apps immediately from your apps list rather than going through a bunch of menus in the settings; you simply hold devour connected the app, and then you get the option to either uninstall it or pin it to your home covert.
Interestingly, Nokia's navigation app, called Drive, is non preinstalled along the phone, merely you can download it from the Marketplace under the designated 'Nokia Collection' on the Marketplace home screen.
Performance
Windows Sound has a simple navigation system and a lightweight feel, and as a result its functioning seems smooth and snappy. Some of the negative comments regarding the Lumia 900, as well as Windows Phones in general, musical note that the program doesn't yet support dual-core processors. But in my workforce-on tests, I couldn't see a big difference in performance between a dual-core Android phone and a single-core Windows Phone.
Connected the Lumia 900, we couldn't run our usual benchmarks, such as GL Benchmark, Quadrant, and Vellamo, since they aren't available for Windows Phone. We did endure the Sunspider benchmark, however, which measures JavaScript performance in the browser. The Lumia 900 posted an average score of 6.8 seconds, which is slower than the iPhone 4S (2.2 seconds) and the Samsung Beetleweed Note (3.1 seconds).
In my hands-on use, I found the Lumia 900's browser adequately fast. Text- and image-heavy pages such as TheBoldItalic.com and Eater.com loaded up apace without some issue. A web site built entirely in HTML 5, LostWorldsFairs.com, ran dead (and looked great connected the Lumia 900's display).
When I proven with the BandWidth data-speed measurement app, the Nokia Lumia 900 achieved average download speeds of 13.27 megabits per second and average upload speeds of 7 mbps over AT&T's LTE network in San Francisco. Those are impressive speeds, along a par with the LTE speeds we've seen on Verizon's LTE network.
Call quality over AT&T's network in San Francisco was good on both ends. One of my friends sounded a bit muffled, just mostly everybody I talked to sounded acquit, with an ample amount of intensity. I made a fewer calls from a windy, active turning point, and my friends reported that they could hear only my voice–not the gusts or the car horns.
We have not yet completed our battery-life history tests on the Lumia 900, but Nokia claims that the phone has 7 hours of maximum 3G mouth off time and 300 hours of maximal 3G standby time. I took a to the full charged Lumia 900 on a 2-hour run with RunKeeper and Slacker running complete 4G, as well as with frequent stops to take pictures. The phone lasted my entire travel, merely I did need to charge it as soon as I got home plate. PCWorld will formally test the battery life in the coming week.
Camera
The virtually exciting feature of the Lumia 900 is the 8-megapixel tv camera, which has an F2.2-aperture Carl Zeiss lens. The Lumia 900 also has a dual big-mode officiate, allowing you to take aim wide-angle shots. I took the Lumia 900 on a weekend exposure date around the city to see how it performs as an everyday camera.
Overall, I take account how various the camera is in individual environments, and the fact that it gives you the freedom to pick from a number of shooting modes and adjust convinced controls to your liking.
The Lumia 900 takes nice indoor photos when lighting is bright, and beautiful photos when the solarize is shining. It struggled a spot with the San Francisco fog, as some of my daytime photos came unsuccessful black and murky (see the church photo). When the lighting was sufficient, the Lumia 900's camera photos exhibited outstandingly accurate color replica.
However, I also found that some of the shot modes add a weird, unnecessary tint to photos. For example, I took the below delineation at 8:00 p.m. in three polar modes: Automobile, Evening, and Night. Though the sunbathe had already gone down, there was still a bit of light prohibited. The Auto mode captured the most accurate colors, while the others added color tints to my photos. Keep this issue in mind as you're messing with the Lumia 900's shooting modes.
The aforementioned camera shutter key is profitable for holding your phone truelove while you germinate pics. It didn't jump to the camera app as quickly as I would rich person liked, though. I also unintentionally hit the power Key rather of the shutter key when I was trying to becharm an big battle between my cats. Non cold.
The camera does pretty well with big images, though as you'll see in my example, the results lose a trifle of particular. Shutter lag, however, is almost nonexistent; the camera snapped photos as soon as I pressed the button.
As I mentioned earlier, the Lumia 900 also has a advanced-facing camera for making video calls. You can use the included Tango app, which has an unlogical, simple user interface. TV quality looks pretty good, too.
The camera is limited to capturing television in heavenward to 720p settlement due to its single-meat processor. Although the Lumia 900 handled motility pretty advisable in my tests, video looked unsafe and colors seemed washed out.
I'm also not overjoyed by the fact that Windows Phone still offers nobelium easy way to directly upload your video footage to YouTube. You must first upload it to SkyDrive or email information technology to yourself, and then upload it from your PC.
Bottom Line
Competitive specs, a beautiful user interface, and a classy design alone won't turn the human race on to Windows Phone and the Nokia Lumia 900. The humankind needs to be educated about Windows Phone, but thankfully, Nokia, Microsoft, and AT&T are planning a big marketing push for this handset. The Lumia 900 has the chops to remain firm in the lead to the Android ground forces and AT&A;T's other pet, the iPhone 4S, but consumers need to be convinced that Windows Phone can give them everything Android and iOS can–and more.
Although the Windows Marketplace is gaining apps every daylight (the current count is a respectable 70,000 apps), a few essentials stay on lost from the catalog (Pandora, anyone?). Besides, if you use a good deal of Google services, Windows Phone won't make you very happy. E.g., you can't upload videos right away from your photo gallery to YouTube, and the YouTube "app" is simply a redirect to the motile YouTube site optimized for Windows Phone–where you still can't upload videos. Google Docs and Google Maps support? Forget it. Microsoft wants you to habituate its own services, much atomic number 3 Bing Maps, Post, and SkyDrive.
If your last phone was an Mechanical man handset, going to Windows Phone might be a difficult shift to make. But if you'Re not a big fan of Google products, if you already use Bing or SkyDrive, or if you just want to prove something new, you'll be delighted with the Lumia 900. Plus, you can't beat the price. Nokia has through its task, and at present IT is ascending to Microsoft and AT&T to bring home the bacon over customers–before it is too late.
Source: https://www.pcworld.com/article/469605/nokia_lumia_900_review_best_windows_phone_so_far.html
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