"at all levels, this is a notch above anything we've ever done."While the Lumia's hype isn't at the level of the iPhone, both AT&T and Microsoft seem bent on changing that. The $99 (on a 2 year contract) Lumia 900 has already been handed out to a significant number of retail store employees for test drives, and is going to be front and center in the retail stores on it's April 8th launch day. In another quote from Bradley,
Before you walk in to the store, you know this is our hero phone.Now, that is a very aggressive statement for a company that carries the iPhone 4s and the Samsung Galaxy Note, but it appears that AT&T, Microsoft, and Nokia are making a huge bet on the Lumia 900. We will see how that plays out with consumers, in the coming weeks.
REVIEW
The Lumia 900 is a beautiful piece of hardware, with a gorgeous 4.3" AMOLED disply that compares favorably to the iPhone 4s and the Samsung Galaxy Series of phones. Nokia is using a technology they call ClearBlack, which gives the display a very sharp contrast, and very vivid colors.The design of the handset itself is unique and striking, Featuring a squared corners, and rounded edges, it definitely has a different look from the other smartphones available. Initially, it is launching in two colors, the standard Black, and a very striking Cyan Blue. Other colors rumored to be available soon include Ceramic White, and Magenta. This selection of colors is another feature unique to the Lumia 900, as most smartphones tend to come in Black, White or Grey.
The body is a unibody made from a very durable polycarbonate, that gives the phone a nice weight and feel. Basically, the Lumia 900 feels a lot more durable than the all glass iPhone 4s, or the plasticky frame of the Samsung Galaxy Series of phones.
As far as internal specs, the Lumia 900 comes with a powerful single core 1.4ghz processor, 512mb ram, and 16gb of internal memory. While these specs don't match the high end Android phones, they are more than enough to keep the phone running fast and smooth. My only beef with these specs, is the lack of expandable storage. Like the iPhone, what you see is what you get, so if you have a lot of music, take a lot of pictures, or shoot a lot of video, you will need to sync up to your computer often, and offload items to external storage.
The Lumia 900 comes with a fairly large 1830 mah battery, which should give the phone good battery life, as far as smartphones go. My personal experience has been 10-12 hours of battery life with moderate use.
The camera, is where this phone really stands out. While the 8mp camera has become pretty much standard on high end smartphones, the Lumia 900 sets itself apart with the Carl Zeiss Optics lens, and 2.2f aperture. The Lumia 900 takes terrific pictures, and the dedicated camera button, makes this one of the easy smartphones to use as a quick point and click.
On the software side, the Lumia 900 is running the newest version of Windows Phone 7, otherwise known as Mango. However, Nokia is working hard to differentiate it's models from the other WP7 offerings available, mostly by including exclusive apps like Nokia Drive, Nokia Maps, Nokia Transit, and Creative Studio.
As far as, Windows Phone 7, the UI is very smooth, and easy to use, and it has a few features that make it very user friendly. However, if you are an iOS or Android user, the lack of app development is definitely a frustration. Many apps that you have used previously, are either unavailable, or have a very limited functionality (comparatively). As a first smartphone, or coming from Blackberry or old Windows Mobile, these missing features will not even be noticed, but moving from Android or iOS, can be difficult, initially. Hopefully, AT&T's push for the Lumia 900 will be successful, and lead to more app developers adding their apps to the WP7 ecosystem.
Pros:
- Unique Design
- Great display
- Awesome Camera
- Fast and Smooth
Cons:
- Storage not expandable
- Lack of app development
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