Nokia Lumia 920
So a couple of weeks ago I got my hands on the Nokia Lumia 920 (check out my first impressions here) and I’ve been using it ever since as my day-to-day phone to get a good understand of not only the Nokia Lumia 920 hardware but Windows Phone 8 as user experience.
As an iPhone and Android user typically it was also a very good chance to get an in-depth look at what Windows Phone 8 is like as a smartphone operating system, and part of this review will cover that experience as well.
What I Liked
Firstly I’ve got to say I really like the design and quality of the Nokia Lumia 920, the phone appears to be very well built. The screen clarity is spectacular, it is as good if not better than any other phone I’ve ever used before. While the camera and the battery life on the phone is also exceptional. All in all its very hard to fault the Hardware on the Nokia Lumia 920, it keeps up with the long standing history of very well built Nokia phones.
Nokia’s built-in apps are also extremely good, in particular Nokia Maps and Nokia Drive+ are some of the best mapping applications I’ve used on a phone. You could easily use the two to replace any GPS. While Nokia City Lens can also be very useful if stuck looking for a business or really anything in your general vicinity although you could be confused and to recording a video on your phone and that might get people upset.
What I Didn’t Like
For me the biggest draw back to the Nokia Lumia 920 was Windows Phone 8, and that’s not because it’s a bad operating system. Quite the contrary the Windows 8 Phone platform is very smooth and extremely easy to use. It’s the lack of developer support for apps that I’d grown so accustom to using in both iOS and Android. Now I did find some alternatives and I’m not going to go through and list all the apps, but lets just say the experience I received out of the Windows Phone alternatives for even things like Facebook just wasn’t up to that of iOS and Android.
Videos and Pictures
Please not these videos and photos are not a true representation of the quality of the camera, unfortunately when you transfer the files to SkyDrive or Email Windows Phone compresses the files and they lose their quality.
Nokia Lumia 920 Sample Image
Conclusion
The Nokia Lumia 920 is an exceptional phone, again it has some great features… the built-in camera is enough to replace a point and shoot and the rest of software on the phone is really straight forward to use. My only concern in recommending it to people to buy, is if you utilize a lot of apps in your existing iOS or Android device make sure you do your research before purchasing not only the Lumia 920 but any Windows Phone 8 phone. You really need to see if those apps are either already available, currently being developed or have a reasonable alternative in Windows Phone 8. In the mean time for me, I’ll be happily making the switch back to my Android and iOS daily devices.
If you’ve used the Nokia Lumia 920, feel free to leave a comment about your experience in a comment below.
