It’s been a long wait, both for us and for Nokia, but it’s finally here – Lumia 800 is now available in the UK, and major carriers have already prepared a nice selection of deals for Lumia 800. Lumia 800 is not just a phone, it’s a statement. It is set to become Nokia’s proof to the whole world that the company is still in the business. Well, let’s see whether that’s the case.
The first thing you need to mention when talking about Nokia’s latest handset is its operating platform. Back in the days, Windows Mobile was an apparent outsider. Microsoft thought that the same approach that worked on personal computers would also work on mobiles; well, it didn’t. Windows Mobile was overly complicated and just too restricted. User-friendliness was non-existent, so it’s no wonder that with the advent of iOS and Android, it died a short and painless death. Even Microsoft’s CEO admitted that the mobile OS has been a major failure for the company. And that is exactly why Microsoft deserves a huge trophy for being able to learn from its own mistakes. Windows Phone 7.5 is a completely new platform, one that takes a completely opposite approach to its predecessor. This time it’s all about the user. Everything looks fresh and intuitive, perhaps even more than on the Android. The apps on the homesreen are arranged in two columns, and the icons are dynamic, so you won’t need to access, for example, the E-mail app to see how many unread letters there are in your inbox. A full list of apps is accessible by swiping right, and if there are too many of them, the phone will automatically arrange them alphabetically. You can always use the search function if you can’t be bothered scrolling to find the desired app. Pinning you favourite apps and contacts to the homescreen for easy access is also possible. Windows Mobile 7.5, which is also known as Mango, packs some great-looking 3D effects and transitions, so it all looks very slick and dynamic. The main criticism of the platform is the relatively low number of apps, especially compared to Android with its tens of thousands of applications available through the Android Market. However, with the launch of the Mango update app developers started showing a higher interest in the OS, so there’s a real possibility that Microsoft’s new creation will eventually catch up with the competition in this regard. The apps that are there, however, are pretty good; it’s clear that the developers have put real effort in them. But more about those later. It’s also worth mentioning that Nokia has a special arrangement with Microsoft, so it will be the only manufacturer that will have the ability to customize the operating system to its liking.
Time to talk about the phone itself. The design has been received very positively from the start, even if it does look extremely like the Meego-based N9. The body is made from a solid piece of plastic, while the screen is Gorilla Glass and is slightly curved. The combination gives the phone a rather sturdy look and feel, and since the plastic is not painted, scratches resulting from everyday use won’t be as visible as on other devices. It’s not very light though, weighing 142 grams. The phone is sealed in every way – the battery is non-removable, and the micro SIM card is inserted through a door at the top of the phone. The 3.5 mm audio jack and the microUSB port are also situated at the top. On the right there are the volume controls, the lock button and the camera button. Lumia 800 has a 3.7 inch screen with a 480×800 resolution, which is standard for all Windows Phone handsets at the moment. The screen is based on the AMOLED technology, just like some of Samsung’s models. The colours are bright and vivid, the black is truly black, thanks to the ClearBlack technology, but there’s the common let-down of all AMOLED displays – compared to regular screens, there a strange “blueness” to it, which is especially noticeable when viewing webpages with a white background. However, you won’t really notice this unless you put the phone side by side to another one that doesn’t use the AMOLED technology, so it’s nothing special.
Despite the general tendency of switching to dual-core processors, Nokia decided to dump the dual-core unit found in the N9 and went along with the single-core 1.4 Ghz Scorpion processor with 512 MB of RAM. A bit weak for a high-end device, but it seems like Windows Mobile is more efficient in terms of using processing power than Android, so the phone’s operation is very smooth and brisk, and slow-downs rarely happen. This once again proves that raw processing power doesn’t mean much unless the software is optimised for the hardware.
Internal memory is 16 gigs, but there’s no memory card slot, so you’ll run out of memory pretty soon if you like to carry all your favourite albums with you, or record a lot of videos in HD. Speaking of the camera, it has 8 megapixels, Carl-Zeiss optics and two LED flashes, and is capable of recording video at 720p. Looks great on the paper, but the quality of the images is pretty average.
Lumia 800 is a great phone if you like socializing a lot. The People Hub will allow you to get your friends and their profiles on Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn together, and put all the conversations, including SMS, in a single thread for each one. Then there are the excellent Nokia Drive and Nokia Music applications, the latter one being somewhat similar to Zune, but it has a great distinctive feature called Mix Radio, which allows streaming music with no fee.
The call quality is superb, like on most Nokia handsets. The 1450 mAh battery allows for one day of operation without recharging, just like with the majority of similar devices. The phone has Wi-Fi and Bluetooth 2.1, but no NFC for some reason. The absence of a front camera is also strange; no video calling with this one, then.
Overall, Lumia 800 is a great phone – well-built and with a genuinely attractive user interface, although £470 for a SIM-free device is probably a bit too much. It does have a number of strange flaws which Nokia will hopefully fix in the upcoming models. For now though, if you want a device that is different in a good way and the price doesn’t put you off, Lumia 800 won’t disappoint you.
