(Microsoft has confirmed that the current Lumias will not be compatible with Apollo, the next version of the OS coming this autumn. A smaller update will however offer some of the features announced for Windows Phone 8 Apollo, including the new homescreen.)
According to Nokia, the Lumia 900 is a massive hit in the US. This Windows Phone 7.5 handset, the largest smartphone in the Lumia series, has a 4.3-inch AMOLED display, a 1.4 GHz single-core Qualcomm processor, 512 MB of RAM, an 8-Megapixel camera that films in 720p resolution, an additional front-facing camera for videoconferencing (unlike the Lumia 800, which has only the rear-facing sensor) and 16 GB of non-expandable internal storage. Design-wise, it's almost exactly the same as the Lumia 800. So, does the 900 stand up to the test?
Design & Handling
The Lumia 900's body is practically identical to the Lumia 800. Only the display looks different; it sticks out less, which was something that contributed to the overall look of the 800. This gives the Lumia 900 an original design, both slick and sober.
What comes as no surprise is the excellent finishing. The only exception to this might be the MicroUSB port, which has no protective cover. It used to be commonplace to put a little rubber/plastic cover over the ports, but the trend today is the "wide open" look. The dust in your jacket pocket will love this—your phone less so.
We have to say we were a bit let down to see that there's no LED for telling you when you've received a text, e-mail or Facebook notification. That's what the Samsung Galaxy S3 has, and it's a real plus.
The Lumia 900 isn't quite as practical to handle as the 800. It's clearly wider and heavier. People with small hands will have trouble typing with one hand while texting or browsing the web. The Lumia 900 weighs a bit much for its size; the Galaxy S3, in comparison, weighs 30 g less, even with a 4.8" screen. That's the advantage of the all-plastic design; it makes for lighter phones.
Screen
The display has grown from 3.7" on the 800 to 4.3" on the 900, but the resolution (480 x 800) hasn't changed. That's an interesting choice at a time when most high-end smartphone displays have a much higher pixel density (217 dpi on the Lumia 900, compared to 252 dpi on the 800), the idea obviously being to display content clearly and legibly without forcing the user to zoom in all the time. So, does this pose a problem here? It's true, you often have to zoom in on web pages that have small text, but outside of that it's never much of an issue because the interface is perfectly readable as is. (You can thank Windows Phone for its large lettering).
But with its infinite contrast, excellent brightness and slightly perfectible colour accuracy (with a delta E of 5.8, primary colours can be pretty over-the-top) you're sure to have an extremely legible display, even outside in the sun. Let's not forget to mention that the screen is highly responsive and the ghosting is practically unnoticeable.
It's worth noting that images are not displayed on the entire surface of the screen, because one centimetre on both the top and bottom is used for the touch-sensitive buttons.
Interface & Navigation
As we've been saying ever since our first Windows Phone reviews, the user interface is original and intuitive. Like its Windows Phone competitors, Nokia has added a few exclusive features, such as Nokia Music, Nokia Drive, Nokia Maps and Nokia Transport (see our Lumia 800 review). These free apps often give better performances than the ones provided by Microsoft.
Deep in the gizzards of the 900, a 1.4 GHz Qualcomm processor perfectly shoulders the weight of its stable operating system. The result is speed and fluidity, no matter what resources the app demands. Games, maps and video playback, which require a lot of power just to avoid getting choppy, run nice and smooth, and apps load quickly. We encountered no latency issues during our tests—the Lumia 900 never failed once. Mobile addicts will greatly appreciate the overall performance.
Multimedia
Like the iPhone and the inseparable iTunes, all Windows Phones are entirely dependent on Zune, Microsoft's downloadable app, for syncing music, photos, movies and such. It isn't the most user-friendly software in the world, but the Lumia 900 will forever be bound to it. That's something to consider.
Now for the 8-Megapixel camera (f/2.2). When it comes to colours the Lumia 900 ain't too shabby, with fairly accurate rendering and not too much saturation. On the whole it offers adequate rendering for a smartphone, as long as you aren't overly picky about detail. Zoom in too much, and you'll see a very noisy picture. Interestingly, the quality is a slight step down from the Lumia 800, even though it's supposed to be the high-end model in the series. But it still gives better results than the 12-Megapixel sensor found on the Xperia S. However, the macro mode isn't quite as impressive as on the GS3, as it frequently has trouble finding the right focus.
The video rendering (max. 720p) is good for this type of handset, although it tends to wobble if you don't hold it perfectly stable. And as with all smartphones, the audio recording frankly isn't amazing.
Like its predecessor, the Lumia 900 has excellent audio... but wait for the but. The headphone signal is loud with very little background noise, but where the Lumia 800 had an acceptable level of crosstalk, the Lumia 900 crosses the line with so much crosstalk that it highly degrades the stereo rendering. It's too bad, because everything was going great. The external speaker will certainly not be mistaken for hi-fi, but the signal is entirely adequate.
Web browsing is just as enjoyable as on the Lumia 800, and the larger screen clearly improves the visual experience. Anybody who surfs a lot on their phone will definitely appreciate the 900. For web searches there's no Google Search, just Microsoft Bing, which is far less practical than... um, the world's most popular search engine. The browser does not support Flash.
Battery Life
The Lumia 900 has a good battery life. You can expect a day and a half of fairly frequent use (e-mails, texts, photos, videos, Internet and a little gaming), with both 3G and Wi-Fi. The less surfing-prone can expect to wait two days before having to recharge.
According to Nokia, the Lumia 900 is a massive hit in the US. This Windows Phone 7.5 handset, the largest smartphone in the Lumia series, has a 4.3-inch AMOLED display, a 1.4 GHz single-core Qualcomm processor, 512 MB of RAM, an 8-Megapixel camera that films in 720p resolution, an additional front-facing camera for videoconferencing (unlike the Lumia 800, which has only the rear-facing sensor) and 16 GB of non-expandable internal storage. Design-wise, it's almost exactly the same as the Lumia 800. So, does the 900 stand up to the test?
Design & Handling
The Lumia 900's body is practically identical to the Lumia 800. Only the display looks different; it sticks out less, which was something that contributed to the overall look of the 800. This gives the Lumia 900 an original design, both slick and sober.
What comes as no surprise is the excellent finishing. The only exception to this might be the MicroUSB port, which has no protective cover. It used to be commonplace to put a little rubber/plastic cover over the ports, but the trend today is the "wide open" look. The dust in your jacket pocket will love this—your phone less so.
We have to say we were a bit let down to see that there's no LED for telling you when you've received a text, e-mail or Facebook notification. That's what the Samsung Galaxy S3 has, and it's a real plus.
The Lumia 900 isn't quite as practical to handle as the 800. It's clearly wider and heavier. People with small hands will have trouble typing with one hand while texting or browsing the web. The Lumia 900 weighs a bit much for its size; the Galaxy S3, in comparison, weighs 30 g less, even with a 4.8" screen. That's the advantage of the all-plastic design; it makes for lighter phones.
Screen
The display has grown from 3.7" on the 800 to 4.3" on the 900, but the resolution (480 x 800) hasn't changed. That's an interesting choice at a time when most high-end smartphone displays have a much higher pixel density (217 dpi on the Lumia 900, compared to 252 dpi on the 800), the idea obviously being to display content clearly and legibly without forcing the user to zoom in all the time. So, does this pose a problem here? It's true, you often have to zoom in on web pages that have small text, but outside of that it's never much of an issue because the interface is perfectly readable as is. (You can thank Windows Phone for its large lettering).
But with its infinite contrast, excellent brightness and slightly perfectible colour accuracy (with a delta E of 5.8, primary colours can be pretty over-the-top) you're sure to have an extremely legible display, even outside in the sun. Let's not forget to mention that the screen is highly responsive and the ghosting is practically unnoticeable.
It's worth noting that images are not displayed on the entire surface of the screen, because one centimetre on both the top and bottom is used for the touch-sensitive buttons.
Interface & Navigation
As we've been saying ever since our first Windows Phone reviews, the user interface is original and intuitive. Like its Windows Phone competitors, Nokia has added a few exclusive features, such as Nokia Music, Nokia Drive, Nokia Maps and Nokia Transport (see our Lumia 800 review). These free apps often give better performances than the ones provided by Microsoft.
Deep in the gizzards of the 900, a 1.4 GHz Qualcomm processor perfectly shoulders the weight of its stable operating system. The result is speed and fluidity, no matter what resources the app demands. Games, maps and video playback, which require a lot of power just to avoid getting choppy, run nice and smooth, and apps load quickly. We encountered no latency issues during our tests—the Lumia 900 never failed once. Mobile addicts will greatly appreciate the overall performance.
Multimedia
Like the iPhone and the inseparable iTunes, all Windows Phones are entirely dependent on Zune, Microsoft's downloadable app, for syncing music, photos, movies and such. It isn't the most user-friendly software in the world, but the Lumia 900 will forever be bound to it. That's something to consider.
Now for the 8-Megapixel camera (f/2.2). When it comes to colours the Lumia 900 ain't too shabby, with fairly accurate rendering and not too much saturation. On the whole it offers adequate rendering for a smartphone, as long as you aren't overly picky about detail. Zoom in too much, and you'll see a very noisy picture. Interestingly, the quality is a slight step down from the Lumia 800, even though it's supposed to be the high-end model in the series. But it still gives better results than the 12-Megapixel sensor found on the Xperia S. However, the macro mode isn't quite as impressive as on the GS3, as it frequently has trouble finding the right focus.
The video rendering (max. 720p) is good for this type of handset, although it tends to wobble if you don't hold it perfectly stable. And as with all smartphones, the audio recording frankly isn't amazing.
Like its predecessor, the Lumia 900 has excellent audio... but wait for the but. The headphone signal is loud with very little background noise, but where the Lumia 800 had an acceptable level of crosstalk, the Lumia 900 crosses the line with so much crosstalk that it highly degrades the stereo rendering. It's too bad, because everything was going great. The external speaker will certainly not be mistaken for hi-fi, but the signal is entirely adequate.
Web browsing is just as enjoyable as on the Lumia 800, and the larger screen clearly improves the visual experience. Anybody who surfs a lot on their phone will definitely appreciate the 900. For web searches there's no Google Search, just Microsoft Bing, which is far less practical than... um, the world's most popular search engine. The browser does not support Flash.
Battery Life
The Lumia 900 has a good battery life. You can expect a day and a half of fairly frequent use (e-mails, texts, photos, videos, Internet and a little gaming), with both 3G and Wi-Fi. The less surfing-prone can expect to wait two days before having to recharge.
Pros
- Design / finishing
- Screen quality
- Enjoyable user interface
- Responsiveness
- Only Lumia with a front-facing camera
- Super 3G (HSPA+) compatible
Cons
- No NFC
- Photo quality not as good as the Lumia 800
- High SAR
Conclusion
Nokia's high-end Windows Phone is a good smartphone that's responsive and has a satisfactory battery life and free and efficient web browsing services. A good handset for users looking for something other than another gigantic Android phone.
OUR SCORE
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