Nokia Lumia 800
Finn Win phone comes out fighting
Review For the first time in ages, it's possible to recommend a Nokia phone to somebody in the pub. Nokia's first Windows-based device is the company's most attractive consumer product for some years, at least in the modern era of touchscreen smartphones.
A reversal of fortune? Nokia's Lumia 800:
Nokia simply hasn't had a decent competitor to Apple or Android. And while Apple will have little to fear from the Lumia 800 – enjoying such market advantages as AirPlay, third party peripherals, and a great range of games, applications and content through its App Store – WinPho 7 now offers a better experience for ordinary punters than its Android rivals.
That said, there are some caveats. A couple of avoidable design flaws will mar the experience over the long term; and Microsoft's software, while striking and sophisticated, is most definitely at an early stage of maturity.
Nokia hardware tries on Microsoft clothes
Nokia loyalists may miss such long-standing features as profiles, rapid address book lookups, and memory card expansion. Battery life is below the standards the company would accept. Nokia will need to work hard to restore these to its portfolio. It’s customary to start with a description of the hardware, but the Lumia is really all about the software – a big break for Nokia, and in most cases a considerable improvement over what it’s been able to offer before.
First impressions of the software are likely to be very positive – out of the box you’re up and running very quickly – there’s no mandatory sign up procedure or authentication against another device. And right away, it’s handling the basics of communications with less friction than anything Nokia has offered since the days of monochrome LED phones.
WinPho 7 is a major departure from earlier MS phone offerings
But be prepared for a seismic shock – this is not some superficial makeover of the traditional PDA-style phone. Microsoft made a dramatic, generational leap with Windows Phone 7.
There is no conventional address book: this phone will not sync contacts with your Mac or PC, or even barely acknowledge they exist. Instead, there’s the People application that piggybacks on to Facebook, LinkedIn or Twitter, and it’s more helpful to think of it as a record of “Stuff people have done”. Needless to say, it also pulls in contacts from Windows Live/Hotmail accounts, GMail and the like.
Next page: It's in the mail
COMMENTS
So far as it goes not a bad effort
And from the title I was talking about the review not the phone itself.
No comment on the maps from Nokia, how was the GPS signal pickup? Does this phone offer all the current Symbian methods of position determination?
The included headphones and music output as a whole got no mention which greatly disappointed me.
The included case that comes with the phone, worthless POS or actually worth using? Did it make the design issues worse or better for the reviewer? Was it even tried? How hard was it to get on the phone and then take off? Did it add excess bulk?
Charging time? Power consumption of said charger? Both when charging and not.
Design issues. OK you didn't find the design that great and I don't mind a reviewer saying that, but given it's been taken from the N9 nearly in its entirety I would wager that the build quality will be much much better than is hinted at in here. The technology of the screen got very short shrift. I find this baffling when it is of such a cutting edge nature.
Come on El Reg, stop pulling your punches. I come here looking for a review that lets the reader know that the phone has been truly used and abused. This reads like it was borrowed for 24 hours and that the reviewer had several other more important things to be doing at the same time. For a review score of 80% I would of expected much more detail. If you felt that all the phone had to offer was covered then I would of said the score, based on this review, should of been around the 58-62% range.
That's because it's not really a Nokia
The innards and antenna are made by Compal, an off-the-shelf WP7 board (because they are all the same). And the camera is better than the one on the E7, better sensor and not EDoF - low-light performance is bad because you can't do miracles with small-and-thin camera modules after Nokia caught all that flak about the lardness of the N8 camera.
Of course, being Andrew, no mention of how the Maemo6 in the N9 was the modern platform Nokia needed and already had, with an app GRID, letter scroll shortcuts, Skype integration, Opera (which will never be ported to WP7 because of MS rules), and TWO days of battery life (and the N9 is a real Nokia in reception and call quality)
Something grumpy or grudging on every page, inadequate battery life, poor form factor & it still gets 80%. You are easily pleased, aren't you?
Nokia or MS? We know you work for one of them
(body) in the chest freezer
Empty shell compared to the N8
I have played briefly with samples of the 800 & 710 and it has the shiny shiny but no where near the customisable grunt I get from my current device.
Read/write from/to external USB memory being a big one.
Symbian may seem complicated to some but you can really make it do things that other phones just wont. Maybe its just me who like messing with settings & trying things out? FM transmitter too, proper useful.
Maybe the N8 was/is the pinnacle of what a phone can do & its all down hill from here in to the phones for nuggets sphere who like shiny over function, but I sincerly hope not.
Only gripe is that Orange take an age to release OTA updates, but other than that, boss!
Gonna take a lot more to prise me away from S^3
