The Nokia Lumia 800 is the Finnish phone company's first handset to run Microsoft's Windows Phone 7 operating system, where in the past Nokia has always used the Symbian platform. Symbian has always been associated with Nokia and used to run their mobile phones, from flagship to entry-level devices and was eventually acquired by Nokia in 2008.
Specifications:
Specifications:
OS : Windows Phone 7 - Mango,
Screen : 3.7-inch 800x480 WVGA AMOLED capacitive touch screen, 1.4
Ghz single core CPU,
Memory : 16GB storage,
Camera : 8MP camera, LED Flash,
Network : GPRS,
EDGE, 3G, HSDPA, GPS, WIFI b/g/n/,
3.5mm audio jack, microUSB, A-GPS,
Bluetooth 2.1,
Baterry : 1450 mAh Li-Ion battery
In February this year,
Microsoft and Nokia announced a partnership that sees Symbian being dropped as
the main OS on the Nokia key devices, in favour of Windows Phone 7. The event to unveil this news was held a short while
before Mobile Wold Congress in Barcelona, as not to overshadow Europe's largest
mobile phone trade show - which launches a good deal of the years' handsets.
There was much
anticipation at the time to see the first Windows Phone set of hardware from
Nokia, as the operating system had already been seen for several months on a
number of mobiles with almost the same version rolled-out to all these devices.
The wait didn't take too
long, as in June this year a video was leaked on-line, where Stephen Elopak,
Nokia's own CEO, was caught on video
showing a mobile phone at a Nokia corporate event. This handset had the
codename of ‘SeaRay' and was to be the first Nokia run Windows Phone 7 mobile
phone.
A day or two earlier,
Nokia announced the N9 mobile phone which had a very similar appearance to the
‘SeaRay' handset. This phone was running the joint Intel and Nokia MeeGo
operating system, whilst being the very first device to arrive with this very
OS. The Nokia N9 didn't reach many markets in the end, not even the UK.
It was the design
philosophy and template of the N9 that would be used in the Nokia Lumia 800, so there wasn't a waste
in resources. Many now see the N9 as just a prototype for the Lumia 800, for both
consumers and the mobile phone networks to get use to the design, before the
actual Windows Phone 7 handsets was officially launched, late last month.
Design
The Nokia Lumia 800 is
entirely based around the Nokia N9 MeeGo device and as an almost identical
copy, with its near paper back form factor, curved edges, slightly protruding
screen and back.
The chassis of the 800
is made up from a single piece of polycarbonate material, in a unibody design
with no breaks - apart from the two panels at the top. These open up to expose
the microUSB port and microSIM card slot; the latter of which is usually only
found in Apple products.
There have been some
slight modifications since the N9, most of which is to accommodate the
Microsoft Windows Phone 7 ‘Mango' operating system hardware needs. This is the
likes of the screen being reduced to make room for the back, start and search
touch sensitive buttons on the screen.
The phone's height is
116.5mm, whilst measuring 61.2mm in width and 12.1mm thin. This puts the Nokia
800 slightly taller, thicker and wider than the Apple iPhone 4S, whose
dimensions are 115.2x58.6x9.3 mm and with a weight of 140 grams; 2 grams
lighter than the Lumia 800.
There is a slightly
bevel to the front screen and the rear that adds a little more girth to the
Nokia mobile, otherwise this could have been one of the slimmest smartphones
around today and a challenge to the world's thinnest ‘7.1mm thick' Motorola
Razr handset.
Hardware
A single core1.4 Ghz
processor powers the Nokia Lumia 800. This is a good fit for the handset and we
didn't encounter any lag whilst using the phone, as a result of the CPU. Even
when running multiple applications at once. Multi-tasking is a new inclusion in
the Windows Phone 7 ‘Mango' edition and has only recently been deployed to
older handsets. Some users could perceive a slight delay whilst using the
phone, but this is mostly down to WP7 refreshing social networking updates.
Included is 16GB of
internal memory that is non-expandable from a microSD card. This isn't a great
loss, as there hasn't been a WP7 handset released that does have removable
storage. Nokia and Microsoft have bundled with the Lumia 800 25GB of
cloud-based storage, which makes up for these shortcomings - although 16GB is
adequate for most people's use.
Lumia 800's CPU is one
of the fastest seen in a WP7 device, as in the past 1GHz processors were only
really featured within these phones. Only the HTC Titan 1.5GHz based phone
trumps the clock speed of the 800, but this has the appearance of nearly every
other HTC phone and really doesn't stand out from the crown. A dual core
handset hasn't been released as yet running Windows Phone 7, which could relate
to 720p video capture still being the ceiling on these devices with no
possibility of full 1080p.
There's an 8 megapixel
wide-angle camera built in to the Lumia 800 with a Carl Zeiss lens and a dual
flash LED. The latter of which has moved slightly from the N9's location, to
accommodate more light in picture capture. This camera is very responsive and
takes a good shot, thanks to all that it has on-board and the Microsoft OS. On
the side of the phone is a dedicated camera button that is a feature of all
Windows Phone 7 devices, but wasn't a feature of the N9's design.
The sound quality on the
Lumia 800 isn't as sharp and distinct as we would have liked, despite some
interesting choices being made in the audio hardware department.
The Finnish company
hasn't really taken advantage of the speaker's positioning, as the sound
quality is quite ordinary. This is compared with other handsets, such as the
Samsung Galaxy S II. Nokia could have aimed for a higher ‘phon' level on the
800 and its speaker; all in order to create a more rounded mobile that has
great audio - as the phone does have not-seen-before audio features.
Screen
The Nokia Lumia 800
ships with a 3.7-inch AMOLED capacitive touch screen. This is slightly smaller
than the 3.9-inch display found on the Finnish phone company's MeeGo based N9,
which bares the same overall inherent design. This reduction is to accommodate
the standard Windows Phone 7 feature keys of, the back, home and the search
button - all located along the base of the display.
The screen on the Lumia
800 has the Nokia ClearBlack technology that we first began seeing on their
flagship handsets of last year, with the Symbian N8, E7 and C7 phones. This
feature allows the 800's screen to be viewed in bright sunlight, without losing
any image quality due to the light.
We have tried and tested
this feature with pleasing results and can testify to its usefulness. Other
phone manufacturers deploy their own take on anti-brightness screens, with the
Super AMOLED Plus technology in the case of Samsung and the basic Super LCD
screen on HTC devices. These are all welcomed additions to the phone world, but
Nokia's variant seems to offer the best solution that we have seen so far,
without affecting battery life too much.
The display quality is
both sharp and clear with the aid of 800x480 resolution, along with offering a
good image quality for both still images and video playback. We compared video
playback on the Nokia Lumia 800 to that of the Samsung Galaxy S II, taking into
account the limited codecs on offer with Windows Phone 7. Nokia's handset came
out on top in terms of quality, sharpness of details and clarity in the overall
video quality.
OS
Running on the phone is
Microsoft's Windows Phone 7. This has been updated of late to version 7.5, which
is also known by the codename of 'Mango'.
This variant has been
included on the Nokia Lumia 800 and is more or less the same version of the
platform seen elsewhere, from HTC to Samsung devices.
That's to say that
Microsoft has decided to keep their current OS very simple, with just two
screens - one which houses live tiles, or widgets. These deliver live
information such as status updates, email, messages and any other info from
widgets.
The other hubs include
pictures; music and video; Marketplace for apps; Microsoft Office, with a full
office suite of applications and Game hub, which allows for playing Xbox live
games and access to an Xbox 360 account.
Features
Nokia has added some
value to the Windows Phone 7 OS running on the handset, with additions that no
other manufacture has where the majority really haven't added a great deal to
platform.
Nokia has included their
renowned Maps software, which unlike Google's offering, is actually fully
preinstalled. The maps aren't brought down over a data connection, as they
reside on the device itself and just as they previously have on Symbian phones.
The Nokia maps are in
title form, in the same way as Google maps, but Nokia has also added something
else on the mapping front too.
Included on the Lumia
800 is Nokia Drive. This is a turn-by-turn vector based voice sat nav
application, which also has all the maps preinstalled and works just like a
TomTom device, with a very similar look and feel.
Also on-board is Nokia
Music that offers up access to the Nokia music library of 14 million tracks,
with free streaming of 100 radio stations made up from all that musicm which
can be played off-line too. Tracks can even be bought from the Nokia store, as
a rival to Zune's music offering and gigs can be listed from surrounding areas
or by even artist.
All these are said to be
exclusive to Nokia Windows Phone 7 mobile phones and won't be found on any
other manufacturers devices, but we shall see if that remains the case over
time.
Battery
Nokia's Lumia 800 battery life performed below the limits
outlined by the Finnish phone makers, along with being under par as to what
ITProPortal would have expected judging by the company's past performance in
handsets.
We set up the mobile
phone with default access to Gmail, Windows Live, Facebook, Twitter and
LinkedIn - for pulling down emails and status updates.
With a battery at
100-percent, the 800 was able to make 6 hours and 24 minutes worth of calls on
our highest recorded test. This was all whilst gathering emails and social network
updates at the same time. We repeated the tests a few more times, with 4 hours
and 59 minutes observed, plus 4 hours and 5 minutes seen on another test - with
various loads of traffic.
The accompanying
specifications for the Lumia 800 state the mobile phone is capable of 9.5 hours
of talk time, on a 3G network and 335 hours stand-by, 55 hours of music
playback or 7 hours for video.
The Bottom Line
The Nokia Lumia 800 is a
well-designed and aesthetically pleasing Windows Phone 7 handset, with an OS
that works well with the mobile phone; a screen that is sharp in picture and
responsive to operate; with a camera that offers up decent enough picture
quality, a good sized storage capacity and an adequate CPU.
As a Windows Phone 7
device, the Lumia 800 is a good looking piece of equipment - from anyone, and
not just Nokia. Any mobile phone manufacturer would be proud to have the 800 in
their arsenal, either running WP7 or any other OS.
