Nokia Lumia 800 with Windows Phone 7
Nokia Lumia 800 with Windows Phone 7
Nokia Lumia 800 with Windows Phone 7
Nokia Lumia 800 with Windows Phone 7
The Nokia Lumia is the first Windows Phone 7 device from Nokia. The Finnish mobile phone giant had announced a partnership with Microsoft at the start of the year although Nokia fans have been waiting many months to get a glimpse at what this new agreement will have to offer. Once the undisputed king of the mobile phone industry, Nokia has been slipping in recent years as they struggle to keep up with market trends. Likewise, Windows Phone 7 has yet to make any real impact on the phone market.
Because of this, many fans of Nokia were dreading what would result from this new partnership. As it turns out, their fears were unfounded as the Nokia Lumia looks like it could be the best phone of 2011 this side of the iPhone 4S and Galaxy S2. Nokia is going all out on this phone, spending more money on advertising Nokia Lumia contracts than it has done for any phone it has ever produced before.
The Lumia has much more appeal than Nokia releases of the last few years. Physically, it has a very similar design to the earlier MeeGo powered N9 - although there are some differences. Physical proportions are identical, although the Lumia comes with a slightly smaller 3.7 inch screen. This is because the N9 was a purely touchscreen device, and the Lumia has some touch sensitive Windows soft keys beneath its display.
The Lumia is to be one of the first Mango powered Windows Phones. Mango adds a great deal more to an already fantastic operating system - including the best social networking features that can be found on any smartphone. Social networks like Facebook and Twitter are more heavily integrated into the Windows ecosystem than on Android or the iPhone.
One new addition to Mango that unfortunately will not make its way into the Lumia is the support for video calling. Earlier Windows Phones came without front facing cameras and sadly the Lumia suffers the same fate, even though the support is available in the software. The Lumia does have an excellent camera on board though - an 8 megapixel camera including 720p video and Carl Zeiss optics and dual LED flash.
Another limitation set by the Windows OS is that the Lumia comes with just 16GB internal storage and no option to add additional space with microSD. This could be perceived as a bit of a let-down - but the Nokia Lumia comes with access to excellent cloud computing services allowing you to store all of your data in the cloud.
Nokia is keeping some old traditions and also adopting some new ones with the Lumia. Nokia is the only company that still produces phones with different colour options - and the Lumia 800 is available in Black, Cyan and Magenta. For the new traditions, Nokia is the only company besides Apple who have decided to use the smaller microSIM cards instead of the older SIMs that are found in most phones. Because of this, the Lumia will need to be purchased on a contract as it will not be so easy to use the phone with SIM only deals.
If you have any experience of the Nokia N9 then it will give you some idea of what the Lumia feels like to hold. However, the user experience is entirely different thanks to the Windows operating system. Although Windows Phone 7 has yet to make much of a splash this has been more to do with the limited number of handsets currently supporting it. It has a lot to put Android and iOS to shame in the entertainment department, with Zune, Xbox LIVE and Windows Marketplace all making the Lumia the most entertaining phone from Nokia in many years.
