Nokia partnered with Microsoft in October 2011 for new series of Lumia Smartphones. They launched few successful smartphones under this series such as Lumia 820, Lumia 900, Lumia 800, etc. The device we are going to review today is the best Nokia device, which is, Nokia Lumia 920 Smartphone. Powered by latest Windows Phone operating system (Windows Phone 8), Lumia 920 features 4.5-Inch IPS display, 1.5GHz Processor, 1GB RAM, 32GB Storage and 8.7 Megapixel camera with PureView Technology. It is said to be one of the strongest rivals for the new iPhone 5, is it really? We will find about it later. Lumia 920 comes in three attractive colors including Black, Yellow, and White. Today we are going to review its Yellow Variant. The main highlights of Lumia 920 are as follows:
- CPU: Qualcomm dual-heart at 1.5 GHz
- RAM: 1 GB
- Storage: 32 GB
- Screen: 4.5″IPS Display with 1280 x 768 pixels Resolutions
- Dimensions: 130 x 70.8 x 10.7 mm
- Weight: 185g
- OS: Windows Phone 8
Let’s start and check all its features in details.
Design:
As per design Lumia 920 seems quite stylish and attractive. Weighing just 185 grams, it is 130.3 mm x 70.8 mm x 10.7 mm in dimension. If we compare this weight, Lumia 920 is a bit heavier than iPhone 5 (112 g) or Samsung Galaxy S III (133 g). Though it fits and looks good in palm but the grip is not so good. Its rounded forms and a polycarbonate coating may be a bit slippery. Nokia has put all keys such as Volume up/down, lock, etc; very cleverly on the body which can be easily and comfortably accessed with out hands. Let’s check the same first:
On Front side you get a 4.5-Inch IPS display with three capacitive keys on front bottom which includes Back, Home and Bing Search keys. Call speaker and 1.3MP front camera is placed on the top of the screen with ‘Nokia’ logo.
While on the right side of the body we find Camera Key, Power On/up as well as Lock key and Volume up/down keys.
Micro USB port which is used for charging as well Data Transferring is provided at the bottom of the phone accompanied by loud Speakers.
On the top we get 3.5mm Headphone Jack, MIC and removable Micro SIM card slot similar to iPhone and iPads.
While at the rear we get an 8.7 Megapixel rear camera with Led Flash. Note the rear part is not removable. Phone is packed from all sides with a unibody.
Screen / Display:
Lumia 920 comes with 4.5-Inch Capacitive Multipoint-Touch display coated with Gorilla Glass 2. Hence screen is anti-shock and scratch free, which means you don’t require Screenguard for this device. The resolution of this screen is 1280 x 768 pixels with 332ppi density which off course is capable to provide HD quality output. If you remember, this 332ppi is bit higher than iPhone 5’s 326ppi. The touch sensitive is very smooth. Also Nokia has embedded its new HD PureMotion technology with this device. This technology consists of a 30% brighter screen than the average to a screen. Most of the displays used to have 23ms refresh rate while Lumia 920 has 9ms refresh rate which is very impressive. Overall Lumia 920 also delivers very well balanced rendering display. No matter we watch Videos or Picture, or taking snapshots from Camera; you will see a very clear and high quality output.
Following are the specifications of Lumia display:
- Display size: 4.5 ”
- Display resolution – Height: 1280 pixels
- Display resolution – Width: 768 pixels
- Display features: Polarization filter, Light time-out, Brightness control, Corning Gorilla Glass, Orientation sensor, Proximity sensor, High brightness mode, RGB Stripe, Sunlight readability enhancements, Pixel density 332 ppi, Luminance 600 nits, Aspect ratio 15:9, Super-sensitive touch, Color boosting, IPS, Refresh rate 60 Hz, Ambient light sensor, Sculpted glass
- Display colors: 16777216
- Display technology: PureMotion HD+
- Display height: 97 mm
- Display width: 58 mm
- Touch screen technology: Capacitive Multipoint-Touch
Windows Phone 8 OS and Performance:
Operating system plays very important role with any hardware. Launched around last October Windows Phone 8 is Microsoft’s latest operating systems for Mobile. Nokia has made best use of this Operating system with Lumia 920. WP8 with this hardware gives you optimum performance. The best part of this OS is we get Live Tiles (also known as Metro UI) on our Homescreen. You can customize these titles completely according to your preference. You can move tiles, increase / decrease the size OR pin/unpin any application to homescreen. You can also change colors of all widgets to make your homescreen more attractive. As I said Nokia has made best use of WP8, I mean they have rewritten and customized the OS for Lumia 920. There are several new or enhanced applications such as Explore Nokia, Nokia Music, Nokia Drive, etc; which we have never seen in any of Nokia devices. We will provide more detail about these applications below when we will talk about “Application”. As per performance, Lumia 920 is very fast and smooth. You can open several apps at the same time and run them in background without any lag or freeze. Every applications response is very fast. It also allows fast switching between apps by just pressing the back key.
In terms of connectivity as well, you don’t need to worry for anything. Lumia 920 supports Bluetooth 3.0, Near Field Communication, Wi-Fi Channel bonding, WLAN IEEE 802.11 a/b/g/n, Qi Wireless charging. There is also a Micro USB Port provided which can be used for charging or transferring data. Here are the details of connectivity options in this smartphone:
- IM card type: Micro SIM
- Dual SIM: No
- Connectors: Micro-USB charging connector, Micro-USB Data Connector, Micro-USB 2.0, 3.5 mm audio connector
- Bluetooth profiles: Object Push profile (OPP) 1.1, Hands-free profile (HFP) 1.5, Serial Port profile (SPP), Phone Book Access Profile (PBAP) 1.0, Advanced Audio Distribution Profile (A2DP) 1.2, Audio/Video Remote Control Profile (AVRCP) 1.4, General Audio/Video Distribution Profile (GAVDP), Service Discovery Application Profile (SDAP)
- Wireless connectivity: Bluetooth 3.0, Near Field Communication, Wi-Fi Channel bonding, WLAN IEEE 802.11 a/b/g/n, Qi Wireless charging
- Wi-Fi security modes: WPA2 (AES/TKIP), WPA, WEP, PEAP-MSCHAPv2, EAP-SIM, EAP-AKA
- NFC: Secure NFC for payment, NFC sharing, NFC pairing, NFC tagging
Personally I feel Windows Phone 8 is very good operating system especially for official purpose. It keeps you updated with all your social networks, Email Accounts, chat messengers, etc. In this phone you can add any of your email accounts including Hotmail, Outlook, Yahoo, Google, Exchange, etc; and get your mails on your Homescreen live widgets. Following are the mailing features we get with Lumia 920:
- Email clients: Hotmail, Yahoo! Mail, Outlook Mobile, Gmail, Mail for Exchange, Office 365, Nokia Mail, Windows Live / Hotmail / Outlook.com
- Email protocols: SMTP, IMAP4, POP3
- Email features: Viewing and editing of email attachments, Always up to date, Multiple simultaneous email accounts, Text-to-speech message reader, view on email, Linking multiple inboxes to one, Inbox filtering, HTML viewer
- Supported instant messaging services: Twitter, Facebook chat, LinkedIn, Windows Live Messenger
- Messaging features: Integrated text messaging and chat, Instant messaging, Concatenated SMS for long messages, Multiple SMS deletion, List of recently used numbers, Audio messaging, Text-to-speech message reader, Text messaging, Number screening for messaging, Unified MMS/SMS editor, Automatic resizing of images for MMS, Distribution lists for messaging, Multimedia messaging, Conversational chat style SMS, Unified inbox for SMS and MMS
Apart from all these stuffs, with Lumia 920, Windows Phone 8 also provides you “Kids Corner”. It is something like parental Control. Let’s see what Kids Corner is.
Kids Corner:
Kids corner is something like parental control software which we use in our Home Computers to keep our child safe from Unwanted or adult contents. But here Kids corner is more than that. It will keep your kids safe from unwanted contents as well as it is used to keep your important or confidential data safe from kids to get accidentally deleted or to prevent them making any purchase online. You can simply assign few apps of your choice which should be only accessible to them. Kids Corner can be enabled from Settings > Kids Corner. Now comeback to Applications, Tap Kids Corner and add the apps of your choice which should be accessible to them. Once you activate Kids Corner your account will be locked with password of your choice and will be not accessible to your kids.
Applications Navigation:
Navigation options are very simple in Lumia 920. Normally you can pin all your applications on your home screen and customize it as you want (small or large) but if you don’t want to pin, still the apps are accessible easily by swiping left. You will find all installed applications listed here. If you want to put any of these apps on your home screen, just tap and hold for 2 seconds to get the options. Switching between running apps is also very easy. You just need to press +hold back key for 2 seconds.
Applications:
As I was talking earlier about Lumia 920’s few amazing apps which makes the phone a real SmartPhone, now it’s time to check few of them.Nokia has provided Nokia Drive, Nokia Maps, Nokia Music, City Lens, etc. Nokia City lens is a unique application which allows you to find places of your interest such as food, hotels, shopping malls, etc. You just need to launch City Lens and click Hotel. It will use your location over GPS and displays you all nearby hotels. That’s not all. This application also provides you contact info and walking or driving directions to the particular location. You can also share this with your friends and family right from the app.
Nokia Drive is yet another useful application which is very helpful while driving. This application provides you guided turn by turn directions for your location. If you feel difficulty to see the directions on phone while driving, don’t worry, Nokia Drive also provides you Verbal directions. You can also customize the Drive Map in 2D or 3D. It will show you remaining meters and traffic as well.
Nokia Maps is also very similar but quite helpful app. It offers you some extra features like you can make it show up all popular places around you which keeps changing according to you location. Nokia Maps comes with 4 different view including Normal Map, Satellite, Public Transport and Traffic Map.
Other Navigation Features we get with Lumia 920 are as follows:
- Location technologies: Magnetometer, A-GPS, WLAN Network Positioning, Glonass, Offline maps, Speed limit warnings, Online and offline favorites, Turn-by-turn voice guided navigation
- Location and navigation apps: Nokia Maps, Nokia Drive, Nokia City Lens, Nokia Transport
- Navigation features: Pin places to Start screen, Public transportation routing guidance, Reveal the surrounding places, Reviews, info and photos for places, Routing options, Save favorite destinations, Call, share and get directions to places, Free maps, Save and sync favs with maps.nokia.com, Find upcoming departure times, See places through the camera viewfinder, Live traffic information, Automatic day/night view switching, Venue maps – shopping and transport centers.
For browsing internet you get a built-in Internet Explorer 10 with fast and smooth performance. You can open Multiple Tabs, check history, save favorites, pin any particular webpage to your HomeScreen or you can share pages to email or on Social Network right from the browser itself.
There are several other important and useful applications. Apart from this Nokia has introduced two more unique Applications in Lumia which are Cinemagraph and SmartShoot. But these are related to Lumia 920’s Camera. We will check these apps below in Camera Section.
Apart from this you can download thousands of application from Windows Phone Store. However it is true that Android and iOS has 100 times more applications compared to Windows Phone. So there may be many such applications and games which you might have used on iOS or Android but they are not available for Lumia 920. Overall,I can say Windows Phone 8 lacks in terms of third party apps and games. However there are few built-in features in Lumia 920 for which you do not need to download third party application such as Screenshot. If you need to capture any screen on Lumia 920, you just need to tap Home (win logo) and Lock key together. Screenshot will be captured.
Other important Applications that come built-in with Lumia 920 are as follows:
- Personal information management features: Calculator, Clock, Calendar, Phonebook, Fixed dialing number, Social networks in Phonebook, OneNote, Wallet, Family Room, Kid’s Corner
- Business apps: Adobe acrobat reader free download, Lync (Corporate IM) free download, Office: Excel, Word, Powerpoint, OneNote, SkyDrive storage for documents and notes
- Document formats supported: Excel, PDF, Word, Powerpoint
- Sync type: Exchange ActiveSync, Windows companion app, Mac companion app
- Sync content: Calendar, To-do list, Video, Pictures, Music, Contacts
- Game features: DirectX 11, Accelerometer, Gyroscope, Touch UI, XBox-Live Hub
Camera:
This is another most important aspect of Lumia Series Smartphones. We all know about Nokia’s PureView Camera. Yes, we get the same PureView Camera in this device as well. With Lumia 920 we can do several things using its camera and the best thing we get here is “SmartShoot.” First let me tell you that with this device we get 8.7 Megapixel rear Camera with LED Auto focus with two-stage capture key. There is also 1.3 Megapixel front facing camera for making Video Calls. Here are some important features of Lumia 920 Camera:
- Capture modes: Video, Still
- Scene modes: Automatic, Night Portrait, Sports, Night, Close-up, Backlight
- White balance modes: Cloudy, Incandescent, Fluorescent, Daylight, Automatic
- PMDM LIGHT SENSTIVITY: 800, 200, Automatic, 400, 100
- Photos viewed by: Camera Roll, Timeline, Photo editor, Favorites, Album, Photos from social networks
- Camera resolution: 3552 x 2448 pixels
- Main camera focus type: Auto focus with two-stage capture key
- Camera digital zoom: 4 x
- Carl Zeiss Tessar lens: Yes
- Main camera f-number/aperture: f/2.0
- Camera focal length: 26 mm
- Camera minimum focus range: 8 cm
- Camera image formats: JPEG/Exif
- Flash type: Short pulse high power dual LED
- Flash operating range: 3.0 m
- Flash modes: Off, Automatic, On
- Touch focus, Landscape orientation, Auto and manual white balance, Still image editor, Geotagging, Optical image stabilization, Lenses applications, Sensor type: BSI, True 16:9 sensor, Pixel size 1.4 µm, Sensor size 1/3″, PureView
All images captured from Lumia 920 are produced in Full HD quality in high resolution, as mentioned above 3552 x 2448 pixels. The 8.7mp camera is powered by Carl Zeiss Tessar lens with 4x zoom. Though we get best quality image in daylight and Outdoors, you may face some problem while capturing images or videos in low light or indoor. Note, I said you may face some problems, but that doesn’t means Lumia is not capable to capture good quality images in low light. Its camera automates easily with a technology designed to help make sharp pictures and videos in low light environments as well without using the LED flash. There are also several options provided after clicking the image to enhance your image such as Fix colors, Rotate, Crop, etc.
Lumia 920 also provides optical stabilization so that you can shoot your video hassle free and comfortably. Lumia itself reduces the shakings in the recording and offers professional type video shooting. It allows you to shoot Full HD 1080p at 30 frames. Furthermore Lumia 920 also provides optimal filming without saturated sound. No matter where you record your videos or Images, Lumia 920 manages to surprise us by restoring lights and colors accurately, even at low brightness. However you will notice some difference in the pictures taken indoor and outdoor.
Image with Focus:
Image with Auto Focus:
This is just the Indoor Images. Trust me pictures clicked outdoors are 10 times better than these. Check the below one for example:
Apart from this, you get several other enhancement options in the camera itself such as scene modes, CloseUp, Sports, backlight, etc. It also comes with Built-in 4 different lenses which include Bing Vision, Panorama, Cinemagraph and Smartshoot.
Cinemagraph:
As I was talking above, Cinemagraph and Smartshoot are the two unique camera applications provided by Nokia in Lumia 920. With the help of Cinemagraph Lens you can make a magical blend of Photo and Movie like animation. Just launch Cinemagraph, tap on the screen to capture image, again tap on part of image which need to show animated photo and save. Your image will be saved in high quality gif image. I don’t think there is any other better tool than Cinemagraph to create pictures that are almost alive.
Smartshoot:
This is yet another smart Lens feature of Lumia 920 Camera which can sound very similar like changing the lens on any digital SLR Camera. Using this lens you can extend the camera functionality for taking the best shots. When you click a picture using Smartshoot, it captures a sequence of images instead of just one image after which you can change faces and remove unwanted objects from the shot and get the perfect picture. Most important part here is that using Smartshoot lens is very simple. After clicking an image, just click on Edit icon and select either Change Faces or Remove Object. You just need to tap on any faces in the image and scroll the bar to get best shot. Similarly while removing objects, tap the object you want to remove. Smartshoot is really very smart.
Panorama:
This is another built in lens provided with Lumia 920. It allows you to capture your favorite moments in Panorama style, and that too in High Quality image.
Battery:
In terms of Battery life as well, Lumia 920 has impressed us. Powered with 2000 mAh battery you can use this phone intensely throughout the day. It provides upto 400 hours of standby time, and about 17 to 20 hours in usage mode, no matter you are on 3G or Wifi. Also once the battery level gets very low, the device will notify you to recharge the phone. Don’t forget, Nokia has also provided Wireless Charging for Lumia 920. You don’t need any wired charger, instead just put the phone on its charging station to charge the battery.
Battery Features:
- Battery model: BP-4GW
- Battery capacity: 2000 mAh
- Battery voltage: 3.7 V
- Removable battery: No
- Maximum 2G talk time: 18.6 h
- Maximum 3G standby time: 460 h
- Maximum 3G talk time: 10.8 h
- Music playback time: 74 h
- Wireless charging: Yes
Conclusion:
Nokia Lumia 920 is one of the best Smartphones available today in the market. The reason I can say behind this is because of its optimized Windows Phone 8 operating system for better performance, has such a high performance camera which can be used by any newbie as well as a professional photographer, very good for business tasks and its HD IPS (anti-shock and Scratch free) Display. It is the strongest competitor for Apple’s iPhone 5 in any aspect. It is also very good and attractive in looks. Other than this what make us to buy this phone are its applications which we have shown above. All those are very useful applications that we may need in our day to day life. Overall if you are looking for a smartphone offering powerful configuration, good performance, wide screen, a proper autonomy, and very useful applications, then it’s Lumia 920 Smartphone.
Pros:
• Optimized Windows Phone 8
• Superb screen
• Very good design
• High quality Camera
• Useful camera Lenses and Stabilizer
• Useful Nokia apps
• NFC Technology
• Good Battery Life
Cons:
• Heavy Body
• Not much apps and games available.
• No microSD slot
