Nokia Lumia 920 Review – Solid Enough, but Still Misses Core Features

Nokia decided to bet everything on Windows Phone a few years ago and after six consecutive negative quarters, the company actually managed to make some profit from selling phones. Well, that’s not entirely true if we take into consideration the fact that most of the profit comes from Nokia Siemens Network.

However, Nokia’s financial results for Q4 2012 show that the Finnish company’s finances are at a much healthier level than one year ago.

Obviously, that doesn’t mean Nokia is now selling more handsets. Even though it has strengthened sales of its Lumia lineup as well as Asha family, Nokia has managed to optimize its restructuring process so the losses have been reduced to a minimum level.

Since Nokia World 2012, back in September, the handset maker has announced a few more Windows Phone 8 devices that are meant to bring some of the high features in the Lumia 920 to lower cost tiers.

Nokia Lumia 920 was officially announced in September 2012 and hit shelves one month later. Unfortunately, there are many countries where the smartphone has yet to be officially introduced.

Nokia has been struggling with Lumia 920’s high demand since the device was released on the market, which is why one of the reasons it delayed the launch of the phone in some countries.

For the time being, the Lumia 920 is available for purchase for around $450/€450, but the phone is heavily subsidized in many countries, so customers may get it much cheaper if they are willing to commit to a long-term contract.

Customers can choose from the following color options: Black, Gray, Red, Yellow, White and Cyan. Keep in mind that due to low supply, only a few of these are available in most countries.

The Lumia 920 is one of the many Lumia series phones that have borrowed Nokia N9’s design with slight changes. The N9 was quite the looker back in September 2011, when the smartphone was launched on the market.

Given the N9’s amazing popularity among Nokia fans, the Finnish company decided to use its form factor in future models and that’s how the Lumia series of Windows Phone devices was born.

Although, each model has been slightly changed, the rectangular form factor has been kept, so consumers can immediately recognize a Lumia smartphone.

Nothing wrong with that obviously, but I would have loved to be able to carry around a slightly smaller, thinner and lighter top-tier Windows Phone handset.

The Lumia 920 measures 130.3 x 70.8 x 10.7 mm and weighs no less than 185g (battery included). Nokia’s flagship smartphone has been my main phone for a few months now and my opinion about its design has changed since I started using it.

Now, after a few months of use, I feel like I’m carrying a brick in my pocket. This phone weighs almost 200g and is almost 11mm thick when all other companies are trying to make their high-end phones as thin and as light as possible.

The good news is that the polycarbonate composite that Nokia has chosen for Lumia 920 is extremely durable in comparison with the cheap plastic or other more complex material used by other handset manufacturers.

My device does not have any scratches and the paint hasn’t worn off yet after a few months of use. The same goes for the display, which seems almost unbreakable.

I own the black version of Lumia 920 and the backside of the phone can get greased pretty fast and the same goes for the display. That would be another minor downside if you are one of those users that really care about these things.

Nokia Lumia 920 does not have a physical button on the front side, instead it features three touch-sensitive keys: Back, Menu and Search.

The last mentioned can be used to quickly launch the camera application even when the smartphone is in sleep mode. Simply press and hold the camera key until it opens the camera.

The microUSB port has been placed on the bottom side along with two grilles featuring the microphone and loudspeaker, while the top side features the 3.5mm audio jack and the microSIM slot.

Above the display, there’s the usual earpiece, the secondary 1.3-megapixel camera, as well as the ambient light sensor and proximity sensors.

Nokia Lumia 920 features a non-removable battery, so you won’t be able to pull out the back side. It also worth mentioning that the phone lacks microSD card slot for memory expansion. The 8-megapixel rear-facing camera features a dual-LED flash and has been set within a chrome-like plate.

Overall, the Lumia 920 looks and feels as a stylish top-tier smartphone, but some may find it a bit oversized and overweight for their taste especially in comparison with other smartphones in the same high-tier range.

The Lumia 920 boasts the largest display ever included into a Nokia smartphone. The huge 4.5-inch capacitive touchscreen display supports HD (768 x 1280 pixels) resolution and 332 ppi pixel density.

The fact that the smartphone’s screen benefits from the brand new PureMotion HD+ technology was supposed to be one of its strong points.

However, while the ClearBlack display offers a pretty decent image quality and the viewing angles are good enough, it’s far from being among the best on the market.

It fares a bit lower than the standard AMOLED display, but it’s an all-rounder when it comes to contrast, brightness and sunlight legibility.

Nokia prides itself with some of the best imaging technology embedded into mobile phones. Introduced along with the amazing Nokia 808 Symbian smartphone, the PureView technology promises state-of-the-art pictures under almost any circumstances.

The Lumia 920 features one of best cameras integrated within a smartphone, thanks to Nokia’s PureView technology and Carl Zeiss optics. It’s also the first camera to feature true Optical Image Stabilization (OIS) and includes f/2.0 aperture, allowing users to take stunning pictures.

As I have already mentioned, users can quickly open the camera app by pressing and holding the shutter key for a few seconds.

Another innovative feature that comes with Lumia 920’s camera is called Lenses and allows users to apply various effects on the pictures they take or simply choose the best one.

These lenses act as plugins and can be accessed within the camera interface. Nokia Lumia 920 comes preloaded with Smart Shoot lens, but additional lenses such as Cinemagraph can be downloaded for free.

Fortunately, the phone’s camera has been improved via small software updates and is now offering a much better photo capturing experience.

Even though Lumia 920 does not come with the 41-megapixel module camera included in Nokia 808 PureView model, it still offers great daylight pictures. However, low-light environment pictures is where Lumia 920 really shines. Nokia Lumia 920’s camera manages to captures some of the best night photos.

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Menu and Software

One of the first smartphones to ship with Windows Phone 8 platform out of the box, Nokia Lumia 920 offers a bunch of improvements over the older WP7.5 devices. Although Windows Phone 8 looks the same on all smartphones, Nokia offers some additional features that you cannot find in HTC phones for example.

The highly praised Modern UI, previously known as Metro UI, gives the phone a clean, stylish look. However, customization options are pretty limited and only go one way – down. The Modern UI is made of live tiles that can be resized and arranged as you see fit.

It acts as a home screen where users can pin contacts, apps, services, webpages and more. All that you add on this home screen is vertically arranged, so you will have to scroll down to find what you need.

The main menu is only a swipe away from the home screen. A swipe to the left will let you access the phone’s main menu and all the apps and services that come with the phone. Design-wise, the main menu follows the Modern UI’s vertical layout pattern.

The bad news is that you don’t have a place where you can check all notifications from the apps that you have installed on the phone. Moreover, there are no quick toggles to help you enable/disable certain features such as GPS, Wi-Fi and Mobile data.

Although the smartphone’s lockscreen allows you to see notifications from five apps, there’s no way that you can find out you’ve missed a call or that you have an email, unless you unlock the phone.

Nokia Lumia 920 does not have a notification LED of any other feature that can be used instead to alert users they have received a message or a call.

On the positive side, Windows Phone 8 knows multitasking, though it is not “true” multitasking. The operating system can suspend an app previously used and it can resume it every time you want to go back to it.

It also knows when an application needs to run in the background or it only requires to be suspended. This feature depends on developers, who can create their apps to use one of the two multitasking modes available within Windows Phone 8 platform.

The bad news is that you won’t be able to “kill” an application within the task manager. In order to close an application that runs in the background or is suspended, users will have to press and hold the Back key in order to bring up the task manager, choose the app they wish to terminate and then click the Back key again.

This method is pretty awkward and may require users to click more than one time on the Back key in order to close an application, especially if you wish to “kill” the Internet browser.

Nokia Lumia 920 provides access to a ton of features, including Alarms, Calculator, Calendar, Photo Beamer, Store and Transfer my Data. The latter allows you to move all your contacts from your older phone to the Lumia 920. Nokia also states that some older phones will also let you transfer pictures and messages via Bluetooth, but this is not guaranteed.

Furthermore, the smartphone comes with Nokia’s full suite of HERE services and apps, including City Lens, Drive+ and Maps. Nokia Music, Nokia Care and Nokia Xpress are included as well.

More importantly, Nokia Lumia 920 provides users with free access to Office document viewing and editing. It comes with full SkyDrive integration, so all documents on the phone will always be synched with the ones on the computer.

The bad news is that Lumia 920 does not feature a file manager, so users won’t be able to attach all types of files to their emails.

The Windows Phone Store is very well organized, so users will be able to easily find what they’re looking for. Although the number of applications and games is nowhere near Google Play and App Store’s, Microsoft’s Windows Phone Store becomes larger and larger by the day.

Xbox Live is another entertainment hub that allows users to check their friends’ achievements and avatars. Keep in mind that not all games available for download via Windows Phone Store support this feature.

Last but not least, Microsoft and Nokia thought it would be wise to add a new parental-related feature called Kids corner, which allows parents to share apps, music, videos and games with their children.

When it comes to connectivity, Nokia Lumia 920 is an all-rounder. It comes with quad-band GSM / GPRS / EDGE network support, as well as quad-band 3G with HSPA and 4G LTE connectivity.

It also offers dual-band Wi-Fi connectivity along with DLNA, Wi-Fi Direct and mobile hotspot features. There’s more good news, as Lumia 920 supports Bluetooth 3.1, which means that users will now be able transfer files between compatible phones.

NFC (Near Field Communication) is included as well, along with the Wallet application. Nokia Lumia 920 comes with the latest version of Internet Explorer for Windows Phone, so you should expect top-notch browsing features.

Internet Explorer offers tabbed browsing, lots of share options and the possibility to access favorite websites with just one click. The URL bar at the bottom is always visible and it can also act as a search bar. Users can choose either Bing or Google search engines.

The smartphone also comes with a Nokia Xpress browser, which is said to greatly compress web pages in order to save mobile data charges.

Unfortunately, you won’t be able to see how much mobile data your phone has reached at some point, as Windows Phone 8 does not come with a built-in mobile tracking data feature. There’s no third-party alternative either, so your only hope is your carrier’s dedicated service (if any).

As expected, the Lumia 920 offers users a complete navigation solution thanks to the HERE Maps, Drive+ and City Lens service that come preloaded on the phone.

The messaging area is another department where Nokia and Windows Phone shine. Each person that you communicate with has its own thread started.

It doesn’t matter what type of conversation you’re having with that person, as Windows Phone groups all Facebook, Windows Live messages and SMS into a single thread.

Messaging features two tabs that you switch in between by swiping right/left: threads and online. The former contains the list of conversation threads opened with your contacts, while the latter allows you to see who’s online at that moment.

The integrated email client is another strong point of the Lumia 920. It keeps track of emails and groups them by subject chronologically. You can mark any individual email as read or unread, as well as highlight them with the set flag option.

When it comes to telephony, Nokia Lumia 920 offers outstanding in-call sound and very good signal reception. I had no issues with the smartphone’s telephony features, but that is to be expected from a high-end Nokia device.

Nokia Lumia 920 is equipped with a Qualcomm MSM8960 Snapdragon chipset that accommodates a 1.5GHz dual-core processor on Krait architecture, as well as an Adreno 225 graphics processing unit and 1GB of RAM.

There aren’t any worthy benchmarks that could offer us an insight into the power of the Lumia 920, so the only way to assess the phone’s hardware configuration is by everyday use.

Although it’s not packed with a quad-core CPU, the Lumia 920 is snappy when it comes to browsing, playing games or multitasking. Nokia owes this to Microsoft, as Windows Phone has been incredibly optimized to run on Lumia series phones.

Nokia Lumia 920 comes with 32GB of internal memory, as well as 7GB of free cloud storage via SkyDrive. The only drawback of the smartphone is the fact that it lacks microSD card slot for memory expansion.

Multimedia

Music lovers will be happy to know that Lumia 920 comes with two different music players that offer an easy to use, intuitive user interface.

Nokia Music is a music service that does not require a monthly fee unless you want some premium features like better audio quality or the possibility to skip tracks more than three times.

A 7-day trial for Nokia Music+ is available as well, so those who are not sure if it’s worth paying £3.99 a month for this service can take it for a spin for more insight.

Given the fact that the service is available for free, the mix will not contain only songs from the artists that you choose, but Nokia will add other artists in the same music genre to the playlist.

Creating a mix is easy and only requires a few clicks, but listening to music requires an Internet connection. The good news is that you can make this music mix available offline.

The standard music player that can be accessed from the Music + Videos hub does not have any extra settings, but still allows you to sort your music by artists, albums and so on.

The same Music + Video hub provides access to the integrated video player, which now supports DivX and XviD formats. Unfortunately, you won’t be able to play MKV files and subtitles support is still missing.

Surprisingly, Nokia Lumia 920 music sound quality is not as good as we have expected from a flagship smartphone. It’s not bad either, but we would have expected the Lumia 920 to fare much better when put against other top-tier smartphones.

The Lumia 920 comes with a non-removable 2,000 mAh Li-Ion battery, which is rated by Nokia for up to 400 hours of standby time or up to 17 hours of talk time (10 hours in 3G mode). In addition, the Finnish handset maker claims the phone’s battery should offer up to 67 hours of music play.

I had high hopes that Nokia’s Windows Phone flagship smartphone would offer a slightly better battery life than most high-end Android phones available on the market. Instead, I’m stuck with the same 2-day recharge cycle that I got used to while using an Android top-tier phone.

Last but not least, build quality is outstanding. The high quality unibody polycarbonate is definitely one of the positive things to mention.

Sales Package

Nokia Lumia 920 handset 2000 mAh Li-Ion Battery USB Data Cable A/C adapter Leaflets MicroSIM eject tool Stereo Earphones