Nokia Lumia 800 Review - Nokia's Brave New Foray into WP7
by Brian Klug on January 4, 2012 7:00 AM EST- Posted in
- Smartphones
- Nokia
- windows phone 7
- Mobile
- WP7
- Lumia
- Lumia 800
Display
The Lumia 800 uses a WVGA (800x480) 3.7” Super AMOLED display which of course comes with RGBG PenTile. The reality is that Windows Phone actually feels like it’s designed around AMOLED to some extent, so this isn’t nearly as big of a concern as it would be otherwise. In fact, WP7 does take advantage of AMOLED’s light-emitting nature to display as much black as possible unless you change the background theme, but anyhow onto the display itself.
Because we can’t set the brightness manually in the settings UI, we have to rely on the Low/Medium/High presets that are defined already. There’s actually a way to set the brightness manually inside ##634# but it isn’t clear whether these settings persist after exiting. As usual, we’ve measured brightness and white point - AMOLED blacks are literally zero thanks to the light-emitting nature of that display technology.
I find that the Lumia 800 isn’t as dark as the numbers would have you believe, though it could benefit from going a bit brighter. No doubt Nokia has chosen to err on the conservative side to conserve some battery life.
| Lumia 800 Display Metrics | |||
| Brightness Level | Black Brightness (nits) | White Brightness (nits) | White Point (K) |
| High | 0 | 196.1 | 5854 |
| Medium | 0 | 44.8 | 6043 |
| Low | 0 | 11.6 | 6117 |
The curved nature of the Corning Gorilla Glass display is another thing to discuss as well. It looks great and isn’t curved so much that it gets in the way of dragging things around on the display or interacting. Of course, at the most extreme viewing angles (as you approach a critical angle) you do see some total internal reflection effects, but that ends up being literally viewed from the extreme side or bottom.
As usual I’ve also put together an outdoor viewing gallery in addition to some different viewing angles of the display for your perusal. Nokia’s ClearBlack display helps things here, as they’ve placed a circular polarizer between the touch layer and the front display glass to eliminate some reflections.
I feel as though WP7 is one of the first UIs that’s designed with some of the AMOLED/PenTile display guidelines taken to heart, though there’s still more that WP7 could do to leverage some of AMOLEDs unique strengths. Little functions like displaying the time or status even when the phone is locked are things that other Nokia phones with AMOLED have done for a while that really made sense and served an important purpose that aren’t done in WP7 quite yet.
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crispbp04 - Wednesday, January 4, 2012 - link
Steve Jobs already proved that consumers are idiots. the minority of consumers want android. The majority want something that works, is pretty, and is fun to use. This is the definition of Windows Phone 7. Elop is saving Nokia by betting the farm on Microsoft. Who cares if he has to alienate blind android fanboys such as yourself.steven75 - Wednesday, January 4, 2012 - link
The majority of users also want wide access to the software everyone else has, and WP7 still fails hard on this.crispbp04 - Wednesday, January 4, 2012 - link
cite a specific example of a piece of software you use on android or iOS that isn't on the WP7 marketplace.Thermogenic - Wednesday, January 4, 2012 - link
PayPal app. The mobile website is not nearly as nice as the iPhone or Android apps.doobydoo - Saturday, January 7, 2012 - link
Sky Sports app. Only available on iPhone / iPad.Iketh - Wednesday, January 4, 2012 - link
I have all 3 phone OS's in my home. My wife uses the Android and she hates it, as do I. (She started with WP7 and switched because she didn't like it either, but wishes she had it back now.) I'm using the WP7, but it was a hard decision to leave iOS, mainly because of the superior map app. But the WP7's audio and video quality is far superior to iOS. You're too restricted on the .264 profile allowed on iOS for whatever reason.Other than that, as far as software selection available, everyone can find anything they need on all 3 devices. The software selection on WP7 is already robust, and it's only the beginning.
Imagine when x86 hardware meets Windows Phone. I can't wait...
Mitch89 - Friday, January 6, 2012 - link
When you say audio and video quality are you referring to playback? You can easily use apps like AV Player to playback different formats. High def h.264 looks great on the iPhone 4S in AV Player, not to mention it supports a variety of other formats.sprockkets - Wednesday, January 4, 2012 - link
Yeah, that's why Android has the lion's share of the market, cause "nobody" wants it.Right.
Nfarce - Wednesday, January 4, 2012 - link
Exactly, sprockkets. Let these people talk themselves into whatever they want. It's a free market. And nothing makes me laugh better than an Apple or Winphone fangirl calling Droid users fanbois. LMAO. Not only are Droid phones at the top of the sales charts, they are at the top of the performance charts overall (as this article shows). Just let them lie themselves to sleep at night and move on.doobydoo - Saturday, January 7, 2012 - link
The iPhone 4S is at the top of the pile as far as performance goes. That is reality.Secondly - you both miss the point. People tend to only buy Android over iPhone because it's cheaper. If they were both the same price, you could bet that Android would not be the biggest. Of course, Apple has found the sweet spot in pricing so wouldn't want to change.
Thirdly - Android is only bigger because there are more handsets available, from numerous manufacturers, so no one company actually benefits as much as Apple does. Similarly, no one handset is as popular or in demand as the iPhone 4S right now.
Finally - there are so so many VERY cheap and totally incomparable and retro phones which run old and rubbish hardware with old and rubbish versions of Android which bolster the statistics and provide a false impression.