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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Nataku - Thursday, January 5, 2012 - link
problem is that they will need to rebuild another eco system, market the hell out of the thing, and then there is the amount of apps they need to overcome... before that they will need to find ways to tell people why it is superior to other OSes to regular consumers that can't tell the difference between android and ios if you only show them the app screenwell, meego would've been great if it came out before android...
designerfx - Wednesday, January 4, 2012 - link
Interesting read up on the wp7 attempts, as that's what I still consider them at this point.I'd like to see a review on the HTC rezound if Brian/Anand has one in the works, to compare the two 720p phones.
ecuador - Wednesday, January 4, 2012 - link
Ok, the N9 is out for a few months now and I don't understand why there wasn't a review of it here. Especially now with the Lumia 800 review, the obvious question is how do they compare? Did Elop have a point? I can understand Nokia trying to bury the N9 given their new direction, but I would expect tech sites (especially anandtech) to be really curious about this comparison.Thermogenic - Wednesday, January 4, 2012 - link
Because Nokia didn't send them one. I don't think AnandTech typically goes out and buys things retail (ala Consumer Reports), but rather reviews what companies ship them. I think reviewing things purchased at retail is the better way of doing it, but it costs more money and guarantees your competitors will get their reviews out much sooner than you will.sicofante - Friday, January 6, 2012 - link
AnandTech should ASK Nokia for the N9 and tell us they didn't want to provide one if that was the case.There's little excuse for reviewing the Lumia 800 and not reviewing the phone that actually was designed to be inside its case.
Iketh - Wednesday, January 4, 2012 - link
"There’s an huge amount riding on the Lumia series, which are Nokia’s first devices running Windows Phone 7.5."This is the SECOND SENTENCE of the article. Do you have any idea how many first-time readers will immediately move on with their search and never return? The "There's an" and "which are" are incorrect (Lumia series is singular, key word THE.) Instead, try "There's a lot riding on the Lumia series, which is Nokia's first to run Windows Phone 7.5."
"On the right side, Nokia’s puts their volume rocker above the power button, and then at on lower quarter is the mandatory two-step camera button."
"raises that backside up off surfaces"
"the looks and feels department"
"which we’ll also be reviewing soon" should be "which we'll also review soon" (this is a poor writing style, not a mistake)
There are more from the first page. Brian, this article is full of information, but it's just too difficult to extract. What has always been the cornerstone of AT is the beautifully written articles. For the love of God, hire an editor. I'd edit your articles for $100 a pop.
antef - Wednesday, January 4, 2012 - link
Agreed, a single read-through should be enough to catch most of these things, no editor required. I don't understand how any of these make it through unless the author simply types it up and immediately hits "post." Very unprofessional.Nataku - Thursday, January 5, 2012 - link
i actually didn't notice it until lketh's comment lol...bplewis24 - Wednesday, January 4, 2012 - link
"There's an" is incorrect, but "which are" is correct. It has nothing to do with pluralization of "Lumia" and everything to do with "first devices." You wouldn't say "which is Nokia's first devices."Iketh - Wednesday, January 4, 2012 - link
"are" is referring to series which is one thing, a series