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
Cellular
Cellular on the Lumia 800 is supplied courtesy the MSM8255’s onboard baseband. Like all the Qualcomm S2 parts, this means GSM/EDGE/WCDMA with HSPA+. The Lumia 800 also takes a microSIM as noted earlier, and I tested on AT&T in my market. There are actually two Lumia 800 variants, each with different WCDMA bands - we were sampled the European variant which worked with AT&T’s PCS 1900 MHz WCDMA in my market. The Nokia Lumia 800 Specifications page is a bit misleading since it would have you believe that there’s only one variant with quad-band WCDMA when there are actually two different tri-band WCDMA devices.
| Nokia Lumia 800 - Network Support | |
| GSM/EDGE Support | 850 / 900 / 1800 / 1900 MHz |
| RM-801 (Europe) WCDMA Support | 900 / 1900 / 2100 MHz |
| RM-819 (USA) WCDMA Support | 850 / 1900 / 2100 MHz |
| Baseband Hardware | QCT MDM8255 w/QTR8200 |
| HSPA Speeds | HSDPA 14.4 (Cat.10) / HSUPA 5.76 (Cat.6) |
I couldn’t do my usual stats collection and histogram on the Lumia 800 since there’s no way to export that data from any of the speed test applications on Windows Phone. However, I did run some tests and see acceptable levels of throughput out of the device.
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Some speedtests taken with BandWidth on WP7
WiFi
WiFi and Bluetooth 2.1 EDR on the Lumia 800 is supplied courtesy of a Broadcom BCM4329 combo chip which we’ve seen numerous times before in a number of different smartphones. Though newer devices are starting to ship BCM4330, I wager that WP7.5 includes drivers for just BCM4329 (which a huge majority of Windows Phones include) and BCM4325 (Venue Pro). On the Lumia 800, this means single spatial stream 802.11b/g/n connectivity only on the 2.4 GHz band.
Regardless, WiFi range on the Lumia 800 is totally par for the current generation of devices. In addition, WP7.5 continues to do a great job at deciding when to hand off and back onto WiFi when leaving the coverage radius of your house. It’s the small things like these that (to me at least) really demarcate the previous generation of smartphone OSes from the new breed. Unfortunately, in our throughput test which consists of loading a 100 MB PDF hosted locally on an 802.11n network, the Lumia 800 isn’t quite up to the speed of other BCM4329 devices. I’d wager this has more to do with the OS than anything else, though running network throughput applications on the Lumia 800 also gave a similar number to our normal PDF download test.
I should also note that WP7.5 also includes the ability to connect to WiFi APs that don’t broadcast their SSID. There’s a tab under Advanced in WiFi that now allows you to enter all that information and connect away, this wasn’t possible until Mango.
Speakerphone
In calls, the speakerphone on the Lumia 800 is honestly a bit too quiet, and our testing with a sound level data logger backs this up. Even at absolute maximum (where we test, of course) I found the sound level inadequate while using Nokia Drive or placing calls. It isn’t so much the position of the speaker at the bottom that’s a problem (in fact this is a good place to locate it), it’s just not loud enough.
Hopefully, this can be addressed with some software tweaking of the gains for speakerphone volume.
I also recorded some call quality test samples on the Lumia 800. The smartphone also does have the multiple microphone system for common mode noise rejection, though I'm not certain whose IP is being leveraged - perhaps Qualcomm's Fluence?
Noise rejection on the Lumia 800 is very good at all but the most extreme volume levels. Still, there are handsets that can completely reject the ambient noise that you hear at our maximum volume level. Unless you're in an absurdly loud environment, chances are the Lumia 800 will do a good job rejecting noise common between the two microphone system.
GPS
The Lumia 800 uses the GPS/GLONASS (GNSS) system onboard MSM8255 which we’ve seen numerous times before. Though WP7 doesn’t have API access to NMEA data so we can see SNR from individual satellites, the Lumia 800 does seem to get a GPS lock speedily enough even in some tough environments. In both the maps application and Nokia Drive I had no issues getting a GPS lock in under a 5 seconds keeping the lock for the duration of navigation.
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steven75 - Wednesday, January 4, 2012 - link
It combines IM, only missing AIM, GChat, Yahoo--you know, the services people actually use.Missing youtube client, missing ability to open PDF files. Are you aware that both Android and iOS can do this stuff out of the box?
Reflex - Wednesday, January 4, 2012 - link
MSN/Live is the most used chat client in the world, and its not paticularly close. Facebook is likely second by now, and it builds that in as well. Yahoo was right after MSN/Live a few years ago, I don't know where it is today, however MSN and Yahoo interoperate, you can add your Y! contacts directly to your MSN/Live contact list.AIM is dying. GChat has a substantial userbase, but its not at the level of others. Thier bases are pretty well covered in that regard.
Youtube worked out of the box for me. Not sure why you think it dosen't support it. Plus there are tons of third party clients available for free as apps if you don't like the built in player or the custom one that HTC and others ship.
Adobe Reader is available in the app store, I have it on mine.
Spivonious - Wednesday, January 4, 2012 - link
Exactly. Youtube works for me with no extra apps. The Adobe Reader app is free in the marketplace, although I have yet to open a PDF file on the phone. Of course, Office docs can be opened with no problems, which is 99% of what I want to open.I'll admit, this is my first smartphone, but I have used my Dad's iPhone, and have played with my sister's Android phone. WP7 is easier to use, and does way more out-of-the-box.
465thGTG - Wednesday, January 4, 2012 - link
Android can't open PDF files out of the box unless it has an app installed to do so, just like WP7. And MSN and Facebook chat are the two most popular chat services in the world. Finally, it's missing a YouTube client only because Google doesn't permit Microsoft to include one out of the box. It's not a big deal though. Several great YouTube clients are just a couple clicks away in the Marketplace.Thermogenic - Wednesday, January 4, 2012 - link
Google wouldn't allow them to do Youtube properly, unfortunately.augustofretes - Wednesday, January 4, 2012 - link
It is a really weak ecosystem, the number of apps may not be 0, but it is low compared to Android and iOS, and more importantly, the quality of the apps is a lot lower.I felt WP could catch, perhaps surpass, Android and iOS by now, but I was wrong, iOS is still strong, and Android moved a lot, many WP advantages were eliminated with ICS (and that's its real competition: Android, not iOS).
I own both a Galaxy S II running ICS (CM9) and an Omnia 7, although WP7 was a lot less uglier than GB, and is objectively good, ICS is really, really good, I no longer miss anything when using the S II instead of my Omnia 7.
465thGTG - Wednesday, January 4, 2012 - link
Ah how we forget. Android didn't really go anywhere in its first year either. Building a completely new platform takes time.augustofretes - Thursday, January 5, 2012 - link
The state of the market is completely different, now you can get a modern smartphone with Android or iOS on almost any carrier on almost all countries.Back then the iPhone was only available on a handful of carriers and countries.Moreover, by now, Android had Eclair and the Droid, which pushed Android forward, as likeable as the Lumia 800 is, I highly doubt it is or will play the same role as the Droid.
But will see, hopefully WP will improve and will become a solid third (and hopefully it will stop being one or two hardware generations behind).
R3MF - Wednesday, January 4, 2012 - link
nice hardware, but as the owner of an N9 i feel i got the whole package, not merely some quality hardware as is the case with the Lumia 800.beginner99 - Wednesday, January 4, 2012 - link
bigger and 20 g more than the competition with same hardware. I carry my phone in the pocket and hence size and weight matter a lot...