Nokia Lumia 900 Review - Windows Phone with LTE
by Brian Klug on April 3, 2012 9:00 PM ESTSumming up the Lumia 900 as a device is pretty easy, it's superficially a beefed up, larger Lumia 800. Spelled out explicitly, the changes are a larger 4.3" SAMOLED+ display with a full RGB stripe, a front facing 720p camera, and LTE connectivity for AT&T. When it launches later in Europe, instead of LTE, the Lumia 900 will bring DC-HSPA+ and all around improved cellular connectivity courtesy MDM9200. The Lumia 900 is thinner, but obviously larger in x and y to accommodate the larger display, but in the hand and pocket the difference isn't all that huge. The end result is a device I can find only positive things to talk about with, and it's the Lumia that finally rounds out Nokia's complete entrant Windows Phone lineup.
For the first time in a while, I'm genuinely excited by a new Windows Phone. With the Lumia 900, it seems as though some of Nokia's rhetoric about being the first OEM to put its best hardware and design forward with the platform is starting to ring true. Similar to our take on the first members of the Lumia family, the 900 is easily the best Windows Phone on the market today.
The $99 launch price is absolutely crazy and very welcome for a flagship phone, particularly one with such high build quality and camera standards. Not only does this obviate other Windows Phones, but it increases competitive pressure on Apple as well as Android smartphone providers. I don't know that there's still a lot of iPhone/Windows Phone cross shopping, but a trend towards even cheaper on-contract prices for high-end smartphones is absolutely welcome.
What we really need to see from Nokia is faster hardware and more power efficient LTE, both of these things are technically possible today (28nm LTE basebands are still not quite available in volume yet) however it's up to Microsoft to actually enforce the platform change. It's amazing what Nokia has been able to do hardware-wise with only a year in the Microsoft camp, particularly when you remember that most smartphone development cycles are in the 12 - 24 month range. While the Lumia 900 is a great Windows Phone today, what will really be interesting is what Nokia will be able to pull off with a full design cycle under its belt.
The Lumia 900 launch in the US is, like I stated before, obviously a big deal for Nokia, and putting its best devices on the table with the 900 makes sense, even if the initial Lumia 710 introduction was something of a puzzling first step. While it's a big deal for Nokia to be launching a flagship phone in the US once more, it really isn't as much of a make or break thing for the Windows Phone 7 platform in general, and that brings me to my next point.
Ultimately the Lumia 900 doesn't really change the balance of power in the smartphone OS competition as it stands right now. Although the version number has advanced on the Lumia 900 (because of changes that needed to accommodate LTE), it's really the same Windows Phone 7.5 Mango we've seen and talked about before. If you're looking for a make or break launch that might upset the balance, wait for the Apollo update.
As it enables dual-core SoCs, the Apollo update leads to our continued plea to Microsoft: please throw better hardware at the Windows Phone platform. No company ever won by being the slowest. Windows Phone may be an extremely efficient platform (it is), but there are only good things to come from combining software efficiency with bleeding edge hardware. Microsoft has learned tremendously from Apple in this regard, but in order for Windows Phone to be more than a third runner up it needs to push the envelope just as much as Apple has been. Microsoft will eventually adopt Krait, and 28nm LTE is equally inevitable, but it would just be nice to see those things sooner rather than later on Windows Phone. At some point for a platform to be a winner, it must actually be industry leading. I suspect all of this will come as a part of Microsoft's Windows 8 strategy. Waiting is never easy.
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UltraTech79 - Saturday, April 7, 2012 - link
Also, no most people do NOT like the design, else they would be buying these and not Droids/iPhones by the truckload.jmcb - Tuesday, April 10, 2012 - link
To me battery life on WP7 has never been as great as many claim since WP7 launched. I usually reference this site for results, debates.Battery life is part of my deal breakers for any phone.
gamoniac - Tuesday, April 3, 2012 - link
[quoteThe article: ]...the only major gripes I have with Nokia Drive are that the application arguably should change between night and daytime map colors automatically...[/quote]I checked out this feature at the store, I think WP7 should let you decide whether to let the map color or to set it to manual mode. Some people might find the daylight map easier to read during the night.
vision33r - Tuesday, April 3, 2012 - link
Well, in general if Android doesn't suck so much none of us really need a quad-core phone. Clearly WP is much more efficient platform than Android today so a single-core phone can be this solid and for most people this translates to feeling faster than most Android phones that lags when apps are running and sans performance.Nearly every Android device I've used today needs manual management in order to run smoothly. Letting a single widget or app sitting background too long, battery life and performance suffers. Android's entire ecosystem is to blame for faulty app coding to OS builds rigged with bloatware.
This is a refreshing device, hopefully people will not care about the specs and embrace efficiency and good hardware and software designs.
gamoniac - Tuesday, April 3, 2012 - link
I totally agree. I am held back from jumping on a WP7 for two reasons: WP8 is coming and a dual-core WP would be great.I respect AnandTech's spirit of journalism that makes it stand out among review sites. At the same time, I wonder if there is a fair way to rate the phone based on total user experience, in a somewhat quantifiable way, as opposed to core count or a simple opinion. Perhaps a weighted score of each of the categories, although that could still be subjective. Perhaps a short video review? Maybe some AT readers have some brilliant ideas to share.
davepermen - Wednesday, April 4, 2012 - link
a total user experience rating?here it is:
always smooth, always instant, never stuttering.
why should I care about "faster hardware" if the phone is already perfoming at it's best possible speed?
this rating is based on the lumia 800 i own.
i've yet to find an android phone as smooth and fast as the lumia 800.
i can't wait for apollo, out of the curiosity of what's all in there, and all those tiny features that a win8 kernel brings (WPS for Wifi connection, for example, proper windows updates, etc).
but at no point i wait for apollo to "get a fast phone". because i already have that.
french toast - Wednesday, April 4, 2012 - link
Yes good point..its efficient and fast..but too be honst Meego and even Symbian is even faster still..running on even worse hardware than this....The point is smoothness and efficiency is great...brilliant, but what about things like batterylife? HD displays? powerfull apps and GAMES?? 1080p video recording and editing?? True multitasking?? its not all just about sending a few emails, checking facebook, and floating around in the opererating system...on android and ios you can do soo much more than that...the apps are much better..and the games are just not possible at smooth frame rates on that crappy Snapdragon.
About the efficiency...you realise that now ICSv 4 has been released and Tegra 3/Snapdragon S4 have been loaded...that lag is a non issue anymore??
Even with giant HD display...and the resource hungry Sense overlay..a mobile phone has NEVER looked so good and been so slick..WHILST DOING COMPLICATED THINGS (thats the kicker that seperates a SMARTPHONE from FEATURE PHONE)
For the record im not anti Nokia or anti microsoft..im a fan of both..and will be buying WP8...this is actually the first WP7 device that i would own...as Anand says, considering the 1 year to get this from design to market..and considering the crap components Nokia has to work with..this Nokia 900 is a revelation..Can't wait till Q4 ;)
For a comparison..this is what a modern Android SMARTPHONE is comapred to the best WP7 has to offer;
HTC ONE X REVIEW PT1;
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gotEbvgu9ms
PT2
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p4LQXtV5z0Q&fea...
Note, that despite hulking around a massive 4.7 HD screen, a quad core tEGRA 3 processor 1gb ram..and the same size battery..the ONE X likely gets much better batterylife than this Lumia 900...(after the OTA firmware update, early reviews had average battery because of this)
gamoniac - Wednesday, April 4, 2012 - link
Those are great review videos. Thanks for the links. HTC One X is quite an impressive piece of device, I must say. As an android user who is not so happy, I can see that ICS has improved quite a bit.leexgx - Friday, April 6, 2012 - link
still the hardware requirement to make it smooth is very bad for android, Tegra 3 + android = smooth , any thing els is hit or missevery thing on windows 7 phones are GPU driven so no lag due to that and the basic hardware is set quite high (but users thing its low not sure what Dual core win7phones will do), compared to android where any thing goes so you end up with lackluster phones when they should not be even when they are dual core or higher as most apps are not GPU driven they can stall and make the phone laggy (Slow NAND as well i see a lot on android as well)
when my phone contract runs out i most likely get an windows phone as i need the calendar cant use the one quickly on android (i have always used an windows Mobile device before, i broke the screen on my last one and ended up with an 8520 as an test then 9870 as i got used and liked it, but i do prefer windows phones)
sonicmerlin - Saturday, April 7, 2012 - link
HTC One X doesn't get better battery life. You missed the line where Brian states subjectively the battery life of the Lumia 900 is much better than the tests suggest.One of the aggravations of Android is that standby drains huge amounts of battery. Leaving radios on, having widgets running in the background, keeping data and background sync on, etc. drain your battery like a fiend even while your phone is on standby.
WP7 and iOS don't suffer from these issues (iOS fixed them in firmware 5.1, Nokia fixed them after 5 firmware updates to the Lumia 800), and over the course of a day will last you much, much longer than any Android phone.