Nokia Lumia 900 Review - Windows Phone with LTE
by Brian Klug on April 3, 2012 9:00 PM ESTPerformance
Performance on Windows Phone 7.5 at the moment tops out at almost the same place for virtually every handset. As I touched on before, the platform is still a Qualcomm-only party, and the name of the game is single core 45nm Snapdragon with Adreno 205 at the high end in the form of either MSM8x55, or for the Lumia 900 APQ8055 at 1.4 GHz.
I’ve already penned some thoughts on WP7’s current chassis spec, and in the future the specification will open up with the Tango update (which we’ve seen in the Lumia 610) to a lower-end configuration with MSM7x30 or MSM7x27A. Eventually Windows Phone will move onto dual core SoCs and possibly more vendors, but when and how that happens remains to be seen. The driving factors will undoubtably be both performance, but also improvements to things around the edges like 1080p video encode, decode, and power gains from a 28nm process geometry.
For now however let’s focus on the Lumia 900, which again is 1.4 GHz APQ8055 with 512 MB of LPDDR2. Benchmarking WP7.5 still is a pretty basic thing, since platform consistency somewhat obviates the need for many of the other big cross-platform benchmarks (this will change with Windows 8, however). For now that means our testing is limited primarily to assessing javascript performance with sunspider, browsermark, and WP Bench.
| WPBench Comparison | ||||
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HTC Surround (1.0 GHz QSD8250) |
Nokia Lumia 800 (1.4 GHz MSM8255) |
Nokia Lumia 710 (1.4 GHz MSM8255) |
Nokia Lumia 900 (1.4 GHz APQ8055) |
|
| Total Score | 61.58 | 91.14 | 92.85 | 89.09 |
| Result Screenshot |
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At this point all the most modern WP7 devices are still shipping with essentially the same SoC - 1.4 GHz 45nm MSM8x55/APQ8055. For comparison, the initial launch devices were 65nm QSD8x50 at 1 GHz. With the Tango update performance differences will start to be more of a thing for consumers to care about as it becomes possible to select a phone with a lower end SoC that still runs the Windows Phone UI at a decent clip (like the Lumia 610 we’ve handled). As a result, it isn't surprising at all to see the WP7.5 devices with the same exact SoC all clumped together and performing basically the same. In addition, though the WP7.5 IE JavaScript engine (Chakra) is a huge improvement upon the WP7 JScript engine, it still lags behind the competition on Android and iOS.
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secretmanofagent - Wednesday, April 4, 2012 - link
Just to save some other people time, the conversion means it's about $780 US or about £490 for the Brits.FrederickL - Thursday, April 5, 2012 - link
Nokia is not seriously aiming the Lumia 900 at "other places" and your conversion to US dollars appears to include Norwegian sales tax. The real price comparison with the US market would be a touch over $600 contra the $450 unlocked that the phone is actually retailing for in the US. As far as Nokia is concerned this is the beginning of their re-entry into the US market where prices are way more advantageous than the figures you are quoting in the context of Europe. Though it has to be said that the price quoted above your posting for unlocked in Norway is actually cheaper than the cheapest iteration of the iPhone 4S.
FrederickL - Thursday, April 5, 2012 - link
Hvor i Norge har du funnet den telefonen til 4495 NOK? Den laveste prisen jeg har sett er jo om lag 12000 NOK! (Spesial import - "Dustin Home").
For our American and British friends: "Where in Norway have you found that telephone for 4495 crowns? The lowest price I have seen is about 12000 NOK! (Special import - "Dustin Home", a website here in Norway). This in fact reinforces my point below - does anyone know of a European country where Nokia have *officially* launched the Lumia 900? The only prices I'm seeing on the net are "grey-market" prices - which are naturally enough somewhat eye-crossing.
Kjella - Thursday, April 5, 2012 - link
It's listed for 4495 NOK at netshop.no, not in stock though.FrederickL - Friday, April 6, 2012 - link
I see. That must be in anticipation of the official launch. I see that they are showing an "unconfirmed" in-stock date of the 17th April. It is interesting though that it has not yet shown up on "Komplett"'s radar.
TEAMSWITCHER - Wednesday, April 4, 2012 - link
After reading this review... who's smoked now?tipoo - Wednesday, April 4, 2012 - link
RIM?:P
N4g4rok - Wednesday, April 4, 2012 - link
Poor guys.PeteH - Wednesday, April 4, 2012 - link
Ouch! But true.ol1bit - Wednesday, April 4, 2012 - link
LOL, true