Kinda sucks. You put in three Nokia models? Why not a comparison to other phones US buyers are likely to be considering? I know the specs are available but it makes for a much quicker reference.
That's a valid point, and honestly picking the phones for the comparison table is always a bit of a struggle, I just wanted to show how the other Nokia WP7 devices line up in comparison with the flagship. Perhaps another one with Galaxy Nexus GSM/UMTS and iPhone 4S? I mean we've shown those in tables many, many times.
Performance wise it's not much different from the 710 or the 800, which are both phones worth considering. I think the 800 is better than the 900, but I prefer smaller phones. I think I might just bite the bullet and settle on the 710.
Why is no one mentioning the absolutely abysmal battery life of this phone? It's at the very bottom of the tethering chart for instance. I don't see this phone rising above the lower half of the tests in anything other than 4G. And who really wants a phone with sharp corners and no sense of hand ergonomics?
that and this phone is actually slower than it looks on the chart.
great review, but the chart is seriously outdated. take my HTC sensation for example, i just run the sun spider 0.91 and i get 1935ms and browsermark of 77138 with andriod STOCK browser. my phone does have ICS and ARHD rom, but if you honestly think a mod rom would somehow increase the phone performance by 94% faster (39768 on your chart vs 77138 i get), or by 221% faster(6217.4ms vs 1935 ms), you must be drunk.
this is with ICS stock browser, i think if you updated your chart, you will find windows phone will looks even worse (a lot worse) than it is now.
"who really wants a phone with sharp corners and no sense of hand ergonomics?"
- It has hard corners - where you DON'T hold the phone from...iPhone 4 series has sharper edges - where you do hold the phone from...If that's not an issue - and marketing wise clearly it's not - then the 900 is fine. Afaik most ppl really like the design, and so do I.
Yeah iPhone 4 has sharp edges, if it weren't for all the rounded edges. And who are you to tell us how to hold a phone? Never played any games on a phone have you?
See how easy that was? Try a better argument. You had a valid point (worse gaming ergonomics) until you made yourself sound like an idiot (opinion as fact, referring to meaningless notions of sales figures).
[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.
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.
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.
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.
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 ;)
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)
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.
still the hardware requirement to make it smooth is very bad for android, Tegra 3 + android = smooth , any thing els is hit or miss
every 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)
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.
Also even on the S4 Android isn't smooth. Look at how much of a delay occurs between when you swipe your finger and the screen finally responds with movement. There's really just no comparison to a proper OS that prioritizes the UI thread.
I have the HTC titan and I use it all day every day. It's always fast, always smooth, always fun to use, and if I forget to plug it in at night I can still use it the entire next day. Android made me want to punch myself in the face after it turned to junk after 2 weeks. I was flashing a new rom on it every other day and spending hours customizing it.... now I get to spend that time actually ENJOYING my phone.
I have never once said "I wish my phone was faster". I've never felt like my phone needed a dual core because WP7 has an awesome staff of engineers making sure the user experience is the #1 focus.
I am getting the Lumia 900 because it has LTE and is one sexy ass phone. I'm waiting for the white one to launch though because it is absolutely gorgeous. I am going to whore out my Titan to my friends who have been dying to try out the WP ever since I got it.
I went to the AT&T store and did NOT purchase the lumia only because the Ttitan II was so much better than I expected. Now I am waiting until the white lumia comes out to see if it sways me back to the lumia, otherwise I'm getting the Titan II
The problem with vision's post is he said every Android phone he's used. Well...... every Android phone he's used does not equal all Android phones.
I can tell you that Android doesnt absolutely suck...thats just your opinion. WP7 might be smoother, has less lag than most Android phones....but that doesnt make up the entire user experience.
Kids mother has a Nexus S and an iPhone 4. She likes her iPhone 4 more cuz she says the Nexus S sticks, gets stuck too much. I assume she means lag. After using both....I would go with the Nexus S. Based on my wants n needs.
One thing we gotta remember is everybody doesnt have the same wants n needs. If that was the case...we would all have iPhones now. I'm talking about before Android even came out.... we would all have iPhones.
"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."
It's called the GUI is GPU accelerated. Already solved in ICS. It was sorely needed, yes. But I'm willing to bet people will still harp about this even with the HTC One series and new Samsungs come out.
"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."
Sorry to hear that one widget is killing your phone. I have 3 of them and I'm on to day 3 of my battery life with 3G and Wifi on with sync.
"Bloatware" is also no longer an issue either with ICS.
Hey, whatever floats your boat, go with it. I personally cannot tolerate the GUI on WP7 past 2 minutes.
You don't need ICS for Android to compare well in such a situation, you just need a device that has had at least moderate optimizations towards the actual hardware.
Ie. probably not a LG device, or one mangled too much by the carrier.
I agree with edd. I recently bought a focus flash after using a Nexus S for almost a year, and even with ics the Nexus wasn't anywhere near as smooth as WP7 is. Sure, gpu acceleration helped, but there are other underlying problems in Android.
That being said however, I will probably be getting the HTC ONE X or the US GSM Galaxy Nexus (if it ever launches) because the one area WP really lacks is in providing features for power users. It is a beautiful os, and as a whole I really enjoy it, but I miss being able to customize everything like I could on android.
Besides there is a lot more that the underlying OS has to offer. Let's see how WP subjective performance changes (tanks?) when Microsoft adds all those features. They will bring the platform in-line feature wise, won't they?
Another thing, as pointed by Exodite, is that the first crop of WP phones - at least reference ones - comes from Nokia, and is polished to the point OS permits.
do you understand the point of quad core? it's not performance, it's more power savings.
WP is not more efficient than anyone - if you think it is the OS, you don't understand that probably 99% of the performance (positive or negative) is based on the chips in the phone and that's it.
You are clueless so please don't speak on subjects you have no idea about. Do you even know what a scheduling is? Maybe when you get an education some day after you graduate high school you'll understand how an operating system works.
Saying performance is all hardware is like saying strengh is everything. try holding a 25lb weight 2 feet from you with your arms extended, then hold the same weight to your chest. What is easier?
Basically that, and again that we're talking about (at least for the cellular page loading tests) the same display being the majority of power draw.
The tethering results being so close surprised me, and I'm going to re-run the HSPA+ result just to see what was up there. Again very limited time on this review actually.
Just a quick question: What is your rush to get the review out? I look to this site for thoroughly written reviews. It's disappointing that so much was left out. I would be happy to wait longer for a review to come out if it was complete.
I was watching a video the other day, showing scrolling and zooming in verge and engadget, which are very heavy websites, and was really surprised by how much fast and smooth WP is when it comes to browsing.
I don't suppose a single-core android phone can be that smooth.
As a software developer I can say that I've had nothing but heartache dealing with Qualcomm hardware so far. Closed-up proprietary stuff with no public API to help us out seems to be the preferred mode of operation.
Ultimately a platform comes down to its developers. There are a limited number of developers and the platform that attracts the most and best from the lot is going to provide the greatest user experience. Apple figured this out long ago in the device space. Microsoft before that on the desktop. If Nokia and Microsoft understand this today, they'll do well.
I don't care how well the hardware benchmarks, we need to be treated as something other than an afterthought if you want us to develop for your platform.
I'm sorry how is Visual Studio not the best for developers? Are you trying to write native code to WP7? I know it can be done, but most apps don't do it.
I think the developer tools are top notch for WP7.5. Sure, there are some holes to fill (WP8) but they will get filled.
You mentioned tethering in the article. Can you talk more about whether you need a separate tethering plan for the Lumia 900 or can you just enable it out of the box without a fuss.
I asking since I am considering a jump from the original unlimited plan from AT&T/iPhone.
You are way too kind with this phone. The OS lacks so many features,the SoC is almost 2 gens behind,the recycled design is expired and fat(fat by even last year's standards) and the Windows brand can't ever be made apealing anymore. Nokia can make nice hardware and ,i guess,we all want it to see it survive but they should have done better.
The only modern component in the thing is LTE, and that is arguably 1 year late. The SoC is 2010 era. The display is 2011 era, and I think I'm being generous. The OS software is still running a year's worth of development late compared to competitors. Microsoft has to wake up!
Even the chassis design isn't something stunningly new. It's nicely evolved from the design language introduced in the Nokia N8 almost 2 years. So we've seen this type of design for awhile. Nokia's messaging for this phone has been all wrong. They should have never let the media overhype this product.
MS has another card they can play: an Intel x86 Windows 8 smartphone. It's coming. A stylus and x86 compatibility will be features. ;)
"I have to say that I’m impressed with how much Nokia Drive has improved since its initial launch on Windows Phone 7 with the Lumia 800. As of this writing the version is 2.0.0.2148, and it feels much more polished and responsive now since last I used it, and includes a few new features. The current version still requires you to preload maps for the regions you want over WiFi (so be sure you do this before getting in the car), but you basically get the ability to pre-cache whatever maps you want instead of hoping you have network connectivity where you’re going like with Google Navigation."
You can pre cache maps as well with Google - just activate it in the labs dept, then download the area you need.
Also, stock browser on the HTC Sensation with the ICS update gets around 2000ms for sunspider. 6127ms is so outdated :)
Oh I know about that, but the radius ends up being too small for it to be practical or efficient. Eg if you're trying to cache a long roadtrip whose distance exceeds the radius, you'll need to precache multiple regions as opposed to just downloading all the maps.
Also I need to update my SGS2 results with the ICS ROM. Unfortunately I had to send back the Sensation a while ago :/
Then again my HTC Sensation has maps from them (HTC Locations) and I can pre cache entire regions. Somehow it can also sync it up with Google's Navigation as well.
My wife has the Lumia 800. It is a great phone, and the 900 just builds on that. Thank God they got rid of the magnetic door over the USB port.
I'm excited to see what Nokia can bring to the table with WP8. I am a big fan of WP7.5, but I know it has some shortcomings. I can't see how those won't all be fixed with WP8 running on the Windows 8 kernel. Obviously Microsoft and Nokia don't want to talk about it (which is too bad) but for business reasons, it makes sense, but all the complaints about hardware should evaporate. Windows 8 already has support for high ppi displays, multicore, LTE, and everything else. Six months seems like a long time away.
The Lumia 900, especially at the price it is offered, should be a great phone for many people. I'll keep my old LG Optimus 7 until Apollo hits though.
174 nits of brightness is super pathetic. I bet Nokia uses a very aggressive ambient light sensor like they did on the N8 and E7. You can disable the light sensor on those phones with 3rd party software but I don't know if WP7 has similar apps.
It's way beyond sufficient for indoor viewing... the only place you might need more brightness is outside in daylight. I guess you missed the part where Brian said that the clearblack feature was pretty effective at reducing glare/reflections and, due to that, the display was quite visible even in the outdoor daylight setting.
If you can see the display clearly even in daylight, why would need or want more brightness? So you can drain the battery faster for no real benefit?
That's not what he said. The display has one of the lowest reflection indexes in a phone or tablet, its very good at reducing glare, so even if the brightness in absolute terms is lower, in real world use its pretty good since its not competing with the sun as much.
Yup, I guess there's always a next best thing around the corner in the tech industry. Krait is pretty cool. But then, A15 bundled with a fast SGX or Mali GPU will be cooler still. Tegra 3 does have the benefit of the low power 5th core, plus, for right or for wrong, Nvidia always seems to bring the little extra member benefits.
True, but the Krait version of the One X isn't that far away, compared to A15 and all that. The Krait One S is already shipping. And Nvidia's fifth core doesn't help it against Kraits battery life, look at the One S with Krait, it gets significantly higher life (to be fair, some will be the screen, but still). Tegra Zone optimizations apart, Krait is nearly uniformly better.
If more people got their hands on the N9's it would not be a dead OS. Even people with the latest iphones are amazed when they try out the N9, something I have never seen with, say, an Android phone. That's why I complain about tech sites not trying to give the N9 the chance that Nokia did not want it to have - it is (was?) by far the most promising mobile OS (not to mention the most open).
Maemo6x (meego-harmattan) used by the N9 is far from being the most open. Tizen & WebOS are far more open, even Android is arguably.... If it had been given time to evolve into real MeeGo* it would've been w/o question. There's MeeGo derivatives floating about still (MeR + Nemo/Plasma etc) But they're more underdeveloped than they would've been, had resources not been dropped hugely in the past 14mth.
*which would've completed by July 12' at the latest w/the 1st x86 phone, after the 3rd Harmattan ph started reaching shelves.
And of course half of the comments are about Android phones being slow. Yes, the UI is less smooth than iOS of WP. But I really don't care about that and I can't be the only one. In my humble opinion functionality is king, and whether my homescreen renders at 20fps or 60 doesn't really matter. Android has some great features that I am yet to see in iOS or WP. Having borrowed an iPhone for a couple hours I already found it to be incredibly constraining and the lack of a back or menu button annoyed the crap out of me. As for WP, I played around with a Lumia 800 for a while but all the sidescrolling in the homescreen and in apps was very confusing. It made the display feel too narrow.
Plus, I bet you'll all be glad we have quadcore smartphones when they've become so fast you can ditch your laptop, but of course most of you never even considered that :)
Well, HD screens for one. Grown up DPI-independent rendering for another. A choice of different form factor devices to suit various usage patterns and budgets. Multiple software stores, an enormous amount of apps, close integration with Google services (if so desired), wonderful customizability, the most straightforward interaction with other devices like PCs (it's just an USB disk drive, plus it talks CIFS).
---> Can be used like a USB-stick. No iTunes/ Zune needed. Simply plug your phone into your PC and use the Explorer you like
--> I can connect USB-harddiscs to my Asus TF Prime. Like in Windows, I can messs around with a file explorer there
--> File explorer: Android has a real Linux file system. You can handle files like you have always done with computers. Hence cloud-services are not mandatory.
--> Supports SD cards including full access via file explorer
--> Allows installation of apps that were not downloaded via Google Play/ market. You can install whatever you want
--> Real multitasking
--> Allows tweaking: I have e.g. installed the rSAp-functionality on my Android phone last weekend: I have installed new system libraries, maually replaced system files etc. to get it work. It was a lot of effort, but at least I could do it. My warranty is gone now, though.
To sum it up: Android is like a real Personal Computer. You can do whatever you want with it, there are no restrictions whatsoever.
As a downside, you can mess up your phone completely, too. But this is the price of freedom
Well, from my experience some iOS-users don't even know that functionality is missing.
When I quickly use my phone as USB-stick to transmit data from one notebook to another, they even are surprised (and yes, such things don't occur often, but sometimes this comes in handy)
Or when I browse my files using an actual browser, they are surprised that I don't have to open an App first.
Some users are so locked into the Apple ecosystem that they don't even expect their smartphone to act as a small PC, even though it is one. They act as if their phone was a fixed-function-device because of technical limitations, not because openness was omitted on purpose by the manufacturer.
Its almost funny how close to Windows vs OSX vs Linux this has become. Android gives you by a landslide the most options, iOS has a great user experience but cages advanced users in a bit too much, WP7 is somewhere in the middle on both fronts.
WP7 seems to trade off absolute speed for smoothness. Looking at the browser synthetic benchmarks its much slower than even old single core Android or iOS phones, but what reviews can't show you is how well it lets you navigate pages during that loading time.
For me the biggest issue with WP is the resolution, I mean 480x800 on 4.3" is crap, at least for my eyes. Can't understand why Microsoft haven't included support for higher res in a separate update.
To me, it all seems like they want to make Apollo phones look that much better in comparison, so they aren't letting Mango ones get close to the best specs.
I agree with this too. The resolution isnt that bad. Its the screen technology that will make a difference.... lcd, amoled, pentile or non pentile, etc.
I checked here in Norway, the "$99" phone costs 4495 NOK without a subscription, for comparison the iPhone 4S is 4890 NOK. Guess they're planning to make a lot back on that subscription, either that or Microsoft/Nokia is funding one helluva campaign to stay relevant.
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.
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.
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.
It seems to me like Microsoft is deliberately capping WP7 phones so that Apollo phones will look even better by comparison, with the SoC single core limitations and screen resolution caps. I wonder if this phone or other WP7 phones will be able to get WP8 then, or if that will only be on dual core phones?
The OS can't handle multi cores or a higher Rez. That's just the way it is. Since that's going to limit sales, why would they deliberately want to do that?
Yes, there's a fork of CE (which is what WP7 uses), which allows dual cores, but it has it's own problems as a phone OS.
It's possible, but my not be a profitable. There's always that ugly little trade off between going next generation or supporting legacy hardware.
I think what they do with it will depend on how different the OS itself is in terms of features and UI. If it brings an entirely new suite of capabilities that would not be as efficient on single-core platforms, then it might not hurt to let the previous generation to go to pasture. Otherwise, they might loose that regard as an efficient handset.
Then again, who knows if the kernel in Apollo will be built with the intension to utilize dual core hardware, or if the upgraded hardware will be mainly for drawing attention from developers.
I don't think the kernel will matter. The new kernel will support far more hardware than the old one.
When you upgrade your PC from Windows XP to Windows 7, the kernel changes, but the hardware doesn't.
I assume that since basically there are only a couple of different hardware specs for WP7, they will make it possible. The question of course is whether the hardware vendor will bother with the upgrade. In most cases, I would say no, but I also think Nokia will be the exception.
Yea, Microsoft is way behind in the phone game. They need to keep up, how long have they been play with WP7 now, and still no high rez or multi-core?
I think MS continues to make bad decisions. Who wanted a single threaded OS 3 years ago? They just looked at Apple current and said we like that, and lets design ours just like that.
Goggle looks to the future and started Android out multi-threaded. I hope Alppol isn't a hack job with fake multi-threading added in.
The $99 price point is interesting, same as the iPhone 4, but with more storage and LTE. I suppose that works since they're still behind the 4S a bit.
I like WP7 and if I decide to ditch iOS, it would be my next choice. I just hope MS will support more chipsets and higher display resolutions sooner rather than later. Of course the big issue for me, and others in this area, is the carrier issue in the US. I won't go back to AT&T. For many people the reception is fine and the service tolerable, but not where I live. So far the only WP7 handsets on Sprint or VZW are even more dated.
MS has a lot of ground to gain, but it's not as if they don't have the resources to throw at it...
Your insight into the display, and in particular, digging up the optical path of the ClearBlack technology, may be overlooked by many. But it's really something where your obvious optics education/background gives you and AnandTech significant added value over the droves of blathering nontechnical review sites and blogs.
If this is the kudos section, let me award one too, for posting and discussing the MediaInfo screencap showing the video and audio codec settings. That too is the kind of non-blathering, solid tech info that I'm glad you guys specialize in.
(I actually googled "lumia 900 video bitrate"... and must confess I grinned a knowing grin when I saw AnandTech pop up in the first screen of hits.)
"Interestingly enough Nokia does note the presence of Rx diversity for WCDMA on the Lumia 900 front and center, both under their “design” tab and under Data Network on the specifications page. It’s awesome to see another handset vendor realize that great cellular performance is noteworthy"
I'm rather more cynical than you. Note that they do NOT support HSPA MIMO. My guess is that at least part of talking up their diversity antenna is specifically to deflect from that --- throw out some techno-lingo about how we have multiple antennas to "maximize RF performance" and hope no-one notices some conspicuous holes in our HSPA features.
"However the labeling here is actually hilarious - AT&T’s WCDMA “4G” marketing carries over to the Lumia 900, so selecting “3G” from the drop down will score you a “4G” indicator in the status bar. Likewise selecting “4G” from the drop down gets you “LTE” in the status bar. Finally, a concrete example of where AT&T’s re-branding marketing has resulted in an actual namespace collision!"
We have been through this a dozen times, Brian. You are just being immature if you keep pushing this point even after the relevant engineering issues have been explained to you many times. If there is a name space collision here, it is because Nokia or MS are too stupid to understand that LTE is not the same thing as 4G, not because of an ATT fault.
ATT are major league dicks --- there's plenty about them to complain about honestly, without complaining about stupid non-issues.
Seems like a valid complaint to me, at least from the point of view of the average consumer, regardless of whose fault it is. If AT&T can influence even Apple to change their connection indicators, surely they could force something less confusing here. It's not a coven to me, but the average consumer barely knows or cares what LTE & HSPA+ are, if they did the iPhone wouldn't be selling very well right now.
MS naming (nice that they let you set the speeds 2g 3g and 4g speeds to bad you cant just force it to stay on one but that be asking to much) 3g/H/H+ as 3g (WCDMA / UMTS / HSDPA / HSPA) and 4g as 4g (LTE or LTE-ADV) as it should be seems right to me (miss selling 4g when its not 4g is bad in the USA, hope Three in the UK do not start miss selling quite sure they Not be allowed to)
2g best signal and power bat life 3g lower bat life and calls and text may some times not work 4g more power drain less bat life (depends if its been used as LTE should have way better power use then 3g+ spec)
I think you should dig some more into WP7. I would not have bought a Lumia 800 if I knew about these:
- Deleting gmail mail archives mail instead of deleting it - Read, delete and move email operations is not pushed or synced immediately. Kinda disruptive and unnerving when you sit down in front of the computer and have to do it all over again - international characters turn into æøå after a reply from a gmail account ruining the threading (could be issue with gmail but worked fine on my first gen iphone) - no text wrap in ie9 so text on certain websites like anandtech and techreport is redicously small in portrait mode and uncomfortably small in landscape mode. - no Find on Page - no copy and paste in calendar - no every other week timing in calendar - no Other and custom phone numbers support in contacts - If you set your locale to something like Norway, you get SV: and vs: instead of the regular Re: and Fwd: email subject abbrevations. After a bit back and fourth with people abroad the subject line ends up like this: Re: SV: Re: SV: Re: SV: Smörgardsbord på Lørdag - no native PDF support, must use a slow and unresponsive 3rd party reader that lack zoom to picture/paragraph and search - Other and custom phone numbers in contacts Many phone numbers from Outlook and Google doesn't show up
Othervise I really love this phone and its live tiles.
Corrections: "Deleting gmail mail archives mail instead of deleting it" Setting in gmail.
"Read, delete and move email operations is not pushed or synced immediately. Kinda disruptive and unnerving when you sit down in front of the computer and have to do it all over again" Again, setting in gmail.
"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."
I agree with the latter statement... But as far as consumer choice, I think there might be more iPhone/WP cross shopping than iPhone/Android or even WP/Android. MS seems to be straddling this line between Apple's platform approach and Google's, and right now I think they're leaning slightly towards the former.
I think it's great for the market overall, and it's probably a winning strategy in the long run (something MS knows all about)... But right now I think Google's got more of the bargain/value market and the spec/geek market while Apple's carved itself a big chunk in between from average consumers looking to spend more but not necessarily focused on specs or sheer capability.
I'm definitely excited to see where WP & Nokia go next, despite being heavily invested in Android... Nokia needs MS more than MS needs Nokia tho, and WP isn't gonna budge from 3rd place if Nokia is the only OEM producing flagship type devices. Could be worse tho, they could be RIM!
You make some good points, but I disagree that the MS approach is necessarily a winning strategy. If this was April 2010 when the smartphone market wasn't so mature I would completely agree that Windows stands an excellent chance of becoming (along with iOS/Android) a third dominant mobile platform. Unfortunately for MS it's April 2012, and it may be too late for Windows to be anything other than a niche player.
I think the key question is can MS attract developers so that a strong stable of quality Apps can be built up rapidly. If they can it will greatly increase their chance of success.
Meh, there's a lot of race still left to run imo, the smartphone market may be maturing rapidly but it's still in it's infancy... It's like in the stage the PC market was in the 80s imo.
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Denithor - Tuesday, April 3, 2012 - link
Kinda sucks. You put in three Nokia models? Why not a comparison to other phones US buyers are likely to be considering? I know the specs are available but it makes for a much quicker reference.Brian Klug - Tuesday, April 3, 2012 - link
That's a valid point, and honestly picking the phones for the comparison table is always a bit of a struggle, I just wanted to show how the other Nokia WP7 devices line up in comparison with the flagship. Perhaps another one with Galaxy Nexus GSM/UMTS and iPhone 4S? I mean we've shown those in tables many, many times.-Brian
Operandi - Wednesday, April 4, 2012 - link
Uhh.. yeah I would say so. This is the only WP7 I would ever consider, the others migh as well not exist frankly.abhaxus - Wednesday, April 4, 2012 - link
What he said. This phone is sexy, I'd like to see it's size compared to other sexy handsets. Most WP7 handsets are... plain.niva - Thursday, April 5, 2012 - link
Performance wise it's not much different from the 710 or the 800, which are both phones worth considering. I think the 800 is better than the 900, but I prefer smaller phones. I think I might just bite the bullet and settle on the 710.geddarkstorm - Wednesday, April 4, 2012 - link
Why is no one mentioning the absolutely abysmal battery life of this phone? It's at the very bottom of the tethering chart for instance. I don't see this phone rising above the lower half of the tests in anything other than 4G. And who really wants a phone with sharp corners and no sense of hand ergonomics?Can't wait for Windows 8, and good hardware.
seanleeforever - Wednesday, April 4, 2012 - link
that and this phone is actually slower than it looks on the chart.great review, but the chart is seriously outdated.
take my HTC sensation for example, i just run the sun spider 0.91 and i get 1935ms and browsermark of 77138 with andriod STOCK browser. my phone does have ICS and ARHD rom, but if you honestly think a mod rom would somehow increase the phone performance by 94% faster (39768 on your chart vs 77138 i get), or by 221% faster(6217.4ms vs 1935 ms), you must be drunk.
this is with ICS stock browser, i think if you updated your chart, you will find windows phone will looks even worse (a lot worse) than it is now.
dtolios - Friday, April 6, 2012 - link
"who really wants a phone with sharp corners and no sense of hand ergonomics?"- It has hard corners - where you DON'T hold the phone from...iPhone 4 series has sharper edges - where you do hold the phone from...If that's not an issue - and marketing wise clearly it's not - then the 900 is fine. Afaik most ppl really like the design, and so do I.
UltraTech79 - Saturday, April 7, 2012 - link
Yeah iPhone 4 has sharp edges, if it weren't for all the rounded edges. And who are you to tell us how to hold a phone? Never played any games on a phone have you?Its badly designed.
Spunjji - Wednesday, April 11, 2012 - link
Who are *you* to tell us how to hold a phone?See how easy that was? Try a better argument. You had a valid point (worse gaming ergonomics) until you made yourself sound like an idiot (opinion as fact, referring to meaningless notions of sales figures).
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.
sonicmerlin - Saturday, April 7, 2012 - link
Also even on the S4 Android isn't smooth. Look at how much of a delay occurs between when you swipe your finger and the screen finally responds with movement. There's really just no comparison to a proper OS that prioritizes the UI thread.crispbp04 - Wednesday, April 4, 2012 - link
I have the HTC titan and I use it all day every day. It's always fast, always smooth, always fun to use, and if I forget to plug it in at night I can still use it the entire next day. Android made me want to punch myself in the face after it turned to junk after 2 weeks. I was flashing a new rom on it every other day and spending hours customizing it.... now I get to spend that time actually ENJOYING my phone.I have never once said "I wish my phone was faster". I've never felt like my phone needed a dual core because WP7 has an awesome staff of engineers making sure the user experience is the #1 focus.
I am getting the Lumia 900 because it has LTE and is one sexy ass phone. I'm waiting for the white one to launch though because it is absolutely gorgeous. I am going to whore out my Titan to my friends who have been dying to try out the WP ever since I got it.
Beerfloat - Wednesday, April 4, 2012 - link
The experiences you claim seem highly exaggerated at best. Is this a genuine post or more astroturf?http://www.moneylife.in/article/nokia-lumia-800-wh...
crispbp04 - Tuesday, April 10, 2012 - link
I can demo my phone to you if it'll make you feel better. Want me to make a youtube video for you? I have the following devices:1) HTC HD2 running windows phone mango
2) Samsung focus
3) HTC Titan
4) Blackberry Bold (work phone)
I went to the AT&T store and did NOT purchase the lumia only because the Ttitan II was so much better than I expected. Now I am waiting until the white lumia comes out to see if it sways me back to the lumia, otherwise I'm getting the Titan II
bplewis24 - Tuesday, April 3, 2012 - link
@ visionYou either don't know what you're doing or have no idea what you're talking about. You should probably stop posting FUD and flat out lies.
Iketh - Tuesday, April 3, 2012 - link
I have both an Android (wife uses it) and WP device, and Android absolutely sucks. It's getting replaced as soon as AT&T allows it.Vision is 100% accurate.
jmcb - Tuesday, April 10, 2012 - link
The problem with vision's post is he said every Android phone he's used. Well...... every Android phone he's used does not equal all Android phones.I can tell you that Android doesnt absolutely suck...thats just your opinion. WP7 might be smoother, has less lag than most Android phones....but that doesnt make up the entire user experience.
Kids mother has a Nexus S and an iPhone 4. She likes her iPhone 4 more cuz she says the Nexus S sticks, gets stuck too much. I assume she means lag. After using both....I would go with the Nexus S. Based on my wants n needs.
One thing we gotta remember is everybody doesnt have the same wants n needs. If that was the case...we would all have iPhones now. I'm talking about before Android even came out.... we would all have iPhones.
sprockkets - Wednesday, April 4, 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."It's called the GUI is GPU accelerated. Already solved in ICS. It was sorely needed, yes. But I'm willing to bet people will still harp about this even with the HTC One series and new Samsungs come out.
"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."
Sorry to hear that one widget is killing your phone. I have 3 of them and I'm on to day 3 of my battery life with 3G and Wifi on with sync.
"Bloatware" is also no longer an issue either with ICS.
Hey, whatever floats your boat, go with it. I personally cannot tolerate the GUI on WP7 past 2 minutes.
eddman - Wednesday, April 4, 2012 - link
"It's called the GUI is GPU accelerated. Already solved in ICS."Actually it was/is not just that. It's an underlying OS issue.
http://www.inspiredgeek.com/2011/12/07/why-android...
For a fair comparison, flash ICS on a 1 GHz single-core (preferably snapdragon) android phone with 512 MB memory and then compare to a 1 GHz WP.
Exodite - Wednesday, April 4, 2012 - link
You don't need ICS for Android to compare well in such a situation, you just need a device that has had at least moderate optimizations towards the actual hardware.Ie. probably not a LG device, or one mangled too much by the carrier.
lunarx3dfx - Wednesday, April 4, 2012 - link
I agree with edd. I recently bought a focus flash after using a Nexus S for almost a year, and even with ics the Nexus wasn't anywhere near as smooth as WP7 is. Sure, gpu acceleration helped, but there are other underlying problems in Android.That being said however, I will probably be getting the HTC ONE X or the US GSM Galaxy Nexus (if it ever launches) because the one area WP really lacks is in providing features for power users. It is a beautiful os, and as a whole I really enjoy it, but I miss being able to customize everything like I could on android.
papatom - Wednesday, April 4, 2012 - link
Besides there is a lot more that the underlying OS has to offer.Let's see how WP subjective performance changes (tanks?) when Microsoft adds all those features.
They will bring the platform in-line feature wise, won't they?
Another thing, as pointed by Exodite, is that the first crop of WP phones - at least reference ones - comes from Nokia, and is polished to the point OS permits.
sprockkets - Wednesday, April 4, 2012 - link
I'm at 1.2ghz and 768 memory with only around 400 available for me to use! Sure it's dual core, but again, the GPU does its job now.Here, read this from an actual developer of Android.
https://plus.google.com/105051985738280261832/post...
mutatio - Wednesday, April 4, 2012 - link
Careful, Vision, that comes awful close to complimenting Apple's approach since day one of the iPhone. ;-)Exodite - Wednesday, April 4, 2012 - link
Ah yes, the wonders of anecdotal evidence and conjecture.Incidentially I have an Android phone based on very similar hardware, an 1GHz Qualcomm S2 SoC, 512MB memory and a FWVGA display.
And it runs absolutely beautifully.
It's the SE arc though, kinda funny how the old guard in phones still seem to come up with some of the best solutions.
designerfx - Friday, April 6, 2012 - link
wow, really?do you understand the point of quad core? it's not performance, it's more power savings.
WP is not more efficient than anyone - if you think it is the OS, you don't understand that probably 99% of the performance (positive or negative) is based on the chips in the phone and that's it.
crispbp04 - Tuesday, April 10, 2012 - link
You are clueless so please don't speak on subjects you have no idea about. Do you even know what a scheduling is? Maybe when you get an education some day after you graduate high school you'll understand how an operating system works.http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scheduling_(computing...
Saying performance is all hardware is like saying strengh is everything. try holding a 25lb weight 2 feet from you with your arms extended, then hold the same weight to your chest. What is easier?
eddman - Tuesday, April 3, 2012 - link
Why talk time and 3G web browsing battery times are so low, compared to phones with a similar display and a similar or smaller battery?Is this one of the pitfalls of using a dedicated baseband chip?
Brian Klug - Wednesday, April 4, 2012 - link
Basically that, and again that we're talking about (at least for the cellular page loading tests) the same display being the majority of power draw.The tethering results being so close surprised me, and I'm going to re-run the HSPA+ result just to see what was up there. Again very limited time on this review actually.
-Brian
Lonegunman2012 - Wednesday, April 4, 2012 - link
Just a quick question: What is your rush to get the review out? I look to this site for thoroughly written reviews. It's disappointing that so much was left out. I would be happy to wait longer for a review to come out if it was complete.RaistlinZ - Tuesday, April 3, 2012 - link
2010 would have liked this phone.guidryp - Tuesday, April 3, 2012 - link
Yeah, why are they getting a pass on a single core phone with abysmal browser performance as their flagship offering.hemmy - Wednesday, April 4, 2012 - link
Abysmal? Please. Yes the benchmarks are poor but the browsing experience is significantly better than any Android phone with the sheer smoothness.eddman - Wednesday, April 4, 2012 - link
I was watching a video the other day, showing scrolling and zooming in verge and engadget, which are very heavy websites, and was really surprised by how much fast and smooth WP is when it comes to browsing.I don't suppose a single-core android phone can be that smooth.
Braumin - Wednesday, April 4, 2012 - link
Because life isn't about benchmarks.juhatus - Wednesday, April 4, 2012 - link
Totally wrong. Life is a benchmark.Now I need my milliseconds back.
PeteH - Thursday, April 5, 2012 - link
But without something to measure myself against, how will I know if I'm winning?TGressus - Wednesday, April 4, 2012 - link
2010 would have used a browser.p~
Seriously though, when you have to zoom and pan to view content, doesn't it feel like you are using the wrong device to begin with?
jwcalla - Tuesday, April 3, 2012 - link
As a software developer I can say that I've had nothing but heartache dealing with Qualcomm hardware so far. Closed-up proprietary stuff with no public API to help us out seems to be the preferred mode of operation.Ultimately a platform comes down to its developers. There are a limited number of developers and the platform that attracts the most and best from the lot is going to provide the greatest user experience. Apple figured this out long ago in the device space. Microsoft before that on the desktop. If Nokia and Microsoft understand this today, they'll do well.
I don't care how well the hardware benchmarks, we need to be treated as something other than an afterthought if you want us to develop for your platform.
Braumin - Wednesday, April 4, 2012 - link
I'm sorry how is Visual Studio not the best for developers? Are you trying to write native code to WP7? I know it can be done, but most apps don't do it.I think the developer tools are top notch for WP7.5. Sure, there are some holes to fill (WP8) but they will get filled.
nitrousoxide - Tuesday, April 3, 2012 - link
"1.4GHz APQ8060"..apparently it's not dual-core.Brian Klug - Wednesday, April 4, 2012 - link
Oops, fixed! Thanks!-Brian
mister2d - Tuesday, April 3, 2012 - link
@Brian KlugYou mentioned tethering in the article. Can you talk more about whether you need a separate tethering plan for the Lumia 900 or can you just enable it out of the box without a fuss.
I asking since I am considering a jump from the original unlimited plan from AT&T/iPhone.
Thanks
Brian Klug - Wednesday, April 4, 2012 - link
Correct, just like other first-party AT&T phones it has a provisioning check to make sure you're paying a monthly rate for tethering.Otherwise it's functionally the same as every other phone I've tested with tethering - 5 clients maximum, WPA2, etc.
-Brian
jjj - Tuesday, April 3, 2012 - link
You are way too kind with this phone.The OS lacks so many features,the SoC is almost 2 gens behind,the recycled design is expired and fat(fat by even last year's standards) and the Windows brand can't ever be made apealing anymore.
Nokia can make nice hardware and ,i guess,we all want it to see it survive but they should have done better.
Aenean144 - Wednesday, April 4, 2012 - link
Concur.The only modern component in the thing is LTE, and that is arguably 1 year late. The SoC is 2010 era. The display is 2011 era, and I think I'm being generous. The OS software is still running a year's worth of development late compared to competitors. Microsoft has to wake up!
Even the chassis design isn't something stunningly new. It's nicely evolved from the design language introduced in the Nokia N8 almost 2 years. So we've seen this type of design for awhile. Nokia's messaging for this phone has been all wrong. They should have never let the media overhype this product.
MS has another card they can play: an Intel x86 Windows 8 smartphone. It's coming. A stylus and x86 compatibility will be features. ;)
sprockkets - Wednesday, April 4, 2012 - link
"I have to say that I’m impressed with how much Nokia Drive has improved since its initial launch on Windows Phone 7 with the Lumia 800. As of this writing the version is 2.0.0.2148, and it feels much more polished and responsive now since last I used it, and includes a few new features. The current version still requires you to preload maps for the regions you want over WiFi (so be sure you do this before getting in the car), but you basically get the ability to pre-cache whatever maps you want instead of hoping you have network connectivity where you’re going like with Google Navigation."You can pre cache maps as well with Google - just activate it in the labs dept, then download the area you need.
Also, stock browser on the HTC Sensation with the ICS update gets around 2000ms for sunspider. 6127ms is so outdated :)
Brian Klug - Wednesday, April 4, 2012 - link
Oh I know about that, but the radius ends up being too small for it to be practical or efficient. Eg if you're trying to cache a long roadtrip whose distance exceeds the radius, you'll need to precache multiple regions as opposed to just downloading all the maps.Also I need to update my SGS2 results with the ICS ROM. Unfortunately I had to send back the Sensation a while ago :/
-Brian
sprockkets - Wednesday, April 4, 2012 - link
Then again my HTC Sensation has maps from them (HTC Locations) and I can pre cache entire regions. Somehow it can also sync it up with Google's Navigation as well.tipoo - Wednesday, April 4, 2012 - link
Is it enough for a map of one city at least?NeoteriX - Wednesday, April 4, 2012 - link
Google Maps:10 miles from a given point on a map.
...it's enough for all of Manhattan and nearly all of New York City.
Braumin - Wednesday, April 4, 2012 - link
My wife has the Lumia 800. It is a great phone, and the 900 just builds on that. Thank God they got rid of the magnetic door over the USB port.I'm excited to see what Nokia can bring to the table with WP8. I am a big fan of WP7.5, but I know it has some shortcomings. I can't see how those won't all be fixed with WP8 running on the Windows 8 kernel. Obviously Microsoft and Nokia don't want to talk about it (which is too bad) but for business reasons, it makes sense, but all the complaints about hardware should evaporate. Windows 8 already has support for high ppi displays, multicore, LTE, and everything else. Six months seems like a long time away.
The Lumia 900, especially at the price it is offered, should be a great phone for many people. I'll keep my old LG Optimus 7 until Apollo hits though.
j3ff86 - Wednesday, April 4, 2012 - link
174 nits of brightness is super pathetic. I bet Nokia uses a very aggressive ambient light sensor like they did on the N8 and E7. You can disable the light sensor on those phones with 3rd party software but I don't know if WP7 has similar apps.kyuu - Wednesday, April 4, 2012 - link
It's way beyond sufficient for indoor viewing... the only place you might need more brightness is outside in daylight. I guess you missed the part where Brian said that the clearblack feature was pretty effective at reducing glare/reflections and, due to that, the display was quite visible even in the outdoor daylight setting.If you can see the display clearly even in daylight, why would need or want more brightness? So you can drain the battery faster for no real benefit?
steven75 - Wednesday, April 4, 2012 - link
So it's only bad in real life situations where people use their phone? Ok, then.tipoo - Wednesday, April 4, 2012 - link
That's not what he said. The display has one of the lowest reflection indexes in a phone or tablet, its very good at reducing glare, so even if the brightness in absolute terms is lower, in real world use its pretty good since its not competing with the sun as much.ecuador - Wednesday, April 4, 2012 - link
Ehm... You have a N9 right there? Why don't you post a review? It is way too late now, but better late than never?tipoo - Wednesday, April 4, 2012 - link
It's an 800 with a dead OS. There's your review :)Beerfloat - Wednesday, April 4, 2012 - link
You mean it's an 800 but with another dead OS right :)But seriously, bring on the HTC One X review. Now there's a practically perfect smartphone.
tipoo - Wednesday, April 4, 2012 - link
Agreed, but I want the One X with Krait rather than Tegra 3, that one's not out yet.Beerfloat - Thursday, April 5, 2012 - link
Yup, I guess there's always a next best thing around the corner in the tech industry. Krait is pretty cool. But then, A15 bundled with a fast SGX or Mali GPU will be cooler still. Tegra 3 does have the benefit of the low power 5th core, plus, for right or for wrong, Nvidia always seems to bring the little extra member benefits.tipoo - Thursday, April 5, 2012 - link
True, but the Krait version of the One X isn't that far away, compared to A15 and all that. The Krait One S is already shipping. And Nvidia's fifth core doesn't help it against Kraits battery life, look at the One S with Krait, it gets significantly higher life (to be fair, some will be the screen, but still). Tegra Zone optimizations apart, Krait is nearly uniformly better.jed22281 - Sunday, April 8, 2012 - link
typical moronic response.ecuador - Wednesday, April 4, 2012 - link
If more people got their hands on the N9's it would not be a dead OS. Even people with the latest iphones are amazed when they try out the N9, something I have never seen with, say, an Android phone.That's why I complain about tech sites not trying to give the N9 the chance that Nokia did not want it to have - it is (was?) by far the most promising mobile OS (not to mention the most open).
jed22281 - Sunday, April 8, 2012 - link
Maemo6x (meego-harmattan) used by the N9 is far from being the most open.Tizen & WebOS are far more open, even Android is arguably....
If it had been given time to evolve into real MeeGo* it would've been w/o question.
There's MeeGo derivatives floating about still (MeR + Nemo/Plasma etc)
But they're more underdeveloped than they would've been, had resources not been dropped hugely in the past 14mth.
*which would've completed by July 12' at the latest w/the 1st x86 phone, after the 3rd Harmattan ph started reaching shelves.
jed22281 - Sunday, April 8, 2012 - link
typical moronic response.Tujan - Wednesday, April 4, 2012 - link
Excellent article about a cell phone from anandtech.com !...
With the exception of memory bandwidth this is certainly a great little computer radio phone.
....
"Waiting is never easy" <- catchy. !
Origin32 - Wednesday, April 4, 2012 - link
And of course half of the comments are about Android phones being slow. Yes, the UI is less smooth than iOS of WP. But I really don't care about that and I can't be the only one. In my humble opinion functionality is king, and whether my homescreen renders at 20fps or 60 doesn't really matter. Android has some great features that I am yet to see in iOS or WP. Having borrowed an iPhone for a couple hours I already found it to be incredibly constraining and the lack of a back or menu button annoyed the crap out of me. As for WP, I played around with a Lumia 800 for a while but all the sidescrolling in the homescreen and in apps was very confusing. It made the display feel too narrow.Plus, I bet you'll all be glad we have quadcore smartphones when they've become so fast you can ditch your laptop, but of course most of you never even considered that :)
valhar2000 - Wednesday, April 4, 2012 - link
People around here keep talking about the superior feature set of Android. What are these features that other phone OSs don't have?Beerfloat - Wednesday, April 4, 2012 - link
Well, HD screens for one. Grown up DPI-independent rendering for another. A choice of different form factor devices to suit various usage patterns and budgets. Multiple software stores, an enormous amount of apps, close integration with Google services (if so desired), wonderful customizability, the most straightforward interaction with other devices like PCs (it's just an USB disk drive, plus it talks CIFS).But oh well.
BabelHuber - Wednesday, April 4, 2012 - link
---> Can be used like a USB-stick. No iTunes/ Zune needed. Simply plug your phone into your PC and use the Explorer you like--> I can connect USB-harddiscs to my Asus TF Prime. Like in Windows, I can messs around with a file explorer there
--> File explorer: Android has a real Linux file system. You can handle files like you have always done with computers. Hence cloud-services are not mandatory.
--> Supports SD cards including full access via file explorer
--> Allows installation of apps that were not downloaded via Google Play/ market. You can install whatever you want
--> Real multitasking
--> Allows tweaking: I have e.g. installed the rSAp-functionality on my Android phone last weekend:
I have installed new system libraries, maually replaced system files etc. to get it work.
It was a lot of effort, but at least I could do it. My warranty is gone now, though.
To sum it up: Android is like a real Personal Computer. You can do whatever you want with it, there are no restrictions whatsoever.
As a downside, you can mess up your phone completely, too. But this is the price of freedom
steven75 - Wednesday, April 4, 2012 - link
Ah so all things 99% of the market doesn't need or want. Gotcha!eddman - Wednesday, April 4, 2012 - link
iphone does not support them and still sells millions. Most people don't care about those features on a phone.ol1bit - Wednesday, April 4, 2012 - link
I do, and I know lots of others who like that as well, otherwise, why have a smart phone?eddman - Wednesday, April 4, 2012 - link
I said most, not all. Obviously for users who want those features, android is the only choice.I'm just saying that the lack of those features won't necessarily impact the sales, judging from how well iphones sold and keep selling.
BabelHuber - Thursday, April 5, 2012 - link
Well, from my experience some iOS-users don't even know that functionality is missing.When I quickly use my phone as USB-stick to transmit data from one notebook to another, they even are surprised (and yes, such things don't occur often, but sometimes this comes in handy)
Or when I browse my files using an actual browser, they are surprised that I don't have to open an App first.
Some users are so locked into the Apple ecosystem that they don't even expect their smartphone to act as a small PC, even though it is one.
They act as if their phone was a fixed-function-device because of technical limitations, not because openness was omitted on purpose by the manufacturer.
Xale - Friday, April 6, 2012 - link
Humerously, those aren't even Android features, but Feature Phone (Dumbphone) features.Stuff that could be done a decade ago.
TGressus - Thursday, April 5, 2012 - link
why indeed?It seems like a more powerful tablet experience would serve folks better. Then the phone can go back to being a sleek and inexpensive afterthought.
What it's going to take to get there is a better tablet OS. MS is poised to bring it first, which I don't think many saw coming.
tipoo - Wednesday, April 4, 2012 - link
Its almost funny how close to Windows vs OSX vs Linux this has become. Android gives you by a landslide the most options, iOS has a great user experience but cages advanced users in a bit too much, WP7 is somewhere in the middle on both fronts.WP7 seems to trade off absolute speed for smoothness. Looking at the browser synthetic benchmarks its much slower than even old single core Android or iOS phones, but what reviews can't show you is how well it lets you navigate pages during that loading time.
Braumin - Wednesday, April 4, 2012 - link
Actually they don't show load times, every site on the earth focuses on javascript as the be all and end all for web browsing.jmcb - Tuesday, April 10, 2012 - link
You arent the only one. If I wanted a smoother, more fluid OS I would get an iPhoen or WP7.I need, want a lil more than that from my phone. I;m a function over form guy. Right now Android fits what I want more.
snoozemode - Wednesday, April 4, 2012 - link
For me the biggest issue with WP is the resolution, I mean 480x800 on 4.3" is crap, at least for my eyes. Can't understand why Microsoft haven't included support for higher res in a separate update.tipoo - Wednesday, April 4, 2012 - link
To me, it all seems like they want to make Apollo phones look that much better in comparison, so they aren't letting Mango ones get close to the best specs.babstra - Wednesday, April 4, 2012 - link
the resolution of professional graphics monitors is ~100dpi. the lumia 900 resolution is 200+ dpi.'nuff said.
snoozemode - Wednesday, April 4, 2012 - link
You don't hold a 27" in front of your face. Enough said.N4g4rok - Wednesday, April 4, 2012 - link
You don't lose out on much though. 480x800 does this particular phone justice.jmcb - Tuesday, April 10, 2012 - link
I agree with this too. The resolution isnt that bad. Its the screen technology that will make a difference.... lcd, amoled, pentile or non pentile, etc.jmcb - Tuesday, April 10, 2012 - link
lol...exactly. I hold my phone ALOT closer than a monitor.melgross - Wednesday, April 4, 2012 - link
Very funny.Kjella - Wednesday, April 4, 2012 - link
I checked here in Norway, the "$99" phone costs 4495 NOK without a subscription, for comparison the iPhone 4S is 4890 NOK. Guess they're planning to make a lot back on that subscription, either that or Microsoft/Nokia is funding one helluva campaign to stay relevant.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, truetipoo - Wednesday, April 4, 2012 - link
It seems to me like Microsoft is deliberately capping WP7 phones so that Apollo phones will look even better by comparison, with the SoC single core limitations and screen resolution caps. I wonder if this phone or other WP7 phones will be able to get WP8 then, or if that will only be on dual core phones?melgross - Wednesday, April 4, 2012 - link
The OS can't handle multi cores or a higher Rez. That's just the way it is. Since that's going to limit sales, why would they deliberately want to do that?Yes, there's a fork of CE (which is what WP7 uses), which allows dual cores, but it has it's own problems as a phone OS.
tipoo - Wednesday, April 4, 2012 - link
But I'm still wondering if current phones will be able to get WP8. Since it has a new kernel, my guess would be no.N4g4rok - Wednesday, April 4, 2012 - link
It's possible, but my not be a profitable. There's always that ugly little trade off between going next generation or supporting legacy hardware.I think what they do with it will depend on how different the OS itself is in terms of features and UI. If it brings an entirely new suite of capabilities that would not be as efficient on single-core platforms, then it might not hurt to let the previous generation to go to pasture. Otherwise, they might loose that regard as an efficient handset.
Then again, who knows if the kernel in Apollo will be built with the intension to utilize dual core hardware, or if the upgraded hardware will be mainly for drawing attention from developers.
Braumin - Wednesday, April 4, 2012 - link
I don't think the kernel will matter. The new kernel will support far more hardware than the old one.When you upgrade your PC from Windows XP to Windows 7, the kernel changes, but the hardware doesn't.
I assume that since basically there are only a couple of different hardware specs for WP7, they will make it possible. The question of course is whether the hardware vendor will bother with the upgrade. In most cases, I would say no, but I also think Nokia will be the exception.
We'll see in the fall though!
ol1bit - Wednesday, April 4, 2012 - link
Yea, Microsoft is way behind in the phone game. They need to keep up, how long have they been play with WP7 now, and still no high rez or multi-core?I think MS continues to make bad decisions. Who wanted a single threaded OS 3 years ago? They just looked at Apple current and said we like that, and lets design ours just like that.
Goggle looks to the future and started Android out multi-threaded. I hope Alppol isn't a hack job with fake multi-threading added in.
robco - Wednesday, April 4, 2012 - link
The $99 price point is interesting, same as the iPhone 4, but with more storage and LTE. I suppose that works since they're still behind the 4S a bit.I like WP7 and if I decide to ditch iOS, it would be my next choice. I just hope MS will support more chipsets and higher display resolutions sooner rather than later. Of course the big issue for me, and others in this area, is the carrier issue in the US. I won't go back to AT&T. For many people the reception is fine and the service tolerable, but not where I live. So far the only WP7 handsets on Sprint or VZW are even more dated.
MS has a lot of ground to gain, but it's not as if they don't have the resources to throw at it...
NeoteriX - Wednesday, April 4, 2012 - link
Brian,Your insight into the display, and in particular, digging up the optical path of the ClearBlack technology, may be overlooked by many. But it's really something where your obvious optics education/background gives you and AnandTech significant added value over the droves of blathering nontechnical review sites and blogs.
Kudos.
EddyKilowatt - Wednesday, April 4, 2012 - link
If this is the kudos section, let me award one too, for posting and discussing the MediaInfo screencap showing the video and audio codec settings. That too is the kind of non-blathering, solid tech info that I'm glad you guys specialize in.(I actually googled "lumia 900 video bitrate"... and must confess I grinned a knowing grin when I saw AnandTech pop up in the first screen of hits.)
name99 - Wednesday, April 4, 2012 - link
"Interestingly enough Nokia does note the presence of Rx diversity for WCDMA on the Lumia 900 front and center, both under their “design” tab and under Data Network on the specifications page. It’s awesome to see another handset vendor realize that great cellular performance is noteworthy"I'm rather more cynical than you. Note that they do NOT support HSPA MIMO.
My guess is that at least part of talking up their diversity antenna is specifically to deflect from that --- throw out some techno-lingo about how we have multiple antennas to "maximize RF performance" and hope no-one notices some conspicuous holes in our HSPA features.
name99 - Wednesday, April 4, 2012 - link
"However the labeling here is actually hilarious - AT&T’s WCDMA “4G” marketing carries over to the Lumia 900, so selecting “3G” from the drop down will score you a “4G” indicator in the status bar. Likewise selecting “4G” from the drop down gets you “LTE” in the status bar. Finally, a concrete example of where AT&T’s re-branding marketing has resulted in an actual namespace collision!"We have been through this a dozen times, Brian. You are just being immature if you keep pushing this point even after the relevant engineering issues have been explained to you many times.
If there is a name space collision here, it is because Nokia or MS are too stupid to understand that LTE is not the same thing as 4G, not because of an ATT fault.
ATT are major league dicks --- there's plenty about them to complain about honestly, without complaining about stupid non-issues.
Impulses - Thursday, April 5, 2012 - link
Seems like a valid complaint to me, at least from the point of view of the average consumer, regardless of whose fault it is. If AT&T can influence even Apple to change their connection indicators, surely they could force something less confusing here. It's not a coven to me, but the average consumer barely knows or cares what LTE & HSPA+ are, if they did the iPhone wouldn't be selling very well right now.leexgx - Friday, April 6, 2012 - link
MS naming (nice that they let you set the speeds 2g 3g and 4g speeds to bad you cant just force it to stay on one but that be asking to much)3g/H/H+ as 3g (WCDMA / UMTS / HSDPA / HSPA) and 4g as 4g (LTE or LTE-ADV) as it should be seems right to me (miss selling 4g when its not 4g is bad in the USA, hope Three in the UK do not start miss selling quite sure they Not be allowed to)
2g best signal and power bat life
3g lower bat life and calls and text may some times not work
4g more power drain less bat life (depends if its been used as LTE should have way better power use then 3g+ spec)
DarkUltra - Wednesday, April 4, 2012 - link
I think you should dig some more into WP7. I would not have bought a Lumia 800 if I knew about these:- Deleting gmail mail archives mail instead of deleting it
- Read, delete and move email operations is not pushed or synced immediately. Kinda disruptive and unnerving when you sit down in front of the computer and have to do it all over again
- international characters turn into æøå after a reply from a gmail account ruining the threading (could be issue with gmail but worked fine on my first gen iphone)
- no text wrap in ie9 so text on certain websites like anandtech and techreport is redicously small in portrait mode and uncomfortably small in landscape mode.
- no Find on Page
- no copy and paste in calendar
- no every other week timing in calendar
- no Other and custom phone numbers support in contacts
- If you set your locale to something like Norway, you get SV: and vs: instead of the regular Re: and Fwd: email subject abbrevations. After a bit back and fourth with people abroad the subject line ends up like this:
Re: SV: Re: SV: Re: SV: Smörgardsbord på Lørdag
- no native PDF support, must use a slow and unresponsive 3rd party reader that lack zoom to picture/paragraph and search
- Other and custom phone numbers in contacts
Many phone numbers from Outlook and Google doesn't show up
Othervise I really love this phone and its live tiles.
Klimax - Friday, April 6, 2012 - link
Corrections:"Deleting gmail mail archives mail instead of deleting it"
Setting in gmail.
"Read, delete and move email operations is not pushed or synced immediately. Kinda disruptive and unnerving when you sit down in front of the computer and have to do it all over again"
Again, setting in gmail.
Impulses - Thursday, April 5, 2012 - link
"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."I agree with the latter statement... But as far as consumer choice, I think there might be more iPhone/WP cross shopping than iPhone/Android or even WP/Android. MS seems to be straddling this line between Apple's platform approach and Google's, and right now I think they're leaning slightly towards the former.
I think it's great for the market overall, and it's probably a winning strategy in the long run (something MS knows all about)... But right now I think Google's got more of the bargain/value market and the spec/geek market while Apple's carved itself a big chunk in between from average consumers looking to spend more but not necessarily focused on specs or sheer capability.
I'm definitely excited to see where WP & Nokia go next, despite being heavily invested in Android... Nokia needs MS more than MS needs Nokia tho, and WP isn't gonna budge from 3rd place if Nokia is the only OEM producing flagship type devices. Could be worse tho, they could be RIM!
PeteH - Thursday, April 5, 2012 - link
You make some good points, but I disagree that the MS approach is necessarily a winning strategy. If this was April 2010 when the smartphone market wasn't so mature I would completely agree that Windows stands an excellent chance of becoming (along with iOS/Android) a third dominant mobile platform. Unfortunately for MS it's April 2012, and it may be too late for Windows to be anything other than a niche player.I think the key question is can MS attract developers so that a strong stable of quality Apps can be built up rapidly. If they can it will greatly increase their chance of success.
Impulses - Thursday, April 5, 2012 - link
Meh, there's a lot of race still left to run imo, the smartphone market may be maturing rapidly but it's still in it's infancy... It's like in the stage the PC market was in the 80s imo.