Review on Nokia Lumia 800

This beautiful device, Nokia Lumia 800 came in a while ago, was busy with life thus couldn’t find time to even open the box. Anyways, here’s my review of this “do-or-die” smart phone of Nokia. I came from the point of view as a seasoned Symbian user, rather new Meego lover and a part-time Android user, hence that should give you a bit of background information on where I stand.

Information on Lumia 800

The Lumia 800 is the first Nokia smart phone that runs Windows Phone 7.5 a.k.a WP Mango, here on we will call it WP. It is the elder brother in the Lumia range together with soon to be launched Lumia 710, that adds up to only 2 devices. The Lumia 800 looks almost identical to its elder cousin N9 which runs Meego OS.

Hardware

Mentioned earlier on, the device is almost identical to N9 and thus, the pros and cons of the body, screen and design should be of the same. You can read more of it here. Still there are some additions and minuses. Firstly, the screen size is 3.7”, 0.2” smaller than N9’s. This is due to the 3 soft-touch buttons at the bottom of the screen, taking away the real-estate of the display. Apart from that, there is an additional physical camera shutter button at the right side, the front facing secondary camera removed and the camera’s LED flash placement differs too. The camera shutter key is a welcome addition as I would hope it was on the N9 as well. Similarly Lumia comes in Black, Cyan and Magenta.

Software

I am very new to WP. So new that I sometime got no clue how to do certain tasks that I am very familiar on other OSes. So if you are like me, new to WP and looking to get onboard, you probably should read this part. If you are seasoned WP user, I suggest you skip it.

Although I did not use other WP phones before, I am positively sure that the WP on Lumia is no different from any other WP phone. Microsoft very much controls its mobile platform. Despite this, Nokia CEO did say that Nokia can customize the interface, but that’s not the case here. Hence, the software is pretty much undifferentiated from other manufacturers, like Samsung and HTC. However, Nokia tried to value add with some apps. More on that later.

Home Screen

Once unlocked, you are greeted by the distinct home screen with large tiles lined in 2 columns. The initial colors of tiles are blue but there are options available to change it to other colors. Here, we have the tiles in form of shortcut to the apps or games, and for those apps which supports it, in form of “widgets”.

The widgets here differ from those on Android; on WP it is more of a notification box rather than full fledge widgets like those on Symbian Belle or Android. For example, the “Messaging” tiles display the number of new messages you have instead of showing you the preview of messages. Likewise for “Music + Videos”, “YouTube” and “People” tiles, it acts like a shortcut rather than actual widgets. But still, these tiles are pretty enough as some of them update and move around, like “People” tiles will get updates from social networks and change the displaying photos regularly. Same goes for “Pictures” tiles. Quite useless if you ask me, what’s the point of having extra big icons that have not real use but only to beautify the home screen? That is if you consider the home screen interface good looking in the first place.

Apps List

Swipe the home screen to the left, gets you to the apps listing. The layout here is not by grid, like those on Android, but in list format. Good and bad, some will find it difficult to find apps and scrolling if the list gets too long, but I find the standard size icons and big titles helps shows apps clearly. Even if the list gets way too long, there is this magnifying glass icon on the top left of the display, this let you search the apps you have, so just type away.

Nokia Apps

Nokia did try to differentiate itself from others by adding in 3 apps, “Nokia Drive”, “Nokia Maps” and “Nokia Music”. These 3 apps are exactly like those on Symbian but in a new WP-like interface. Would like to highlight that, Nokia Drive is the only free turn-by-turn voice navigation maps and driving guide app for WP.

Internet Explorer

The Internet Explorer on Lumia 800 is just like any I have used before. The address bar is at the bottom instead of top. It supports tab browsing but to a max of 6. One thing to take note, the browser doesn’t support flash which is a big turn off for me. Other then that, the loading speed is fast. 

Recommendations

It is rumored that Nokia will have new device early next year, namely Lumia 900 and Champagne, given WP still needs time to update or refine on Lumia 800, I would rather hold my wallet and wait for new phones next year. Else there are many phones out there which you can consider, like HTC Radar or the younger and cheaper Lumia 710.

Also, with powerful heavy weights already in the market, consumers are spoiled for too many choices like iPhone 4S, Samsung Galaxy S2, HTC Sensation XE and Motorola RAZR XT910. On the lower end, there is Nokia’s very own range of Belle phones, like 701, which definitely gives bang for the buck. If it’s the good looks you want, Nokia N9 is always here to please you.

Conclusion

The hardware itself is beauty to look at and felt strong and steady when held in hand, perhaps those who own a N9 might find it boring with the almost identical design. Nokia certainly retain their built quality over here.

On the other hand, the WP OS still have huge room for improvement, like how the so-called multi tasking let us handle apps, and I extremely dislike how closed it was when everything have to go through a PC via Zune software (iphone + itunes anyone?).

Did Nokia CEO Stephen Elop make the correct decision by jumping into the freezing cold waters and go with WP? I am not that sure yet. Lumia 800 did not convince me, yet.

Be sure to check out my other post on Nokia Lumia 800 coming soon.