Review of NOKIA Lumia 920: User’s Point of View

NOKIA, once the undisputed leader of mobile phone market, missed the cue of changing consumer behaviour and so missed the revenue and margin targets continuously in recent years. Apple and Samsung raced ahead by many a miles from NOKIA. Now, it is trying to regain the foothold by launching LUMIA series of phones. Running on Windows 8 OS, earlier phones of this series has been quite a success. Now, the new stallion from this stable is LUMIA 920, priced little above Rs.38000/- is ready to take the battle ahead. I just happened to visit the nearest shopping mall to check whether I can replace my Samsung Galaxy S III with it not. These are the things, which I found and what it means for a user:  

-          4.5 inch IPS touch screen ( 1280 X 786 Pixels)

o   In-Plane Switching (IPS) technology is used for Liquid Crystal Display or more famously known LCD. So, you get 4.5 inch of LCD screen in your mobile phone for better colour reproduction and better viewing experience.  Touch screen is so smooth that you can actually slide your finger from one application to another, without even realising it. But, it will consume 15% more power than your normal phone, which has TN Screen.

-          1.5 GHz Duel Core CPU:

o   Wikipedia says Hertz is SI unit of frequency defined as number of cycles per second. It can be prefixed with K, M, G and so on and so forth. As the power goes up in term of number, its information and data processing capacity increases accordingly. Multiple functions like different platforms of social media, video calling, games etc. Will work smoothly at the same time with this kind of CPU capacity. It is very close to the CPU of 10.1” screen netbook.

-          1 GB RAM:

o   Higher Random Access Memory or RAM of the device again indicates its efficiency to perform better. It can store more application and these applications can be accessed from quickly in random order.  You can store around 150 applications of average 5 MB and still it will run smoothly.

-          32 GB Storage, No Micro SD Slot

o   You can store thousands of song, or approximately 70-80 movie and make your phone your movie library, hardly anyone does that. So it has got enough space for all your work.

-          8 MP Camera with flash, Carl Zeiss Optics, 1080p Full HD Video recording

o   Picture clarity of around 520 dpi, picture size of around from 1.2 MB to 3 MB              (depending upon the distance from the object), you can get posters developed your pictures. 1080p video camera is again something which will gives you 2.1 mega pixel video camera in the mobile.  

-           1.3 MP front camera 720p HD Video

o   1.3 MP front camera with 720p HD video makes your video calling experience good.

-          3G Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, micro USB, GPS

-          2000 mAH Battery with upto 10 hour talk time, 8 days standby time

o   Who uses smart phone now-a-days only for talking. It is more than that, so measuring battery performance in terms of talk time will present only one side of the picture. With so many applications running simultaneously, battery performance will surely take a beating. It will surely give users a tough time and may prove to be one of the pulling down factor for this mobile.   

-          Windows 8 OS Operating System

-          Windows Marketplace App Store- More than 100 thousand apps: This is nothing when compared to Google Play or iOS App Store. Along with other features, App Store plays a crucial role in success of a smart phone. Though, I may not reach the level of downloading 100 thousand applications on my mobile phone, but I keep fiddling with apps on my Blackberry Bold 3, Samsung Galaxy S III and Samsung Galaxy Tablet P 750. Applications keep me engaged to my devices, along with social media platforms.

-          Smart Camera: It gives you four options to click your picture. You can have lots of fun with it.

-          Maps and navigation, which works in offline mode as well.

-          Social Media, City Lens, Windows Live

-          Original Windows Office with editing feature: We are used to Windows office; thanks to our desktops and laptops. You can make your presentation on the mobile phone. No need to buy ‘Document to Go’ for Rs.3000/- for editing your presentations or excel sheet. You can work on your mobile phone and can transfer it later to your laptop or desktop. For me, this is best thing in this smart phone.

Overall it is a good phone, but definitely not the best of kind in the market. Not only that, its price is daunting, which is little above Rs.38,000/-. When, with almost similar features, Samsung Galaxy S III is available at around Rs.30,000/- and new launch Samsung Galaxy Note II with better features is available at around Rs.35,000/-, price of Rs.38,000/- looks too steep. It seems to me that NOKIA LUMIA 920 will have to undergo a price cut of approximately Rs.8000 to Rs. 9000/- within a time period of 3-4 months. So, I am not going to jump over it as world is going to end and this is last piece of marvel I can own.