Nokia Lumia 920: Hands on preview!

The Gadget Show  Thursday 06 September 2012

The Nokia Lumia 920 Windows Phone 8 smartphone was revealed just last night, and turned heads with Nokia’s promises of next gen hardware, gorgeous design and all new software. It’s not out for a few months yet, but we managed to get a good look up close at the company’s New York press conference. Read on for our thoughts, hands on photos and video!

The first thing you should know is that the Nokia Lumia 920 is that it’s a much more modern phone than its predecessors. Last year’s Nokia Lumia 800, as pleasant as it was, was held back by a smallish screen and slow single-core processor.

No such problems here. The Nokia Lumia 920’s 4.5-inch screen is a spacious HD resolution panel that looks absolutely gorgeous behind the curved glass panel. From what we’ve seen so far, it’s extremely responsive, and Nokia has lived up to its claims about its impressive contrast and screen tech.

Check out our video of the Nokia Lumia 920 here

We didn’t get much chance to get in-depth with the Nokia Lumia 920’s software, but what we were shown looked impressive. Music pairing over NFC means streaming music to the new JBL dock is easy, and Nokia Maps on Windows Phone 8 looks much more functional and attractive than Google Maps on Android.

The same applies to the City Lens app we were demonstrated, which turns augmented reality (overlaying information on a screen of the world around you using your phone’s camera) from a party trick into a must have feature on your smartphone.

And then there’s the camera. Nokia’s 8.7 megapixel camera looks to be shaping up to knock the socks off the competition: we haven’t seen much final footage but we got a demo of just what its image stabilization can do for shaky hands video footage, and it’s immediately noticeable. We’re also excited by the prospect of the new Windows Phone 8 Lens apps, particularly Nokia’s clever one (“Smart Shoot”) which erases moving people from photos for you.

That iconic curving design though, as striking as it is, might not be for everyone. The glossy red shade in particular looks cheap compared to what’s on the inside: we think the canary yellow version will be a lot more successful. All that tech stuffed inside means it’s quite hefty too: the screen size may be close to that of the Samsung Galaxy S3, but the Nokia Lumia 920 is also a fair bit chunkier too.

Whether or not the Nokia Lumia 920 has what it takes to slingshot Nokia back into the smartphone big leagues remains to be seen, but it’s a promising start.

Will you be buying a Nokia Lumia 920? Is Windows Phone 8 dead in the water? Wherever you stand, let’s hear your thoughts in the comments!

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