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What's hot: Unique and lovely design, durable, fast, excellent voice quality, good camera and fast 4G LTE. What's not: Battery ...
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Manufacturer : Motorola What's hot : High end specs plus a hardware QWERTY keyboard, fast with sharp display. What's not : No...
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Tuesday, February 5, 2013
Nokia Lumia 900 Review
4:38 AM
| | Edit Post
What's hot: Unique and lovely design, durable, fast,
excellent voice quality, good camera and fast 4G LTE.
What's not: Battery life could be better, we need more
Windows Phone apps. WiFi flaky with our AirPort Extreme access points.
Windows Phone goes from obscurity to the limelight, just
like that. That's the power of Nokia and the relentless evolution of
Microsoft's reborn mobile OS. When Windows Phone 7 landed in the fall of 2010,
it boasted a unique UI, fast performance and the expected excellent support for
MS services, but the hardware seemed dated and important features were missing.
Now we've got the features: cut and paste, multitasking and support for fast
LTE 4G data networks; and Redmond seems poised for a comeback. The only
problem? It's a chicken and egg thing: there are only about 80,000 apps in the
Windows Phone Marketplace because the OS has relatively little marketshare. If
the Lumia 900 sells like hotcakes, more developers will jump on board with
great apps and expand that ecosystem. But will users buy a phone whose app
ecosystem is currently dwarfed by iOS and Android's? Perhaps there's nothing to
worry about: apps on the Marketplace are proliferating like bunnies at Easter.
We're seeing about 350 new apps added daily and Microsoft expects to reach the
100k mark in weeks.
The Nokia Lumia 900 is available on AT&T in the US and
it has a 4.3" Super AMOLED ClearBlack display, a 1.4GHz CPU, 16 gigs of
storage and LTE 4G. For a flagship phone, it sells for a remarkably low $99 on
contract and $449 without contract. The smartphone runs Windows Phone 7.5 Mango
and it has a GPS, Bluetooth 2.1 + EDR and WiFi 802.11b/g/n as well as an FM
radio.
Design and Ergonomics
The Nokia Lumia 900 is a little piece of modern art. Nokia
knows high end design, and the unibody polycarbonate casing available in black,
cyan and white, is a sharp study in modern minimalism. The Lumia 900 looks
nearly identical to the smaller Nokia Lumia 800 sold overseas and the Nokia N9
(its MeeGo OS twin). The design is perfection on the smaller Lumia 800, and
loses just a little appeal and one-handed comfort when stretched to 4.3 inches.
The elegant corner taper is a little less gradual and striking, and the curved
glass on the 800 is replaced with a 4.3" Gorilla Glass flat panel with a
raised edge. Still, it's a great looking phone that's comfortable in the hand,
though those with small hands might find it a bit too large (it's almost as big
as the 4.7" HTC Titan and is the same size as the 4.5" Samsung Galaxy
S II Skyrocket). Like the car market, Americans want something bigger than
their European counterparts, and the Lumia 900 fits the US mold.
The 5.6 ounce, 0.45" thick phone has flat top and
bottom edges, making it less like a slippery bar of soap that many curvy
Android smartphones. The texture is anything but slick, which is great for grip
though the black version still shows some fingerprint oil. The chrome camera
lens bezel is flat rather than raised, so the phone doesn't rock on the table
nor does the lens make excessive contact with the tablet. Gone is the weird
micro SIM and micro USB two part door from the N9 and Lumia 800. The micro USB
port is exposed on the top (fine by us), and the micro SIM uses a tray not
unlike the iPhone 4s.
The headphone jack is conveniently located up top and the
speaker is on the bottom edge where your hand might muffle it when playing
games in landscape mode. Otherwise, it's a fine location for speakerphone calls
and watching movies. The volume rocker, power button and dedicated camera
button are on the right side, and the controls are easy to operate but not easy
to hit by accident. The 1830 mAh Lithium Ion battery is sealed inside, and like
all Windows Phones except the original Samsung Focus, there's no microSD card
slot (Windows Phone handles removable storage in a challenging way, so
manufacturers avoid the option).
ClearBlack AMOLED Display
We said it with the Nokia Lumia 800, and we'll say it again
here: Nokia's AMOLED ClearBlack display is simply stunning. It has incredibly
rich colors but none of Samsung's Super AMOLED cartoony exaggerated hues.
Contrast is very high and blacks are inky thanks to Nokia's ClearBlack
technology that also reduces glare for improved outdoor viewing. Photos look
better than life, yet colors aren't unnatural.
At 4.3", web pages and videos are pleasingly easy to
see and text is sharp thanks to Microsoft's keen attention to typography.
Videos are vivid and photos pop. The high contrast is great for reading eBooks
and webpage text. But you're still looking at an 800 x 480 display, and those
with very good eyes and those who crave the best specs will feel a little
second class when their buddy whips out a Samsung Galaxy Nexus or HTC Rezound
with a 1280 x 720p display. The resolution is a Microsoft Windows Phone
limitation; it's not that Nokia and HTC don't want to bring higher resolution
displays to market. But the bottom line is how the phone looks, and I'd wager
that if you handed the Lumia 900 to customers who were unaware of the specs,
they'd probably pick it out as one of their favorite smartphone displays.
Performance and Horsepower: it's Fast
This is the oddball section for Windows Phone. Their specs
seem lame when pitted against the computer-like Android ecosystem where folks
shop phones like they do laptops: based on ever escalating CPU, RAM, GPUs and
storage specs. Windows Phone doesn't support dual core CPUs, nor does it need
it. What we have here is a second gen single core 1.4GHz Qualcomm Snapdragon
APQ8055 CPU with Adreno 205 graphics. It has 512 megs of RAM (that's the MS
standard RAM spec) and 16 gigs of storage. About 13.8 gigs are available for
your use. There's no SD card slot, and thus no additional storage expansion.
Here's the revelation: you don't need no stinkin' dual core
CPU. The Lumia flies. Microsoft's Metro UI is rich yet fast, and the Lumia is
noticeably peppier than my year old 1GHz HTC HD7S. This is iPhone 4S fast. This
is no waiting and wondering what's going on behind the scenes fast.
Multi-tasking and fast app switching is quick (press and hold the back button
to move through open apps). Video playback is smooth with HD content. HTML5
video plays smoothly.
Data and Two Flavors of 4G
Finally! LTE 4G comes to Windows Phone. I honestly don't
care how many cores my phone's CPU has as long as it's fast. I actually don't
care if there are 70k or 700k apps in the store as long as the staples are
there. But I really don't want to lose out on very fast data. For those of you
who aren't yet in an AT&T LTE coverage area, there are two consolations: 1)
they're rolling out LTE very quickly and 2) the phone falls back to AT&T's
also speedy HSPA+ 21Mbps network which the carrier also calls 4G. Data speeds
are significantly faster than on the HTC Titan and Samsung Focus S Windows
Phones released just a few months ago on AT&T. On LTE, we averaged 18Mbps
down and 8Mbps up according to the Bandwidth app available on Windows
Marketplace. That's much faster than my iPhone 4S on AT&T (5Mbps down and
1Mbps up), and comparable to the speeds I get on the LTE enabled Samsung Galaxy
S II Skyrocket on AT&T. Windows Phone used to fall behind on data speed
tests (the HTC Titan couldn't match the iPhone 4S and Android HSPA+ phones on
AT&T), but the networking bits have clearly fallen into place.
The Lumia 900 can act as a mobile hotspot so you can share
the data connection over WiFi with needy tablets, laptops and other devices. If
you get the $50/month 5 gig data plan, the service is included. In our tests,
we averaged 8Mbps down and up according to Speedtest.net on our Dell XPS 13
Ultrabook. That falls behind the Galaxy Skyrocket, which managed 15Mbps down
and 7Mbps up, but it's still plenty fast enough.
The phone has WiFi 802.11b/g/n for those times you don't
want to eat up your data plan. We noted some flakiness with our Apple AirPort
Extreme access points where the phone would show the WiFi connection as full
strength but would stop transferring data over WiFi until we toggled WiFi off
then on or rebooted the phone.
Calling: Nokia Rules
Nokia has long been the king of call quality and reception.
The Lumia 900 lives up to that with crystal clear call audio and solid
reception. Earpiece volume is louder than average, and at max volume could stand
in for the speakerphone. The Lumia 900 played well with a variety of Bluetooth
headsets and our BMW built-in Bluetooth.
This is a quad band GSM world phone with 3G HSPA+ 21Mbps on
the 850/900/1900MHz bands (works on AT&T in the US and on 900MHz in Europe).
It has AT&T 700MHz LTE and 1700/2100MHz LTE (an atavistic appendage left
over from AT&T's once-planned acquisition of T-Mobile). If you're on
T-Mobile and hoping to unlock the Lumia 900, you won't get 3G or 4G on T-Mobile
US.
Software and Windows Phone (this section is for WP Newbies)
Windows Phone has been out 1.5 years, and this probably
isn't the first Windows Phone review you've read. Heck, maybe you've even owned
one. But just in case, we'll cover the basics. Windows Phone 7.5 Mango (the
current release) uses the lovely Metro UI with Live Tiles, which Microsoft is
bringing over to Windows 8 (with tablets in mind). It's extremely intuitive,
cheery, fast and fun to use. It's low stress and like iOS, there's not as much
customization as you'll find on Android. If you're a tinkerer and like to
change your UI and launchers and load lots of widgets, you might be bored here.
But if you like a bulletproof OS that's fast and stable with more customization
than iOS, read on.
Live Tiles at the outset, weren't as lively as we'd hoped.
When Windows Phone 7 launched, there was no third party multi-tasking and thus
Live Tiles not made by Microsoft really didn't do much. With Windows Phone 7.5,
we now have Live Tiles that show you the current weather, stocks, sports scores
and breaking news. You can pin any app as a Tile on your home screen and change
their order. You can change the default background color for tiles and select a
white or black background. You can remove pre-installed apps (including carrier
bloatware) that you don't want and you can remove those tiles from your
homescreen. Rather than a palette of icons like iOS or an app drawer in
Android, your full app listing is just that: a text-based list with small icons
that pops open from the upper right corner in alphabetical order. The rules are
simple and straightforward. Microsoft put a big emphasis on typography and the
fonts are good looking and clear. There's no window chrome or 3D effects to
slow things down. It's clean, fresh and easy.
Microsoft is trying to be as kind as Apple, and release
major OS updates to legacy devices, so you won't feel left out in the cold
because your device is 6 months or a year old. MS allows carriers to skip a
maximum of 2 updates (small ones with bug fixes count toward this allotment).
That doesn't mean your year old phone will get the latest OS the day it
releases; so far it's taken a few months, but at least you generally will get
it.
The standard software includes IE 9 mobile with HTML5 video
support but no Adobe Flash (don't expect it to come since Adobe has stopped new
mobile Flash development and is only doing maintenance releases). IE mobile has
come a long way since the first Windows phones, and it now does a capable and
attractive job of rendering complex desktop sites. Pinch zooming is quick and
fluid, and the tap to zoom and reflow text feature generally does the job well.
Bing search and maps are on board, and Bing is actually a
decent search engine. Likewise Bing Maps has excellent POIs and related
location info plus the Local Scout feature that finds stuff near you
(restaurants, entertainment and stores). You can download Google's search app,
but there's no Google Maps for Windows Phone.
Facebook and Twitter integration are excellent, and the
People Hub isn't just about contacts, it's a place where you can check the
latest social network updates and post your own updates. It's slick, quick and
well integrated.
The Nokia comes with the usual Zune music and video player
on the phone, a photo viewer and the Windows Phone Marketplace where you can
download apps and music.
This is a Microsoft product, so you get an email client that
handles MS Exchange and Hotmail/Windows Live Mail well, including push. It also
does the usual POP3 and IMAP as well as Gmail. The phone syncs to the cloud for
contacts and calendar, not over USB. You can sync to Windows Live services, MS
Exchange and Google contacts and calendar. It all works well.
AT&T includes AT&T Navigator, U-verse Mobile,
AT&T (Bar)Code Scanner, myWireless and AT&T Radio. You can uninstall
any of these you don't want.
Zune, Music, Videos and iTunes Sync for the Mac
Music, videos and photos are a USB endeavor, but you're not
limited to the cable. You can send media and documents back and forth through
Skydrive and there are third party Dropbox clients. If you want to do cable
transfer of multimedia files, you'll use Zune Desktop under Windows and Windows
Phone 7 Connector on the Mac. Zune is actually a fun and easy to use music and
video player that you can use to rip your music CDs and convert and import
video for use with the phone. If you subscribe to the $10/month Zune Music Pass
service (not required) you'll get music subscription with a large library at
your disposal. You can access the Zune streaming service directly using your
device (use WiFi so you don't eat up your data plan), via the Zune desktop app
and using a web browser.
Mac OS X users can sync non-DRM iTunes playlists and videos
to the phone and sync photos to iPhoto. The Mac Windows Phone 7 Connector also
handles updating the software on your phone, just as Zune does in Windows.
The Lumia 900's bottom-firing speaker has good volume and
decent sound, but hey--it's a phone speaker and it sounds like one. Things look
up when you plug in a good set of wired headphones or wired/Bluetooth stereo
speakers. Good, rich sound.
Games
Microsoft put a lot of effort into the gaming ecosystem, and
there's a healthy selection of high quality games that sell for $4.99 or less.
You can try games before buying them, and the trials run long enough to get a
good feel for the games. Game performance overall is very good and graphics
quality is good to very good, though 3D games don't always look as high res as
they do on the iPhone. Windows Phone has XBOX Live integration complete with
your avatar, friends, accomplishments, game tips and tricks and developer
interviews.
Nokia Software
When Nokia decided to jump on the Windows Phone bandwagon,
they were granted most favored nation status. That means they get to customize
the software and add their own apps that actually compete with the built-in
Microsoft apps (Nokia and Microsoft call it enhancing the experience, as do
we). Each manufacturer can add their own apps or a hub where users can download
these apps. HTC has their Hub, Samsung has a selection of apps, but Nokia's are
meatier and more central to core functions. Nokia Maps, Nokia Drive and Nokia
Transit (for mass transportation location services) are on board, as is an
excellent camera and photo enhancement called Creative Studio (mini-Photoshop
crossed with a selection of entertaining effects). Nokia Read, an eBook reader
app is coming soon.
Windows Phone Limitations
First, there's the app story. Want excellent 2D and 3D
games? We've got that thanks to XBOX Live and Microsoft's big push for high
quality games. But the sheer number of apps is small compared to Android and
iOS right now. That said, most of the top popular titles are here, from Pulse
news to The Weather Channel, Skype (beta) and Kindle. But there's no B&N
Nook app yet, nor is my favorite multi-platform grocery shopping app Grocery IQ
here. Good quality password managers with desktop syncing are slim pickings.
The OS runs super fast on single core CPUs, as do 3D games.
But the world is obsessed with tech specs and speeds, and the fact that Windows
Phone doesn't support dual core CPUs hurts in the marketing (not performance)
department. Microsoft actually made a concerted decision to not offer dual core
CPUs because they felt there was no performance benefit and single core CPUs
mean less expensive phones.
You can have any resolution camera you like: the HTC Titan
II has a 16 megapixel camera. But the OS currently limits video capture to
720p. Ouch. Really?
In the future, Windows Phone will support various display
resolutions, but for now, Windows Phone 7.5 only supports 800 x 480. No matter
how big that piece of glass, it can only run at that resolution. That hurts now
that 720p displays are increasingly common on top dog Android phones, and the
iPhone 4 and 4s run at 960 x 640.
Removable storage. Somehow we get the feeling that Microsoft
thought it was OK to roll with the same limitations the iPhone had in its first
two iterations. Now they've realized they need to offer more than that
market-grabbing monster and compete with Android too. So we've seen the
addition of copy and paste, multi-tasking, fast cellular network support and
front cameras with video chat, but not removable storage. No microSD card slot
for you, and we're not sure if and when that will change. Windows Phone 7
formats the microSD card (even if user accessible like the original Focus) and
internal storage as one spanned volume. It's a proprietary file system and if
you remove the card, you corrupt the file system. It's great for DRM
management, but a nightmare for customers. Thus there's no accessible microSD
card slot on Windows Phones.
There's a single volume control that handles ringtone
volume, alert volume and media volume. You can't set these independently.
Really.
Camera, Front and Rear
If you're a smartphone and Nokia veteran who loves to take
photos, your heart goes pitter-pat when you hear "Carl Zeiss lens".
Megapixels are only so meaningful; it's the quality of all those pixels that
really counts, and the fast F 2.2, 28mm equivalent Zeiss lens plus Nokia's
prowess at making high end camera phones makes all the difference. The Nokia
Lumia 900's rear camera with LED flash takes really, really lovely photos. The
ClearBlack display makes them look even better, but there's no let down when
you transfer to them to your computer and look at the images full size. Photos
have a natural look rather than having the telltale camera phone flat look.
Colors are accurate and vivid. Noise and excessive sharpening are kept at bay.
With a little sharpening on the desktop, these are photos you could print and
not feel like you're wasting expensive photo paper.
Video also has excellent colors and sharpness, but the 30
fps 720p resolution makes me a little sad. You just know Nokia could've done
1080p with this hardware nicely. I'm hoping that Windows Phone 8 gives us 1080p
video recording, though Microsoft hasn't yet provided a date.
The VGA front camera does better than average video chat. Tango
is pre-installed, but we installed the Skype beta for Windows Phone and enjoyed
decent colors and sharpness with less noise than we see with many phones.
Better yet, we weren't forced to use WiFi for Skype video chat. Good times.
Battery Life
The Nokia Lumia 900 has an 1830 mAh Lithium Ion battery
that's sealed inside. Nokia claims up to 7 hours talk time, 60 hours of music
playback with the display off, 6.5 hours of video playback and 300 hours of
standby. In our tests with 2 push email accounts set up, moderate use of the
web browser, 30 minutes worth of calls, playing several YouTube videos and
listening to music with the screen off for an hour, we had to charge nightly.
The Lumia 900 is no better than other powerful smartphones when it comes to battery
life. And LTE is a power hungry feature, and there's no way to turn it off if
you need to conserve power.
Conclusion
If you got the idea that we really like the Nokia Lumia 900,
you're right. The elegant and durable design, unique appearance, simply irresistible
ClearBlack AMOLED display and fast performance have us hooked. Throw in 4G LTE
with fallback to HSPA+ and Nokia's excellent camera with Carl Zeiss lens and
it's good times for Windows Phone 7.5. The Lumia 900 has excellent call
quality, good reception and a compelling selection of Nokia custom apps. If
you're willing to give Windows Phone a try, it's hard to do better than the
Lumia 900.
Labels:Nokia,Reviews | 0
comments
Motorola Photon Q 4G LTE
4:08 AM
| | Edit Post
Manufacturer:
Motorola
What's hot: High end specs plus a hardware QWERTY
keyboard, fast with sharp display.
What's not: Not a stunning looking piece, Sprint 3G falls
behind other carriers and LTE coverage is currently limited.
It's hard to find a smartphone with a hardware QWERTY
keyboard these days. Happily, Motorola still invests in that form factor, from
the Droid line on Verizon to the new Motorola Photon Q 4G LTE on Sprint. Though
the Photon Q isn't quite as sleek as the Droid, it packs top-notch features
like a 1.5GHz Qualcomm S4 CPU (currently the top performing smartphone CPU in
US Android phones), a gig of RAM, an 8 megapixel rear camera plus front video
chat camera and Android 4.0.4 Ice Cream Sandwich.
The Motorola Photon Q 4G LTE has NFC, Bluetooth 4.0, single
band WiFi, a GPS and 1785 mAh battery that's sealed inside. The Photon Q is
available now for $199 with contract on Sprint. Like the Motorola Atrix HD and
Droid RAZR M, it runs a very pleasing and clean version of Android with Moto's
handy Smart Actions and few unnecessary UI frills.
The phone won't win any design awards. QWERTY phones aren't
among the most attractive handsets, though Motorola's own Droid cut a sexy
figure in its day. This a chunky gray plastic phone with a slightly (visually)
bizarre back that's grippy. I'm not saying the phone looks or feels cheap,
because it most certainly does not. It's just not a pretty piece.
The slider is perfect: silky but not wishy-washy. It feels
like it will last through your two year contract. The Photon Q has both micro
HDMI and micro USB ports side-by-side on the left. The microSD card slot is
under a cover on the right, and the volume and dedicated camera buttons are on
that side as well. The SIM card is unfortunately permanently embedded under the
sealed back, and the battery is likewise inaccessible.
Display
The qHD 4.3" "Color Boost" display might seem
like a disappointment in terms of resolution, but 540 x 960 works well for the
smaller (by recent standards) display size. Since horizontal QWERTY sliders are
thicker and heavier than their slate counterparts, Motorola didn't go with a
bigger display. The screen is sharp and colorful, though not hugely bright.
Keyboard
The QWERTY hardware keyboard is excellent. It's large enough
for fellas with big hands and it's not a stretch for this female's fingers when
typing (though I do have very long fingers). The keys have an ever so slightly
rough texture that's just right: not slippery but not sticky. The keyboard has
adjustable backlighting and 5 rows of keys with oversized enter, tab and caps
lock keys. The slider is smooth but sturdy with no unwanted play, so typing is
a stable affair.
Performance
and Horsepower
Thanks to the Qualcomm Snapdragon fourth generation CPU with
Adreno 225 graphics, the phone is fast. Motorola's light customization of
Android doesn't bog down the device. The Photon Q 4G LTE scored 5015 on
Quadrant, right up there with the US Samsung Galaxy S III and HTC EVO 4G LTE.
It scored an impressive 1366 on the Sunspider JavaScript test; one of the best
results we've seen on a smartphone. We expect the Photon Q to get Android 4.1
Jelly Bean, though we haven't heard a date.
The phone has 1 gig of RAM and 8 gigs of internal storage
plus a microSD card slot.
Benchmarks
|
Quadrant
|
GLBenchmark
2.1Egypt Offscreen
|
AnTuTu
|
Sunspider
JavaScript Test
|
Motorola
Photon Q
|
5015
|
54 fps
|
6748
|
1366
|
Samsung
Galaxy S III
|
5009
|
53 fps
|
6826
|
2027
|
HTC One
X
|
5001
|
56 fps
|
7074
|
1617
|
Samsung
Galaxy Nexus
|
2753
|
N/A
|
5985
|
2175
|
* higher numbers are better except Sunspider.
Calling
and Data
The Photon Q is a Sprint CDMA phone with EV-DO Rev. A 3 G
and LTE on Sprint's 1900MHz band. Though we're in the Dallas area, one of
Sprint's first LTE markets, we've yet to capture an LTE signal, so we had to
make do with Sprint 3G that severely underperforms in our area vs. other major
carriers. Download speeds averaged 350kbps, which is similar to other Sprint
phones. Therein lies the problem: Sprint has a slow 3G network, and they've
only just begun rolling out 4G LTE. If you're an existing Sprint customer who's
OK with that, then fine. But we can't see anyone jumping ship from one of the
other big US carriers for Sprint unless you're captivated by their no-overage
affordable voice and data plans and have frequent access to WiFi.
Voice quality on the Photon Q is good, and we had no trouble
carrying on clear conversations. Typical of Moto, the speakerphone is quite
loud. This is a world phone that also has a quad band GSM radio and HSPA 3G for
international roaming: really it's amazing that Motorola managed to get GSM
with 3G, CDMA with 3G and LTE in one phone.
Battery
Life
The Photon Q's 1785 mAh Lithium Ion battery is sealed
inside. Our battery life tests were conducted on 3G and WiFi since our area of
Dallas isn't blessed with Sprint LTE. The phone managed to make it through a 12
hour day with moderate use, which obviously isn't as long as the Droid RAZR
MAXX with its huge capacity battery, but it's also about an hour less than the
Samsung Galaxy S III on Verizon.
Conclusion
Sprint users, you're the lucky ones. These days QWERTY
phones tend to be low end texters for the budget minded. With the Motorola
Photon Q 4G LTE you get a top notch phone with premium features like the latest
and fastest CPU, a sharp and colorful display (granted not 720p), LTE and a
decent 8 megapixel shooter. Motorola's handling of Android is top notch with
thoughtful additions but not over the top skins or wanton mangling of the OS.
Labels:Motorola,Reviews | 1 comments
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