The major difference between Nokia Lumia series and other Nokia phones is the fact that it uses the Microsoft Windows Phone operating system. The system itself is nothing new, of course, releasing its latest incarnation (WP 7.5) on the HTC Titan and HTC Radar in 2011 and due for an update to Windows Phone Tango later this year.
A major point for and against WP7 for some is that it looks completely different to iPhone, Android, Symbian and Meego as the concept of application grids is nowhere to be seen.
Instead of the more standard home screen, or "Start Screen" in the case of Windows phone 7.5, the Nokia Lumia 800 uses "Live Tiles", fitting a 2x4 grid (although Calendar and Pictures tiles are full screen width) of tiles on the screen, vertically scrolling to display as many tiles as you wish to add.
Adding tiles to the Start screen is as easy as left swiping to the apps list, long pressing an app and selecting "pin to start", with removing a tile requiring a long press on the tile on the Start page and then tapping the drawing pin with a line through it.
Moving tiles around is just as easy, requiring a long press and then dragging them to the desired location.
At first we were unsure about the large tile based layout, finding it a little cumbersome and poor screen real estate usage, but within a couple of days our opinion changed. The major advantage is speed of use. You don't need to be looking as closely at your phone to use it as the chances of miss pressing are greatly reduced.
Having now used the phone for a few months, finding our way around the GUI is second nature. However, it still feels that the Start Screen could be better used, since although the 2 x 4 grid of Live Tiles visible at any one time act more as information sources as well as application icons, we still miss having access to more apps from a single switchable home screen.
Going forward, there will also be more advantages to the system as the Live Tiles as applications are able to show dedicated information instead of an icon - for instance, the BA app will turn into a QR code when you're about to board a flight which can be used in place of a boarding pass.
The other section of the home screen is the apps list, which is quite standard, and somewhat antiquated in some ways as it is just an alphabetical list of your apps, or app groups in the case of Office and Games.
In its defence this form of app list layout is, again, easy to navigate, knowing exactly where an app will sit in the list as done in the Windows PC start menu. This is further aided by the soft search button on the left hand side of the list providing a live filter of the list based on text entry.
This all means that folders are long gone, but after a while you realise that in this format, you don't need them - although as you fill the phone with apps, we would like the ability to sort them into little groups. Being able to search by letter isn't enough - we want customisation in the same way users are able to group together contacts and pin them to the start menu.
A backward step in WP7 is that the top status bar is not interactive like we have become accustomed to with other operating systems.
To toggle Bluetooth, Wi-Fi and Flight Mode on/off you have to go through Settings, which was a major frustration until we found an app on the Marketplace called Connectivity Shortcuts which brought this functionality to the Start screen as Tiles.
Another frustration is that the status bar often only displays the time, meaning you have no knowledge of connectivity or remaining power until you swipe down from the top of the screen to see these elements.
Microsoft thinks this cleans the screen up, but given knowing your signal is a pre-requisite for a lot of applications, we'd at least like the option to keep it there constantly - plus too many applications don't support the swipe-down method.
On a more positive slant, the repeated use of familiar icons throughout the user interface for specific functions, means that you know what a button does at a glance without having to read it. In this way the GUI feels intuitive rather than learnt.
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Even long pressing the back button to open the task manager does not provide an option to close open apps, but only permits switching between apps. This said, however we did not note any speed reduction with six apps showing in the Task Manager.
This is assisted by the fact that only a very select set of the apps on WP7 devices can run in the background and the rest are suspended (disabled) when not on top - we were very impressed with the speed of the Lumia 800 throughout testing and in truth, didn't see any real necessity to actually shut down the applications.
One major problem we did note: sliding your finger across the touchscreen would sometimes be inexplicably registered as a tap, opening an app or zooming into the text. We had hoped that the joint Microsoft OS and Nokia FW updates released in February would have fixed this, but sadly not, although the issue does appear to be occurring less often.
If you want to learn more about the new Microsoft mobile operating system, then check out our Windows Phone 7.5 Mango review.
The Nokia Lumia supports the standard SMS, MMS and email with a few differences.
During initial phone set-up you are asked to set up email + accounts settings which enables the user to add Windows Live (Hotmail, Xbox LIVE, Messenger, Calendar and others), Outlook (Exchange and Office 360), Nokia Mail (provided by Yahoo!), Yahoo! Mail, Google (Mail and Calendar), Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and other email accounts (POP and IMAP) as well as providing advanced setup to manually use your accounts.
One interesting thing we found was your LinkedIn account is added automatically if it is linked to your Windows Live account. Another thing to note is that during initial phone setup you are asked for a Windows Live and Nokia account. The Windows Live account you use at this point cannot be removed from the phone.
Once all of your accounts are set-up there are a number of ways to get social. The first is the Messaging app which merges SMS, MMS, Windows Messenger and Facebook chat although they are not grouped so you have to laterally swipe to switch between SMS/MMS and Facebook.
We were also surprised that Nokia Chat contacts aren't imported alongside Facebook contacts, since they could be associated with the Windows Live and Nokia accounts already added.
This may be down to Nokia's gradual phasing out of its OVI/Nokia service or the result of the lack of influence Nokia was able to gain over the current Windows OS. Whatever the reason, the impact is minimal based on the alternative social communications methods available.
The integration of Facebook and Twitter into the base OS makes communicating easy, with the ability to instant status post and check on People's (contacts') activity quickly from the People or Me app.
If you do wish to do more, Microsoft has created a Facebook app and Twitter has its own. You can also add to this with self-developed apps from Foursquare, Flickr, GetGlue, Evernote and many more.
Text entry is clean and easy with its keys large enough for the average fingers to work around without many incorrect presses and an auto complete suggestions bar between the keyboard and the entry field.
Words are automatically selected depending on which information you're adding, which is a nice touch, and you can tap on a word to be given the option to add it to the dictionary or long press to bring up a cursor to select elements of text.
However, this long press takes ages when you're trying to just tap an element of the text to interact with - it's miles slower than the competition. This does leave us reminiscing about the simplicity of operation of simple arrow navigation screens provided on other operating systems.
The keyboard is excellent on the Nokia Lumia 800 though, with fast typing speeds easy to attain. But it's not as intuitive as the Symbian, Apple or Android options out there, since we noted around two or three more mistakes per message and less accurate second-guessing of what our fudge-fingered keyboard mashings were actually trying to say.
Finally, we were surprised to see that although Microsoft Communicator has been rolled out to all Nokia Symbian Anna devices, it doesn't appear in the new Nokia Lumia 800. This may be down to the lack of our use of the Nokia Lumia 800's Exchange Server integration and the associated functionality provide
Contacts
Initial set-up of the Nokia Lumia 800 generates a cloud based "People" (contacts) list based on Windows Live, LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter, Google and others accounts you set-up with information from the different services merged to create a single combined list.
This relies mainly on the same contact names used across the services with any remaining duplicates easily merged by opening a Person (contact) from the list and tapping on the link button and selecting another Person (contact) to merge with them.
It's all about making things more personal and we love the easy way suggestions of people to link can be added by a single tap.
In addition to this, People (contacts) can be transferred from your old Bluetooth-enabled phone in seconds via the pre-installed Contacts Transfer app to be merged with the cloud based information previously downloaded.
The only downside to this system is that we have not been able to find a way to hide some contacts and show others from the same service. You can set all contacts to display, link up all your buddies, then shut down the rest of the people from Facebook or Twitter you don't want to see, but this can lead to erratic contact info in our tests.
A nice way of achieving this would be to group/categorise contacts in the different services and display or hide contacts via the groups/categories they are in.
A frustration that can occur when merging People is that if a specific field is slightly different between services it is duplicated for each service.
Once everything is set up the People list can be swiped vertically, searched via the soft search icon (magnifying glass in a circle) or quick navigated by tapping on one of the start letter indicators which brings up a quick A-Z with any unpopulated start letters greyed out.
A left swipe transitions to the What's New screen showing recent posts from your People on the services that you have set up (such as Twitter and Facebook) where a single tap enters a reply to post/conversation screen.
A second left swipe transitions to a tile list of your recently interacted with People records and a third and final swipe returns to the original People list.
Calling
Calling is an area where things seem a little awkward as you have to tap on the "Phone" tile which opens a phone history screen which equates to a call log. At the base of this screen, the soft bar contains, from left to right: voicemail access, dial screen access, People access and search functionality for the phone history screen.
Once in the dial screen, all is kept excessively simple as although the dial pad shows letters there is no way to make use of them in terms of smart dialling to bring up contacts. In this area we had come to like the live search/matching window above the dial pad on Symbian devices.
Call quality on the Nokia Lumia 800 is excellent, partially due to its polycarbonate chassis meaning that there are no large pieces of metal for radio signals to bounce off. This is also the reason for the high speed and accuracy of GPS fix discussed later in the Maps section.
We used an Orange SIM for the initial testing, and found that signal was maintained well, with the 3G signal switching quickly between Orange and T-Mobile on the Nokia Lumia 800.
Since then we've also used Vodafone, T-Mobile and O2 microSIMs, with no change in performance
When it comes to the internet, the Nokia Lumia 800 is one of the fastest mobile internet experiences we have encountered, with lightning response loading pages in less than a second and the weight of the TechRadar website in less than 3 seconds when connected to a Wi-Fi hotspot only capable of c.1.5Mbps (on its best run).
It's not faster than the Safari browser or the option on the Samsung Galaxy S2, but it's easily good enough to be a decent experience for web browsing on the go.
We tested all three devices side by side over a 3G and Wi-Fi connection, and out of three tests, only once did the Lumia 800 manage to load a site faster than both devices, which was the mobile version of the BBC site.
For heavier web browsing, we'd still recommend something from the iOS or Android stables (with a comparable processor, that is. Dual core technology seems to be a big boon here).
That problem we mentioned earlier with the touchscreen being erratic is most problematic here - you're trying to scroll through text and it will start to zoom in and out, even though no taps are registered. Nokia needs to sort this, and FAST.
Although there is an Internet Explorer icon most people start the internet session with a search which is where the bottom right search button (magnifying glass) and the Local Scout app come into their own.
One tap on the Search button and up pops the Bing search app, but when you look closer this is so much more than the standard Bing website. At the bottom of the screen in the soft bar, are three or four icons, depending on if you have permitted the search app to use your location information, which are, from left to right:
- Local Scout: Tap
the buildings icon and the separate Location Scout app will start,
displaying local places of interested based on food, entertainment and
shops, and generally comes up with good and relevant results, even in
the UK.
- Music Recognition: Tap the musical note icon and the phone listens for music in the background, identifies and provides a link to an album containing it on the Marketplace. Again, the implementation is excellent and probably will have the likes of Shazam worried.
- Text Translator and QR Code/ Microsoft Tag scanner: Tap the eye icon and the camera turns on, and if you position a section of text in front of it, it provides automatic over-the-air translation between a selection of languages. If you have a QR code or Microsoft Tag instead, it will read it and respond.
- Audio Search: Tap the microphone icon and the microphone turns on and anything you say will be entered in the search field and the results of a web search will be displayed as if you had typed it in and pressed enter. It's nothing compared to Apple's Siri - but it's still OK if you want to eschew tapping words into the phone.
All this said, the one big limitation is that Adobe flash player does not support the Nokia Lumia 800, providing the message "Sorry Adobe Flash Player is not available from Adobe for your device's operating system or browser."
One of the big changes for Nokia is that the new Nokia Windows Phones lack a front facing camera which places them on the back foot to start with when compared with the HTC Titan and HTC Radar and other non-WP7 devices.
This move came as a surprise as Nokia devices have long had front facing cameras with the similarly packaged Nokia N9 having one in the bottom corner.
This is exacerbated by the recent acquisition of Skype by Microsoft providing an even stronger link to video calling.
The Nokia response with respect to the lack of the front-facing camera is that the production turnaround time for the initial Nokia WP7 devices meant that they needed to have their functionality focused on their intended user-base, and those using video chat make a very small portion of the market. As the range expands these kinds of features are sure to return at some point.
Although the Nokia Lumia 710 also falls short with its lack of a front-facing camera, the upcoming Nokia Lumia 900 is to incorporate a 1.3 CMOS camera at last. This is an opportune time for this to be re-introduced based on the recent release of the first Skype beta for Windows Phone.
The rear camera on the Nokia Lumia 800 sports the same specification as that on the HTC Titan with a 8MP f/2.2 camera lens and Dual-LED flash, capable of up to 720p HD video recording.
It's a step forward when compared with Nokia's Symbian phones, as there's a touch-based method of focussing and capture feature like that offered on the iPhone enabling better control on the subject focus on photographs.
The Camera app comes with the standard settings to control Scenes (default: Auto), White Balance (default: Auto), Exposure Value (default: 0), ISO (default: Auto), Effects (default: Normal), Contrast (default: Normal), Saturation (default: Normal), Focus Mode (default: (Macro) and Resolution (default: 8MP 4:3) as well as a new Metering Mode (default: Centre Weighted) which controls how the camera manages exposure based on the light conditions across the photograph.
A nice touch on the Nokia Lumia 800 Camera app is that you are able to transition directly between the Camera and the Captured Shots and Videos by tapping the soft arrow icon or swiping towards the WP7 hard button bar, returning to the Camera by swiping away from the hard button bar again. This kind of seamless integration shows this is a next generation phone.
Once in the image viewer, there are options to share on Facebook, use as wallpaper, delete, add to favourites or auto-fix. Having played with auto-fix, it does a good job, with the only pity being that it does not remove red-eye, so you'll need a third party app for this.
Also when you select to share to Facebook, auto face recognition kicks in if you tap the tag icon on the upload screen, enable the naming of the image and tagging of anyone in it prior to uploading.
DAYTIME: This was taken with default settings
TAP FOCUS & CAPTURE - CLOSE: This was taken with tap to focus and capture with a near field subject.
TAP FOCUS & CAPTURE - DISTANT: This was taken with tap to focus and capture with a distant subject.
MAXIMUM ZOOM: Maximum zoom provides good resolution and colours.
RED-EYES: Night Mode with flash provides a good colours, but there is no red-eye flash.
FIREWORKS: Night Mode with no flash provide a good colour and contrast of fireworks display.
When it comes to Video capture on the Nokia Lumia 800 we were quite disappointed, since it's not possible to change zoom while recording, which seems mad.
To make things worse, continued press zooming is achieved by step changes between six levels, which feels very clunky.
Video quality in daylight provides good colour depth and sound, but the speed of response to changes in brightness and focal range is very poor. Although the image quality improves as expected when switching from VGA to 720p, the speed of response remains poor.
In low light, the Nokia Lumia 800 struggles to focus even more. The dual LED flash can be turned on permanently while videoing, enabling focus and colour settings to achieve closer to daylight quality.
Music
Music playback on the Nokia Lumia 800 is to Nokia's usual standard through headphones, but the speaker playback is disappointingly tinny when compared to that of previous Nokia models like the Nokia N8.
A nice touch is that music playback creates an overlay bar that slides down over all apps when the volume keys are pressed to provide play/pause fast-forward and rewind functionality when tapped, no matter where you are in the phone.
When it comes to selecting what to listen to the Nokia Lumia 800 provides Nokia Music and the Music and Video default group.
Nokia Music opens to show the number of tracks saved on the phone. A quick tap then opens an A-Z list via either Artist, Album, Song, Genre or Playlist.
Tapping on your selection from the list opens functions differently depending on the filter being used. The Genre, Artist and Album tabs start instant playback is the right hand play symbol or album art is tapped, but open a lower level selection screen if the text is tapped which is a nice touch, missing from the Symbian music player.
A swipe to the left from the main Nokia Music screen provides access to the Mix Radio which is a streaming service transmitted through the data connection so Wi-Fi is strongly recommended as most mobile data contracts aren't unlimited.
The good news is that the playlists are refreshed each week and there's a choice of genres to pick from that you can either listen to over-the-air or download to your device to listen to offline.
And overall, we're mixed in our feelings over Mix Radio. Sure, we like having genre-based playlists to pop on in the background, but for some people they'll have to sit through hours of songs they don't like over a month of listening.
Also, we found that when the screen mis-read our scrolls for taps, it would open up another playlist. It's easy to duck back out of it, but then you'll find you can't skip tracks any more as your allocation has been 'used up'.
Another swipe displays the Mp3 Store providing the ability to purchase music and a final swipe transitions to a local gigs list which is nice if you fancy seeing an artist live.
Moving on to Music and Videos, this app grouping is the standard Windows Phone option, lumping in Music, Videos, Podcasts, Radio and items from the Marketplace. From this screen you can swipe left, transitioning to playback history, New media, applications (which lists Nokia Music) and back to the initial screen.
Tapping on Music opens a similar interface to that presented in the Nokia Music app other than that the Zune Smart DJ feature is available which finds similar artists and creates a playlist of similar music. It's easy to use and songs open quickly, with the aforementioned quality of audio impressing.
Tapping on Podcasts opens a swipeable screen displaying a list of either audio or video podcasts which performs the same as the album and artists lists for music with a tap on the left hand image starting playback and tapping the name opening a list of all podcasts on that feed.
Tapping on Radio opens a standard FM radio which requires headphones to work as the radio antenna and thus does not playback though the phone speaker. The simple radio is FM only and supports station favourites.
Finally, tapping on Marketplace opens the Marketplace, which provides access to purchase additional music for your personal collection from the Microsoft store.
One thing missing is audiobooks, because there's no support for users to listen to them unless you obtain all of your literary soundbites via the OverDrive (an eBook host) and access it through the mobile client - but many people won't be willing to do this.
Pictures
The Nokia Lumia 800 uses a Pictures (gallery) app which show images from the Camera roll (showing captured images and video) and Albums (displaying images from the Camera Roll and personal SkyDrive and Facebook pictures).
It also provides a view sorted by date and a view showing your favourite images. Finally two left hand swipes transitions to a What's New screen showing recent image posts from all social accounts set-up on the phone.
Video
Video playback on the Nokia Lumia 800 is accessed through the same group as Music, displaying a list of all videos with the ability to swipe to lists in television shows, music videos, films and personal videos (captured on the device).
The media select interface works in the same way as the music interface as they are parts of the same app.
Playback is limited to landscape phone orientation and is an enjoyable experience due to the high quality screen providing excellent contrast ratios and the simplistic interface with a transparent controls overlay sliding off the bottom of the screen after a few second delay.
There's also a fit to screen option which maintains the aspect ratio, but expands the image to fit the screen whist cropping where necessary.
We're still very disappointed in the lack of drag and drop options for the Zune interface on the PC - we want to just chuck songs and movies on our device through a standard Windows Explorer interface without having to spend ages synchronising them over, but Microsoft is having none of it.
Obviously, you can drag and drop the files within the Zune application to the little phone icon in the corner, but unless you fancy faffing around with third party applications, this is the only way you can manage it - in the same way as iTunes.
So if you want to plop a video on the device or simply bung over a few tracks from an obscure folder, you'll need to select the relevant items in the Zune player and wait ages (especially in the case of video) to get them across. Even though the system says it accepts MP4, our files were clearly in the wrong codec and couldn't be played without copious conversion.
However, the same files were instantly playable on the Galaxy S2 - why Nokia (well, in fairness, Microsoft) has to be so convoluted, we don't know.
One thing we do like is the ability to wirelessly sync: if your phone and PC are on and plugged in (and connected to the same network) any items you've flagged for syncing will automatically jump across while you sleep - if you don't turn off your computer at night, that is.
d Apps
- 1.Overview, Design and Feel
- 2.Interface
- 3.Messaging
- 4.Contacts and Calling
- 5.Internet
- 6.Camera
- 7.Video
- 8.Media
- 9.Battery and Connectivity
-
10.Maps and Apps
- 11.Verdict
