It was a long wait for the first Nokia smartphone with Windows Phone OS. And we believe that wait has been a long but successful one. The Lumia 800 seems to be a well designed package - with looks far superior than any other WP phone out there, an excellent display, good battery life and a UI that is thrashing Android’s ageing UI hands down. Critically, it again boils down to the pricing bit, and we hope Nokia gets it right.
On the top are the 3.5mm jack and a bunch of flaps that cover the micro USB port and the micro SIM card slot. Opening this is a bit of a pain though - not because it is difficult but because of the sheer wastage of time. First, press one flap down, marked by a bulge, enough that the other end lifts up. Once that happens, open it completely. Now turn your attention to the SIM card slot. For this, slide the panel slightly towards the USB port, and then pull it out. Don’t really understand the entire complication. Separate handling of the two ports would have been better - time saving as well as longevity of the loving parts. Flip the phone to the bottom panel and there is the speaker. No other moving parts on the phone, since even the battery is closed away and cannot be accessed.
The Lumia 800 seems to have a lot going for it, design-wise. It feels good to hold, has a nice sophisticated feel and minimalist looks as well.
We had criticized Nokia quite a bit recently for launching very good yet under-powered phones - the Nokia E6 being a good example. However, that seems sorted now. The Lumia 800 comes with a Qualcomm Snapdragon MSM8255 processor clocking at 1.4GHz on a single core. There is 512MB RAM to help move things along as well. The single core processor will surely raise a few eyebrows, particularly if this is priced in the same bracket as some well established dual core Android phones and the iPhone 4. This neatly brings me to my next point - Windows Phone Mango doesn’t need any more grunt than this, or so it seems. We have seen this OS in action on the older gen Samsung Focus smartphone, as well as the newer ones - the Samsung Omnia W and now this. The interface is zippy, transitions are silky smooth and the phone doesn’t slow down at all. Quite creditable considering the host of 3D effects in the menu.
The 3.7-inch display is the AMOLED type with a resolution of 480 x 800. This display type is similar to the one we saw in the Samsung Galaxy SII, albeit a smaller size. The darker colours in an AMOLED display draw lesser power. Apart from the battery life benefit, it results in really dark black levels. The rest of the colour bunch is quite vivid as well. Brightness levels are extremely good as well, and even at low brightness settings, it is comfortable for indoor use. The display isn't very reflective, which helps a lot in viewing the text in sunlight. Windows Phone 7.5’s UI looked absolutely gorgeous on this display. The rich colours and the deep blacks mean that viewing videos or reading text on this display will be a delightful experience.
There is 16GB storage built-in on the Lumia 800, but no memory expansion slot.
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