Nokia Lumia 800 mini-review and impressions

Posted by Evan Haussmann on 7 May 2012

There are heaps of very in-depth reviews of this phone all over the internet so I thought I’d share my impressions from playing around with the phone without going into long, boring detailzzzzzz…..

Nokia Lumia 800 specs upfront

Unibody design with vivid colors: cyan, magenta, black
Social networking experience provided by Windows Phone release 7.5
Internet browsing experience with Internet Explorer 9
Vivid 3.7” AMOLED, ClearBlack display with WVGA 800×480 pixels, 16 million colours and 2.5D curved glass
Carl Zeiss optics, above the lock capture, 8MP camera with autofocus and touch focus capability, dual LED flash, high definition 720p video recording with 30FPS and one touch image sharing
Nokia signature hubs: Nokia Drive, Nokia Music
1.4GHz Qualcomm Snapdragon processor, 512MB program memory, 16GB internal user memory, and up to 9 hours of 3G talktime

Price R6999

Living with the Lumia

So I’ve been living with Nokia’s flagship Lumia for a while and off the bat, I am very impressed. Nokia have been trying desperately to make a comeback since Apple and Android phones have turned the mobile phone market on it’s head. Their previous Symbian operating system has all but died and has been replaced by the superior Windows Phone OS. The Lumia 800 smartphone runs Windows Phone 7.5 Mango. And boy is it beautiful. The device itself is elegant and stylish sure, but more importantly the OS is excellent. Smooth, intuitive and well laid out. You don’t have to open and close apps to move around they’ve arranged things in a way that is intuitive, logical and practical to use.

Where it’s app

While Apple and Android have way bigger ‘App Stores’ I found virtually everything useful I was looking for in Nokia’s App Marketplace. They’ve made a concerted effort to have all the popular apps from other platforms ported to the Windows environment and the list is growing constantly. So Angry Birds is there…

The built-in software is a bonus.

Things like maps and music as well as Xbox Live gaming are ‘baked’ in to the phone and simple to access and use. You can buy music and update maps for the GPS. Speaking of the GPS, it’s a real boon to have free voice-guided, turn-by-turn navigation and the fact that it worked well with a nice in-car interface was a pleasant surprise as I’d tried the previous frustrating Symbian versions.

Office in your pocket

Though I didn’t use it, the phone makes integration with Windows Office products easy and by all reports it’s useful to access collaborative Office documents (Excel, Word, Powerpoint, One Note) and make presentations on the fly. It’s the only smartphone that had office functionality that doesn’t require buying/downloading third party software. The phone makes use of Skydrive cloud storage to automatically sync docs so they’re available from anywhere. The keyboard it too small to write anything of meaningful length with but I’d suspect document corrections and updates would be do-able. Geekzone has a hands-on review of the office and mail functionality – Nokia Lumia 800 as a remote office.

Okay Camera

Smartphones are rapidly eroding the compact camera market and the Lumia’s camera is up there but not the very best, which I found a bit disappointing seeing it holds the promise with Carl Zeiss glass. But it’s not the glass that’s a letdown. The image quality is a bit erratic. The same scene shot twice sometimes yields different colours. I’d ascribe this to auto white balance as I’ve seen this behaviour in DSLRs. I suppose you’d get used to it but I didn’t like it because it was impossible to correct. That said, it’s most likely a software issue and could be addressed with a firmware update or aftermarket app in the future. Image file quality is fine, a bit contrasty but perfectly acceptable. There’s no front-facing camera which may irk Skype users. I don’t think it’s deal breaker though.

Own a Mac?

I really like this phone so it bothers me to say this but if you own an Apple Mac as your main terminal then I’d steer clear of this phone. Their Mac integration is not user-firendly and I’d go as far as saying they’ve cynically made it difficult to use the Lumia if you are a Mac lover. It’s difficult to sync data, share movies, images and music with an Apple PC. There are workarounds if you look hard but why jump through hoops?

Tom’s Hardware say this about it:

“Syncing on a Mac is hardly ideal; there is no Zune software for OS X. Instead, you need to use the Windows Phone 7 Connector, which enabled sync’ing through iTunes and iPhoto. Transferring to the phone is pretty easy. But going the other way is more difficult because you have to import pictures and videos through a directory listing. If you’re shutterbug or enjoy recording videos, previews only appear as a small thumbnail, which can make hunting for specific files more challenging. In addition, you don’t get Marketplace support or the ability to sync wirelessly.” – Full Tom’s Hardware review here.

In a nutshell

This is a beautiful and fully functional phone. Like any other it has it’s shortcomings the most obvious of which is it’s lack of apps when compared to the other big players. But it’s got more apps than you really need and the list is growing. The camera is good and Office software integration is unique. Free GPS maps and turn-by-turn navigation is good and free. If you own a Mac it’s not ideal due to the lack Zune software for Mac. All things considered, it’s a great phone and will get even better as Nokia and Windows Phone make market inroads. I’d happily recommend getting one of you’re a Windows PC user and want an easy to use smartphone that has everything you need.

Other applications

Bing Maps
Application Highlights
Nokia Maps
Nokia Drive
Nokia Contacts Transfer
Nokia Music

Gaming / Entertainment

Xbox Live Hub
Marketplace

Business Productivity

Office Applications (Excel, Word, Powerpoint, One Note)
Skydrive storage for Documents & Notes
Lync (Corporate IM) available as a free download

Features (Personal information Management)

Calendar
Notes
To-do list

Do you have a Lumia 800? Let us know your thoughts about the phone in comments.

Also look out for Nokia’s new, affordable addition to the Lumia range – The Nokia Lumia 710.