Nokia Lumia 920: tiles in size XL

Nokia Lumia 920 is now the flagship smartphone running Windows 8. Does it deserve to be called like that? After a few days of use, I can say that it deserves, but has a few minor shortcomings.

Before I'll tell you about them, let's look at the phone itself. From the visual side I should not complain about anything, but I am sorry to say that this time the designers didn’t make too much effort. Lumia 920 resembles the shape and style of its older sisters, such as Lumia 900, 800 and N9. Similarly, as the others, it has a body made of matt polycarbonate, which may be in different colours. The fact that it is similar to the models currently on the market for over a year, does not have to be a disadvantage. The project is successful, in my opinion, it easily stands up to the test of time.


Nokia Lumia 920 photo: GSMchoice.com

Table of Contents


Nokia Lumia 920 photo: GSMchoice.com

The casing is a monolith. I do not see any joints, the only trace of installation are two screws on the bottom. I suspect that removing them releases the frame from the display, beneath which lies the electronics. I assume that the phone is not troublesome to service, despite the seemingly closed design. The only element that can be removed, is a microSIM card tray. The way of the assembly is almost identical to the iPhone: we release the latch drawer by inserting the supplied metal needle in the hole. It’s hard to believe that Apple hasn’t sued Nokia for the use of this solution. On the plus side I note the fact that the drawer when inserted into the casing does not have any backlash.


Nokia Lumia 920 photo: GSMchoice.com


Nokia Lumia 920 photo: GSMchoice.com

Lumia 920’s body is smooth. There are only keys on the right side. We have there the volume buttons, the lock and the camera keys. The longer holding of the last one starts shooting mode, even when the screen is locked. It must be noted and commended. On the upper surface, in addition to the aforementioned SIM drawer there is still a minijack output and almost invisible holes of the optional microphone, probably supporting the noise reduction system. The bottom diversifies the hole of the microUSB slot and arranged symmetrically on its sides the holes of the main speaker and the microphone. The back double-crosses the cover of the LED flash and the metal frame decorated with the manufacturer's logo placed close to the camera lens. This frame is immersed in the outline of the case, but I suspect it will still be vulnerable to scratches, similar to the glass protecting the lens. My copy is intact for now, but I do not know how it will look like in a month or two. Based on previous observations I am sure that the entire casing will be, however, solid: hard to scratch, as opposed to the display cover, which in my opinion is much more delicate than for example a glass used in the iPhone.


Nokia Lumia 920 photo: GSMchoice.com

And since I mentioned the display – let’s look at it. It has a fairly narrow border and covers virtually the entire front. The wider margin was used only in the lower part where under the display there are three system touch-sensitive buttons. I liked the fact that the signs are visible all the time. Without backlight the pictograms glitter with mirrored surface, and after activation they have equal, white backlight. Above the display we can see the lens of the front camera and the Nokia logo, near which there are almost invisible sensors: proximity and light intensity. Let's get to the display itself. Its resolution in the era of FullHD displays do not have to impress us, but in my opinion, it is perfectly matched to the 4.5-inch diagonal. Next – there it's just a race with pixels. The Nokia’s matrix has good brightness and excellent black level. Its depth is impressive, even if you choose the highest brightness. Another advantage of the display are wide angle visibility and smooth operation of the touch panel. The area of the screen’s cover provides excellent slip of a finger, but unfortunately the rest of the casing - as well. In connection with a quite big weight the phone makes that the probability of accidentally dropping the phone is quite high. On the other hand - the body shape makes that Lumia 920 lies comfortably in the hand, and its large mass disturbs only at the beginning.


Nokia Lumia 920 photo: GSMchoice.com

Forgive me, but I will not dwell on the advantages and disadvantages of Windows Phone 8 and its interface. I refer the interested ones to the recent review of Lumia 620, where I wrote a lot about it. I add only that on a larger screen using "tiles" is even more comfortable, I’ll add a small, personal confession. Well, my primary phone, by choice, not necessity, has been for a long time next generations of iPhone. As for a user with an equipment with the apple I should look in disgust on Windows, but it is not. If I had to change the platform today, without hesitation I would choose "eight", not Android. The tiles in phones are in my opinion, really friendly and just as nice to use as iOS. Believe me, it's big compliment ;) But there is no rose without a thorn.


Interface of Lumia 920 photo: GSMchoice.com

A disappearing bar status and receiving calls on a locked screen bothers me in the Windows interface (I wrote about this also...). Lumia 920 has yet another annoying flaw. When the phone displays the initial screen - after you press the side button, but before the final unblocking of your phone – there are beginning to work the volume buttons, there are also options to change the sound profiles. This resulted in a very frequent, accidental turning down of the ringer or switching to silent mode. Carrying a phone in a pocket it is worth from time to time to check whether the volume remains with the choice of your values... In my case, it was very common. Despite this, the last incarnation of mobile windows (or rather tiles) got to my liking.


Interface of Lumia 920 photo: GSMchoice.com

Lumia 920 runs smoothly, I did not notice any serious disruption in the system’s work. The only thing that can interfere is overheating of the upper part of the casing in more complex tasks, such as gaming or video playback. Despite the prevalence of this irritating ferature, I have not found a reason to criticize in any way the performance of the smartphone. So far, I could not get the hang of the system or cause any noticeable downtime.


Nokia Lumia 920 photo: GSMchoice.com

Multimedia capabilities are an important advantage of this model. Although there is no FM radio, but there is something better: Nokia Music. It allows you to listen to radio online modes. We have a choice of recordings grouped by genres or artists, but that's not all. Favorite programmes can be saved to the phone and listened offline, without breaking the data packet. Importantly, the use of the application is free, and the only limitation is the number of tracks’ omissions. You can "skip" only six recordings within an hour. A built-in player is also nice. Apart from the Dolby Headphones, the player has a 7 band equalizer that allows you to set your own settings. In addition to these, we have also 18 ready sets tailored to different types of music. The only downside is that to make changes to correct the player we must go to the menu settings.


Photos from Lumia 920 photo: GSMchoice.com

Nokia Lumia 920 is also a talented photographer. The photos taken with the camera are really good. They enjoy a good reproduction of detail and colour reproduction. The camera is well suited for low light - is doing far better than the iPhone. Even in difficult conditions shots contain very little noise, and the colours are free of distortions. The picture quality deteriorates drastically only in complete darkness when LED flash is trying to illuminate the background. It works only with a short distance, but then the foreground is clearly overexposed, and there is no background. The use of the zoom, despite the fact that the manufacturer talks here about Pure View, entails the loss of detail and the formation of noticeable noise – it isn’t definitely a level known from Nokia 808. On the plus side however, I include the presence of additional applications connected with photography, such as Panorama and Cinemagraph. Here again, I refer you to the recent review of Lumia 620, where these applications are described in more details. I'll be back for a moment only to Photobeamer app, I prepared a short video showing its operation. See:


Photobeamer in action video: GSMchoice.com via YouTube

This application allows you to view pictures from the phone on any equipment that is connected to the Internet and has a web browser. This can be a computer, but as well a SmartTV. We run the application on the phone, with a device that is to display photos, we go to page photobeamer.com, scan QR code and after a while we see images. The speed transfer depends on the quality of our connection... Usually, it works faster than in our film. We were unlucky and an overloaded connection. We control the display of photos from the phone, so it changes into the photo-presenter.


Sample photo with zoom photo: GSMchoice.com


Sample photos in night and automatic mode photo: GSMchoice.com

The camera also allows you to manually modify the exposure, sensitivity, white balance and flash mode switching. Here I would draw attention, that it is better to use a lower sensitivity up to 200 ISO. A nice addition is the ability to trigger the shutter with the subsidence of the selected point of the screen, regardless of the mechanical key, which - as I noted - starts the camera without having to unlock the phone. In video mode, image quality is similar to photographs, we can record with a continuous focus and flash enabled. There is no option to capture single frames as images while recording video.


Photos from Lumia 920 photo: GSMchoice.com

Sample unaltered images, straight from the camera, you'll see in the gallery on the phone card.
This is a sample video recorded with Lumia...


Nokia Lumia 920 photo: GSMchoice.com

In the primary role – of a phone - Lumia 920 does not disappoint. Calling quality is good, I did not notice problems with maintaining coverage. The smartphone has a very convenient dialpad, but when we dial the number there don’t appear numbers to match the contacts... And these can be imported from a SIM, as well as from external accounts, such as Google or Facebook. SMS inbox, beyond the traditional conversation, allows direct access to chat on Facebook, and messages can be displayed together in a single view.


Wireless Fatboy charger photo: GSMchoice.com

Many of you are probably curious about the battery performance and the possibility of wireless charging. Fatboy is a soft charging pillow inside which we place the right power charger. This, in turn, we connect to a power source via a dedicated AC adapter provided with (unfortunately) a unique plug. I wonder why the power charger could not have a microUSB connector, and it has an unusual, circular plug. Maybe it needs to have particular parameters? Unfortunately, I haven’t found anything unusual in the technical data.

Here is a short video about how the Fatboy works:


Fatboy in action video: GSMchoice.com via YouTube

Fatboy action is quite impressive. After placing the phone on the pillow, charging starts literally within seconds. It is not important how we put the phone. It’s enough to lay it face up - and besides, we do not need to aim the phone in the middle of the pillow. I haven’t noticed, that wireless charging lasted much longer than conventional one, a heating degree of the phone casing is also comparable.


Wireless Fatboy charger photo: GSMchoice.com

The battery - well, after the initial euphoria, when the phone during setup, downloading the first applications and implementation of settings worked two days - disappointed me a little. It turned out that even during typical use, the daily charge has become a habit. According to my observation, the biggest eaters in the case of the current model are the camera and the player. If you did not use these things, the phone worked for a little longer. It hasn’t happened to me that Lumia surrendered within 10 hours.

You ask whether it’s worth buying this model... If the price did not matter, I would say definitely yes. But unfortunately, Lumia 920, as for a flagship model, isn’t cheap. The lowest price at which I was able to find this model is more than 480 euro. At this price level the competition is big, it is therefore necessary to consider whether the entry into the world of Windows Phone is worthy of such expenditure. Personally, I would choose clearly cheaper Lumia 820. However, if you depend on a higher resolution screen and excellent camera in connection with WP8, you have no choice...

At the end, as usually, I invite you to watch a videopresentation::