The Nokia Lumia 800

I’ve had a Nokia Lumia 800 for about three weeks now, courtesy of Windows Access All Areas. And I have to say, I’m a little disappointed.

Controversial, maybe, but let me elaborate.

I’ve owned a Samsung Omnia 7 for just over a year now. It’s been a really good phone: strong and reliable; I’ve lost count of the number of times I’ve dropped the thing on hard surfaces, and I’ve never had any problems with the software. If it weren’t for the fact that on first glance it looks like an iPhone knockoff, it’d probably be one of the best phones out there. I’ve been pretty happy with my purchase.

The Lumia 800 has been touted as the Comeback Kid of both Nokia and Windows Phone: neither Nokia nor Microsoft have had a major presence in smartphones in 2011, despite doing some really great things, and this phone is their first attempt at changing that. The result is mixed.

Firstly, I should say that, as a physical object, the Lumia 800 is lovely (at least it is when it’s not covered with the provided gelaskin). The screen just melts into the body as it curves at the edges. The subtle tapering at the top and bottom and its delicate weight make it really comfortable to hold, and, for some reason, it’s really satisfying to be able to stand it on end. It’s completely unlike the Omnia 7, which, for all intents, is just a screen with a rounded back. It’s unlike other Samsung phones, in that they appear to have put little effort into its design.

The Omnia does have its strengths, though. Its screen is fantastic. All the tech blogs have a thing about Pentile displays, but they’re just not an issue for me: if you’re looking that closely, you’re using the phone wrong. The colours are amazing on the Omnia, regardless, and on high brightness, it’s almost painful to look at how vivid they are. The whites are really white, and the blacks are really black. The Lumia is just as good, if not better in this department. Though when compared side by side, it’s obvious that the Omnia is brighter, the Lumia’s colours are warmer and easier to look at. The same, still vivid, colours are a lot less eye-searing on the Lumia, and obviously this is a good thing.

There are two main sources of disappointment with the Lumia.

For one, its camera isn’t that great. I had hoped that the whole Carl Zeiss thing that Nokia’s got going on would make for an amazing camera, but results up to now have been disappointing: the Omnia takes photos which are a lot clearer and less noisy, and performs a lot better in the dark; this could just be software though, so I hope it improves with updates. I do have to say that it’s amazing how fast the Lumia takes photos, though. Once in the camera app, you can pretty much take a photo every one or two seconds.

The second thing worth mentioning is the battery life. There have been issues: it’ll last a full day, seemingly independent of whether I use the phone or not. And, there are charging problems (when the battery’s drained, it’s not enough to connect it to mains – attaching it to the PC with Zune installed is the only remedy). Nokia have said updates are coming to fix the battery life problems, and again, I hope they improve the situation.

The Lumia does come with great Nokia apps, though. Nokia Maps is far superior to Bing Maps, Nokia Music is a nice radio service, and Nokia Drive means I won’t ever need to buy a satnav. They’re loads better than Samsung’s app offerings, at any rate.

All in all. The Lumia 800 is a great choice if you’re new to Windows Phone. In fact, it’s the only choice, given that the other option is made by HTC. It is however, though a really nice phone, probably not worth the upgrade if you were an early adopter: there’s just not that much differentiation. It’s as if Nokia looked at the Omnia 7 and thought “we’re making that, but prettier” – the only problem is, it’s a year behind.