The Nokia Lumia 900 Review

The Nokia Lumia 900 enters the market as the latest flagship handset for the Finnish firm, sporting the look of a slightly super-sized Lumia 800.

We've written much about the Lumia 900, and virtually all of it praises the hardware. With good reason: Nokia has outdone itself with this stylish 127.8mm tall and 68.5mm wide slab, and at 11.5mm thick, it's one of the best-looking smartphones out there. The Lumia 900 finds itself rubbing shoulders with the high society of the mobile world, such as the iPhone 4S, Sony Xperia S and Samsung Galaxy S2.

The Lumia 900 features a classy, unibody frame made from polycarbonate. It's tough and feels absolutely wonderful when held in your hand; Nokia's industrial design work has clearly not been dulled by age.

However that unibody design comes at a cost, which in terms of the Lumia 900 is weight. It's a hefty old device tipping the scales at 160g – a full 16g heavier that the iPhone 4S and Xperia S and a huge 44g more than the Galaxy S2.

Nokia provides a range of three colours for the Lumia 900's chassis; black, white and a rather striking blue, which was certainly our favourite.

ClearBlack technology allows the 4.3-inch screen to be used outdoors (even with polarized sunglasses at any angle), while Corning Gorilla Glass protects a vivid AMOLED display. The front of the Lumia 900 is primarily a 4.3-inch capacitive touchscreen with a resolution of 800 x 480 pixels, matching the Galaxy S2.

The screen is raised slightly from the body, leaving a lip around its perimeter which gives the impression its popping out of the case – making it feel out of place on what is otherwise a very sleek phone.

A 1MP front-facing camera for video chat sits at upper left, while a very thin gap at top hides the earpiece; three capacitive Windows Phone buttons sit below the display for Back, Start and Search.

The left side is devoid of buttons, all of which reside on the right, with volume rocker at top, power/lock button at centre and a two-stage dedicated camera button below.




At first this arrangement seemed a strange choice, but when held with the left hand, our middle finger was conveniently aligned with the power/lock button.

However when held in the right hand, the power/lock key was simply to far down the side of the Lumia 900 for us to hit easily, which meant a lot of awkward shuffling in the hand just to lock the device.

Atop the Lumia 900 is a 3.5mm headphone jack, micro-USB port (for charging and data transfer) and micro-SIM card door, while a large speaker grille resides at the bottom on the handset.
There's a SIM door key included in the box, allowing you to pop the tray out, which is then pulled out completely to reveal the card slot.

It's a bit more flimsy and complicated than the microSIM card tray on the iPhone 4S, and we reckon this could easily be broken if treated without care.

Luckily the card itself is held in place quite well and it's realitivly easy to slide back into the Lumia 900, and then press down the flap to return the handset to its sleek and slender form. On the back of the Lumia 900 is an 8MP auto focus camera lens with Nokia's customary Carl Zeiss optics next to an unobtrusive dual LED flash.

While the silver band around the lens is a nice touch, we're concerned that over time it may attract scratches from without using a case – however, we prefer the look of this flush lens to the obtrusive
lenses found of the likes of the HTC One S and Galaxy S2.

The Nokia Lumia 900 comes with a modest 16GB of storage, which will suffice for most needs, but those who consume large volumes of content will be disappointed to learn there is no way to expand on this.

The unibody frame means you can't open up the Nokia Lumia 900, meaning no access to the battery or hidden microSD card slot.

Samsung Galaxy note 2 first Look!

The Samsung Galaxy Note was launched with huge fanfare at IFA in Berlin this time last year, and it was met with huge confusion. Was it a phone, a tablet or whole new category of device? Samsung claimed the latter, but rejected the ‘phablet’ label. 

With a 5” screen and a stylus for writing directly on the screen, the Galaxy Note was a real attempt to turn creativity digital and even to digitise the humble paper notebook and pen or pencil. The idea of the ‘S-Pen’ was that it would allow users to snip parts of photos or the web and send them to friends easily and simply, annotate websites or pictures, or simply to write notes. To the surprise of the technology press, the Note sold very well and gained a loyal following among the 10million consumers who bought it. 

With the launch of the SIII mobile phone, an update to the Note was inevitable, and last night in Berlin again Samsung revealed that the Note, previously like a large SII phone, would now look like a large SIII phone. 

That’s unfair, however – in the few minutes I’ve had to use the Note, the improvements are substantial. I said in my review of the original that it was a brilliant idea whose execution was not yet perfect; in the Note II, however, the main improvement is the update to the pen so that it feels almost like using a conventional rollerball. 

That simply makes writing on the screen feel easy, rather than like skating over glass: if anything the regret now is almost that the 5.5” screen is in fact too small. Who, after all, would use a 5.5” notebook as their main pad? The Galaxy Note 10.1, in fact, looks more attractive than ever. 

Although there are a range of new features in the new Note, it’s the improvements to the stylus that make the most difference: it’s easier to write with, but it also now has a button allowing users to change what ‘nib’ it virtually has, and it also reveals more of, say, emails, calendar entries or picture galleries if you hover over the screen rather than touch it. There’s an easy way to add notes to photos, too, which could make a huge difference to those huge digital libraries of neglected, unlabelled photos that many users are now gathering. 

In the versions on display at IFA, software is not yet perfect: the version I was using crashed once, and others struggled with the ‘Air View’ hovering. The new feature to automatically bring up a new note when you pulled out the pen was also not possible to test because of the cap on top of the stylus to prevent journalists borrowing them. 

Overall, however, as Samsung claim, the Note is innovative and unique, and the new pen really is able to be used “more naturally and precisely”. There’s something of the future about the Note: it’s a phone, with a blazingly fast 4G chip, as well as a 3G option; it’s now a usable notepad; and it lets you interact with information in a way that was simply not possible just a year ago. Samsung deserves huge credit for that ambition, and consumers may yet find that the Korean company has changed note-taking forever. Thankfully, for the nostalgic, there’s even a Moleskine app.

Samsung Galaxy S3: Review

The Samsung Galaxy S3 is curvy and sleek, and its metallic trim is high-end even if the plastic back isn’t. It feels light and fits the hand well – better than the iPhone 4S or the HTC One X for that matter. The casing is flush with the screen, making swiping easier.

We all know about that 4.8” Super AMOLED HD screen with its 1280x720p resolution. We also know that it’s better than the One X’s screen, with clear text and steep viewing angles. It dwarfs the iPhone 4S’ screen as well.

The Samsung Galaxy S3 is powered by a lag-free 1.4GH chip and a 2,100mAh battery that means six hours of talktime. The phone runs on ICS and is expecting Jelly Bean soon. You also have the Nature TouchWiz overlay with a choice of seven homescreens. S-Voice, Android’s answer to Siri, ironically sounds more human, and there’s also S-Beam which lets users share info via NFC.

The 8MP camera has no shutter lag and can take great still images while recording video – all in HD. This puts it way ahead of the competition.