NetCom today released information on pricing for the Nokia Lumia 920. My choice would be the Komplett Medium subscription which will put the upfront cost of the phone at 1499 NOK ($ 250), with a one year contract which includes 400 SMS, 400 minutes of ringtime, 800 MB data and Spotify Premium included with a monthly fee of 479 NOK ($ 80), making the cost of the phone for the first year to a total of 7247,- NOK ($ 1200).
 
When comparing that price with the price of the Apple iPhone 5 with the same subscription, I found that you would have to pay 3999 NOK for the phone ($ 666,50), the same monthly fee, with a total of 9747 NOK ($ 1624,50) for the first year.

Easy choice… 😀

[section_title title=Introduction – Spesifications – Reception and call quality – Display]

I am looking forward to getting my hands on one of the new and soon to be launched Nokia Lumia 920 phones. Hopefully in a not so distant future. Until that happens what should a blogger with too much technolust do? Thanks to Nokia Norway, I have been so lucky as to get my hands on a Nokia Lumia 900 Windows Phone 7.5, and I have been using this phone full time for a while now, instead of my old trustworthy iPhone 4.

I have been doing so in order to prepare for the Lumia 920 and familiarizing myself with the Windows Phone OS. And the mere fact that I also are able to temporarily stifle my technolust with a new and shiny gadget is of course part of the story as well.

At the moment the Nokia Lumia 900 is Nokia’s top of the line smartphone. And it is for that fact alone worthwhile to see how this phone compares to my old iPhone, and maybe even the new iPhone 5.

In this review I will cover the following topics:

• Specifications
• Reception and call quality
• Display
• Battery life
• Camera
• Ease of use – Windows Phone 7.5
• Design and form factor
• Portability
• Media Support
• Durability
• Ecosystem
• Nokia Specific Software
• Performance
• Conclusion

Specifications

Reception and call quality

A factor that is often overlooked in modern smartphones is the ability to make and receive phone calls. It is not, perhaps, what you do often on a smartphone, but for me it is a prerequisite to be able to make phone calls without too much fuzz or interference. I live on the edge of 3G coverage, and have occasionally had reception problems with my iPhone 4. MMS-messages have been a particular problem, but also in making and receiving phone calls if I happen to be in the wrong part of the house. No such problems with the Nokia Lumia 900. Reception is excellent, and I even get the added bonus of having HSPA+ available in the house now, which means faster data-streams than what I am able to get on the iPhone. Call quality over the speakerphone is excellent as well, and connected to my bluetooth handsfree set in my car also provide excellent call quality all around.

Subscore: 9 out of 10

Display

The most important feature of a smart phone is the main device for interacting with the phone – the screen. And let me just say it out loud: this screen is beautiful. It is 4.3” with a resolution of 400×800 pixels, which by todays standard may seem lacking, but this AMOLED screen just rocks with its vibrant colors. The black is so black, compared to the greyish black on my iPhone 4, and pictures just look gorgeous on this phone. I have gotten so used to the beauty and size of this screen, that I am in no way inclined to pick up the iPhone when I want to use a smartphone. Crispy clear vibrant pictures on a large screen, that even works great when outdoors. A win for Nokia, and I can only imagine the screen quality on the upcoming Nokia Lumia 920 which has real HD resolution.

Subscore: 9 out of 10

As you know by now, I have installed the Office 365 Preview on several of my and my household computers. It looks to be an amazing product, that will probably launch sometime next month (October 2012).

Office 365 is promising to offer an Office 2013 package consisting of the following applications; Outlook, Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Publisher, Access and OneNote, to you as a  subscriber allowing you to have the suite installed on up to 5 devices. With SkyDrive integration, as well as a streaming version of Office on demand, this is almost too good to be true. But of course, it all comes down to price. I have previously mused that a sweet spot for me would be somewhere between $5 and $10 dollars a month, but never really believed the price would eventually turn out to be that low. It looks like my wishes are granted, and that my beliefs were wrong.

According to an article on the Verge today, written my Tom Warren, Microsoft will announce that the subscription price for Office 365 Home Premium will be $8.33 a month ($99.99 pr year).If that report turns out to be true, which I believe it will, that is a no-brainer and should help male Microsoft’s wet dream of millions of consumer subscribers come true.

Check out Tom Warrens article, and see the comparison chart showing in detail which features will be in the different versions of the suite.

Good times!