[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

Microsoft and Atari have teamed up to bring back old classic arcade games in your browser. While the site will work in any browser, you will have ad-free versions if you are using Internet Explorer. The games have been designed for multitouch, but works just as fine with a keyboard and mouse.

I have taken some screenshots of the games so that you can get an impression of what’s going on. I myself was taken back to yonder years with Asteroids. I still vividly remember the Asteroids arcade machine that I played a video game on for the first time around the time I was 10 years old. Memories…

If you want to try them out yourself, head over to this website. Enjoy!

Oh and a second thing; after trying the oldies but goldies out, take a look at these two videos;

In this screenshot-gallery I will show the process of doing a clean install of Windows 8. The process was done in a virtual machine on my desktop, and thus took longer than if I had done it on a real machine. I did a clean install on my sons laptop earlier today, and that process took approximately 15 minutes.