Nokia Lumia 920 Matches Hype?
|Ever since late June when Microsoft held release preview for Windows Phone 8 fans of the platform had been awaiting Nokia’s hardware that would launch Windows Phone 8 properly. Today Nokia unveiled a couple new devices and its flagship, the Lumia 920, was once. Did it meet the hype after a couple days worth of intentional videos and tweets being pushed out to generate buzz for today’s event?
Unless you’ve been living underneath a rock for the past few days you watched the live stream of the event anticipating a refreshed update to the iconic design that debuted with the Lumia 800 and continued with the Lumia 900. This is exactly what was shown off. The curved, polycarbonate unibody and slightly curved glass pairs with a range of impact colors to wet your palette. When Nokia put the 920 on screen there was an appreciative but understated applause. The kind you get when people see what they expect to see. Luckily Nokia’s showing off was hadn’t got started in full.
Hardware:
- 4.5” WXGA Display (1280 x 768) resolution
- 8.7MP PureView Camera w/ Carl Zeiss Optics
- 1.5 GHz Dual-Core Snapdragon S4
- 2,000 mAh battery
- 32GB of storage (Micro SD slot too)
- PureMotion HD+ Display Tech. An upgrade to the ClearBlack Display tech they are famous for.
- Buttons and back lens covering made out of ceramic to reduce scratches.
- Wireless charging built in.
- 2.5x faster pixel transition than any other display.
Nokia debuted the hardware then began to rattle off all the impressive software enhancements coming to the device.
Software:
- SmartShoot Camera Lens
- Cinemagraphs Camera Lens
- Advanced camera optic algorithms which brings the platform up to speed with the great Symbian based optics.
- City Lens is now out of beta and ready to introduce augmented reality
- Nokia announced that offline mapping is not just caching but true off line mapping.
- Nokia maps gets Augmented Reality with a tie-in to City Lens and also you can find a location using maps and get turn-by-turn directions while in maps. (Previously had to start up Nokia Drive separately for driving directions.)
Nokia raised the expectations this past week, taking digs at Samsung’s Windows Phone announcement, pushing out suggestive video promos for the event and it could have turned into a dud that sealed Nokia’s fate. Much to my delight Nokia managed to exceed my expectations and many others while sticking with their iconic design and choosing to focus much more on value added hardware and software services. For a company that is committed to being the Where company today was the first sign that they are in excellent position not just to lead Windows Phone but the entire mobile community. Forget about the Nokia Lumia 920 meeting the hype, it exceeds it.
Can you back up the microSD card info for the 920? It doesn’t show up in the official specs and if that’s true it makes it even more appealing.
@Peter, I am not sure what you mean by backup. Windows phone 8 will be able to back up your pics, vids, emails, texts, etc. through the use of the skydrive if that is what you are asking.
Should have been more clear – looking for verification that you can actually put a microSD card into a Lumia 920. I know the 820 supports it and that shows in the specs. The 920 details page does not list anything about being able to use a microSD card for extra storage. Yes, I know Skydrive is available but that requires network connectivity in order to get to it. Being able to load an SD card with media files would be great, but from what I’ve read there is no place to insert said card in the 920.
On a pre-production model support was there. Im verifying the status right now. Waiting on feedback from hands on crew.
Will the SD card be truely swappable? The Focus (1st gen) had an SD, then we discovered that once you put one in, that was the only one that the device ever wanted to see.
Will this version support, a front camera as well?? I’m not seeing any hint at a front camera, but then again these are just the frst pics of what’s to come. Also will this model come in any other colors?? I want to get this bad boy as soon as it comes out, but if the SD Card support that Peter Schott mention, does not come with it I might just wait a little longer for one that does.
The 920 has no micro sd slot. I was so bummed. Now the OS supports it but the phone doesn’t. The rest of the phone is great. I am still waiting to see if there will be usb mass storage support in WP8. Zune is gone but they are showing the “Compaion app” now. I want to be able to drag and drop my files onto the phone without using a “companion app” 🙁 My friend that works at an AT&T store says customers hate having to have a particular application on a computer to access their content and that really hurt sales with the Zune process compared to the simplicity of Android which I see now supports sdxc, so you can use those 64gig cards coming from Samsung next month. That is what kept me away from iphone / itunes. At least they made a 64 gig option.
Well you sort of touched on it towards the end of your post. But needing a companion app does not seem to have hurt iPhone sales much, although ITunes really does suck, IMHO. And how many global Android owners actually have access to a computer, or even know what an SD card is.
Not saying an SD card in the L920 wouldn’t have been a good idea. But 32GB is a good start. And is there really that much difference dragging and dropping in an app vs. File Explorer. I mean, isn’t File Explorer technically an app.
http://www.nokia.com/global/products/phone/lumia920