Lumia 800 reboots Nokia's smartphone ambition

The Lumia 800 is the smartphone reboot Nokia needed and a technically successful re-entry for Microsoft’s Windows Phone operating system.

Whether it sells in large enough qualities to rescue the two company’s reputations remains to be seen. Given the quality of the phone, that’s a marketing problem, not an engineering one.

What’s to like about the Nokia Lumia 800? First, the phone is beautiful. The review model is a black version. It is smart enough to pull out of your pocket in any business or social circles without looking dorky.

Comfortable

According to Nokia it has a polycarbonate unibody with a curved Gorilla Glass screen. The important point is that the Lumia 800 is comfortable in the hand, unscratched in the pocket and has a wonderful minimal feel. The dedicated camera button doesn’t intrude on the minimalism, sadly the USB cable socket is a flimsy touch on an otherwise solidly built phone.

It weighs around 150g and the screen is about the right size at 3.7 inches. The 480 by 800 pixel Amoled screen is sharp and bright. Blacks are true black, the display is exceptionally good with text.

Camera meets my journalist needs

The camera is fine, I’m a journalist so I sometimes need to snap scenes at conferences and the like – it meets my needs and then some. Pictures are sharp and colours are realistic. It can sometimes take a while to get ready when taking indoor shots, but like I say, it has everything I need.

Nokia says its phone has a single-core 1.4GHz processor. What this means in practice is a a smooth acting phone, I didn’t see any lag or other problems. Battery life is longer than on my current Android phone, but it still needs to be charged overnight to make sure there’s enough juice to power through a busy day.

Good voice quality

Although direct comparisons are hard, I’d say the voice quality for calls is better than may current Android phone and better than on the last iPhone I used.

Overall I can’t think of any serious negatives. Apple fans might prefer a phone with a front-facing camera, I don’t consider this important. The worst feature is the USB socket – and that’s a minor gripe. Storage is tight at 16GB – there’s not much room for music, stored docs and so on, but cloud services mean that’s less of an issue.

I’m planning to write more about Windows Phone 7 in a future post, what needs saying here is the operating system is better than Android, at least on a par with Apple’s iOS and the operating system integrates well with the hardware.

Should you buy one?

If you’re not happy with Android or Apple, this is definitely a worthy alternative. The Lumia 800 is also the best option if you and your business is closely wedded to Microsoft Windows and Office applications. At the thick end of NZ$900, the phone unlikely to win many converts from Apple’s iPhone, but I guess it can carve out a slice of Android customers looking to upgrade. As for me, well, I’m thinking about it.