My First Hands-On w/Lumia 900

[MrDiamondJ]

I went to the Beyond the Tiles experience here in Boston tonight, and while there I finally got a hands-on with the Lumia 900. I hadn't even seen the device up to this point. My thoughts:

1) It's big. Holy cow, it dwarfs my HTC Surround. The first thing the guy beside me said when they handed them out was, "It's huge". It's much larger in RL than it appears in pictures.

2) The screen is absolutely gorgeous. Just amazing. They didn't have an HTC Titan II there for comparison, although a video they played at the beginning of the presentation had them side-by-side for a moment. From the looks of it, the screen on the Titan II is very much like the screen on my Surround, which is perfectly fine but the colors aren't saturated at all. Meanwhile, the Lumia 900 screen has really deep blacks and saturated colors that pop off the screen. I sat there and performed meaningless tasks on it just to watch the screen do its thing.

3) The Gorilla Glass felt great to swipe on. It's hard to explain, but I felt like I had just the right amount of "grip". A very smooth browsing experience overall.

4) I wasn't a huge fan of its non-rounded corners. When I held the phone in my left hand, the bottom-left corner tended to poke my palm a bit, which was a bit annoying.

5) I also wasn't a fan of its case texture. It was really slippery, and would defiinitely need one of the gel cases in order for me to grip it without dropping it constantly. I felt like I was holding a really expensive bar of wet soap.

6) The cyan color didn't wow me like I thought it would. I really didn't like the color at all, actually. One of the reps there had a white one though, and holy crap that thing looked AWESOME. That's definitely the color I want, which is not at all what I expected.

7) I thought the placement of its power button was strange. I'm used to iPhones and HTC phones that have the power button on the top left/right of the device; having it on the right side (and in the middle, no less) just seemed weird.

Overall I have my gripes, but the Lumia 900 is one sweet phone. Having a look at it in person totally sold me...that screen is just too beautiful to pass up. Any thoughts of picking up a Titan II just went out the window.

 

[Verkunder]

I don't understand why people don't like where the power button is. I mean, if you hold your phone in your left hand, sure. But right handed... dude, your thumb is alread right there!

Glad you liked it.

 

[jimski]

I don't understand why people don't like where the power button is. I mean, if you hold your phone in your left hand, sure. But right handed... dude, your thumb is alread right there!



Glad you liked it.

Actually I am a righty and always hold my phone in my left hand. My above average fingers would never be able to reach the top of the phone, but my middle finger rests right on the power button. Like anything new, took a day to get used to it. But now I really like it.



Sent from my Lumia 900 using Board Express

 

[ninjaap]

I agree that the power button placement is a bit wierd, but I'd rather have it there than the somewhere at the top, because it's too much of a reach for me.

 

[sdreamer]

I agree that the power button placement is a bit wierd, but I'd rather have it there than the somewhere at the top, because it's too much of a reach for me.

I remember watching a video regarding the overall design of the Lumia 800/900. They put it there because it is just perfectly placed when you have it in hand. As someone mentioned, when you have it in your right hand, its comfortably under your thumb. In your left, its right under the index. I have become very fond of this placement, and using it from the top would definately put strain on how I hold the phone. It was confusion at first, but now I can see the ergonomics first hand of why they did this. It really would be a far reach on the 900, but I think on the 800, having it on top would be fine, but the side is much better.

 

[MrDiamondJ]

I never said I couldn't get used to it. It just felt strange at first (and by strange I mean "non-standard"). I can definitely see the ergonomic considerations involved, however; putting it on the top of the device would be quite a reach indeed.

I didn't have a chance to play any games on it (they gave us a dummy Hotmail account to sign in with, but it hit the five-device limit almost instantly since there were about 20 of us in the room), but I'd imagine they look amazing.

 

[theefman]

I remember watching a video regarding the overall design of the Lumia 800/900. They put it there because it is just perfectly placed when you have it in hand. As someone mentioned, when you have it in your right hand, its comfortably under your thumb. In your left, its right under the index. I have become very fond of this placement, and using it from the top would definately put strain on how I hold the phone. It was confusion at first, but now I can see the ergonomics first hand of why they did this. It really would be a far reach on the 900, but I think on the 800, having it on top would be fine, but the side is much better.

Exactly how I feel. Even with the smaller Radar I find having to stretch to the power button on top is not as intuitive. On the side it just falls naturally to one of your fingers on either hand.