Engadget: Nokia Lumia 920 Review

[VagrantWade]

Pretty good review. Even The Verge's review was decent (minus the numerical scorings). Really make that Pocket-lint review look like a troll post.

The Verge gave the Nexus 4 the same score as the 920 for camera. No joke lol.

 

[MaulerX]

The Verge gave the Nexus 4 the same score as the 920 for camera. No joke lol.

Lol! What a joke. Give credit to Engadget for getting rid of numerical scoring. That way people actually read what's being said.

 

[doublesman3486]

To the commenters saying the camera is working a intense are completely wrong. The phone was touted as having the most impressive camera in a smart phone aside of the 808. It's has 8.7 mp Carl Zeiss optics with ios. It's not supposed to take blurry, soft, detail less ,fuzzy, shots in broad daylight. I don't care how any of you try to sugar coat it. Every camera on a phone or an actual camera should take excellent images during daylight . Something is wrong with the optics or software that processes the images . The camera is not the way it should be. Now if Nokia designed their new flagship phone to take decent not great pictures during the day then they deserve to have a company in the current state that its in. I want a 920, I want a cyan 920 but I don't want a new smart phone that has a camera that doesn't produce great pictures . Especially one that can't take pictures better than camera phones that were released years before it

Remember this phone is running pre release software.

 

[firewall2302]

I've also seen in these reviews the suggestion that was mentioned about manual settings possibly being the best way to go.

I look at it this way - like stated, it can take the best low light shots around for just about any point & shoot. That's simply amazing and really does show the hardware is sound. The daylight issues (especially when on normal settings) do seem to be a software issue and are probably an overly aggressive noise filter. Which I'd rather have that than a speckled and noisy image under normal ISO settings.

 

[vlad0]

The Verge gave the Nexus 4 the same score as the 920 for camera. No joke lol.

I am always confused about the criteria they use when it comes to the camera of any phone.. not just the verge, but almost all of them.

Is it based on just picture quality, or is it based on the overall camera "package" that the phone offers ?

I think that it should be based on the overall features/performance, which are image quality in various condition, flash photography, video recording, zooming, sound recording, easy of use, camera UI, and then add on to that if there are any extra features.

So, if that was the case, I would rank the current smartphone camera market like this:

1. 808 (by a significant margin)
2. N8
3. 920
4. iPhone 5
5. GS2/Note
6. Xperia S

But regardless, the 920 is a much better package than the nexus.. not even close. So the Verge's conclusion makes me think that they just looked at the image quality in daylight, and that was it.. despite the fact that in their actual review they were impressed with the low light performance of the 920.
...

 

[independentvolume]

Great review of the 920. Looks like everything is ducky and bunny in Nokia land.

 

[chfhyh]

this is a very good review. love it!

 

[theeboredone]

"As is to be expected, our global model crams in quad-band radios with GSM / GPRS / EDGE (850 / 900 / 1800 / 1900MHz), UMTS / HSPA+ (850 / 900 / 1900 / 2100MHz) and LTE (800 / 900 / 1800 / 2100 / 2600MHz) bands,"

So does that mean this phone can use HSPA+ on T-Mobile?

 

[Squachy]

"As is to be expected, our global model crams in quad-band radios with GSM / GPRS / EDGE (850 / 900 / 1800 / 1900MHz), UMTS / HSPA+ (850 / 900 / 1900 / 2100MHz) and LTE (800 / 900 / 1800 / 2100 / 2600MHz) bands,"

So does that mean this phone can use HSPA+ on T-Mobile?

doesnt Tmoble use a 1700 mhz band?

 

[paulm187]

Good review but I disagree with couple of things, first the same old boring not enough apps. He mentioned Spotify which is available in the market place and there are dropbox alternative clients. Second Skydrive integration is fantastic on Windows Phone. Third to whine that Nokia don't do Android is completely idiotic. If they went the Android route, Nokia would have been dead and buried by now. It really gets annoying with stupid bloggers, the less attention you pay to them and their scores the better. What's more important are the user reviews, the people who actually paid for the device and use it day in and day out.

The daylight camera shots sounds like a firmware tweaking issue, remember in Northern Europe lowlight is more important than daylight in the winter months, so its possible the camera by default is tweaked for this. I'm hoping there will be an update which will sort this out.

 

[robinleck]

Juz sharing my 2cents...
920 is SMARTPHONE with a respectable built-in camera feature. Its not a "smart camera" with a innovative built-in phone feature. All these so-called techsite reviewers giving lukewarm rating on the 920's camera feature are "putting the cart before the horse".
I love WP because "it is the most personal smartphone EVER". It is a very individualistic & technologically liberating smartphone out there. It frees me spiritually from other suffocating & confusing mobile options currently in the market. I dun care what other people think, I am upgrading from my 900 to 920 despite the camera and/or weight. WP/Lumia indulge You, not the other way round. Think Simple & Don't Over-Analyse, Cheers

 

[paulm187]

Juz sharing my 2cents...
920 is SMARTPHONE with a respectable built-in camera feature. Its not a "smart camera" with a innovative built-in phone feature. All these so-called techsite reviewers giving lukewarm rating on the 920's camera feature are "putting the cart before the horse".
I love WP because "it is the most personal smartphone EVER". It is a very individualistic & technologically liberating smartphone out there. It frees me spiritually from other suffocating & confusing mobile options currently in the market. I dun care what other people think, I am upgrading from my 900 to 920 despite the camera and/or weight. WP/Lumia indulge You, not the other way round. Think Simple & Don't Over-Analyse, Cheers

Good advice, after having a chance to look and feel the demo units I'm happy with the size and weight. The camera is still one of the best out there and other issues can be fixed in software. I think its a great time to be a windows phone fan. We have the best phones between the 920 and the 8x and no doubt the Ativ S will also prove to be fantastic.

 

[robinleck]

Good advice, after having a chance to look and feel the demo units I'm happy with the size and weight. The camera is still one of the best out there and other issues can be fixed in software. I think its a great time to be a windows phone fan. We have the best phones between the 920 and the 8x and no doubt the Ativ S will also prove to be fantastic.

Thanks ! Juz sharing my thoughts

 

[Aykazu]

To the commenters saying the camera is working a intense are completely wrong. The phone was touted as having the most impressive camera in a smart phone aside of the 808. It's has 8.7 mp Carl Zeiss optics with ios. It's not supposed to take blurry, soft, detail less ,fuzzy, shots in broad daylight. I don't care how any of you try to sugar coat it. Every camera on a phone or an actual camera should take excellent images during daylight . Something is wrong with the optics or software that processes the images . The camera is not the way it should be. Now if Nokia designed their new flagship phone to take decent not great pictures during the day then they deserve to have a company in the current state that its in. I want a 920, I want a cyan 920 but I don't want a new smart phone that has a camera that doesn't produce great pictures . Especially one that can't take pictures better than camera phones that were released years before it

Tell me, has anyone actually said that the quality of those photos are bad? What my eyes can tell me the Lumia 920 is on par with the top end devices like iPhone 5, HTC One X, HTC 8X, Samsung GS3 and Note 2 when it comes to daylight photos, 808 smokes all of the mentioned devices so does the N8.
However when it comes to low-light situations and video recording the Lumia 920 is on a league of its own.

 

[Calot]

Yeah, any imperfections (that is what they are) with the daylight pictures will most likely go away with a firmware update.

As Engadget clearly stated that they did not have the very small issues they had reviewing it when they took all the pictures with the prototype a few weeks ago.

I'm very confident this will be the best phone I have ever owned! (currently have a 4S)

 

[un hombre]

Hi guys, new guy here but I decided to join this discussion

The Engadget review is in the much different tone, because the reviewer is not the same person as the "girl" that was doing the tests/footage in Finland on the prototype - Miriam.

I am glad that she did not get to review the final unit, because it for sure it would not be a legit, non-biased review, she does not really sound technical to me anyway...

I am not really sure that the reviewer is anti-Nokia, he may just be non-biased and he did not get into the whole hype about this phone and it's camera.

In fact, I was extremely excited when I first heard about this phone and now I am really disappointed, after seeing first reviews and pictures. I felt, that something is not just right, before, as there was too many talks about night time pictures and no shots/examples of day light, but oh well...

As for the camera, there are two possibilities - either, the blurry images are entirely due to what was mentioned many times - software softening the images to get rid of the noise, or it is some hardware problem. My bet is on the first option and hopefully, this may be something to be fixed with software update but I have a feeling, it may not be entirely a Nokia fault. If you have a look at HTC's 8x pix, it's images are very soft as well.

As for the reviews, I think only time will tell how it is and only us, users, will be the best possible source of reviews.

That is also why it is a good idea to avoid the first batch of newly introduced phones, as they may be some problems.

Anyway, just some random thoughts.

 

[theeboredone]

doesnt Tmoble use a 1700 mhz band?

Everytime I try to google, I always see "1700/2100" for its HSPA+

 

[MAERSK]

Moon to answer your previous question above, no b/c that's an ATT model w/o the 1700 band. Tmo uses both 1700 & 2100. Other wise the phone would use 1900 on a refarmed area or 2G.