Hands on: Nokia Lumia 800 and 710

Today at Nokia World 2011, Nokia officially unveiled its first Windows Phone-based handsets. Long-expected since its strategic partnership with Microsoft was announced back in February, the Nokia Lumia 800 and Nokia Lumia 710 may not have surprised, but they certainly impressed.

We’ve been hearing rumours about such handsets for ages, under the Nokia Sea-ray codename. Today, we got hands-on time with both new smartphones on the show floor:

LUMIA 800

The Nokia Lumia 800 is the premium handset of the pair. It has a 3.7in AMOLED display that appears to sit directly under your fingertip, rather than tucked away behind a layer of glass – we’d worry about how damage-proof it was but then Nokia has a great reputation for well-engineered and durable handsets. The display’s 800×480 resolution is the same as other recent Windows Phone handsets.

The screen segues seamlessly into what Nokia describes as a ‘single piece injection moulded polycarbonate shell,’ which it also claimed was a better choice for wireless reception. The handset measures 117x61x12mm, and so isn’t the thinnest we’ve seen by far, it weighs a fairly typical 142g.

It certainly feels great in the hand, though, with the smooth outer shell proving easy and comfortable to grasp. It’s available in Cyan, Magenta and Black, so there are some fun options for those who are bored of the usual monotone shades. Those colours are matched to onscreen colours used in Windows Phone, for a smart-looking integrated appearance.

Nokia doesn’t seem to be getting into a specification battle with other handset manufacturers. As with all current Windows Phone handsets, there’s no dual-core processor, so no surprise there; however, the Qualcomm MSM8255 chip does run at a rapid 1.4GHz. The Windows Phone interface was incredibly responsive, with no lag to our inputs or little delay when launching apps.

The SIM slot and USB port are hidden away under flaps on top of the phone

There’s only 512MB of program memory, compared to 1GB on most high-end Android handsets, but again this is normal for Windows Phone devices to date. You could argue that the operating system has so much integrated into it, that installing lots of apps is unnecessary – or more critically that compared to other OS’s there aren’t that many Windows Phone apps available anyway.

The camera uses an F2.2 lens, and first impressions were good

The eight-megapixel camera produced well-balanced results on the show floor, but we couldn’t get an internet connection to send ourselves the results. It only shoots 720p video, though we didn’t get a chance to test this sufficiently to comment. There’s 16GB of built-in memory for storing music, photos and videos, with no memory card slot (again as with other Windows handsets).

The Lumia 800 may lack any standout specifications or dimensions, but it’s still a very impressive and desirable piece of kit. The tight limitations of Windows Phone devices and Nokia’s more pragmatic design ethos has led to a handset that simply feels good to use, rather than chasing headline-grabbing figures.

Nokia showed live video of the Lumia 800 being packed ready for shipping, but the only release date available was a rather vague November. The only pricing given was EUR 420 sim-free, which translates directly to £366 exc VAT or £439 inc VAT. Of course that won’t make much odds to most people, and we’re hoping for a free Lumia 800 on a £30-per-month contract. At that price it should fly off shelves.

LUMIA 710

Nokia also announced a less expensive handset at the event, the Nokia Lumia 710. This uses an 3.7in LCD screen, rather than AMOLED, but with the same 800×480 resolution – contrast is obviously reduced but it was still crisp and bright given the technology. It has the same 1.4GHz processor as the Lumia 800 and 512MB of RAM – and so felt equally responsive to use. Storage is reduced to 8GB, though, and the camera is only five-megapixels.

It may be similar inside, but the exterior is a far more classic Nokia affair. The handset is available in black and white, but has interchangeable fascias in a range of colours – again these are designed to match the onscreen colours of Windows Phone to an integrated appearance. Despite the clip-on fascias – which we think work much better on the white handset – the Lumia 710 feels sturdy. It’s not slender at 119x62x12.5mm, but it weighs in at only 126g.

Again the only price was in Euros and sim-free, a more-reasonable EUR 270. We hope this will equte to around £20 on a two-year contract, but it may well be £25. At the lower price it should sell like hot cakes.

Here’s the Nokia Lumia 710’s fascias in Windows Phone colours

MANGO SAUCE

CEO Stephen Elop took to the stage to announce the new smartphones – his last job was with Microsoft and he has masterminded the companies’ alliance. The two handsets have come blinking into the light at just the right time, with Microsoft having recently released its much heralded ‘Mango’ update to the operating system. Conspiracy theorists, however, might surmise that the Mango launch timing could have been related to Nokia’s readiness.

CEO Stephen Elop announces the handsets on stage at Nokia World 2011 in London

We’ve already looked at a couple of Mango handsets, the HTC Radar and HTC Titan, and have to say we’re mightily impressed with the updated operating system. Visually, it’s certainly more striking than its competitors, Android and iOS, with animated live tiles providing plenty of information without you having to dig down into apps.

Nokia are providing a number of free extras to the tightly-locked-down Windows Phone operating system. Key amongst these are:

Navigation – Nokia drive comes for free with the phone, making it the only Windows Phone with free turn-by-turn voice-guided navigation. You can download and install maps ahead of time, to avoid data costs, and if you stray outside the cached area it can only fetches over 3G what it needs to complete your journey.

Music – Nokia Music Mix Radio. Over a hundred ‘mixes’ providing a wide variety of full length tracks. No login, no passwords, no fee – just free up-to-date music. Download mixes for playback offline later, you can even pin mixes to the Start screen then just tap and play.

Sports – ESPN Sports Hub, a single place to look up scores, team news, player stats etc. Again you can pin these to start menu for regular updates.

CONCLUSION

With Microsoft and Nokia apparently working so closely together, Nokia’s excellent reputation for hardware design and our initial positive response – we’d recommend holding off buying any other Windows Phone until contract prices and our full review are available. Nokia is going to a big player in Windows Phone, the real question is how much the manufacturer can grow the operating system’s market share.