Nokia Lumia 900 review

While many manufacturers release their high-end products first before bringing out the cheaper models in the range, with its Windows Phone Lumia range Nokia went straight for the middle ground with the Lumia 800 and 710. It then top and tailed the range with the budget 610 and this, the high-end Lumia 900.

Microsoft has avoided the interface disparities suffered by Android phones by making sure handset manufacturers barely change Windows Phone 7 at all. This makes sure you have a consistent experience, but it also means there’s little differentiating Windows Phone 7 handsets – and that includes those within Nokia’s Lumia range. All the handsets, bar the budget Lumia 610, have single-core 1.4GHz processors and screen resolutions of 480×800 pixels. They also have access to Nokia’s Music, Maps and Drive apps, which let you listen to music mixes for free and have turn-by-turn navigation.

The only real differences between the phones are in the screen sizes, screen technology and cameras. In these respects the Lumia 900 is certainly top dog, thanks to its 4.3in AMOLED display, 8-megapixel main camera and additional front-facing camera for video calls. It’s another beautifully-built Nokia, with a matt polycarbonate body that makes it easy to hold.

The AMOLED screen certainly looks great, as its incredibly deep black levels gives colours a huge amount of punch. Images look just as good as on the Lumia 800, which has a smaller 3.7in AMOLED display, and the larger screen size makes viewing photos a joy. However, the fact that the Lumia 900 has the same number of pixels as the Lumia 800 spread over a larger area makes text look less sharp. Unlike the Lumia 800’s screen, the Lumia 900’s doesn’t curve out from the body, so seems less vulnerable to damage.

For the most part, Windows Phone 7 runs just as well on the Lumia 900 as it does on all Windows Phone handsets; transitions are smooth and quick, the onscreen keyboard is responsive and there are rarely any slowdowns. There was one area where we felt the Lumia 900 fell down: Nokia seems to have slowed down the scrolling, so you can’t flick up and down the menus with your finger as quickly as you can on the other phones in the Lumia range.

Everything else about Windows Phone is intact, so you have a capable web browser, Facebook integration, support for editing Office files and built-in cloud storage for your documents, an excellent email client and a calendar that, to our increasing annoyance, still doesn’t have a week view. You also have significantly less choice when it comes to apps, but things are improving; there are a couple of good travel apps, but you still miss out on big-name apps such as Rightmove, Sky+ and BBC iPlayer.

Mix Radio is part of the Nokia Music app and is a fantastic free music resource. Nokia Drive is a competent turn-by-turn navigation app with offline map support, but neither Nokia Maps nor Bing Maps support offline mapping. If you’re abroad you can use Nokia Drive at a pinch to navigate on foot without incurring data charges, but its car-oriented directions aren’t particularly useful for pedestrians.

The Lumia 900 is skinnier than the 710 and 610, but slightly fatter than the 800

Like the Lumia 800, the Lumia 900 has an 8-megapixel camera. It’s far better than the cheaper Lumia 710 and 610’s 5-megapixel cameras, but still fairly disappointing, especially compared to the models we’ve seen recently from HTC. As with the Lumia 800’s photos, the Lumia 900’s show significant noise, even in bright daylight. The Lumia 900’s camera also seems to have overly-saturated colours, leading to the blue sky in one of our test photos looking almost turquoise. Unlike the rest of the Lumia range, there’s also a front-facing camera. We found it worked fine in Skype video calls.

Nokia’s Lumia 900 is another good-looking and well made Windows Phone 7 handset. We don’t think it offers enough over the Lumia 800 to justify its £100 SIM-free and around £5-per-month on contract premium, though. If you’re after a Windows Phone 7 handset with a superb AMOLED screen and great build quality, the Lumia 800 is still the phone to get.