Nokia Lumia 800: A Windows Phone 7 Hit?

1. Is the Lumia 800 A Windows Phone Game-Changer?

The Nokia Lumia 800 isn't yet available in the US, but what does the phone mean for the future of Windows Phone 7?

Windows Phone is a hit that's getting better reviews than it is sales - and every time we've asked Microsoft how it's going to sell more phones, the answer has been 'Nokia'. That means waiting a little longer, as the Lumia 800 and 701 handsets aren't on sale in the US yet. Furthermore, by the time Nokia brings its Windows Phones to market next year, there may be other models to choose from. For now, the flagship Lumia 800 is Nokia's first chance to prove that it can stand out in the Windows Phone market - and deliver a phone that can save the company. Nokia CEO Stephen Elop calls the Lumia 800 “the first real Windows Phone”. Is this Finnish slab indeed the Windows Phone device we’ve all been waiting for? Or will it turn out to be a Meego-style miss?

Hit: Amazing AMOLED Screen

The Lumia 800 has an eye-poppingly bright, vivid, colorful AMOLED 3.7-inch screen that - quite literally - outshines other Windows Phone screens. Blacks are utterly black and colors are saturated. It’s absolutely beautiful; it makes photos more vivid, Web pages better-looking and games more visually-striking. You can choose a black or white background for Windows Phone and the intense black of the screen is perfect for this.

The AMOLED screens makes Windows Phone handsets with LCD screens look washed out by comparison. The 3.7-inch size and the curved glass make the screen small compared to the HTC HD7 and similar devices (and tiny next to the 4.7-inch HTC Titan) but the screen resolution is identical, so you see the same number of tiles or messages at once. The slightly smaller screen looks crisper and clearer too; it’s easier to read outside, even in bright light.

The Lumia screen stands up well to the Samsung Galaxy S, which also has an AMOLED screen. The Galaxy’s screen is a little larger but text isn’t quite as crisp and clear as on the Lumia 800.

The cheaper Lumia 710 has a very impressive screen as well. It’s LED rather than AMOLED, but again it’s brighter, blacker and more colorful than other Windows Phone handsets.

Hit: Camera

Most Windows Phone handsets have had pretty average cameras. The Lumia 800 has an 8 megapixel camera with an f/2.2 Carl Zeiss lens that takes better photos than any Windows Phone we’ve looked at so far (and far better than the average Android handset, including new devices like the Motorola Razr). You get more manual control over the camera than with other Mango handsets, with settings for white balance, ISO, exposure, metering mode, contrast and saturation. Or you can leave everything on automatic and tap on the screen to set the focus and take your picture.

Good as the camera in the Lumia 800 is, it’s usually beaten by the camera in the iPhone 4, and its replacement, the 4S, and the difference is even more apparent when HDR mode is activated. This combines multiple images to get the best exposure, contrast and colors, so the iPhone can take photos of bright lights and not get the same smearing or burnout we saw when using the Lumia’s camera. If you look at the original image taken by an iPhone 4, the Lumia’s shots are often better - brighter, clearer, more colorful with fewer over-exposed areas. The iPhone’s HDR mode can lose detail and color, as you can see from the shots of the store window here. And as HDR is a software setting, a third-party app could add the same feature to the Lumia. In short, the Lumia 800 has a better camera, but the iPhone makes better use of its camera.

Night shots with reflections and bright lights show the advantage of HDR; the iPhone has both detail and a good exposure with HDR. Without, it has less detail and more areas that are overexposed than the Lumia’s shot, which has more accurate colors than either iPhone shot.