Mobile Grudge Match: Nokia Lumia 920 vs HTC Windows Phone 8X

Nokia has just officially launched its flagship Windows Phone 8 device, the Lumia 920, along with its smaller sibling, the Lumia 820. We’ve already brought you comprehensive coverage on the Lumia 920 in our First Impressions of the handset as well a camera shootout with the iPhone 5. We’ll be giving the Lumia 820 a similar treatment very shortly followed by in-depth reviews of each. First, let’s see how Nokia’s flagship stacks up against the current reigning Windows Phone 8 champ in the market – the HTC 8X. HTC has had a decent lead in the market by launching its phone early on, so Nokia will really have to pull out all the stops when it comes to marketing and promotion of the 920 in India, if it wants to steal the top spot.

Nokia Lumia 920 – Rs.38,200
The PureView camera in the Lumia 920 is pretty remarkable. Even though it’s just an 8MP shooter, the optics and sensor is by no means run-of-the-mill. The phone features Nokia’s proprietary image stabilisation technology that manages to eliminate any or all shakes of one’s hand when either shooting a still or capturing video. This actually works and you can see it in action when holding down the focus button and moving the phone. The Lumia 920 has taken a lot of design cues from Nokia’s previous Windows Phone devices like the 800 and the 900. The phone is a bit on the chunkier side and comes across as tad heavy too, but that’s the price you pay for having better optics. Underneath it all, it’s business as usual. We have the typical Windows Phone 8 UI running on a dual-core Qualcomm MSM8960 SoC. Nokia also throws in 32GB of onboard storage, but removes any chance of expansion. Wireless charging also comes as standard, a feature that’s finally gathering momentum.

Very good camera for low light photography

Although the Lumia 920 does have LTE support, it’s going to be quite useless in India. This is because, just like the iPhone 5, the Lumia 920 supports the FDD-LTE or Frequency-Division Duplex, an older but more popular form of LTE used the world over. In India, Airtel has adopted TDD-LTE (Time-Division Duplex) developed by China Mobile. This operates in the 2.3GHz – 2.4Ghz spectrum, which is not compatible with the LTE baseband chips inside the 920 or the iPhone 5. Essentially, you won’t be able to use the LTE functionality in India at the moment.   

HTC Windows Phone 8X  – Rs.36,000
We’ve had a chance to try out the pre-sales version of the 8X and we were quite impressed with the overall design and feel of the phone. The handset sits perfectly in your palm due to the smaller size and is also a lot lighter and slimmer compared to the 920. Once again, the standout feature is the camera, and by that we mean the front facing camera. While the primary shooter still manages good imaging and video, the front camera also has the same aperture value of f/2.0 and is capable of 1080p video recording. The only thing hurting the 8X right now is the high price and the fact that it has just 16GB of storage without any room for expansion.

A strong contender

Time to get these two into the ring and see which one manages to offer better value.

Close call

The bottom line
Spec for spec, both handsets are pretty evenly matched, but I do feel that the HTC Windows Phone 8X is much better handset overall. For starters, it’s a lot more ergonomic than the 920 due to its smaller size and lighter chassis. The feel and finish is also miles ahead and we would go for a matt, rubberised coating any day over a glossy coat. It’s a little difficult to tell which one has the better camera at the moment, so we’ll put that on hold till we do a camera shootout. Which one would you pick out of the two?