Nokia Lumia 920: A Specifications Review

Nokia’s flagship handset has already hit store shelves and for roughly Rs 38,500, you can get yourself one of the best camera phones for low light photography. The Lumia 920 is all about the camera and, of course, the other exclusive novelty it enjoys over the competition – wireless charging. Let’s quickly run through the rest of the specifications that make up the Lumia 920.

OS – Windows Phone 8
Nokia hasn’t really changed the Windows Phone 8 UI too much apart from some exclusive apps like City Lens, Nokia Drive, etc. The operating system remains one of the best to date when it comes to fluidity and uniformity for devices spread amongst various price segments.

Cellular network – Quad-band GSM and 3G support
Being a flagship device, the Lumia 920 supports the full quad-band GSM and 3G networks, including LTE. However, since India uses TDD-LTE instead of FDD-LTE, we won’t be able to use that here.

A bit too big for comfort

Display – 4.5-inch ClearBlack IPS
Nokia uses its proprietary PureMotion HD+ technology for the display, which makes it super sensitive enough to be used even with gloves on. The panel is of the IPS type and the HD resolution ensures sharp text and images with very good viewing angles.

Form factor and weight – A bit large and bulky at 185 g
The fancy ‘floating lens’ technology in the camera has come at a price, making the Lumia 920 quite large and bulky. There’s also quite a bit of bezel around the phone, which gives it the ‘super-sized’ appearance. If you have large hands, then you probably won’t mind the size, but for most, it won’t be the most convenient phone to carry around.

Wi-Fi – Dual-band, 802.11 ‘n’
Dual-band Wi-Fi ensures you have the option of connecting to the faster 5GHz band. Most phones above the Rs 30,000 price bracket come with dual-band Wi-Fi, so it’s sort of a given now as far as flagship phones are concerned.

SoC– Qualcomm Snapdragon S4
The Lumia 920 runs on the Qualcomm MSM8960 chipset. This SoC is based on the new dual-core Krait CPUs and Adreno 225 graphics. The CPUs are clocked at 1.5GHz, which ensures smooth operation; the 1GB of RAM helps facilitate this. The speed of the CPU is not that important though, since all WP8 devices have very similar performance when it comes to the UI. The real difference will only be noticeable in apps.

Storage – 32GB with no room for expansion 
It’s great that Nokia has bundled 32GB of onboard storage, but we don’t get why it chose to omit a microSD card slot. I’m sure including a slot for memory expansion wouldn’t have increased the cost of the handset by a great deal.

NFC – Yes
NFC is present, just like it is on most Nokia handsets these days. It would have been nice if Nokia had included a couple of programmable NFC tags as well with the handset.

Wireless Charging – Yes
The only handset currently available to feature wireless charging, the Lumia 920 still requires you to place the handset on a charging table, so it’s not like you can roam around your room while your phone is being charged. It’s a nice feature, but remember that you’ll also have to invest more in wireless charging accessories, which obviously don’t come cheap.

The famed PureView camera

Primary Camera – 8.7MP sensor with f/2.0 aperture
The camera is certainly the highlight of the 920. The 8.7MP sensor coupled with a large aperture of f/2.0 means you get the maximum amount of light hitting the sensor even in low-light conditions. You also get a dual-LED flash, although a Xenon flash would have been a lot better considering the main focus of this phone is the camera.

Front camera – 1.3MP
You get a pretty decent front facing camera that records 720p video.

Sensors – Accelerometer, Gyroscope Sensor, Magnetometer
Along with the usual suspects like the ambient light sensor, we also have a Magnetometer. Also known as Compass, this sensor makes a comeback from the Lumia 900 and is used to measure the strength of the Earth’s magnetic field. This in conjunction with the accelerometer is useful when it comes to augmented reality apps. 

GPS – GLONASS and GPS
Along with GPS, we also have a GLONASS chip inside to further help quickly lock down your position and help with more accurate navigation.

Battery – Li-Ion 2000mAh
The Lumia 920 has a decently-sized battery pack. A 2000mAh battery should help you get through the day without having to reach for the charger. We’ll know for certain once we’re done with our battery tests on the phone.

The bottom line
Nokia has created quite the flagship handset on the new Windows Phone platform and now it’s up to the apps to improve to truly make this handset a worthy contender against some of the high-end Androids or even the iPhone. On paper, the Lumia 920 looks pretty solid. Apart from the slightly bulky design, it does seem to be a pretty good phone. In the end, if low-light photography is your thing, then the Lumia 920 could be your best bet right now.

Don't forget to check out our previous coverage of Lumia 920:

Nokia Lumia 920 vs Apple iPhone 5: Camera shootout
First Impressions: Nokia Lumia 920