First impression: It looks gorgeous, no doubt about that! Microsoft wanted phone makers to keep them looking colorful and quirky, and yes, Nokia’s lived up to this expectation. The Lumia 920 comes in bright colors with a glossy finish, giving it a high score in the looks section. It’s 4.5-inch PureMotion HD+ LCD display with ClearBlack technology makes for vivid reproduction of colors even when used outside under the sun. In fact, we must confess that its screen made for much better viewing in sunlight when compared to the Samsung Galaxy S3 too. Camera performance: The Lumia 920 has an 8 MP rear camera with Nokia’s PureView technology and optical image stabilization. The latter is a first for camera phones and promises to help users capture sharp images even in low light conditions or with slow shutter speeds. Images clicked with the camera looked absolutely beautiful on the phone’s screen, and although there was some noise visible in the images when seen on a PC screen, Nokia has assured us that the quality would be much better in the retail units of the phone, when compared to the pre-production pieces we experimented with. Even in terms of video recording, we must say the Lumia 920 managed to hold its own and capture videos with clarity rarely seen in camera phones until now. The OS experience: Windows Phone 8 has managed to create a few waves in the world of smartphone OS’s, and does have a much better overall feel than the previous versions of Windows Phone. Nokia’s apps especially, like the City Lens, Maps, Music, etc. were an absolute delight to use. The Lumia 920 also comes preloaded with some exclusive games from third-party developers. While the OS is a completely different interface from Android and iOS, it’s still rather new and the appstore is nowhere as extensive as that of its competitors. Maybe in time, this would cease to be a concern, but for now, there are relatively fewer apps to choose from. We’re not really sure of the pricing plan for the Lumia 920 in the Indian market, but we can expect it to hit the stores by sometime in January 2013. Even though Windows Phone 8 is a new OS, the Lumia 920 sure does make for an interesting high-end smartphone choice.
