[Windows Phone 7 General] z33dev33l:
Well, now that we're out of the smartphone beta test, I figure I can compare the phones that pulled us out of such a state. On one hand, we have the brilliant Lumia 800. On the other hand, however, is it's big brother, the Nokia Lumia 900. Today, I plan to weigh the pluses and minuses of these two great devices and help decide once and for all who the best post-beta smartphone is.

Form Factor

Since this is purely a hardware battle, considering it's the same software, let's jump right into form factor. Both the Nokia Lumia 900 and 800 have a wrap-around seamless polycarbonate shell encompassing everything short of the glass, however, the 800 is made of a more dense polycarbonate, affording it a bit more heft and reassurance and making a seemingly bulletproof phone seem less fragile. The other big difference is the glass used, the Lumia 900 has a flat panel glass front where the 800 opted for a curved glass that allows your fingers to slide much more easily and giving an overall uniformity on all sides of the device.

The main issue with the lumia 800 was the charging door, it required a hard press on a mound of plastic on the top of the device, some users complained of the door itself bending out of shape. While this has not occurred to me personally, I see where it could. The Lumia 900 resolved these issues with a visible charge port that is easily accessible without tricks.

Overall, a charging port doesn't save the phone, the Lumia 800 wins this battle.

Screen

As mentioned before, the Lumia 800 has the curved glass, but what about the visuals? Much to my shock, the viewing angles on the Lumia 900 are better than that of the 800. You get a much broader range of sight and the colors retain vibrancy. While the head on view should be even, the auto-brightness sensor on the Lumia 800 seems to underperform in sunlight. The Lumia 900 remains strong. My only issue with the visuals on the Lumia 900 has to do with the capacitive buttons, they glow a slightly dingy looking yellow rather than white. This pertains to the buttons though so the 900 takes the cake on this one.

Sound Quality

Well, both through headphones and the loudspeaker, the Nokia Lumia 900 is louder. However, in my personal experience, you sacrifice just a tiny bit of sound quality. This is not, however, noticable without considerable effort. The call quality on both is simply amazing and through a set of sennheisers it's hard to not fall in love.

For this one, I have to give it a draw.

Yeah, but how does it feel?

This is a tough one, and for this test I operated both devices for two days with no case. The Lumia 900 is a massive piece of hardware, I can palm a basketball pretty easily and it still feels pretty sizable, if you're a big screen phone type then it's excellent, however, the Lumia 800 feels as though it was designed to fit comfortably in any hand.

The 900 seems to have a finish on the polycarbonate that isn't quite as smooth, it detracts from the overall uniformity of the device but aids in gripping it. Neither of these devices feel bad in hand, but for the overall market, I'd suggest the 800.

Extra! Extra! Read all about it!

Well, as far as extras go, the 900 wins on FFC alone, the FFC takes decent pics and is perfect for video calls. If the 800 had this feature, there'd have been no competition.

Bugs! Defects! *squash*

Well, Nokia is quick and generous in knocking out those bugs, but what did we have for each device? The Lumia 800 was plagued with a messed up battery and volume, and the 900 has a purple tint in low brightness, a connection issue, a creaky screen corner, and a tinny rattle when it vibrates. Now, I'd like to state that I've encountered none of these issues despite having the Lumia 800 three weeks prior to launch and the 900 on launch day. I feel as though these issues were few and far between but complaints are always louder than praise. I do know, that if I did have such issues, Nokia Care would promptly resolve them by whatever means necessary. However, as I must compare them, I have to give the point to the 800 as all of it's issues are software fixes, you can't patch a creaky screen with an update.

Overall:

While neither of these phones are a bad pick up by any means, the points are in favor of the Lumia 800. If you need a FFC, get the 900 by all means. You will not be disappointed either way. I use both as daily drivers, my 1 year old also has a lumia 800 as does my wife. You can't really go wrong with any of them, either way you're getting the best support, both software and customer. Most importantly though, you're getting the best combination of software and hardware to ever hit the mobile market.

Well, thanks for taking the time to read my random review. Enjoy the rest of your Tuesday.