Microsoft is doing its best to pull out all the stops this year with introducing Windows 8, as well as releasing Windows 8 and RT. While Windows 8 won’t be released until late October, Windows 8 has seen some product demos at IFA 2012 in Berlin; however, Nokia chose today to reveal its flagship WP8 device, the Lumia 920.
The Lumia 920 is packed with features that utilize all that Microsoft’s new mobile OS is supposed to offer. Nokia showed that they were Window Phone’s best chance of survival with the release of the Lumia 900 in April of this year, achieving a good bit of success worldwide. Now the 920 is here to blow it’s slightly older sibling out of the water, as Nokia demonstrated its amazing features this morning in NYC.
The Lumia 920 has 4.5-inch ClearBlack display with a 1280×768 resolution, an 8-megapixel Pureview camera, Snapdragon S4 dual-core 1.5GHz CPU, NFC, LTE, and wireless charging; now that all the technical terms are out of the way, let’s break it down.
One of Windows 8’s biggest updates from the previous iteration is the support of greater screen resolutions; so long, Windows devices were stuck at WVGA (800×480) and, compared to Retina and other mobile HD displays, was a terror to use. With WP8, Nokia was able to jump straight to HD resolution with 1280×768, and their ClearBlack is supposed to have the deepest blacks with high contrasting colors, which is perfect for Microsoft’s “metro” interface.
The Pureview camera with Carl Zeiss lens will make the Lumia 920 one the greatest camera phones on the market. The Pureview technology was first used on Nokia’s 808 Pureview Symbian phone with a massive 41-megapixel camera on it. The 41-megapixels allowed for users to zoom on the camera without losing quality of the picture, like you would on so many camera phones you see today. But the 8-megapixel version is far from that quality, instead it keeps the same anti-shake features seen on the 808; this allows more light to enter the lens while reducing blur. The Nokia 920 will be the best phone for low-light situations using it’s Pureview-enhanced camera.
The greatest and most unique feature of this flagship phone is the wireless charging capabilities. It is definitely not the first phone to have this feature, as the Palm Pre allowed this using WebOS and other technologies, and now that HP opened up WebOS to the public, it seems Nokia has taken it upon themselves to integrate it into their latest smartphone. You can purchase a wireless charging pad from few partner companies and will have access to charging plates at Coffee Bean & Tea Leaf shops. Virgin Atlantic has also agree to have wireless charging spots for Lumia 920 owners; this is all a great move on Nokia’s part to give more incentive for consumers to purchase the Lumia.
There has been no mention of pricing or a release date yet but it would be smart of Nokia and Microsoft to announce one soon before Apple has their big reveil and steals all the thunder. The Lumia 920 will have a wide range of colorful, wireless accessories to match it’s colorful line of bodies. Could this be a turning moment for Windows Phone in the mobile market share? Let us know your thoughts in the comments.