Nokia Lumia 925 preview: First look

Introduction

Nokia refined the design of the Lumia 920 flagship, but didn't fundamentally change it - the Lumia 925 is, in essence, the 920S. The number of changes might be small, but their magnitude isn't. With a better body, screen and software, the Nokia Lumia 925 is a more desirable device than its 920 sibling.

Nokia Lumia 925 official photos

Let's break down the changes. The thick and heavy polycarbonate unibody is gone, with an exposed aluminum frame and polycarbonate back taking its place. The diet has shaved 36g and 2.2mm off the waistline of the Lumia 925.

Part of that is the new AMOLED screen, which is thinner than the LCD of the older phone. It has the same basic specs - a 4.5" diagonal, WXGA resolution, Gorilla Glass 2, ClearBlack and Super sensitive touch. But we believe that AMOLED is a better match for Windows Phone - LCDs just don't do the interface justice . AMOLEDs simply render colorful squares on a black background better.

There are some other changes too, like the added Nokia Smart Camera app and FM radio support.

Nokia Lumia 925 at a glance:

• General: GSM 850/900/1800/1900 MHz, UMTS 850/900/1900/2100 MHz or 580/900/1700/1900/2100; HSDPA 42.2 Mbps, HSUPA 5.76Mbps; LTE 800/900/1800/2100/2600 or 700/1700/2100; LTE Cat 3 100Mbps down, 50Mbps up
• Form factor: Touchscreen bar
• Dimensions: 129 x 70.6 x 8.5 mm, 78 cc; 139 g
• Display: 4.5" 16M-color WXGA (768 x 1280 pixels) ClearBlack AMOLED capacitive touchscreen; Gorilla glass 2; Super sensitive touch
• Chipset: 1.5GHz dual-core Krait processor, Adreno 225 GPU, 1GB of RAM
• OS: Windows Phone 8
• Memory: 16/32 GB of built-in storage
• Camera: 8 megapixel auto-focus camera with Carl Zeiss lens, OIS, face and smile detection; 1080p video recording at 30fps; 1.3MP front-facing camera with 720p video
• Connectivity: dual-band Wi-Fi a/b/g/n, stereo Bluetooth 3.0, standard microUSB port, GPS receiver with A-GPS and GLONASS, HERE Drive+ free worldwide navigation, 3.5mm audio jack, NFC
• Misc: Exclusive Smart Camera app, FM Radio, built-in accelerometer, multi-touch input, proximity sensor

The changes will make their way to older Lumia phones with the Amber update, but the Nokia Lumia 925 is leading the way.

Smart Camera is a Lens add-on for the stock camera app, though it can fully replace it. You can even set it as the default camera app to launch by long pressing the shutter key. So what is Smart Camera? It's the result of the Scalado acquisition and offers features similar to HTC's Zoe. We'll review it in more detail later on in this article.

The camera itself is the same as what the Lumia 920 has, which is to say pretty good. It has a Carl Zeiss lens with f/2.0 aperture, an Optical Image Stabilization mechanism and a 1/3" image sensor of 8.7MP resolution.

Nokia Lumia 925 in our office

The Lumia 925 is perhaps not as big of an upgrade over the 920 as we hoped, but there's honestly little Nokia could have done differently. Not with a screen resolution and chipset locked by the OS.

The camera software update sure is nice, but the Lumia 920 will get it soon enough itself. So, will the new finish and new screen justify the existence of a new model? Jump to the next page to find out!