Nokia Lumia 800 review

Lumia 800 works smoothly on a 1.4GHz single-core CPU. The device has a luxurious, rugged design, however it cannot be replaced and there are not many applications.

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Lumia 800 is Nokia's first smartphone to use Microsoft's Windows Phone operating system. The device was first introduced by Nokia at the Nokia World event in October 2011.

The model inherits the unique design of the Nokia N9 model, with its monolithic body made of polycarbonate material. Machine equipped with single-processor 1.4GHz speed, 512MB RAM, 8 Megapixel camera video 720p. ClearBack AMOLED 3.7-inch screen, resolution of 480 x 800 pixels, protected by toughened glass against scratching Gorilla.

General assessment.

* Advantages:

- Beautiful, luxurious design, holding hands firmly.
- The display is sharp.
- Listen to music and take good pictures.
- Smooth operation.

* Defect:

- Hot air when operating continuously.
- Not many applications.
- Limited Vietnamese typing
- Cannot replace the battery.

Partial detailed review:

Design and screen.

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The product inherits the monolithic structure and design of Nokia N9, smartphone using MeeGo operating system.

The body is made of colored polycarbonate material, not painted or plated. This means that if the user unintentionally leaves the case, the stain remains the same color as the casing, no matter how deep. This advantage makes the scratches more difficult to see, does not create the feeling of old cases after long time of use. Lumpy polycarbonate makes the case resistant to scratches and good fingerprint or dust resistance.

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Turn the volume keys, power key and camera key respectively.

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Meanwhile, the left side has no keys.

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With a body thickness of 12.1mm, high 116.5 and width of 61.2mm, Lumia 800 is quite stout, the feeling of holding in the hand fits. Weighing 142 grams makes the device more compact than some light and medium-sized devices. Seamless design makes the machine solid. The only way to open the camera body is to remove the latch to separate the screen of the machine from the body. The corners are softly rounded, making the machine look less rough or too dry.

ClearBack AMOLED technology screen is 3.7 inches wide, 480 x 800 pixel resolution, slightly raised compared to the entire body, with curves in the border, looks pretty glossy. The visibility of the screen is good, the colors are honest and clear. In a sunny environment, the viewing angle of the screen can reach nearly 180 degrees. In addition to direct sunlight, anti-glare polarized sheets prove effective when keeping the display stable, all details remain clear and full color, although the viewing angle is slightly reduced if compared to the conditions. sunny.

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Screen 3.7 inches.

The screen is quite small, but the sides are quite thin, making the screen feel bigger than it really is. Compared to the screen of Nokia N9, Lumia 800 "disadvantaged" than having to contain the Back, Home and Search trios of Windows Phone. At the top of the screen is the Nokia brand name, backing to the right is the sensor light, hidden with the black of the screen.

Nokia " cares " for Lumia 800 with scratch-resistant Gorilla toughened glass. Although promoting the advantages, this glass is quite cling to fingerprints.

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The bottom of the screen of Lumia 800 (blue) has a set of 3 touch keys of Windows Phone, no extra camera, while Nokia N9 has a secondary camera but no keys.

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The N9's side has no camera key.

Another feature, though not yet called a weakness of the device, but also not to be missed is the PenTile structure used on Lumia 800 screen. Currently this structure is applied on most high-end phones, but The future tends to be replaced by the RGB matrix structure. On the PenTile screen, each pixel will be supported by 2 pixels next to it, and when viewed close up, it will be clear that the display is pitted. However, with a resolution of 480 x 800 pixels and 3.7 inches wide, pixel density reaches 251 ppi points, not everyone can see this good point with the naked eye.

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Micro USB cover and sim card slot.

The top part of the phone includes a 3.5mm headphone jack, a microUSB port cover, users just need to press the left part of this cover to open it. After opening the USB cover, you can slide the tray containing micro sim card to install. On the symmetrical side, the bottom edge consists of a middle speaker grid that does not see the microphone, where it may have been hidden into one of the grid cells on the side.

While the left part of the device is completely empty, the right side is more dense with the volume keys, the power key cum screen lock / open function, the way out is an access key for photography application. The position of the key is calculated appropriately, making it feel like holding the camera to capture or record video like on a regular compact camera.

The hard key sequence on the right hip emerges from the body, is easy to press and reacts responsibly to the operation. The camera key is higher than the other three keys above. Three touch keys at the bottom of the screen interact well, very responsive. Whenever using the device, these keys also light up with light white light, but clearly so users do not have to worry when using the device in dark conditions.

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Set of 3 touch keys typical of Windows Phone.

Thanks to the hard key to take this photo, along with the design from the Windows Phone platform, Lumia 800 users can quickly activate the capture function without opening the screen, just by holding down the shutter key. This helps those who love to store unexpected moments without missing out on the event.

The back of the device is quite simple, with a long metal about 3cm long, round 2 heads. Above the metal piece is Nokia's name, along with the name of the Carl Zeiss Tessar lens and 8-megapixel camera. The flash pair is placed right next to it. Camera design is quite deep down to the bottom of the body to avoid accidentally letting the finger cover the lens.

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Seamless body, back cover without back cover.

Due to the monolithic design, the battery replacement for Lumia 800 users can not perform by themselves, quite inconvenient. This is considered the biggest weakness in the design aspect of the product. The battery is 1.450mAh in capacity, making it possible to wait on 2G for 265 hours, according to Nokia.

Metro UI interface and features of Windows Phone.

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Chat on social networks is integrated into the Messages section.

Although there is information Nokia licensed by Microsoft to interfere and modify the interface of Windows Phone on its products, but for Lumia 800, no difference occurred. The device still uses Metro with square or rectangular symbol boxes outside the main screen, the Menu interface is lined up and has no other options.

The default lock screen of the device is simple, displaying information such as date, time, new notifications (mail, messages, missed calls .). Lumia 800 has only the option to drag the screen up to unlock, not as much as Android.

The interface of Windows Phone is quite simple, not too flashy, but very effective. Although owning a single processor, but Lumia 800 works smoothly, there is no delay or jerky phenomenon. Not only gentle, screen turning effect and when selecting the application is also beautiful. Due to the vertical display and only two main screens are Home and Menu, even though the first time Windows Phone users have no trouble getting used to the device.

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Pictures Hub, one of the Hubs featured on Windows Phone.

Unlike other platforms such as iOS or Android when similar applications and features are divided into small programs, Windows Phone Mango packs these application groups into separate Hubs. For example, Hub Photos will include photos from cameras, photos stored on the computer, photo albums downloaded from social networks . Or as Hub Media includes music applications, movies, podcasts, radio stations . . along with the ability to update real-time information for each individual Hub. The information in the Hubs will be divided according to the list of unused applications, or by adjacent pages, opened only by sliding your finger to the left or right of the device.

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Windows Phone still has no integrated Vietnamese keyboard, users have to use their own application.

One of the advantages of Windows Phone (available on Lumia 800) is the deep integration of social networks into the platform. Thus, users can easily share and access sites like Facebook, Twitter . without installing a third application. This is something that other operating systems have not done so far. However, this mechanism still has weaknesses: the ability to update is quite slow, often delay when there is a new notification compared to the computer about 15 minutes, unless users directly check by going to the Hub to view information believe.

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As the first "common child" between Nokia and Microsoft, Lumia 800 uses Windows Phone should be favored with full-featured Office applications like on computers. Not only features, but the programs here are displayed exactly the same on Windows operating systems for computers, and fully compatible with each other. Users can edit the content on the familiar Excel interface of PowerPoint or PowerPoint slides.

As usual, Nokia always pre-installs the map application on its products. On Lumia 800, there are 2 main applications are Nokia Maps and Nokia Drive. Compared to Windows Phone Bing Map, Nokia's map application can be affirmed, at least in Vietnam market. But for Google's GMaps software, details and options are not really good, maybe because Google has more experience than Nokia in this area.

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Google Maps (left) and Nokia Maps.

Applications for Windows Phone cannot be said to be less, not enough to use at this time. Currently, Marketplace has over 70,000 programs and keeps growing. The problem is that most of these are paid applications, with a relatively high price compared to income in Vietnam. In addition, Microsoft has not yet supported the Vietnamese market that can be purchased. The number of free apps is still not really attractive, unlike Android with a series of free software.

The above problem can be "overcome" by jailbreaking the device (such as iOS or root on Android) to install more programs outside the Marketplace. However, at this time, Lumia 800 has not been able to jailbreak. When this is successful, Lumia 800 users can experience top games on other operating systems such as Angry Birds, Ninja Fruits, Asphalt 6 .

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Good display in the sun.

Windows Phone Mango still has limitations such as not allowing to process files from computer to computer or vice versa directly, but it is required through Zune software installed on computer, Bluetooth does not allow data transfer between machines together, but only connected to peripherals like headsets, Bluetooth speakers. To type Vietnamese on Windows Phone, users can install their own percussion application, then the text is automatically copied back, and can be pasted onto other applications such as contacts, messages, email, and Facebook. .

Meanwhile, the Vietnamese keyboard on the device is quite simple. Users must open Viet Keyboard separately (application written by Nokia), type the paragraphs by Telex and VNI, then copy automatically to social networks, browsers or messages through the sharing below.

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Lumia 800 placed next to Nokia N9 (black).

Mango's multitasking ability has not been called as well. When applications are opened too much, the machine will automatically turn off the first opened programs, to ensure smooth operation of the operating system. This is also a good point to avoid battery drain and optimize the task, however, any programs that have been "missed" by the device must be reopened from the beginning. To check the running windows, the user holds the Back arrow key, the multitasking interface looks quite similar to the Symbian Belle or the webOS Card.

Microsoft followed Apple's path to creating Windows Phone without flash support for the browser. Users cannot watch videos directly on the site. Lumia 800, like other Windows Phone smartphones does not have a "real" YouTube application . In fact, this app on Marketplace is just a page leading to a mobile YouTube address.

Entertainment and connection

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Nokia Lumia 800 equipped with 8 Megapixel camera, dual flash, 720p HD video recording capability, optical lens Carl Zeiss often seen on Nokia smartphones, wide angle 28mm, f / 2.2 and no front camera. Users can choose 4: 3 ratio photos with 8 Megapixel or 16: 9 with 7 Megapixel.

The interface is simple, there is no capture on the screen, but if you go to Setting, users can find many different options. Lumia 800's camera has the ability to automatically focus by holding down the hard key to take a picture (focusing in the middle of the frame), or users can touch the screen lightly to select the focus point (the camera will shoot later) when taking pictures). Due to its size and weight, it is quite fit, plus reasonable key press position, so even though it is horizontal, it rarely happens to shake.

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Image quality in good bright conditions, full color and detail areas are displayed, full balance and full color rendering. However, if zooming to the fullest extent, the image may have a slight color noise (which does not significantly affect the actual image quality). In low light conditions, Lumia 800 is also not too bad, noise details are not much, but the ability to focus has a little less. Camera of the device does not have face detection function, but the ability to capture images quickly.

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Speaker "exclusive" to the bottom.

A noteworthy point on the 800 is the huge pink area in the middle of the screen when preparing to take pictures (more clearly when pointing to areas with white background), however will disappear after shooting. Images when calibrated before shooting colors are real, but after shooting, it will feel like "pouring" a different layer of bluish color on the whole image. The photography application has an Auto-fix option to improve the quality, but this is a "trap" because if used, the image will be pitted with white and noise, the truthfulness of the image is significantly reduced.

Quality and sound when recording video on Lumia 800 is quite stable, there is no distortion when panning the frame and the sound is fully recorded. When shooting, the camera will constantly focus to ensure the best recording quality, but users will not have the option to lock focus on a fixed point.

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Simple music interface, sound quality is quite good.

Like the interface of most applications on Windows Phone, the music player of the device is also designed quite simply. However, the very important custom gap is the Equalizer. In return, Nokia engineers created Lumia 800 with very good sound quality. Loudspeaker of the machine when listening to music in a normal environment sounds quite loud, clear and full of bass, treble. The quality of music through headphones attached to the phone is also very good. Clear, clear, warm music details and good beat performance.

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Lumia 800 and iPhone 4.

Inheriting the quality of hardware and the ability to catch strong, stable waves produced by Nokia, Lumia 800 demonstrates its strength and speed when connected. Although the area of ​​the phone wave is often poor, the machine has not lost a wave once, even the quality of the call is still good, there is no flickering phenomenon. Connecting to Wi-Fi is also the advantage of the device from Nokia. With the first time receiving the wave, the device still "caught" quite quickly, the next time if the user to open Wi-Fi, Lumia 800 will automatically connect, and the speed is almost instant after receiving the signal.

Using the machine for a long time will continuously reveal the weakness of Lumia 800. It heats up quite quickly, along with high temperatures and a pronounced feel, while only surfing the web or playing games in less than 15 minutes, The heat concentrates mainly on the head of the device, around the camera area. The normal charging process does not have the above phenomenon.

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If used sparingly, the use time can be up to two days.

The battery of Lumia 800 has been a topic of great concern, because the device has a battery fault right from the launch. Previously, the battery used for less than a day with normal use, overnight storage could take up to 15% of the battery. However, Nokia has quickly released patches, significantly overcoming this weakness, improving usage by about 30%. Especially with low usage, the machine can operate for up to 2 days.

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Nokia cooperates with Monster to produce headphones specifically for Lumia series.

Through actual use, the battery can "stay" for a day with high usage: two continuous push email addresses, open 3G networks, Facebook applications, weather, Whatsapp so that they can constantly update Japan, the location feature is not turned off, the screen is the brightest, Bluetooth connects to the headset, surf the web for about 30 minutes to an hour, texting a lot, taking pictures .