Meet the Nokia Lumia 800

Dubbed by Nokia CEO Stephen Elop as the “first real Windows Phone”, the Nokia Lumia 800 definitely has set the bar high for itself. It hasn’t been officially released in the Philippines yet (even in the United States) but we were able to get a review unit courtesy of Nokia UK. Read on for our initial impressions.

Inspired by the Nokia N9

Remember the Nokia N9 that we reviewed a few months ago? Back then we were completely blown away with the hardware design. The N9 was just stunning to look at. We’re happy to report that it’s the same case with the Nokia Lumia 800. It almost looks and feels identical to the Nokia N9 except that this has a slightly smaller display. The N9 has a 3.9″ display and the Lumia 800 comes in at 3.7″. Both though have the gorgeous AMOLED Clearblack display. Yes, this is the curved Gorilla Glass touchscreen that got a lot of raves even with the N9.

At the back you’ll find the Nokia logo as well as the Carl Zeiss 8 megapixel camera with dual LED flash. One noticeable missing component though is the front facing camera. No video calling with this phone. That’s not a big thing here in the Philippines though so that shouldn’t matter much. At the top you’ll find the various ports as well as the micro-SIM tray.

In terms of hardware we have no complaints whatsoever with the Nokia Lumia 800. This thing is simply beautiful.

Software Performance

Windows. That’s the main difference between the Lumia 800 and the N9. We’re happy to report that the user experience is topnotch and at some points even easier and more intuitive than iOS and Android. Applications were snappy and smooth thanks to the 1.4GHz processor and 512MB RAM. That actually puzzled me a bit since the specs aren’t really top tier. Other smartphones run on dual-core processors and 1GB RAM. The smooth user experience is probably due to the software optimization with Windows (kudos to Microsoft for this).

Here are some photos of a few Windows apps:

Make no mistake about it — the Nokia Lumia 800 is a phenomenal smartphone. It delivers all the core services well in a beautiful package. The main challenge really is the timing. Does the market have space for one more ecosystem to thrive? I personally think that there is. Nokia just have to be aggressive with their marketing and recruitment of brand ambassadors and evangelists. At this point it’s really not just a battle of ecosystems, it’s a battle of perception and branding.

This article was contributed by:

Jerome Ancheta of JAM ONLINE with edits from Carlo Ople, Unbox EIC.