WORDS
ALEX PELL
T E C H
T A L K
Hit the tiles
Introducing this month’s hero product: the Nokia Lumia 920
the true measure
of any gadget is not how stylish or innovative
it is, but whether it actually makes your life easier. This swish
Nokia, which at the time of writing is the flagship of the
Microsoft Windows Phone 8 system, firmly ticks that box – even
compared to Android or Apple handsets. Indeed, the Lumia 920
showcases many ideas that rivals will surely adopt. The most
obvious of these is the way it pools together various nuggets of
information, such as text messages, emails, social media feeds
or content from apps into tile-shaped icons that continuously
update. As geeks will attest, this tiling is not new; however,
Windows Phone 8 has developed the concept considerably.
It allows you to designate tiles to act as catch-alls for different
aspects of your digital world, so you could have one for people,
for instance, where Twitter updates appear and photos are
shared among friends. What this means is that there’s
no need to jump from app to app. In comparison,
the iPhone’s carpet of icons feels dated.
The handset is a classy affair, with a 4.5in
(11.43
cm) touchscreen that works even if
you’re wearing gloves – skiers, take note –
plus a decidedly competent camera. Geeks
may envy the mildly meatier specs of some premium-priced
rivals, but the Nokia slickly achieves everything it needs to
without fuss.
True, the handset is a chunky monkey in size and weight, but
this heft actually makes it easier to find in a handbag, particularly
in its custard-yellow or cherry-red colour options. Less forgivable
is the sealed-in battery, which won’t chug through a day of typical
use without re-juicing. But that might be fixable with a software
update, so it shouldn’t be considered a deal breaker.
The elephant in the room, however, is the relative scarcity of
apps. Many of the big guns are there, but there’s nothing like the
diversity of Google Play or the Apple App Store, and there may
never be. Nokia makes a fist of masking this by bundling in a few
crackers, such as turn-by-turn navigation. And for firms wedded
to the Microsoft environment, Windows Phone now
presents a viable escape route from Blackberry.
Nonetheless, unless Big M seriously harnesses
the enthusiasm of app creators, the Lumia 920
and its siblings could prove a footnote rather
than a beacon in the annals of gadgetry.
£575 (SIM free); nokia.com
The handset is a
classy affair with
a 4.5in touchscreen that
works even if you’re wearing
gloves – skiers take note
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V I E W P O I N T S
