The Lumia 920 came out as the ‘Most Innovative’ smartphone of the year, with a massively improved camera, advanced screen technology and the new Windows Phone 8. Despite of that, consumers find it too bulky and heavy.
Nokia has announced the Lumia 925 few months back, sporting a new design and a much improved imaging features. Though it shares the same hardware specs with the Lumia 920, this smartphone has something new to offer.
Glad to know that Nokia has listened to its customer’s feedback and now they’ve brought the Lumia 925 with a better look - now thinner and lighter. It also comes with the latest Nokia Lumia Amber update out-of-the-box that brings new software features like the Nokia Smart Cam, Nokia Pro Cam, FM Radio, Glance, double-tap to wake and more. Not only that, there are few hardware changes like the addition of the AMOLED screen and added sixth glass lens. However, there are some few omissions like the in-built wireless charging and lesser storage.
UNBOXING TIME!
When I saw it coming out from the box, I was really astonished. The new design concept looks classy and sexy. The addition of the aluminum frame has added a new statement to the overall look of this handset. Its lighter, slimmer and has a better camera compared to the 920.
The Lumia 925 is neither a replacement or an upgrade to the Lumia 920 but it caters a different set of audience. Though it has all the goodness, there are few exclusions like the built-in wireless charging and it only has a 16gb storage. It’s true that you can’t always have it all, but it all boils down to your preference.
The Lumia 925 has a league of its own – it is a very capable phone, lightweight yet powerful. And we believe that this is the best looking smartphone today. Our full review will be posted shortly. Please watch our unboxing and first impressions of the Nokia Lumia 925.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YhvUak-E_jI
WHAT’S INSIDE THE BOX?
Sales Package: Nokia Lumia 925
Nokia AC-50 MicroUSB Charger
Nokia Charging and Data Cable CA-190CD
Nokia Headset WH-208
Quick guide
SIM Door Key
Check out more of our UNBOXING HERE>>>
SLEEKER, SEXIER, LIGHTER
Nokia has introduced a design concept featuring an aluminum material combined with the ‘iconic’ polycarbonate back cover. This great combination has produced a sexier look yet professional view. I was in awe when I first saw the Lumia 925 arrived in our office. It feels so good in the hands, feels premium and solid - truly, one of a kind.
Nokia has changed the camera design at the rear of the Lumia 925. The added hump for the camera centerpiece adds a new statement. The polycarbonate at the back is a matte finish that provides a rubberized feeling for a better grip – so it wont slip. If you still remember the Antennagate issue on the iPhone 4 that causes a dramatic drop in signal when you’re holding the side where the antenna resides. Apple resolved it by giving away free bumper cases but not in Nokia’s case. The Lumia 925 was intelligently designed not to incur any signal loss wherever you’re holding it. The two black stripes on both sides of the Lumia 925 used to separate the antenna for a superb reception.
In comparison to the Lumia 920, is has a slimmer profile of just 8.5mm and of course its lighter by 46 grams. The Lumia 925 comes with a unibody design using polycarbonate and aluminum materials. It comes in three colors: black, white and gray. The matte polycarbonate back cover and overall aesthetic is superb, it fits right in your hand. It’s really comfortable to hold.
In order to make this phone lighter, Nokia has omitted the in-built wireless charging. The Lumia 920 and 820 both have it built-in but added more weight. With this device, you can get a wireless charging back shell to charge your phone on a compatible wireless charging device. The shells are sold separately.
The wireless charging back shell comes in variety of colors too in red, white, yellow and black. This can also serves as a protective cover, it’s a smart cover, indeed.
PLAY UNDER THE SUN
The Lumia 925 has a great hardware display. It doesn’t comes with a 1080p screen though, but its more than the usual 720p resolution. A normal 720p display has a resolution of 1280×720 but Nokia opted to put a unique resolution of 1280×768 for a more precise and better display quality compared to other competitor’s 720 HD screens. Most touchscreen smartphones suffered from poor sunlight legibility, motion blur and inability to operate but bare skin – Nokia has found a solution to this.
PUREMOTION HD+ A technology called PureMotion HD+, first introduced in the Lumia 920, has resolved all these issues in one go. This display technology also found in the Lumia 925 has pixels light up twice as fast than on competing smartphones. It offers the best viewing quality of moving content without the blurriness. Watch a video in the dark, flip through your photo but it remains sharp and consistent. When you go out on a bright a sunny day, it adapts automatically based on the surrounding light, makes the screen crisp, readable and never washed out.
CLEARBLACK DISPLAY In addition to the PureMotion HD+, Nokia has added its own ClearBlack display. This display method was first introduced in 2010 during the Nokia World. ClearBlack display makes your viewing experience even more better. This primarily improves sunlight legibility and image quality. This ensures that the blacks you see really are just that – black – which in turn enhances the contrast of the display and makes the screen easier to see. It adjusts the brightness automatically to optimum level depending on the conditions you are in. So when you use the Lumia 925 indoors, outdoors, low-light and bright-light, the colors, contrast and quality remains the same. Having said that, it helps reduce the need to turn up the brightness, hence reduces the battery consumption.
GORILLA GLASS 2
One thing that makes the Lumia 925 aside from its polycarbonate-aluminum chassis, is the Gorilla Glass 2, the toughest glass in any smartphones today. This protects the AMOLED screen on the Lumia 925 from accidental drop and everyday wear and tear, making it scratch and shatter resistant. So even if you sit at top of this phone, you can expect that it wont break it.
The Lumia 925 has a super- sensitive touchscreen that operates using your nails, or even with your gloves on, aside from your fingers. This is one of the great features on this handset, makes phone navigation easier and faster than before. Gone are the days when you need to press hard the screen or swipe it hard back and forth. And oh, the Gorilla glass on this handset is curved that makes the overall navigation seamless.
Powered by Synaptics, the Lumia 925 now allows for a great touchscreen user interface, regardless of the input method. There is nothing else on the market that offers this experience like the Lumia 925 does. This is also useful in winter or in places with people who can’t live without a pair of gloves, they can now use a smartphone without the need to remove their gloves – very convenient.
The Lumia 925 display is very pleasing to the eyes, the colors are punchy and the contrast is just perfect. After the Amber update, you can now manually adjust the contrast and the warmness of the display. True to its promise, we are really impressed with its display quality, much better from the Lumia 920.
MORE THAN YOUR EYES CAN SEE
Smartphones today will never be smart without a camera. It has become a standard on any mobile phones in the market today. It is used for taking photos, capturing videos, video calling and all. Most cameraphones work best when there’s enough amount of light but struggles at lowlight conditions – but that was then. Well, most of you would agree that the beauty of photography is all what your naked eye can see. Because you can clearly find the details and see almost everything. But let me tell you this – true beauty is More than Your Eyes Can See.
Nokia has found a solution to this, the Lumia 925 sports an 8.7MP PureView camera with Optical Image Stabilization to capture effortless, blurry free lowlight shots in just one click, no dramas. It also has six element floating lenses for great image quality that no other smartphones can. These combined to allow you take photos at night without the need of a flash.
The Lumia 925 is Nokia’s first global device to carry the PureView branding stamped at the rear of it – not the Lumia 920 or the Nokia 808. This only means that people can only expect nothing but great photos from its camera. The Lumia 925 packs the same imaging specs on the 920 but offers a better imaging output. There is a floating lens technology where the whole optical assembly is suspended on springs. This dampens any movements you make when you’re using the phone to avoid blurriness or shakiness when taking pictures or video.
Nokia has added a sixth glass lens on this device compared to the five all-plastic lens on the Lumia 920. This offers better noise control, sharpness and contrast, making photos closer to real life and better quality.
SHOT LIKE A PRO
The Nokia Pro Camera is the most advanced camera app that gives you more freedom to take pictures plus you can now record videos while zooming back and forth, no sweat.
Indeed, the camera on this slim device is extraordinary. Nokia has intelligently combined technology and science that allows you to take pictures like never before. See our photo samples below. (photos were captured using the default camera app only)
SEE MORE PHOTOS HERE>>>
The Lumia 925 can record a stunning 1080p Full HD videos at 30fps. It assures you that the audio capture is crisp and clear – thanks to Nokia Rich Recording, its lets you record audio for up to 140db without distortion. The video quality on the 925 is great, contrast is punchy and frame rate is consistent at 30fps. You can even use this phone for filming, works great even with your shaky hands due to its floating lens.
See video samples captured by the Lumia 925:
PERFORMANCE THAT NEVER LAGS
Windows Phone changes the way people use their smartphones today. Most people look for uber high-powered specs that determines how fast and smooth a device would run. But Windows Phone proves that its not all about the processor and RAM. Software optimization is the key why Windows Phone runs fast, smooth and lag-free. Early adopters of the Windows Phone 7 can testify this fact. Even the Lumia 510 with 256MB of RAM and 800mhz of processor can give you a decent smartphone experience compared to other lowered-spec’d Android devices. Ironically, Android devices also prove that even the fastest octa-core processor, can’t assure you a lag-free experience.
The Lumia 925 is powered by a dual core Snapdragon processor, clocked at 1.5ghz and 1GB of RAM. The Adreno 225 offers a decent gaming experience and video playback. This alone is more than enough to give you a stable, fast and lag-free smartphone performance without draining your battery. During our battery test, this device lasts for roughly more than two days of normal usage (sms, calls, music, occasional gaming and browsing) – thanks to its 2,000 mAh battery. Though there are some apps that can affect the battery life like the Glance. I normally set it to peek so it won’t consume much of the battery. You just need to hover your hand on your Lumia 925 (near the sensor).
IT GETS EVEN BETTER
Windows Phone 8 brings new features that bring you closer to the people and things you care about. Its more . It is now more personalized and streamlined. You can get do things faster without the stress of swiping through multiple homescreens. Everything is integrated that makes things easier and effective. What I like most about the Windows Phone is that it safeguards your phone to help keep your data secure and your mind at ease. In addition, you are free from viruses and malware too, no need to install any antivirus software and all those crap. Window Phone 8 is reliable and safe.
NOKIA LUMIA AMBER
The Lumia 925 runs on the latest Nokia Lumia Amber update (GDR2) which brings new features and software enhancements. This update is also available in other Lumias running on Windows Phone 8. The update brings improvements on image processing that offer better noise reduction, color reproduction and exposure control. Now you can control the ISO settings of the camera from 800 to 3200 for even better low light performance.
Nokia Smart Cam is also included on this update that allows you to shoot series of 10 photos with a resolution of 5 megapixels. You can choose the Best Shot or combine several shots of people in movement into one.
There are other interesting options such as Motion Focus, Change Faces, or remove unwanted objects from your pictures. Others such as Nokia Glance screen, Flip to Silence, Double-Tap to unlock, Data Sense, Storage Check and Faster Map updates. You can find more HERE>>
The Windows Phone store has grown into more than 170, 000 rich apps that you can use and enjoy. There are plenty of third-party apps as well, to bridge the gap. It is quite small compared to other rival platforms but Windows Phone store assures you that you won’t get 500 frustrating fart apps. Apps from the store are being reviewed before publishing. As the platform grows bigger and better, popular apps and game titles are now being ported to the store. Speaking of games, Lumia 925 enjoys a variety of games from various game titles like Gameloft, Halfbrick, Rovio, Imangi Studios, Electronic Arts (EA) and from Microsoft’s Xbox live titles.
UNLEASH THE GAMER IN YOU
Lumia 925, like other Windows Phones, has Xbox Live where you can find all your installed games. Not only that, you can set your own dynamic avatar, add, find and interact with other Xbox users, sync your score and achievements from your Xbox account on Xbox 360, Windows 8 and RT. You can also use your Lumia 925 to interact with the Xbox 360 console via the Xbox Smart Glass. You can also see the upcoming games on Xbox and ‘Deals of the Week’ under Spotlights.
Lumia 925 supports all the games available in the store including those heavy-graphic games like the Modern Combat 4, Zombie HQ, N.O.V.A. 3 and HALO: Spartan Assault to name a few. All games played well, without any lags.
STAY SOCIAL AND CONNECTED
Lumia 925 is a very social phone, Facebook, Twitter, Foursquare, Instagram (via third-party app) - name it your have it. But what makes it unique from the competition is the deep social integration. You can just sign in to Twitter and Facebook and get all your updates straight from the ‘ME Tile’ and post your updates as well, no need to open an app. The Photo Hub also lets you access not only your photos but also your friends without opening Facebook in the browser. You can just turn your data connection or WiFi on and let your Lumia do the rest.
Lumia 925 supports LTE network bands: 1, 3, 7, 8, 20 that offers a download speed of 100 Mbps and upload speed of 50 Mbps. (may vary on your carrier’s data/plan) File sharing made easy on the Lumia 925, as it offers both NFC and Bluetooth 3.0. You can share and receive files on any Bluetooth/NFC enabled-smartphones. You can also share your data connection by turning on the internet sharing option on your handset so you and your friend can stay connected. This works for up to 8 connected devices.
Despite the lack of HDMI port, Nokia has an app called PlayTo lets you enjoy your photos, videos and music on other web-enabled (DLNA) devices over the same Wi-Fi network.
Browsing in this handset is a breeze, with Internet Explorer 10, browsing is fast and smooth. Scrolling and panning is very responsive even on full desktop view. Internet Explorer 10 is the fastest mobile browser to date even faster than iOS and Android browsers. It scores 320 plus 6 bonus points on the HTML5 test over Android’s 297 points.
What makes your Lumia 925 even more smarter is the ability to act as your portable document editing device – thanks to Office 365 that offers free Word, Excel, PowerPoint and One Note. You can now view and edit your documents on-the-go with SkyDrive integration, you can also sync your files on the cloud, hassle free.
I’M HERE!
Nokia Lumia 925 offers the best mapping and navigation suite via HERE Maps, HERE Transit, HERE City Lens and HERE Drive+ - best of all its all free. HERE offers a lifetime sat-navigation with turn-by-turn voice guidance in 94 countries and true offline support – you’ll never get lost.
MORE ON WINDOWS PHONE 8 CLICK HERE>>>
FINAL WORDS
The Nokia Lumia 925 is neither an upgrade or replacement to the Lumia 920 thus it offers a whole new smartphone experience. It’s new design construction offers a better handling and feel, giving it a more sexy and classy look. The camera is one of its key selling points, the added 6th glass lens makes a difference compared to the Lumia 920. It offers a more precise image quality with better contrast and lighting. The Lumia 925 has a slimmer and lighter dimension which most people want, this is Nokia’s answer to address the thickness and weight of its former flagship.
Most smartphone users wants more apps, its all about apps, high end processors, huge screens and all. But today, smartphone users are looking for reliability, great battery life, attractive design, durability and security – things that you can’t get anywhere but with the Lumia 925. Windows Phone 8 is an ever reliable operating system, its fast, lag free and seamless. No need for multiple homescreens or dozens of icons to get what you need. Everthing is on your startscreen, with dynamic live tiles that delivers you updates and content fast and timely. Ease your worries with the level of security that it offers. Some people would criticize the Windows Phone for being a closed OS, no access to system files or other geeky modifications. An open source OS would give all the access you need, but it also opens yourself to risks and threats. As a closed OS, Windows Phone offers you a high level of security to safeguard your account access, your passwords or other activity on your device.
People are getting tired of the same old look of their smartphones, limited colors and same design. I know most of you are getting tired of using a phone that looks exactly the same on the person sitting next to you. Lumia 925 is a fresh breathe of air, it has a unique design that stands out.
Reliability is very important when you’re buying a smartphone. People use their smartphones to take in calls, send sms, email, play music, videos, camera and access the internet. Its frustrating if you can’t do all these things in a day or two without draining your battery. Lumia 925 offers a decent battery life, giving you enough power to do the tasks you need. Of course, the battery life is subjective on how you use your phone and how extensive it is. You can also use the battery saving mode to extend more time.
Lumia 925 is an all round smartphone especially to the photo-enthsiasts. It has an amazing camera that lets you take photos anytime of the day and night. Lowlight shots is one of the prime feature of its camera, you can even take night photos at ISO 100 without using a tripod, just snap it and you’re done – thanks to the Optical Image Stabilization (OIS) with a floating lens technology that dampens any movement of your hands when taking photos. Lumia 925 takes casual photography to the next level, less the bulkiness and hassle. Now you can go to places, take photos without hanging a big camera around your neck. The best things is you can share your photos straight away, either via Bluetooth, NFC or to the internet. You can also edit your photos before uploading it, with apps like Nokia Creative Studio, Camera 360, Fantasia Painter and more. Share it to various social networking apps via Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Flickr, Tumblr and more.
Lumia 925 is also perfect for office and business use with integrated MS Office apps and SkyDrive feature, you wont miss anything. In fact, our news editor, Romeo, does most of his articles on his Lumia 920 via MS Word and WordPress app. You can use the Citrix Receiver app to remotely access your office files and a Good Mobile app to get access to your emails securely if your company support this.
If you are a traveler, Lumia 925 has a free offline voice-guided turn by turn navigation in 94 countries via HERE suite that includes HERE Maps, Drive+, Transit and Lens. There’s no other smartphone that can give you the offline benefits that saves your data and battery usage.
All these amazing features for only 23,500 PhP or USD 660 contract-free. It’s true that the Lumia 925 is more than your eyes can see because inside its beautiful body, there’s a lot of features that it can offer, more than its price. I believe that the 925 is the best looking Lumia device ever made. It has the looks that outshines other competing smartphones. With the Nokia Amber and upcoming Nokia Black update, everything gets better. This phone has balanced both power, features and design, no doubt, the Nokia Lumia 925 Captured the Essence!
***Thank you to Nokia Philippines and Fuentes Manila for the test device!
Nokia Lumia 925
Dimensions
129 x 70.6 x 8.5 mm, 78 cc (5.08 x 2.78 x 0.33 in)
Weight
139 g (4.90 oz)
Display
AMOLED, 16M colors 768 x 1280 pixels, 4.5 inches (332 ppi)
Display features
PureMotion HD+, Brightness control, Orientation sensor, High brightness mode, Refresh rate 60 Hz, Corning® Gorilla® Glass 2, Sculpted glass, Easy to clean, Nokia Glance screen, Lumia Color profile, Wide viewing angle, Sunlight readability enhancements
Screen
4.5 inch, ClearBlack, Super Sensitive Touch
Memory
16GB internal storage (non-expandable), Free 7GB SkyDrive
Connectivity
WiFi dual band, NFC, Bluetooth 3.0, NFC
DLNA via Nokia Play To
Sound
Dolby Headphone sound enhancement. FM Radio
HSDPA, 42.2 Mbps; HSUPA, 5.76 Mbps; LTE 1, 3, 7, 8, 20, 50 Mbps UL, 100 Mbps DL
OS
Windows Phone 8 with Nokia Amber (upgradeable to Nokia Black)
CPU
Snapdragon S4 1.5Ghz dual-core, 1GB RAM
GPU
Adreno 225
Camera
8.7 MP PureView Carl Zeiss optics
3264 x 2448 pixels, Autofocus, dual Led Flash
f/2.0 aperture size, 4x digital zoom
ISO 100, ISO 200, ISO 400, ISO 800, ISO 1600, ISO 3200
HD 1.2 MP wide angle front-facing camera, Video recording, Still image, Video call
Video
1080p (Full HD, 1920 x 1080), video light
dual HAAC microphones Nokia Rich Recording
Sensors
Ambient light sensor, Accelerometer, Gyroscope, Proximity sensor, Magnetometer
Battery
2,000mAh Li-Polymer
Colors
Black, White, Gray