Nokia Lumia 800 Smartphone - 16 GB - Sim Free - MatteBlack

Had the Lumia for quite some time now (March 2012?), which I feel is enough to finally cast judgement.

When I first had it, I had newphoneitus and would kill the battery in a matter of hours, as you would any smartphone. It was desperately bad however. After about 3 updates from Nokia life became easier and I'm happy with it now. It would still be nice to have a bit of feedback from the OS (not an app) to tell me what is eating the juice. There's little indication on the screen in regards what is switched on and I have managed to leave the Bluetooth turned on after leaving the car so another improvement required. I actually think that's my gripes over.

I came to WP7 from Android. My HTC Desire went awol on a drunken way home. It was a decent phone but the OS had turned into a sluggish dog - jerky animations, reboots aplenty etc. The Lumia is running as smoothly as the day I picked it up. Silky! Regular reboots required? Nope. I think the only time it has been rebooted by me is on a plane. I do remember seeing it reboot/recover itself once too. Not sure what that was about? All in all, a very solid OS.

Applications. I see it everywhere that WP doesn't have the gallery of Apps that Android or IOS has. Can I just say, GOOD! Trying to find the perfect app to do something simple was a nightmare! Too many options. With WP, the choice is curtailed and life is easy. I do wish Microsoft would get iron fist at this crucial time and vet out any disfunctional detritus that appears on their market (like it has on other platforms).
I'm not heavily into apps so I'm not dwelling on them too much. I don't avidly go looking for something that I don't need. I wait for a circumstance where I do find one maybe handy, and then go looking.
Marketplace usage: I needed a timer for cooking, so I went to the Marketplace and searched for 'Timer'. At the time, it only threw up about 20 results but now it's much more populated. Still, it's easy to find a well reviewed solution. I ended up with the excellent, SuperTimer. 4 asynchronous timers, perfectly matching my requirement.
I needed an interval timer for the exercise bike, so I put in 'interval timer' and from a choice of 20 odd, I ended up with the simply brilliant Push It!. So simple and so solid. Improved my achievements in the gym, no end. This app almost kills me!

Nokia Drive has replaced my old TomTom as a nav device. There are times when it can be a bit of a pig to find places(Thornbury powerstation springs to mind) because the search just hangs but there are always get-arounds that you'll discover (use Bing for instance). I still, as I did with TomTom, apply something called 'common sense' - I ignore it until I'm within 20 miles! Top tip. For an integrated option, it's neat though. It doesn't look as pretty as Google's but achieves the same purpose.

The camera has been excellent and the integrated ability to snap and upload to various social networks is amazing. Click, share, append optional message, upload. Done - Gordon Ramsey would be proud. In fact social networking is a very key feature of the phone. I'm not one for telling the world what I'm doing every second of the day but the Lumia has definitely caused me to up my Facebook activity - without ever going on Facebook! There is a Facebook app, but I rarely use it. The OS itself neatly takes care of all I need to achieve for me. Facebook (+chat), Messenger, Skype and Twitter all coming in one stream.

I have come to love my Lumia, I admit it. When I'm out and about, the ignorant Apple mob scoff and laugh (because it isn't an ehphone therefore uncool); the Android gang take a look then arrogantly claim it's rubbish as they reboot their phone. Persuading them that WP is actually good will be an uphill struggle because of course, it's Microsoft therefore must be rubbish, right? For me, fact is fact, the Lumia has given me no grief and still carry's out my day to day tasks effortlessly. Whilst out with the other OS phones, the Lumia has left them for dust in achieving what have become menial tasks.
On the battery life thing I offer this. A few weeks back, we did the Circle line pub crawl. Midday kick-off, batteries full, navigation on to find the first pub then off, 3G off, WiFi off. 12 hours, 3 phone calls, quite a bit on WhatsApp (3G on for uploads), 10 flash photos, 27 FB Check-in's (as evidence) later and the Lumia did actually shock me as it was still at 50% on the battery. iPhones dead, S3's on the last legs. I don't know but perhaps this was only because the others were phone fiddling more than me that day?

On the build quality, I can think of no other fitting way to comment on it other than if the Lumia 800 were an animal, it would be a Honey Badger. Cute to some, ugly to others, and either way, hard as nails. Drop it if you like, Lumia won't care! try scratching it if you like, Lumia won't care....

Why am I reviewing the phone now? Because I want the new Lumia 920 (Chuck Norris) - desperately. There could be a mass of 800's about to hit the market and felt it necessary to warn others that they may actually like it!

Note: I am finding that the Whatsapp program is a battery killer! Across platforms it seems to not be a patch on how good it was when it first appeared. There are much better alternatives available but unfortunately the masses are tied to Whatsapp now.

Ok I was being a luddite, my previous phone was the original Google Android phone and although I still rate it, it was getting a little long in the tooth. So I was due an upgrade and decided on the Nokia Lumia 800, Nokia always made good reliable phones so it had to be OK didn't it?

In short yes, first off from a purely tactile point of view the phone feels right, its not massive but it sits comfortably in the hand, the buttons are in easy to reach places and there isn't a plethora of controls dotted all over. The included case is a soft touch rubber skin that clips over easily and feels like part of the phone. So OK on to setting it up, it imported all of my facebook friends as contacts but due to the age of my old phone couldn't handle the bluetooth contact exchange, so I had to add a few numbers manually, no big deal, but you can't add a number to a contact off facebook you have to add as a new contact then join the profile, this is simple enough but its an extra step that seems a little pointless.
So on to using the phone, ok the interface is really good, simple direct and very very easy to use, the tiles and a responsive touch screen make zipping about a pleasure and really fast, typing on the on screen keyboard works a treat, even with big sausage fingers like mine :) Some others are saying that as an MP3 player it doesn't work, well to be fair the speaker on the phone is a little quiet, but I use mine bluetoothed up to a motorcycle helmet and it works a treat, there are plenty of options on how to play your tunes and you can add your own playlists.
So would I recommend it? Yes its all there, decent battery life (I have had no problems at all) camera is decent (but I would take a DSLR if i wanted any proper photos) it is all there as a sleek good looking easy to use package, and a quick mention of nokia drive here, its Nokias own Sat Nav software, has a range of free to download maps and voices works very very well and updates quickly. The single core processor in the phone makes browsing, watching videos and everything a joy, always fast and no lag in performance. The windows operating system is light years away from any other windows mobile stuff I have used in the past and for a change a pleasure. My biggest gripe is Zune, I have never used iTunes and hate those software packages that try to take ove your PC, Zune is one, why can't I have a simple drag and drop interface? But although i dislike the integratedness of Zune, its not terrible to use just an annoyance but it works and it has loads of features that I will never use so thats why it looses a star for Zune. On the whole very very impressed with the phone, very well built, light, very good looking (I have the black one BTW) the screen is sharp, bright and clear. Apart from a couple of small niggles I have I am happy to be stuck with it for the next 18 months till my contact runs out :) Can't say better than that.

Well where to start on this super device. I have had phones from Sony Ericsson to Samsung(including the Note)and i just wanted something...else. The Galaxy Note is up there with the best phone money can buy however all these super high end phones sometimes need justifying. I simply wanted a phone that did the things i needed it to. So does the Lumia 800 Windows phone do it?...Yes it does.
The build is the first thing you will notice when unboxing the phone and it is simply lovely. Fits perfectly in hand and the curve in the glass feels glorious. NOTHING rickety or clicky here. Once powered on the amoled blacks and colours of the windows live tiles looks super vibrant and everything you need is there. Apps from app stores are now dominating everything but i'm one of those people who simply installs the odd app i actually use. So while the windows store is not up there with others what is there is plentiful and applicable and it will continue to grow. The few apps I've installed are already great for me.
Now for the software itself. The scroll motion is flawless. Not a stutter to be seen and i particularly love that there are few to no background apps running. Unlike android phones every time you open anything it runs in the background killing your battery, not so here. Some apps can run in the background but you can select it never to no matter how many times you access it. Keeps the phone running beautifully. You got an 8 megapixel camera which isn't the bestest camera you'll see but it's pictures are still good and the way the camera is used during playback is marvelous. Music player through Zune or Nokia is seamless however there is definitely a slight click between tracks but not enough for me to give that a big negative. While mentioning negatives i knew the phone could not send media using bluetooth. This is a strange admission from Nokia HOWEVER i have now discovered how good Skydrive for windows is. Simply upload any pictures through the share function and it immediately appears in your Hotmail or outlook email. So this function for me now is better than bluetoothing odd photos to my PC. However if you are concerned about confidential pics (not uploading them) you can still use Zune to transfer to PC.
Now on to using Zune. Wonderful. Similar to itunes where transfers are done through the software but unlike itunes Zune is a joy to use and works bloody well! The phone cannot be used as mass storage like most android phones but transfers between phone and pc work really well and i'm now using Zune as my main PC media interface.
The box it all comes in is really well presented and it comes with a case which is basically made to measure. How nice to buy a phone and not have to scour eBay for a suitable case.

So to sum up i wanted a nice affordable phone that fulfilled my needs and I've found ways around it's odd shortcomings and this is now my phone of choice. There is the new Lumia 920 coming soon running windows 8, which looks awesome, but again only if you want to spend big bucks. I liked this phone when i first saw it but didn't like its price tag but now i think it's a steal and only barely a year later.

I think this may be a love or hate kind of phone and the new 920 will probably iron or solve all little nags with the 800 but for me this phone has simply ticked every box i was after. I always knew after my divert over to android i would eventually find my way back to Nokia. Superb.