The world is going gaga over the new Nokia Lumia 800. Folks at Nokia’s homeland are lining up on the streets to buy their own. Closer home heavy promotions of Nokia through mall activities, flash dances and flash cricket have made everyone rise up and take notice. If you are about to make that all important plunge into Windows phone you may be wise to be wary about the following deal breakers in an otherwise beautiful phone.
Missing front facing camera
Front facing cameras are the minimum configuration expected these days among high end smartphones. While most of the smartphones today come with the front face camera, It seems Lumia 800 has stayed away from it and I wonder why? Front facing cameras have now become standard in all premium smartphones, be it the high end iPhone 4S and Samsung Galaxy S2 with a VGA camera or the Samsung Galaxy Note boasting about its 2MP front facing camera. Infact several mid range smartphones have started featuring front facing cameras as well.
Video conferencing is already gaining popularity with 3G technology now becoming available in India. Windows has even gone onto solve the video conferencing app issue with the advent of Tango app. Other windows phones such as the Samsung Omnia W and the HTC Titan already have a front facing camera. Nokia Lumia 800 has clearly made a major blunder by foregoing a video conferencing app and a front facing camera.
Memory shortage
Nokia Lumia 800 does come with an inbuilt memory of 16GB which may take care of most of your memory needs. But without a Micro SD card slot to expand your memory you would still feel the pinch of not having expandable storage when you have that sudden desire to listen to that old favorite song of yours. This is the age of phones with giant memory crammed with movies, serials and music, be it the 64 GB iPhone or the 32 GB Samsung Galaxy .When you are offering the premium choice, you might consider giving a massive inbuilt storage. If you don’t do so, then the natural thing to do is to provide an expandable memory. Nokia Lumia 800 has made a gross error for making a smartphones that is supposedly for sharing the magical moments in life, but fails to enable its users.
Battery Woes
Nokia Lumia 800 comes with a 1450mAh battery that promises about 9 hours on 3G. However with the premium offerings from competitors offering much higher power batteries and dual core processors to help with phone efficiencies, Nokia may find fewer takers. In fact software glitches have affected Nokia Lumia to an even greater extend as stated in this article.
The severity of this problem maybe debatable but in an age where people want to remain connected for longer durations and look for more power efficient phones with better batteries Nokia Lumia 800 may get overlooked.
Woes with Apps
This one isn’t much of a revelation but it is of course something you must consider when making that all important smartphone decision. Nokia Lumia 800 is the best Windows phone out there but being a Windows phone comes with one major pitfall, a massive shortage of Apps. While you are safe considering just about any of the run of the mill Android phones or the premium iPhone offering, Windows phones don’t offer much in terms of App support. Banking establishments, government concerns and even top entertainment businesses have not yet made apps to support the Windows 7.5 Operating system.
Even the most popular video conferencing service, Skype has remained absent in Windows phones despite the acquistion of Skype by Microsoft. While you may still take the plunge and settle for the Lumia 800, you would probably miss out on the compete smartphone experience.
Service issues and lack of changes
The Lumia 800 is a beautiful and sleek machine. While its polycarbonate plastic unibody gives it a truly vivid appearance, it takes away from the phone something most people would have desired. On the flipside however, it seems you are eternally bound to the experts at Nokia to take care of your device. Nokia has one of the best service networks in India, but when you need to run to them for a new battery, or other minor grievances, you may feel the experience a little sour. Having a beautiful trap as a smart-phone is no solace for having been parted with your hard earned money.
Summary
Nokia Lumia 800 is a great step forward in form factor design of a smartphone. Brilliant to look at and convenient to hold and operate. The phone however has taken a giant leap forward foregoing the pleasures of expandable memories and the modern necessity of a secondary camera. Whether the unibody design is a necessity to build strength to the body or acts as a trap to the buyer who wishes to upgrade is debatable. If you have no qualms about any of these issues you can go ahead with the best Windows Phone out there at the moment.
Sitakanta Ray: Co founder of MySmartPrice.com. MySmartPrice is a price comparison tool that lets you find the best price for mobiles, cameras, books etc.