Nokia Lumia 800 review: Battery and Connectivity 0

Battery life

The Nokia Lumia 800 we were provided for this review lasted a day before showing the critical battery warning. It lasted marginally longer when we updated the software, which was supposed to fix the issue completely, but in practice it's still a lot worse than other phones on the market.

We were using the Mix Radio a fair bit, and on occasion enjoyed a movie session - but even then, the battery drain was too high, with around four hours of video obliterating the power pack to critical levels.

When we compare the specifications the competition is interesting with the Nokia Lumia 800 achieving 780 minutes GSM talk time and 265hrs GSM standby in comparison to 410 minutes and 460hrs from the HTC Titan.

The overall standby times may be down to the Nokia Lumia 800's 1450mAh battery compared with the HTC Titan's 1600mAh offering.

Charging of the Nokia Lumia 800 is achieved via its single micro-USB connector enabling charging via mains adaptor or PC USB, keeping things simple. A nice touch is the offset hinge rocker mechanism on the micro-USB cover making opening the cover a lot easier than previous devices.

Press on the raised area next to the headphone socket and the other end of the cover pops out. No more trying to hook your fingers under a tiny ridge.

To aid battery management there is an option in the phone settings to turn on battery saver automatically when the battery level drops below a preset figure, switching certain services off like automatic email retrieval and background applications.

Connectivity

As usual the Nokia Lumia 800 comes packaged with a USB to micro-USB cable for charging and physical connection for synchronisation and data transfer.

In addition to its hard connectivity the Nokia Lumia 800 supports Bluetooth 2.1 +EDR, and WiFi 802.11b/g/n with the usual WEP, WPA, WPA2 (Enterprise & Personal) methods available.

The first time the Nokia Lumia 800 is connected to a PC the standard automatic driver setup occurs followed by a request to install Microsoft Zune software which is Microsoft's response to iTunes providing access enabling synchronisation of music and video between PC and phone.

We're still very disappointed in the lack of drag and drop options for the Zune interface on the PC – we want to just chuck songs and movies on our device through a standard Windows Explorer interface without having to spend ages synchronising them over, but Microsoft is having none of it.

Obviously, you can drag and drop the files within the Zune application to the little phone icon in the corner, but unless you fancy faffing around with third party applications, this is the only way you can manage it - in the same way as iTunes.

So if you want to plop a video on the device or simply bung over a few tracks from an obscure folder, you'll need to select the relevant items in the Zune player and wait ages (especially in the case of video) to get them across. Even though the system says it accepts MP4, our files were clearly in the wrong codec and couldn't be played without copious conversion.

However, the same files were instantly playable on the Galaxy S2 - why Nokia (well, in fairness, Microsoft) has to be so convoluted, we don't know.

One thing we do like is the ability to wirelessly sync: if your phone and PC are on and plugged in (and connected to the same network) any items you've flagged for syncing will automatically jump across while you sleep – if you don't turn off your computer at night, that is.

Maps

When it comes to maps and satellite navigation, Nokia have been leading the pack for a while now. Disappointingly, the Nokia Lumia 800 device supplied for this review has limited functionality in this area based on the software version installed, although we have been informed this will not be the case for the public release.

However, even with the update we were unable to access the Maps service, so we'll be checking into that and bringing you our findings in the very near future.

On our Nokia Lumia 800 the standard Bing Maps app came pre-installed alongside a limited-functionality Nokia Drive navigation app.

The discriminator between Nokia's Windows Phone products and other manufacturer's offerings is that only Nokia product will have Drive with its free turn-by-turn voice navigation with downloadable, on-device maps. The Nokia Maps apps on the other hand is to be released via the Marketplace to all WP7 devices.

Using the Drive app highlighted a number of limitations when compared with the latest version of Nokia Maps on Symbian Anna and Belle devices. The first of which is that it is not possible to set your home location.

Add to this that destination setting can only be achieved by text entry search, which however good it is, and it is very good, is still a major limitation compared to online favourites, selecting from a point on the map and selecting a location from your contacts.

Accepting these limitations, the speed and accuracy of location is excellent, finding our location within a couple of seconds on every occasion. Once in navigation mode we also noticed the lack of voice files including the 'with streets' option, developed on Symbian, which use text-to-speech to include road names in the navigation guidance.

In addition to the Nokia Drive and future Nokia Maps app there is a standard WP7 Maps app. Opening this app displays your current location using downloaded maps, rather than on device data.

The bottom soft button bar provides access to Local Scout, Navigation (without voice), My location and a search facility. Although the interface is very crisp the app does not stand up to the Nokia Maps offering when released and will likely become pretty redundant on Nokia Windows Phones.

Apps

Although the re-installed apps list is somewhat limited, the quality of apps available via the Marketplace is impressive. When compared with other app stores, quantity is not everything as this often brings a drop off in quality.

That said, we'll run through the pre-installed apps in alphabetical order as displayed in the on device apps list.

First in the list is the Alarm app. Operation is simple, tapping on a plus symbol in the soft button bar at the base of the screen to add alarm providing time, repeat, sound and name entry fields and finally tapping on the floppy disk symbol in the soft button bar to save.

Tapping on the repeats entry field provides a Monday to Sunday multi select list with the only thing missing being a start and end date, but this is something that can be achieved in the calendar app instead.

Once an alarm is set the alarm slider toggle is displayed next to it to enable/disable it and a long press opens an edit screen where it can be deleted.

App Highlights is another Nokia WP7 only app which appears to be Nokia's suggestions from the Marketplace. In some ways this app doesn't need to exist alongside the standard Marketplace app although the shake based 'surprise me' functionality is fun.

Calculator is simple and easy to use with large buttons and an even larger display with standard operators and a single memory.

Calendar opens by default in day view, lateral scrollable agenda and to-do views. All entries are colour coded based on which cloud service they are saved on.

The cloud services available are based on those that you set-up in the e-mail and accounts settings discussed earlier. Views have the same icons in the soft button bar, namely (from left to right): the date, new event/task and day/month toggle.

Creating a new entry appears no different to other phone calendars with Subject, Location, When How long, Reminder, Occurs, Status, Attendees, Notes and a private toggle.

Hopefully the release of Nokia Maps will introduce a link between location and the maps app as seen on Symbian Anna devices – plus we're hoping to see multiple Gmail calendars available too, as having a single option is poor at the moment.

Games is the link between WP7 and Xbox Live. Once the Windows Live account associated with your Xbox Live account has been added to your phone the app opens on the Collection screen installed games at the top and suggestion for trial and purchase below.

A quick swipe to the left displays your Xbox Live account credentials and avatar, with further swipes transitioning to friends and messages, game and turn requests, spotlight and back to your collection.

As mentioned at Nokia World some console and WP7 games are integrated to the degree that you can transfer your game between your console and phone by taking a snap of a Microsoft tag detailing your game progress, such as Kinectimals.

Help + How-to is another app which feels like it should be in settings rather than taking space on the apps list as it is on device help rather than a functional app.

Office provides access to mobile versions of OneNote, Word, Excel and PowerPoint capable of working with documents either on device or on Microsoft cloud-based services like SkyDrive, SharePoint and Office 365.

Although these apps have reduced functionality compared to the full PC variants they can do more than enough for mobile users. Things like formulae in Excel are supported with help and guidance during entry.

One thing we found interesting is that when you tap the plus symbol to create a new document the options are limited to Word and Excel, however you can open the pre-loaded OneNote and PowerPoint documents and save them as new documents.

The last app on the list is We Care, which is less of an app and more of a privacy statement from Nokia. Unless this is going to be used for more in the long run, it should be moved to an about screen in Settings or removed completely. Luckily a long press does give the option to uninstall.

If you decide you need more than comes pre-installed which will probably be the case a quick trip to the Marketplace app provides a one-stop shop for third party apps.

On opening the app you are presented with a list of the main categories, namely: applications, games and music which can be added to by your mobile provider.

As we were using an Orange SIM card we had an additional 'Orange Selects' entry at the top of the list showing what Orange think we may need to better our experience.

From here you can either tap on a category or swipe left to lateral scroll through the three default category screens or you can search from any of these screens to find what you want.

Nokia Lumia 800 review: Verdict

The Nokia Lumia 800 is a very attractive device with a nice weight and when the on contract price is free, it's even better. We've now overhauled our review with a score thanks to our updated software, and we're happy to announce a few marked improvements.

We liked

The size, shape and weight of the Nokia Lumia 800 provides a quality feel, and is a unique shape compared to many other phones on the market.

The GUI feels intuitive with a very impressive speed of response, providing a continuity of feel between applications.

The pre-installed Internet Explorer 9 is a super zippy browser, although not the fastest around - although we are impressed with how much of an improvement Microsoft and Nokia working together have made.

The use and merging of multiple cloud sources for contacts, calendar and social apps is well executed, and is actually one of the easiest to use when it comes to linking contacts together.

The Games are with its integration with Xbox Live is a excellent with the ability to transfer game progress between console and phone.

We disliked

No profiles and this automated profile transitioning as provided on Symbian^3 and newer devices - although this is a problem many smartphones have nowadays.

The phone speaker is disappointing based on previous Nokia devices with a quite tinny sound quality, certainly not among the best on the market, especially in loud conditions.

Battery performance is poor compared with other recent Nokia devices - none of the Finnish bullet-proof battery life we used to be able to rely on.

Video recording is not up to recent Nokia standards with no zoom whilst recording and poor light and focus response worsening further in low light environments.

Mix Radio's lack of download options still really galls, and the touchscreen issue, though intermitten, rankles when it disturbs what you're trying to do.

Verdict

Although we had our doubts during initial familiarisation with the Nokia WP7 environment the transition from the Symbian environment is much less painful than expected. In less than 48hrs we went from wanting to return to our old phones to not wanting to let go of this one.

Whereas the start screen tiles initially felt a little unwieldy and wasteful of the display real estate the reasoning behind the GUI styling soon became apparent such that we realised it is all about simplicity and intuitiveness.

Start screen icons are large to minimise the chances of incorrect icon selection. The phone dial pad screen only has what it really needs to make a call. The alphabetical apps list is the easiest way to find apps as we all know our A-Z.

We did note a number of issues with the review device, and while many were rectified with a software update, some remained. The biggest stumbling block of these being the poor video capture and lack of zoom during recording.

The result of our time with the Nokia Lumia 800 has left us wanting more. The big question you have to ask is: do you buy the Nokia Lumia 800 with WP Mango installed or do you wait and see what devices Nokia release on the next and Nokia influenced WP8 devices next year?

However - we can't look at the phone as just a list of specs. It's the best Windows Phone device out there, but there is room for improvement. We said the same thing with the last crop of WP devices, and while we're happy to wait a little longer, we hope that we start seeing some Microsoft-fulled superphones in the near future.