Innovative Lumia 925

Nokia added new member to the Lumia family, Lumia 925. It is the first window phone to be packed into an aluminium frame. It comes with sleek, metal finish design, a new AMOLED display to make it possible to view the content from more angles, and new features in PureView imaging technology.

The design is quite clearly stunning, and in a first for the Lumia range, features metal. The metal frame on the Lumia 925 not only draws attention to the phone’s slim-line good looks, but also lends robustness and functions as an antenna. The polycarbonate body and metal frame are fused together to create a perfect whole.

The 925 packs a 4.5-inch display, which is physically the same size you'll get on both the 920 and 928. The 925 and 928 however use OLED screens, rather than standard LCD which promise richer colors and deeper black levels as they don't need to be backlit as do cheaper screens.

Nokia already has good form for squeezing vibrant screens into its phones though -- its "ClearBlack" technology on the 920 and other phones is excellent. In my demo with the 925, the screen certainly looked impressively bright and bold, but I was seeing it in a dimly lit office -- in those conditions, even a poor screen would shine like a supernova.

Nokia has given the 925's camera a couple of small tweaks, too. It uses the same 8.7-megapixel sensor as its predecessor, but Nokia explained that it's improved the optics in front of the sensor. As well as the lightweight plastic lenses -- low weight is needed for the optical image stabilization -- the 925 uses a sixth glass lens which Nokia reckons gives better clarity, especially in daylight.

Nokia has also apparently improved its camera firmware to give better noise reduction in low-light situations. Until I can give the camera a thorough test, I can't comment on whether these tweaks are worthwhile. The Lumia 920 was already an excellent low-light performer, so let's hope Nokia hasn't messed around with that too much.

You will find some new camera software on board, chief among which is called SmartCam. This app (also integrated as a camera lens) takes a burst of 10 images that you can then edit into an action sequence, change the faces, or choose the best image from the bunch to save.

Outlook

With its new metal parts, the Nokia Lumia 925 is a sleek and attractive addition to the Windows Phone 8 range. Does it excite, though? No. It shares most of its key specs with the older Lumia 920 which doesn't really stack up well against the elite competition such as the HTC One and Samsung Galaxy S4.


We'll have to wait and see if the slight tweaks to the camera and the more sturdy build will make the 925 a serious smart phone contender.