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A second look at the Nokia Lumia 920 and PureView

During our city tour of San Diego today, the folks from Qualcomm lent us a number of Snapdragon-powered devices we can use to take photos and upload to a Flickr account. One of the devices they handed out was the Nokia Lumia 920.

We’ve had our hands-on with the Lumia 920 and 820 earlier this month (see here) during the Windows 8 launch in Manila but this time we’re now more interested in the PureView technology implemented in the 920.

After a whole morning’s worth of shots, we’ve finally come to an initial conclusion as to how good is the 920 in the photography department.

What we notiecd is that the Lumia 920 takes photos much faster than the previous Lumia devices and focusing is more accurate. Low light performance is where the Lumia 920 gets some very noticeable improvements. The old Lumia handsets would immediately show image degradation (noise) when there’s not enough ambient light on the subject. The Lumia 920 does it pretty nicely — there’s significant noise reduction and image integrity is intact.

What we noticed though is that in conditions that there is enough ambient light, the image quality is very good but not really outstanding as what we’ve seen in the Nokia 808 (actually, in most shots, it’s noticeably less impressive.)

Photos taken by the Lumia 920 can easily be compared as almost equal that of the iPhone 5 or the Galaxy S3 when lighting conditions are optimal.

I guess our disappointment here lies on the fact that we were super-impressed with the camera performance of the Nokia 808 that we were expecting the same insane level of image quality (on any lighting condition) from the Lumia 920.

In the first place, the reputation of the PureView Technology is at stake here. Maybe, we were just expecting too much here; maybe we were just wowed by PureView that the standard has been raised with the introduction of that technology.

Where we think the Lumia 920 was shortchanged was with the “pixel oversampling” technique used in the Nokia 808 that’s no longer employed in the 920. But we already know that since they first announced and shared details about what “PureView” technology is all about.

Nokia Lumia 920 specs:
4.5″ 720p display PureMotionHD+ @ 1280×768 pixels
Qualcomm Snapdragon S4 1.5GHz dual-core, Krait processor
Adreno 225 GPU
1GB RAM
32GB internal storage
LTE
NFC
8MP rear camera, LED flash
1080p video recording
2,000mAh Li-Ion battery
Windows Phone 8

In any case, it’s still a step up. However, we’ll have to say that the Nokia 808 will retain that title (as The One with the Awesomest camera) and continue to carry the promise of “PureView” technology in future Nokia handsets.

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Avatar for Abe Olandres

Abe is the founder and Editor-in-Chief of YugaTech with over 20 years of experience in the technology industry. He is one of the pioneers of blogging in the country and considered by many as the Father of Tech Blogging in the Philippines. He is also a technology consultant, a tech columnist with several national publications, resource speaker and mentor/advisor to several start-up companies.

31 Responses

  1. Avatar for Nokia lumia 920 Nokia lumia 920 says:

    This site was… how do you say it? Relevant!! Finally I have found something which helped me.

    Appreciate it!

  2. Avatar for Angelo Angelo says:

    This phone has HAAC mics, OIS, PUREMOTION HD+ Display, NFC, etc. ^^ this is a MUST phone

    • Avatar for steelicon steelicon says:

      Correction on the plural mics = it only records in MONO where and when almost everything else records in STEREO.

  3. Avatar for absorbingman13 absorbingman13 says:

    will buy my lumia 920 later. meron na sa megamall. :D

  4. Avatar for Saint Saint says:

    I will wait for Lumia 920/820, whatever the community says against this phone. Kanya2 ng trip, simple lang naman yan “don’t be an OS/Brand hater.
    I recently use iOS and Android pero para fair ayoko mag comment.

  5. Avatar for Ronx2 Ronx2 says:

    Sana Globe mag-offer nito on plan. Tagal ko nang hinihintay to gaaadd

  6. Avatar for epol epol says:

    PureView sucks,Nokia sucks,…walang-wala sa apple’s iphone5 at samsung’s galaxy note2

  7. Avatar for Jay Jay says:

    The Lumia 920 and WP8 makes for a nice phone, but they should price it right smack in the middle of the Android phones and the iPhone for it to compete for our hard earned cash. Personally, I own a Lumia 800 and love the look and feel of the phone and how Metro is just right for my daily smartpohne needs

  8. Avatar for courtney courtney says:

    a smartphone that is heavy and just a xo-xo unique features. ginamit pa ang pureview brand, di naman outstanding ang camera image quality.

    • Avatar for steelicon steelicon says:

      Agreed. PureView Faux. Night and low light shots are good but normal and daylight shots are overexposed. No lossless zoom. No stereo HAAC recording. Lots of features lost in translation from Symbian/MeeGo to Windows RT/Lumia. What a shame.

  9. Avatar for edisson edisson says:

    Ano bang problema sa phone na to? Ganon ba talaga siya kabigat? Sa sobrang bigat ba nangangalay ka sa paggamit ng 920??
    Ano ba kasing problema sa mabigat na phone?

  10. Avatar for Yano_man Yano_man says:

    “Photos taken by the Lumia 920 can easily be compared as almost equal that of the iPhone 5 or the Galaxy S3 when lighting conditions are optimal.”

    Are you implying that the camera on this phone is inferior to the iPhone 5 or S3?

  11. Avatar for JOhn JOhn says:

    Maganda talaga, im using Lumia 900, hindi nagkakalayo din ang bigat ng dalawa base on the spec that is shown to its website, Grabe tinalo pa kayo ni Jessica Alba dahil ang phone na yan ang gamit nya, tsk… Tandaan nyo tao kayo katamad naman kung ayaw nyo ng mabigat.

  12. Avatar for epol epol says:

    still its an iphone killer

  13. Avatar for Marcelino Marcelino says:

    I’ve had the chance to hold, play, and drool over the phone last week at the Windows booth in SM Mall of Asia.

    Contrary to what the “others” (ehem) are saying, it is NOT thick and heavy.

    Ang ganda ng white! Ang glossy talaga :)

    The best Windows Phone by far!

  14. Avatar for loneylonski loneylonski says:

    I read there will be a software update for the camera to fix this.

  15. Avatar for steelicon steelicon says:

    Compared to Nokia 808 PureView, this phone is heavier and has lesser hardware features. Only advantage over Symbian are apps, which is not quite that numerous compared to iOS and Android.

    • Avatar for loneylonski loneylonski says:

      Not really. lol. There’s OIS, ‘wireless’ charging and a better screen. With relation to performance, Lumia 920 has one of the best hardware around. Apps will soon populate the marketplace.

    • Avatar for steelicon steelicon says:

      Rose tinted glasses still in vogue nowadays? Oh my, who knew… ;-)

    • Avatar for steelicon steelicon says:

      I see that preferential treatment are being given here for schills of Microsoft.

      Be that as it may the truth will still ring true.

      Nokia 808 PureView is the last device that really matters in terms of Nokia innovation and Nokia technology.

      Microsoft Windows Phone 8 is just a copycat of Apple iOS.

    • Avatar for onggeo onggeo says:

      Paano naman naging copycat ng iOS ang WP8? May tiles ba ang iOS? Hindi ba eh grid lang ng icons ang iOS? Kahit nga app list ng WP8 ibang iba sa iOS at Android eh. Hindi ba innovation yung screen ng Lumia 920 na pwede gamitin kahit may gloves? Mukha namang mahal mo ang symbian mo pero wag naman maging hater ng ibang OS. Bitter ba dahil pinagpalit ang symbian?

    • Avatar for steelicon steelicon says:

      Wake up and smell the coffee, boy. Go read a lot of articles to do some catching up.

      Microsoft Windows Phone 8 is an Apple iOS wannabe. Not only that, the mostly limited functioning OS with restrictions is so Apple-esque, unfortunately the execution is mediocre at best.

      Not to mention ape-ing the Android widgets via Live Tiles that has limited functionality, unlike the Android widgets, which has more powerful features not only giving you information but executing commands without having to launch the app.

      That in turn was inspired Android from Symbian.

      Get it? Now get a life, ’cause I’m off to work.

  16. Avatar for Optimus Optimus says:

    ang kapal at ang bigat ng phone na yan.

    • Avatar for jeff jeff says:

      Had you held one? because I had. My Nokia N9 is much more heavier in hand than the Lumia 920

    • Avatar for toto toto says:

      Jeff? lasing ka na naman!? paano naman mas naging mabigat ang N9 kaysa 920? May N9 ako di hamak na mas manipis/ magaan at hindi nag ra-random reboot tulad ng 920 na yan. matulog ka na ng maaga!

    • Avatar for jeff jeff says:

      hahaha intindihin mo yung sinabi ko, MAS mabigat sa pakiramdam ko ang N9 kaysa sa Lumia 920. yung nagpakita sa akin ng 920 nag agree din. Sa Lumia 920 kasi sa laki niya, distributed ang weight kaya mas magaan ang feeling kasi mas malaki pa siya sa kamay ko. Ang N9 ko mas maliit, sakto sa kamay ko kaya yung weightng buong N9 ko eh ramdam ko

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