Nokia Lumia 925: Hands-on

Nokia has taken the wraps off its latest smartphone, the Lumia 925 – and the new Smart Camera app – at a launch in London. But is the new Lumia a clever clogs or the class dunce?

Nokia Lumia 925 hands-on review – build

At 8.5mm thick, the Lumia 925 is both thinner and lighter than its immediate predecessor, the Lumia 920. The aluminium surround – which doubles up as an antenna – is reminiscent of the HTC One, although unlike the One, Nokia hasn’t managed to smooth out the camera bulge on the rear face. Obviously it’s not as thin and nice once you snap on the plastic wireless charging cover, though.

Nokia Lumia 925 hands-on review – display

The Lumia packs a 4.6in, 1280×768 AMOLED display with Nokia‘s own ClearBlack technology, plus the same Super Sensitive Touch tech found on the Lumia 920, for use with gloves. Like previous Nokia displays, it’s bright and vibrant – but it lacks the razor edge of the 1080p crowd. It’s protected by a slightly curved Gorilla Glass 2 screen – that curved finish makes the phone look thinner, and lends it a comfortable feel in the hand.

Nokia Lumia 925 hands-on review – camera and Smart Camera app

Nokia continues to play to its greatest strength with the Lumia’s 8.7MP camera (a 1.2MP wide angle lens is tucked around the front face for video chats and selfies).
It’s bolstered by Nokia’s new Smart Camera app – initially a Lumia 925 exclusive, it’ll roll out to other Lumia handsets as part of the Nokia Lumia Amber firmware upgrade this summer.

The camera menus are simple, and Smart Camera packs an array of powerful effects – most impressive is the Action Shot mode, which auto-creates a multi-exposure action shot from a burst of pictures, letting you fade or remove some of the frames. A Motion Blur filter picks out one element and blurs the rest – handy for action shots – while Change Faces lets you swap around mugs in a group shot, so that everyone’s smiling at the same time. There’s also a Remove Moving Objects feature, letting you purge unwanted elements from your photos like a Soviet censor.

The only downside is that the Smart Camera app doesn’t take full advantage of the Lumia 925‘s 8.7MP camera – it shoots bursts of 10 5MP images. Still, as we’ve seen from the HTC One’s 4MP snapper, 5MP is plenty unless you’re printing at over A4.

Nokia Lumia 925 hands-on review – verdict

At first glance, the Lumia 925 is a dramatic improvement over the Lumia 920 – and Smart Camera is a powerful app. But it’s not going to trouble the likes of the HTC One and Sony Xperia Z, with their top-tier build quality and 1080p displays. The overwhelming problem isn’t the phone itself, though – it’s the limited availability of apps on the Windows Phone platform. We’ll be getting our hands on the Nokia Lumia 925 for a full review shortly – stay tuned for more info.