Best Nokia Smartphone:Nokia Lumia 800 vs Nokia N9
294http://booredatwork.com/2012/01/06/battle-vid-nokia-n9-vs-lumia-800/
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Introduction: The device Nokia needed
Despite retaining its position as the largest handset maker in the world, Nokia's market share has dropped significantly in the past few years, with increasing numbers of people dropping Symbian in favor of the iPhone or Android. When CEO Stephen Elop announced in February that Nokia would be adopting Windows Phone as its new primary platform, opinions were divided. Part of this division was based on the announcement of the N9, with many considering MeeGo to be a better path to follow as it would allow Nokia not only separation from the competition, but also total control over the software on its phones. With the launch of the Lumia 800 running Windows Phone 7.5, aka Mango, consumers can now decide whether they think the decision was justified -- and whether they will make a return to Nokia handsets.
This review is based on the user experience of both the Lumia 800 and the Nokia N9 to offer an opinion on whether Nokia was right to jump to Windows Phone or if the Finnish giant should have stuck with MeeGo.
Overall: stunning hardware, fresh software
The design of the N9 was a major hit with reviewers, offering a sleek unibody exterior with no joins or seams to be found anywhere. The screen is slightly convex, providing improved viewing angles, and the Clear Back Display displays colors brilliantly even in direct sunlight.
The N9 is slightly more striking than the Lumia 800 because it lacks any buttons on the front at all, whereas the Lumia has the obligatory three Windows Phone buttons, albeit capacitive: back, home and search. The N9 also boasts a front facing camera and a charging light, both of which would be welcome on the Lumia 800.
Conclusions
It's difficult to pick a winner out of the two devices. Both phones are stunning to look at, but they are different under the hoods. The N9 has a front-facing camera and charging light, but the Lumia 800 has a faster processor. In actual usage, the Lumia 800 is much more fluid while the N9 stutters in places, but the N9 offers more flexibility -- it supports almost all media formats, allows Bluetooth transfers, can be used as mass storage for dragging and dropping of content from computer to the device, the multitasking is second to none as it behaves like a computer in that it keeps things open until they are closed.
At the end of my time with it, my opinion is the N9 is the experience that all phones should have, as it is so intuitive. It's not until using it that it can be realised how obvious it is that a swipe to exit an application is a better option than adjusting your hand position to hit a button. Similarly, swiping to see the open applications and even closing them by swiping from top to bottom of the screen. Swiping from bottom to top will show a dock similar to iOS, with phone, messaging, camera and web; in other words, the most commonly used applications so the user can access them quickly without swiping to the homescreen then swiping to find them. The N9 is unlocked by double tapping the screen, and having got used to this I found myself repeatedly tapping on the Lumia's screen to unlock it -- which isn't implemented, but hopefully will be in the future.
Despite that, the Lumia 800 is the device I found myself reaching for most of the time and the one I would say is the better overall. In general usage, it is more fluid and feels more polished, complete and often more intuitive.
However, it seems so obvious that there needs to be a merging of features. As Nokia's agreement with Microsoft allows them to make adjustments to the software, it would be a huge benefit to Nokia and Windows Phone as an ecosystem to implement things from MeeGo, namely double tap to unlock and swipe to exit applications. As Windows Phone is centered around swiping to get things done, it's an addition that is begging to be included -- and Stephen Elop has stated MeeGo's swipe will live on in future Nokia devices, so perhaps this will happen.
A third screen displaying the events view would also be welcome. This would mean Windows Phone would have its tiled start screen and app screen like it does right now, but a further screen with weather, centralized notifications and feeds from Twitter, Facebook and blogs.
Both phones are extremely capable and worthy of anyone's money, but for those lamenting the discontinuation of MeeGo, certain additions to Windows Phone will certainly help it regain control of its dwindling market share.