Wednesday, February 26, 2014

Nokia Lumia 928

Verizon Wireless customers who had a crush on the Nokia Lumia 920: it’s your turn now. The new Nokia Lumia 928 is now available for $99 on contract, and it’s every bit as good as the 920. Nokia has updated the styling with straight sides and the phone has lost a wee bit of weight, but it keeps the 4.5”, 1280 x 768 display spec, very good 8.7MP PureView camera and 32 gigs of internal storage.
What’s changed from the Lumia 920? The display is AMOLED rather than IPS, but it’s still viewable outdoors (courtesy of an outdoor display setting) and the LCD works with gloves. The AMOLED display is more color saturated and is quite bright; I suspect it will be a popular feature. The rear flash is Xenon with an LED flash for focus assist. Xenon flashes are generally very bright, though we didn’t notice a significant change from the Lumia 920 in low light flash shots other than a yellow cast on the 928’s shots (which we hope will be remedied with a software update). The Verizon version works on Verizon’s LTE 4G network and their 3G EV-DO Rev. A network. It’s capable of world roaming with quad band GSM and HSPA+.

The Lumia 928 is available in gloss white and black; sorry no fun Lumia colors here. It’s a good looking phone made from a single piece of highly stylized polycarbonate and it’s every bit as strong as the Lumia 920. The controls are the same as on the 920: volume, power and the camera button are on the right side, but they match the body color rather than having a contrasting ceramic finish. The 2,000 mAh Lithium Ion battery is sealed inside and there’s no microSD card slot.
 The Nokia Lumia 928 and Lumia 920.

The camera continues to impress us with colorful and detailed shots that compete well against top camera phones like the Samsung Galaxy S4, iPhone 5 and HTC One. Low light performance is particularly good, and the optical image stabilization allows the Lumia 928 to keep the shutter open longer to allow more light in without blurring. OIS also works very well for 1080p video recording with no bouncing video.


The Lumia 928 runs Windows Phone 8 with the accessible Metro Live Tile UI that’s so far been much better received on smartphones vs. Windows PCs. It’s a quick and responsive phone that handles multi-tasking well. The Lumia runs on the usual 1.5GHz dual core Snapdragon S4 Plus CPU with Adreno 225 graphics and a gig of RAM. Given how well optimized the OS is, the CPU offers more than adequate power. The phone is so close in features to the Lumia 920, that we won't rehash old ground here. Watch our video review below for complete coverage of the Lumia 928.

Nokia Lumia 928 Video Review




Conclusion
If you’re looking for the top Windows Phone on Verizon Wireless, the Nokia Lumia 928 is it, despite the relatively low contract price. It has a bright and colorful display, an excellent camera and Nokia’s usual excellent call quality. Though we’re not so enamored with the gloss finish and limited color selection since Nokia has spoiled us with their lovely unibody matte polycarbonate designs and wild colors, the Lumia 928 is a nice enough looking phone and it’s nearly an ounce lighter than the Lumia 920 on AT&T.
Price: $99 with 2 year contract




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