The Lumia 800 is perhaps the most beautiful Windows Phone smartphone ever designed. That’s probably because it looks a lot like the impressive Nokia N9, a stunner in its own right.
The Lumia 800 is a solid phone that is milled from a single block of polycarbonate. The materials feel excellent. The front has a (slightly) curved glass display and the overall fit and finish is top-of-the-line. Everything about the 800 exudes style, class, and sexiness.
When I first held it, I was surprised at the size. Though it has only a 3.7-inch AMOLED display, it is heavy, and a bit thicker than I wanted it to be. It isn’t anywhere near fat, but it’s not RAZR thin, either. It will slip into pockets, no doubt, but you’ll know it is there.
The buttons and external controls feel great. The volume toggle and dedicated camera buttons on the right edge feel excellent, with perfect travel and feedback. The 3.5mm headset jack is on the top edge, and the SIM card port and microUSB ports are hidden under separate hatches on top, as well. These are a bit of a hassle to deal with, and I’d prefer if they either didn’t have the hatches, or were located somewhere else. Alas, that is not the case.
The display measures a respectable 3.7 inches across the diagonal and offers the typical WVGA 800 x 480 resolution. The display is made of AMOLED technology, and boasts the Nokia ClearBlack technology. Fancy names asaide, it looks fantastic. The colors popped off the screen, everything looked razor sharp, and the blacks are the blackest I’ve seen on a smartphone.
As for the user interface, it is pretty much stock Windows Phone. The Live Tiles looked great on the AMOLED ClearBlack display, and they were updating constantly. Despite the single-core 1.4GHz S2 SnapDragon processor, the phone felt speedy and never slow.
Nokia is shipping the Lumia 800 to some of its key European markets in November, and will slowly ship it elsewhere during December and into 2012. As for U.S. support, the version announced today is a tri-band 900/1900/2100MHz device. Nokia said it will make its North American market plans known in early 2012.