Nokia Lumia 900 review

Nokia's Lumia 900 mostly delivers on the promise of Windows Phone as a viable third mobile platform.

The Nokia Lumia 900
Can the Lumia 900 save Nokia?

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Battery Life

Nokia has favoured form over function with the Lumia 900, which includes a sealed, non-removable, yet sizable 1,830mAh battery.

This decision is likely only going to chafe Android or die-hard Nokia fans used to having removable batteries, allowing for hard resets – although we didn't require this during out test period.

Nokia Lumia 900

Nokia promises up to seven hours of 2G/3G talk time and more than 12 days of standby time, but those figures will vary wildly depending on how many apps you choose to run in the background.

We had no problem getting through an entire day with frequent use on both Wi-Fi b/g/n and HSPA+ networks, but a night time charge was required afterwards to ensure a full second day's use.

This puts it on par with the competition, as most high-end smartphones will just about last a full day on a single charge with relatively large amounts of usage, although if you constantly hammer it, you'll need a mid-afternoon top up.

Connectivity

Nokia has chosen Bluetooth 2.1 + EDR for the Lumia 900, and we had no problem connecting it via Microsoft SYNC to our car.

Nokia Lumia 900

We were a little disappointed to discover there's no way to connect via Bluetooth for hands-free phone use while using the built-in speaker for turn-by-turn navigation, a task that the iPhone 4S handles quite deftly.

Nokia offers a Bluetooth-enabled Contacts Transfer app free as part of its own collection in addition to those baked into Windows Phone, such as Google, Hotmail and Windows Live.

Nokia includes an "internet sharing" feature tucked away in Settings, allowing you to set the Lumia 900 up as a personal hotspot – although this will significantly eat into your data allowance, so proceed with care.

There's the standard microUSB port up top, however there's no microSD card slot, meaning you're stuck with the in-built 16GB of internal storage – although Windows Live and Hotmail users are offered 25GB of free SkyDrive storage, which is handy.