When Nokia introduced the Lumia 920, it went with the lofty tagline of ‘the world’s most innovative smartphone’. Now, with the Lumia 925, it believes it has improved on this concept.
The Lumia 925’s reveal follows hot on the heels of the Lumia 928 announced for the US market last week. It features a 4.5-inch AMOLED WXGA display at a resolution of 1,280 x 768, which also comes with ClearBlack technology and claims to be Nokia’s brightest yet, readable at all angles and in direct sunlight.
For the first time in Nokia’s Lumia range, the 925 features an aluminium frame that incorporates the device’s antenna. While the metal edge provides increased robustness, Nokia hasn’t stepped cleanly away from polycarbonate casing, which appears on the rear in a choice of white, grey or black. A separate wireless charging cover (available in more vibrant colour options typical to the Lumia range) can be clipped to the back to avail of this technology.
Smart Camera
The 925’s 8.7MP camera with optical image stabilisation was the main focus of the presentation in London this morning. As well as announcing the arrival of Hipstamatic’s Windows Phone 8 app Oggl, Nokia revealed its new Smart Camera mode that lets users take 10 images from a single shot (at 5MP each) and edit these to create the best possible photo as often as they want.
Best Shot lets users pick the best of the 10 shots, while Change Faces lets them edit subject’s faces to produce the perfect group shot. Action Shot superimposes one image onto the other to capture movement in one image, Motion Focus creates motion blur in the background and sharpens the subject in the foreground, while Remove Moving Objects can edit out any stray objects that interrupted your shot.
Images demonstrating the Motion Focus (top) and Action Shot functions of Nokia’s Smart Camera on the Lumia 925
Smart Camera will be made available to all Windows Phone 8 devices in the Lumia range through a firmware update later this year.
Arriving in June
Other features of the Lumia 925 include a super-sensitive touchscreen for use wearing gloves, 1.2MP front-facing wide-angle camera 2,000mAh battery, 1.5GHz dual-core Snapdragon processor, 1GB RAM, and 16GB internal memory.
While you’re not likely to be blown away by these specifications and a lot of its photographic innovations have been scooped by Samsung’s Galaxy S4, the Lumia 925 presents users with a much more affordable alternative for this level of functionality.
We know for definite that the device will launch with Vodafone in Europe, reaching the UK, Germany, Italy and Spain first in June, but a release date for Irish customers is yet to be announced.
The Lumia 925 will be priced around €469 before taxes and charges.
