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Nokia Lumia 900 has finally unveiled the third phone in the Lumia range and the new top-end model yesterday at CES 2012 and we were able to get hands on with Nokia's new 4.3-inch AMOLED LTE phone. As its predecessor the Nokia Lumia 800, the 900 has a 1.4GHz Qualcomm Snapdragon processor, 512MB of RAM, and will come touting Windows Phone 7.

The key differences between the Nokia Lumia 900 and the Lumia 800 are that the new model has a larger 4.3in screen – instead of 3.7in – and 4G LTE connectivity. The question is, does the phone have what it takes for buyer to ditch Android and iOS handset?

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Engine Room

The device is powered with 1.4GHz single-core Qualcomm Snapdragon processor which makes it the quickest Windows mobile out there. The  wonderful optimisation of the Windows Phone system means a single-core processor is easily enough to make the phone fly.

As we all know most of the phone has more cores especially for biffer devices as you get more opportunity for multi-tasking or rich gaming on the device. With the Lumia 900 has a large screen, but it's restricted to a single core because Windows Phone doesn't yet support multicore chips. Android and iOS devices aren't so limited.

The Windows 7.5 powered phone comes with 512 MB RAM with an internal storage of 16 GB. The reason for such a huge internal storage is due to the SkyDrive cloud storage, which uses to store bulk data in the phone memory.

The perfomance of Lumia 900 is very smooth and fast enough. WIth WP Bench the Lumia 900 fails to beat HTC Titan when comes to Web browsing the device works very well with Internet Explorer app but by the SunSpider result  a full desktop pages can take some time to fully render -- about 30 seconds on average.

Storage

Lumia 900 comes with 16GB of internal memory which is more than enough and can compete with lots of new devices. However compare to most devices the Lumia 900 does not have  with SDCard slot but if you think the 16GB is not enough for you, the Nokia added a 25GB of SkyDrive storage.

Software

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The Nokia Lumia 900 runs on the latest version of Microsoft’s Windows Phone 7 operating system called Mango (Windows Phone 7.5). Mango has a clean design and easy to use which is a compliment. There is a wide-blocked live tile homescreen to the easily accessible and alphabetically categorized app menu, all the complicated and unnecessary bits that would confound the less nimble smartphone user are tucked out of sight. With Wondows Mango the experience is amazingly intuitive and fluid, although its lack of personalization options.

The latest Windows Phone apps including a handy Transport app that grabs your current location using GPS and Wi-Fi, and generates suggested walking routes and transport methods to your desired destination. There is also a hub for ebooks, audio books and news.

The Display

Unlike the 800, the 900 comes with a gorgeous 4.3-inch AMOLED (that makes the whole device just seem bigger), the screen is by Corning's famous Gorilla Glass- a noticeable step up from the Lumia 800's 3.7-inch screen. Lumia 900 has a 800 x 480 pixel screen resolution. The screen size has increased compare to the Lumia 800 but the resolution hasn't.

It’s a Clear Black AMOLED display, melding the near-flawless contrast and black levels of OLED with a screen finish designed to reduce screen reflections. It won’t blast them away completely, but does help.

Although the screen size has increased, the resolution hasn’t. Microsoft still doesn’t allow Windows Phone screens greater than 800 x 480 pixels in res, so it’s not Nokia’s fault, but does result in a so-so 216dpi pixel density. As the Windows Phone OS is so very well tailored for this resolution, you won’t notice this when flicking around the Lumia 900’s menus, though.

The AMOLED technology, the screen is stunning. Nokia did a really good job with the screen on the Lumia 800, and the Lumia 900 is no different. While the resolution is still only 800 x 480 (Microsoft is to blame for that) the graphics of Windows Phone 7 are crisp, colourful and bright.

The resolution of Lumia 900 is a bit dissapointment compare to the competitor's device the like of new Android phones at 1280 x 720 and the iPhone at 960 x 640, the device colors is far too saturated.

The Design

The Lumia 900 is one of the beautful device and is one of the best looking phone out there at the moment, you will fall inlove with the device the first time you see it. The design is almost the same as the Lumia 800 and also N9, Lumia 800 has a premium feel but Luma 900 felt even better than the 800 and made Windows Phone 7 more crisp and exciting than on the 800.

The 900 comes in both cyan and black, and both are quite striking though I prefer the black on. It has dimensions of 5.03 in (128 mm) x 2.7 in (69 mm) x 0.45 in (12 mm) and weighs just 159 grams.

Nokia has done all it can to keep the top-end Lumia design personality consistent. It’s all based around the polycarbonate unibody frame. It’s plastic, but is possibly the most desirable plastic-bodied phone design ever.

The Lumia 900 has supreme build quality, and its finish is much more durable than that of most phones. The colour of the polycarbonate frame is consistent all the way through the body. Scratch its surface and you won’t see a white layer of plastic underneath a painted outer layer.

The other good feature of the Lumia 900 design is its simplicity. The sides are seam-free and the handset bears just two sockets – one for a set of headphones and a microUSB for charging and data transfer. This purity, along with the slim bezel and reasonably thin-line 11.5mm thickness, help to make the device feel compact for a 4.3in number.

On the right hand side there is a volume rocker, power botton and dedicated camera keys. The Micro-SIM is easy accessible you will no longer have tp slide out the slot's flimsy drawer now Nokia have include a door key that, when inserted, causes the sealed tray to pop out.

Camera

The 900 also has an 8 megapixel 28mm f/2.2 Carl Zeiss lens on the back and dual-LED flash which is more than enough to prodice fine photos, but the images might look a bit washed out.

The 28mm focal length is an especially wide angle for phones, which means you can get more into the frame. Nokia also added a wide angle front-facing 1.3 megapixel camera, ideal for video chats.

Nokia has also added a front facing 1.3-megapixel camera that has a bright wide angle 28mm lens. A quick play and it certainly feels like it. Self portraits will get you in the picture without having to stretch out your arm like an idiot and it also means that you don't have to be in bright sunlight for video calling (the only option is via an app called Tango at the moment).

If you hold down the camera key will wake the phone from sleep directly to the camera app. The shutter can easily be triggered by camera key, you can also tap onscreen, hold to focus and snap, allowing the sensor to adjust for the scene, white balance, ISO and exposure. Or you can manually tweak these settings, as well as swap out the 4:3, 8-megapixel resolution for 16:9, 7-megapixel shots.

Connectivity

The Nokia comes packed with the ESPN sports hub and CNN App for Windows Phones, which will remain Windows exclusive for 90 days. It has LTE connectivity on AT&T's network, where it will be a carrier exclusive. That makes it Nokia's first LTE phone.

The phone features Bluetooth v2.1 with A2DP, Wi-Fi 802.11 b/g/n and Micro USB 2.0. Lumia 900 also has the Wi-Fi Hop Spot feature with which you can enable your phone as a Wi-Fi Hot Spot for other Wi-Fi enabled devices. In other words, your Nokia Lumia 900 can act as a wireless router for five Wi-Fi enabled phones.

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