Getting one of Nokia’s flagship devices to review is quite a treat, so first we would like to thank Nokia for sending us the Lumia 928 review unit. I currently own an 822 as my personal smartphone so having this 928 with me for the past several weeks has been awesome.
There are several things you notice when jumping from a phone like the 822 to the 928, and we will cover those for you in this full review. We will cover the the software, hardware, and the overall experience.
We will start with the software. Just like all windows phones the software is always smooth and flawless when jumping from app to app or scrolling, but I did encounter a few occasional bugs. I ran into a few minor hiccups while just going through everyday use, nothing big. The big thing I ran into twice was the touch screen would completely go unresponsive so I would have to wait for the phone to run out of juice then recharge it or do a soft reset to fix the issue. It only happened to me twice it was just always at the worst possible time. That is the only issue I had with the 928 software wise, everything else was silky smooth. I give the 928 an 8/10 on the software.
To the hardware, when going from a phone like the 822, which feels light, and somewhat cheap in the hand, to the 928, which feels solid and premium, you really notice why the 928 is a flagship device. The build of the 928 is awesome and I prefer the sharp cut corners over the rounded edges of the 920, it makes the phone easier to grip. Ever though the device has sharp corners the back side slightly curves out to fill the palm of the hand which was a nice touch. As much as I love the hardware of the 928 and the premium feel, it has one feature that would keep me from buying it. The back speaker has good sound quality, but it is in an awful location.
I do not understand why Nokia would throw the speaker facing the opposite direction of the screen, it makes no sense and made watching video on this thing a pain. When the phone would be face up with the speaker down the audio would sound great, but any time you held the phone up with audio playing it was bad. Just like someone trying to talk to you, but they are facing the opposite direction.
The screen is a winner in my eyes. The 4.5 AMOLED display looks great, some people do not prefer the slightly over saturated colors, but I like how bright and clear it makes the screen look. The bezel around the screen is pretty big on the top and bottom which adds unneeded dead space to the front glass.
The camera is an 8.7 MP shooter with Carl Zeiss Optics and Nokia’s Purview technology, which to say the lease was a massive step up from what I was working with on my 822.
The overall hardware was great, but things like the back speaker keep the 928’s hardware ranked at an 8/10 for me.
Now to sum it up with the overall experience of the Nokia Lumia 928. The experience from Windows Phone to Windows Phone is usually pretty similar, but due to the additions like refocus and Nokia camera on the purview devices, it makes having a Lumia that is named 920 or more a treat compared to the others. The overall experience using the 928 is probably higher for me because I came from a lower end Lumia, but I still rate it at a 9/10. With that being said plus adding up the software, the hardware, and experience leaves the 928 with an 8.3/10.
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