This morning Nokia has officially revealed the Lumia 925; it’s first Lumia to use metal prominently in the construction in a bid to take on the HTC One and iPhone 5.
On the surface the phone appears to be another variant of the Lumia 920 and recent Lumia 928, but there’s plenty different here that’s sure to draw the attention of a potential mobile buyer. The phone uses a brushed aluminium frame around the edges, with a tough polycarbonate back that comes in three colours.
The Lumia 925 is much lighter and thinner than the other two in the 900 range, measuring just 8.5mm thick and 139g. That’s a good 40g or so lighter than the Lumia 900 and a few millimetres thinner, too.
Inside there’s a powerful Qualcomm Snapdragon S4 chip running at 1.5GHz along with 1GB of RAM and 16GB of internal storage. Connectivity comes in the form of pentaband 4G LTE which allows the phone to use 4G networks around the world, plus Wi-Fi N, Bluetooth 3.0, GPS and NFC. There’s a hefty 2,000 mAh battery to power it all, which like the Lumia 920, can be wirelessly charged when used with clip-on shell cases.
Nokia has employed the same 4.5-inch OLED PureMotion HD+ display as in its recent Lumia 928, which boasts the same 1280 x 768 pixel resolution and super sensitive touch technology that allows you to use the phone when wearing gloves.
When we heard that the Lumia 925 had Nokia’s 8.7 megapixel PureView camera we felt a little disheartened. You see, from Nokia’s recent teasers we had dreams of a big leap in sensor size. However, Nokia has stuck with the same sensor and made a change to the design of the camera it uses in both Lumia 920 and 928 to give the new model even better low light performance. Whereas the 920 and 928 use a five piece plastic lens construction, the Lumia 925 has a sixth glass lens which is said to offer even better low light performance and more natural shots. Up front there’s a 1.2 megapixel shooter for self-shots and video calls.
To complement the upgraded camera sensor Nokia has brought in a selection of new camera apps and shooting modes. Smart Camera offers new shooting modes such as Best Shot, Motion Focus and Action Shot, the latter of which sounding the coolest by far. With Action Shot you can quickly snap 10 frames and merge them into a single image, or create a moving image like a GIF.
Nokia will launch the Lumia 925 in the UK, Germany, Italy, Spain, and China by June, and the US and other areas later in the year. The phone will be available in brushed silver with either a white or grey polycarbonate or black with black polycarbonate on the back.