Thin Nokia Lumia 925 announced with PureView camera and AMOLED display

The phone is made of polycarbonate, but sports an aluminum side frame, which also serves as the antenna, and the 8.7 MP camera with Carl Zeiss lens, dual LED flash and optical image stabilization, as found on the Lumia 920. Nokia said the camera algorithms have been significantly improved as well, so all that is left now is to gauge what changes are there from the first samples.

The camera unit might use the same sensor, but the lens module is different than the one on the 920, and features six-element lenses, a world first, and ISO that goes up to the staggering 3200, almost eliminating the need for a Xenon flash like on the Lumia 928 for Verizon.

The wireless charging capabilities from its predecessor are here as well, but via a separate snap-on cover, hence the phone is much, much thinner and lighter than the 920, at 8.5 mm and 139 grams, respectively. There is LTE and HSPA+ 4G connectivity, a dual-core 1.5 GHz Snapdragon inside, the typical 1 GB of RAM plus 16 GB of internal memory (no card slot), and a 2000 mAh sealed battery to back it all up.

A new Smart Camera app takes pictures in a 5 MP mode, and an upcoming Oggl app from the Hipstamatic guys seems to be landing as well, to add to the Lumia 925 experience.

The Smart Camera app contains new features you can't find in the default Windows Phone camera interface, like Best Shot (suggesting the best of 10 frames), Action Shot (superimposes different frames on top of each other), Motion Blur shot and so on.

There is also a Best Faces mode, which keeps the best view of your headshot, and a mode that filters out unwanted people from your pictures. Whatever you do, you can go back and edit it again and again until you get the desired results.

Later in the summer the Smart Camera app will be available via the Nokia Lumia Amber update to previous Windows Phone devices of the company. Of course the offline HERE mapping and navigation suite, as well as the exclusive Nokia Music are also available for the 925. Nokia also bragged that 90% of the top 50 apps on other platforms are available in the Windows Store's 145, 000 apps and counting.

The handset comes in white, black or gray and will ship in June for about $616 (EUR 469) before subsidies. The US will be getting it on T-Mobile as a flagship device, but the phone will also land on the world's largest carrier China Mobile. Specific announcement for larger availability in other regions will be rolled out in the next few weeks.