Nokia Lumia 920 vs Samsung Galaxy S III

Introduction:

Windows Phone 8 ushered Microsoft’s mobile OS in the era of dual-core phones and HD screens that Android and iOS have been inhabiting for a while, and Nokia Lumia 920 is the handset best suited to take on those other flagships.

Naturally, we are going to compare it with Android’s most popular high-end, the Samsung Galaxy S III, which offers a quad- or dual-core processor, depending on the region, and a high-res AMOLED display, flaunting camera of the same resolution as the Lumia 920.

We get a number of mobile firsts with Nokia’s phone in terms of hardware, though, such as optical image stabilization and supersensitive touchscreen, to pit against Android’s formidable UI customization advantage, so which phone will prevail? Read on our comparison to find out...

Design:

The Lumia 920 is rather thick and hefty, and not only in comparison with the slim Galaxy S III, yet is surprisingly ergonomic to handle, thanks to its tapered unibody design, and feels solid, with even weight distribution. You get used to the Lumia 920 thickness and weight, but it is by no means pleasant this anorexic smartphone day and age, especially when operated with one hand. Both phones are made of deep-colored polycarbonate, and the Galaxy S III has the advantage of a removable back cover that lets you add more memory or swap the battery.

The thin Galaxy S III with a big 4.8” display feels way more elegant but more fragile in the hand than Lumia 920’s chubby tank-like physique, which is also proven by plenty of drop tests, where the fatty escaped unscathed unless you hurl it into a concrete wall, whereas a Galaxy S III drop at shoulder height often cracks the screen. Case or caution are hence recommended with Samsung’s phone, whereas the Lumia 920 would fare better with sloppier owners.

Despite the heavy-armor weight of Nokia’s chassis, the durable zirconium lock, volume and camera keys on the right side somewhat contribute to a more premium exterior, which is enhanced by the same camera plate material on the back, whereas the Galaxy S III faux chrome camera area and paper-thin back cover look less sophisticated in comparison. The glossy finish of our Lumia 920 unit attracted more tiny lint and thread pieces in our pocket than the S III, making us wipe the back often, which should not be an issue with the matte cyan and black versions.

The side buttons on both devices are very well placed for easy manipulation, and have deep tactile feedback to them. There is a physical home key in the slim bezel area below the Galaxy S III display, whereas we have capacitive keys only on the Lumia 920 there, but which method is better would be up to your personal preference, as both are sensitive enough.


Display:

We have a 4.8” HD Super AMOLED display on the Galaxy S III, with 720x1280 pixels of resolution, while the Lumia 920 sports a 4.5” 768x1280 PureMotion HD+ LCD screen with Nokia’s ClearBlack filter. This gives the pixel density round to the Lumia 920, at 332ppi, against the 306ppi of the Galaxy S III. Samsung has on top of that used the PenTile pixel matrix that looks unorthodox compared to the regular RGB stripe when solid colors are examined closely, yet you'd have to be a real screen purist to notice even then.

The colors on the Lumia 920 are vivid, yet are still a far cry from the oversaturation present with Samsung’s AMOLED screen, which also tends to display various cold color casts at all times.


The ClearBlack filter of the Lumia 920 and the much higher brightness of its display are definitely an advantage when it comes to comparing outdoor visibility with the Galaxy S III. Even with the sun shining directly on the display, it can be observed fine, whereas the Galaxy S III looks dimmer in comparison.

Nokia touts the record fast refresh rate of its PureMotion HD+ screen, yet in reality the only advantage can be observed with enlarged text or contact lists being slightly less blurry than on the S III while flipping them quickly up and down.


Finally, when we consider the supersensitive Synaptics layer of the screen on the Lumia 920, which allows you to use the display with gloves, pens, and other objects, the phone suddenly becomes much more suited for dirty jobs or adverse weather conditions. This feature can be turned off in the settings, but we didn’t once experience the screen getting unlocked and operating inadvertently in our pocket, so that worry turns out to be a non-issue.

Interface and functionality:

The Windows Phone 8 home screen looks fresh and is a definite advantage before the previous WP editions, yet it’s a far cry from the myriad of customizations you can do with Android’s home screens. Resizable tiles are a welcome addition, but are no match for well-made homescreen widgets in terms of the detail and interactivity of information displayed.


When we add the dock launchers, menu pagination and notification bar switches, Android pulls ahead for its ability to align even the most minute interface detail with your personal preferences.


The WP8 interface is more rigid in that regard, providing what Microsoft deemed necessary as default tools. You can choose from tens of different keyboard apps for your Galaxy S III, including ones with Swype-like input, for example, whereas there is only the stock keyboard to peruse with the Lumia 920 - it is very good in portrait mode, but kind of squished in landscape.



Windows Phone 8’s UI approach is, however, simpler and easier to grasp in its neatly arranged tile format, and list-only app menu. The lock screen in WP8 also can be used by 3rd party apps to display slideshows, Facebook updates, sports scores, messaging notifications and so on, which Android answers with 4.2 Jelly Bean’s lock screen widgets concept, or some 3rd party lock screen solutions from the Play Store.

Both Nokia and Samsung have put a significant effort towards providing unique interface experiences for the brand’s users. Samsung takes the lead here with its Nature UX featuring Smart Stay and Pop Up Play, whereas Nokia makes do with a bundle of exclusive apps and additions like City Lens or Mix Radio, not to mention the integrated free offline voice-guided navigation coming with each Lumia.

One area Android has pulled far ahead, though, is natural language recognition with Google Voice in Jelly Bean, which is much more intuitive than the somewhat limited TellMe-based voice commands that come with Windows Phone 8. To that we have to add the Google Now innovation - that creepy virtual butler that makes our lives easier the more we divulge personal bits and pieces to the service.

Where WP8 excels, on the other hand, is the social networking integration in the contacts list, which syncs Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and other accounts seamlessly in your People hub.



As for the apps situation, most of your basics are covered with Windows Phone 8, and there’s the nice selection of Xbox games that comes with, but when you dig under the surface, you encounter a lot of the more specialized apps, like your Ameritrade broker, for instance, or Zipcar, missing from the WP Store, and you’d have to use the web experience to manage their services, instead of a dedicated app. The good thing is that you can first try any app before purchase.

Processor and memory:

The Samsung Galaxy S III is powered by a 1.4 GHz quad-core Exynos 4412 processor or a 1.5 GHz dual-core Snapdragon S4 in the US, which in conjunction with Android Jelly Bean’s Project Butter make the interface smooth as silk, with no apps giving that phone the hiccups, too.

The same can be said about the Nokia Lumia 920 - Windows Phone 8 is light on resources and finally supports dual-core processors, so the 1.5 GHz Qualcomm Snapdragon S4 chews through the interface animations and apps perform seamlessly.

There is 1 GB of RAM on the Lumia 920 and the international S III, and double that in the US version of the Galaxy S III. Android’s superior multitasking abilities can line up much more apps running in the system memory before any of them needs to be closed by the OS for lack of resources.

The starting points for internal memory amounts are 16 GB (~12 GB user-available) on Samsung’s device and 32 GB (~26 GB user-available) for the Lumia 920, but the S III also has a 32 GB version, plus it has a microSD slot for cheap storage expansion.

Internet and connectivity:

Both browsers are excellent, with buttery smooth scrolling, zooming and panning, plus they render the pages in real time while pinching.

Internet Explorer on the Lumia 920 seems a tad quicker, which is proven by Browsermark 2.0 as well (1569 vs 1355 points score), but there is no way you can add Adobe Flash support to it, whereas it can be easily used on the Galaxy S III, if the need arises.



On the connectivity front, the phones offer the works - LTE and HSPA+ baseband radios, plus the set of Wi-Fi, Wi-Fi Direct, Bluetooth, A-GPS, FM Radio, NFC and DLNA. The Lumia 920 radio has 42.2 Mbps theoretical HSPA+ download speeds, whereas the Galaxy S III sports a 21.1 Mbps radio, but in reality you’ll be lucky to clock a quarter of those anyway.

As for wired connectivity, the Galaxy S III sports a proprietary MHL port that allows video-out and USB-on-the-go at once, while the Lumia 920 features a microUSB port for charging and syncing, and it supports USB-on-the-go too, but no video-out.

Camera:

We’ve arrived at the most interesting part - comparing the 8 MP cameras on the back of the Lumia 920 and the Galaxy S III. Nokia’s phone utilizes the “PureView Phase 2 technology”, which puts the whole camera module on a tiny suspension mechanism inside for optical image stabilization - the result should be shake-free videos and allowing the phone to use slower shutter speeds in low light with less motion blur.

The camera app interface on the Galaxy S III has more options than the one on the Lumia 920, where functions like Panorama have to be downloaded as separate modules called Lenses. Nokia’s phone does have a few preset scene modes in the UI, though, like Close-up, Night, Night Portrait, Sports and Backlight, which cover most of the specific scenarios you might encounter. There are also ISO, exposure and white balance settings, just like on the Galaxy S III. The clunky thing with Nokia’s manual exposure adjustment is that you don’t see the scene from within the menu, and have to pop in and out of the option screen to see how the frame changed with the respective exposure compensation setting, whereas on the Galaxy S III it is visible directly.



When it comes to the actual pictures, both handsets have good color representation, just a tad on the saturated side. The Galaxy S III gets the white balance measurements mostly right, while the Lumia 920 sometimes overexposes the bright spots. When there is enough light around, Samsung’s photo processing algorithms also deliver sharper images with more contrast than the softish snaps from the Lumia 920.

When the lights start to go down, though, the Lumia 920 starts to really shine as the first phone with OIS inside, since the steadier camera module allows for much longer shutter speeds without motion blur, hence more light coming in, which is crucial for night and party shots. This solution is not without caveats, though, as the scene gets so exposed that light sources look too bright, and the overall result doesn’t look like it’s taken during the night at all. Dialing down the ISO or the exposure a notch, or shooting in night mode produces more natural low-light results.

The area where the optical image stabilization inside the Lumia 920 really excels in comparison with the Galaxy S III or any other phone, however, is video capture. Fluid, blur-free videos with 30fps can be shot at any time, day or night with the Lumia 920, and that shake compensation inside makes the footage look like it is taken with a tripod or with rail-mounted pro camera. The Galaxy S III has a digital stabilization mode, too, but it is a far cry from the OIS gear inside the Lumia 920.

Nokia Lumia 920 Sample Video:



Samsung Galaxy S III Sample Video:



Nokia Lumia 920 Nighttime Sample Video:



Samsung Galaxy S III Nighttime Sample Video:



When we add Nokia’s Rich Recording technology with the three highamplitude audio capture (HAAC) microphones, which can pick a wider sound range than your typical smartphone mics, the Lumia 920 becomes the best smartphone for shooting video at parties or concerts where it's both noisy, and you move a lot. The HAAC mics can withstand more pressure than the typical phone units which max out at around 120 dB, andrecords sound with no audible distortion up to 140dB strength. Thus from high-pitched sounds down to very low frequencies can be recorded and distinctly heard afterwards, whereas the Samsung Galaxy S III sound recording is pretty weak and tinny in comparison.

Multimedia:

The galleries on both devices allow for syncing with other accounts like Facebook, and showing your albums from there in the app. They offer editing functions for your photos and videos, with the selection of edit options richer on the Galaxy S III out of the box, despite Nokia’s dedicated Creative Studio app that comes preinstalled, which basically offers just a number of color effects, while for cropping, resizing and so on, you are to use another default app.

Music playback is taken care of with stock apps that offer album art and song categorization by artists, albums and playlists, plus equalizer presets, lock screen commands, and faux surround sounds in headset mode with the Dolby branding.

The WP8 player interface is minimalistic, but almost overly so, as you can’t manipulate the progress bar, for instance, you have to long-press the forward and back keys to skim through tracks. On the other hand, you can pin tracks and albums on the home screen, and can even give the artist a double width tile.



Nokia Music is present on the Lumia device, letting you stream 15 million tracks for free similar to Pandora, and even save so-called “mixes” with the Nokia Mix Radio option for offline listening. The Galaxy S III also has a Music Hub with even more tracks, powered by 7Digital, but no free streaming and offline download options.

The stereo speakers at the bottom of the Nokia Lumia 920 are better than the loudspeaker unit in the Galaxy S III in terms of strength, clarity and sound fullness.

The handsets support popular video file formats, including DivX/Xvid up to 1080 definition right out of the box. The Galaxy S III lets you detach the video currently running with the Pop Up Play function, and keep it on top at all times in a window, while you do something else on the screen underneath. The WP8 video player is much more basic, with only the simplest playback options in the interface.

Call quality:

An excellent call quality can be had with the Lumia 920 - the voices in the earpiece sound strong and clean, and the tri-microphone setup weeds out ambient noises for the other when we speak. The Galaxy S III also offers very good call quality in the ear piece and noise cancellation, but with less clean voices being relayed to the listening side.

Battery:

Nokia might have put the biggest battery it has ever placed in its phones inside the Lumia 920 at 2,000 mAh, but the Galaxy S III has a battery life advantage, and not only for the slightly bigger 2,100 mAh unit.

It offers more battery life than the Lumia 920 in official talk times (12 hours vs 10 hours in 3G mode), and 9 hours vs 6 hours of video playback, but the browsing times are dimilar due to the power-hungry AMOLED when displaying white website backgrounds.

Still, the Lumia 920 offers your typical day, day and a half of battery life we can expect from modern high-ends, unless it is constantly trying to hook to an LTE network, which shortens the time between charges. Speaking of those, the Lumia 920 has a built-in wireless charging coil under the hood, whereas such a back cover is an accessory for the Galaxy S III.

Conclusion:

This might have sounded pretty strange just a year ago, but the Windows Phone 8-powered Nokia Lumia 920 is the better phone in many respects than the five months older Galaxy S III. It has the better screen, better camera, better call quality and better sound recording and playback. It also offers free offline voice-guided navigation, to solidify its uniqueness before Samsung’s handset.

Still, throwing every edgy piece of technology Nokia could muster for its first true Windows Phone flagship took its toll on the chassis girth and heft, making it feel like a tank next to the slim and light Galaxy S III. Thankfully, that also affected its stellar drop durability in the positive sense, yet its body, while ergonomic to handle, seems unsightly compared to thin handsets like the S III.

Furthermore, when it comes to the operating system, Windows Phone, which on the surface is fresh and easy to grasp, feels much more restricted than the freewheeling Android with all its widgets and customizations, plus the superior multitasking and natural voice commands. The app situation is also widely in favor of Android, and thankfully Nokia throws in some fine exclusive apps like Drive and Mix Radio to soothe the pain somewhat.

Compared feature by feature the Galaxy S III doesn't offer many advantages before the burly, but capable Lumia 920, yet its hardware and software combo is more aligned with the smartphone trends of late, so it feels more familiar. That familiarity is exactly what Nokia has tried to escape from with the unique features of the Lumia 920, sacrificing on the compact factor in the process.

Nokia Lumia 920 vs Samsung Galaxy S III Video Comparison: