Subscribe

Lumia 925 zooms in on imaging

Christine Greyvenstein
By Christine Greyvenstein, ITWeb journalist.
Johannesburg, 15 May 2013
The Lumia 925 features Nokia's new Smart Camera technology, a metal casing and Hipstamatic's new app, Oggl.
The Lumia 925 features Nokia's new Smart Camera technology, a metal casing and Hipstamatic's new app, Oggl.

Finnish mobile manufacturer Nokia's newest member in the Lumia stable was announced in London yesterday, with a focus on the device's photographic capabilities.

The Nokia Lumia 925 introduces the new Nokia Smart Camera mode, which will be made available as an update to all Lumia Windows Phone 8 smartphones. It captures 10 images at once and allows the editing of pictures with options like Best Shot, Action Shot, and Motion Focus.

Head of Nokia smart devices, Jo Harlow, says Nokia has advanced the camera lens technology and software algorithms to deliver better pictures and video, including in low light. "In the normal camera mode, we can deliver 8MP images, and in the Smart Camera mode, we have a multi-frame capability delivering 5MP images."

Corporate vice-president at Microsoft Windows Phone Division, Terry Myerson, adds that, together with Nokia, it continues to change the way people think about smartphone cameras. "The work Nokia has done with the Lumia 925 further enhances the imaging capabilities of the Lumia smartphones."

Hello metal

The 925 is the first Lumia to have a metal casing. Head of Nokia product design, Stefan Pannenbecker, says Nokia has been committed to a material-based design approach for some time. "We started with the question of how we can build better products and what materials would allow us to build better products."

He adds that this approach has paved the way for products like the Lumia 920, 820, 720, 620 and 520. "These have all been built around the same design which is a two-part construction with polycarbonate monobodies, and the consumer response to these devices has been very good."

Pannenbecker says that at the same time, Nokia realised there is a major interest in metal. "If it is done right, metal can be a great enabler for beautiful construction and quality design."

Nokia also announced Hipstamatic's new app, Oggl, which will arrive on Nokia Lumia smartphones. It allows people to take and share high-quality pictures with other photography enthusiasts from around the world. Oggl also enables users to simultaneously share photos on social networks, including Facebook, Twitter, Foursquare, Instagram, Tumblr and Flickr.

The pipeline

The announcement of the Lumia 925 follows less than a week after the Finnish manufacturer announced the Lumia 928, which is available exclusively from US carrier Verizon.

Although the Lumia 925 will head to local shores, Nokia SA does not have immediate details on when it would be available.

Responding to the announcement of the Lumia 925, head of communications for Nokia SA, Leo McKay, says the Lumia range is doing well locally. "We are very focused on driving the current Lumia portfolio in the South African market. We are seeing great consumer and partner reaction to devices like the Nokia Lumia 920, as well as our latest arrivals, Nokia Lumia 720 and Nokia Lumia 520."

Nokia has been trying to find its footing in the smartphone market that is dominated by Samsung and Android, with investors placing increasing pressure on the manufacturer to move away from its decision to use the Windows Phone operating system on its devices.

Nokia released its first quarter results last month and claimed it sold 5.6 million Lumia handsets - up from 4.4 million in the previous quarter. The latest report by Gartner on global mobile phone sales for the first quarter of 2013 reveals Nokia is the number two vendor in terms of market share with 14.8%, falling behind Samsung with 23.6%.

Lumia 925 specifications

Operating system

Windows Phone 8

HERE location and mapping services

Free global HERE Maps and HERE Drive+;Free HERE Transit available in the Store

Display

4.5-inch AMOLED WXGA (1280x768), 2.25 D sculpted Gorilla 2 Glass, ClearBlack, High Brightness Mode, Sunlight Readability, Super Sensitive Touch for glove and nail usage

Battery

2000 mAh battery, Wireless Charging supported via an accessory cover

Processor

1.5 GHz dual-core Snapdragon

Main camera

PureView 8.7MP with Optical Image Stabilisation, Autofocus, short pulse high power dual LED flash, most advanced lens technology, 1080p HD video at 30fps with Optical Image Stabilization. Includes Nokia Smart Camera mode.

Front-facing camera

1.2MP wide angle

Memory

1GB RAM, 16GB internal memory; 7GB free SkyDrive cloud storage

Share