Nokia Lumia Icon is better than Samsung Galaxy in some aspects.

[Amol S.]

___I feel that the Nokia Lumia Icon is much better than the Samsung Galaxy phones, because of its good screen quality, good volume in its speakers, and also the great camera that it has.
___The Nokia Lumia Icon I feel has some sort of mobile integrated graphics processor, that renders good 3D videos and images, in games. The screen shows stuff in very good detail, much better than the Samsung Galaxy cellphones.
___Also one can easily hear the ringtones from the cell phone on busy streets even when the volume is set on 3/10 on the cellphone, this is because the cellphone uses a different and much better type of speaker, than that found on a Samsung galaxy.
___Lastly, the Nokia phones all have very good cameras.
___Comment and reply what you guys think of a Nokia Lumia Icon.

 

[IamDavid]

Loved mine but couldn't give switch 100% away from Android at the time.
Then I switched to the Nokia 1520 and haven't looked at another phone sense. Whatever flagship MS releases I'm hoping it has a large screen option like the 1520.

 

[Amol S.]

Loved mine but couldn't give switch 100% away from Android at the time.
Then I switched to the Nokia 1520 and haven't looked at another phone sense. Whatever flagship MS releases I'm hoping it has a large screen option like the 1520.

I think they have one like that called Nokia Lumia 2520.

 

[dawheat]

The icon was a decent early 2014 phone but long in the tooth.

- the 1080p AMOLED is OK but not even S5 quality, much less the Note 4/S6. Brightness is average.
- it uses the S800 right? Graphics quality sound like placebo as there's nothing special about the icon in that dept
- camera I recall was quite good in daylight and average at low light. But it was so horribly slow. Has this gotten better?
- battery life wasn't up to the 2014 flagship standards

So it was a good phone against the 2013 flagships but seemed a bit outgunned against the 2014 ones, though not hugely so. However it really needs an update as display, battery, and low light photo standards have gotten much higher.

 

[Amol S.]

The icon was a decent early 2014 phone but long in the tooth.

- the 1080p AMOLED is OK but not even S5 quality, much less the Note 4/S6. Brightness is average.
- it uses the S800 right? Graphics quality sound like placebo as there's nothing special about the icon in that dept
- camera I recall was quite good in daylight and average at low light. But it was so horribly slow. Has this gotten better?
- battery life wasn't up to the 2014 flagship standards

So it was a good phone against the 2013 flagships but seemed a bit outgunned against the 2014 ones, though not hugely so. However it really needs an update as display, battery, and low light photo standards have gotten much higher.

I actually own a Icon and they did release a update a month ago where they updated the OS from Windows Phone 8 to Windows Phone 8.1.
But the best thing of all is the fact that its service provider is Verizon, and everyone knows Verizon has the largest area of wireless coverage in the United States, than any other service provider.

 

[Crono]

I actually own a Icon and they did release a update a month ago where they updated the OS from Windows Phone 8 to Windows Phone 8.1.
But the best thing of all is the fact that its service provider is Verizon, and everyone knows Verizon has the largest area of wireless coverage in the United States, than any other service provider.

That's also one of the worst things. Verizon is the reason a lot of firmware updates get delayed for ridiculously long periods of time, and their selection of phones is almost always lacking across the board. Yes, their coverage is good, but I've had nearly as good experience with AT&T, and T-Mobile has free international data while it costs an arm and a leg to get that with Verizon.

dawheat is correct on all points, though the camera is much faster now, thanks to Denim. The Icon was very competitive last year, but it's losing on the hardware front to phones from the Note 4 and onward. But it's still an excellent phone, and I think good enough to continue to be my primary until the Windows 10 phones in the fall.

 

[notposting]

The Icon is basically the 930 (look at the info and it says it is the Lumia 929) for Verizon.

It is dated by today's hardware, which doesn't mean much performance wise, but still true.

The camera is pretty mediocre in low light, at least compared to the 920 generation (920/925/928) of Lumia's. It is fantastic outdoors from sunup to sundown, and takes nice pics of fire. The speaker sucks. Coming from the amplified 928 speaker, it sucks even more. The battery realllllly should have been a bit bigger.

The Verizon aspect is good/bad. Good if using their coverage, and SIM unlocked out of the box. Bad for update timeliness, and sketchy for alternate US networks since Verizon gimps the full variety of settings available (like MMS).

I remember seeing a comment on the main site (did they review the Icon?) about the screen. It was theorized that it was the same as the S4 panel and not very power efficient.

The Denim update also brought problems with the screen (blacks are way too bright), super sensitive touch not working, and a nice little list of bugs to run through. I am confident Verizon and Microsoft are working around the clock to get those fixed!

I'm here all week folks!

 

[Amol S.]

The speaker sucks.

I know the quality is bad, but I am talking about the volume and how loud it is compared to the volume and how loud other cellphones are disregarding sound quality.

 

[Yuriman]

___I feel that the Nokia Lumia Icon is much better than the Samsung Galaxy phones, because of its good screen quality, good volume in its speakers, and also the great camera that it has.
___The Nokia Lumia Icon I feel has some sort of mobile integrated graphics processor, that renders good 3D videos and images, in games. The screen shows stuff in very good detail, much better than the Samsung Galaxy cellphones.
___Also one can easily hear the ringtones from the cell phone on busy streets even when the volume is set on 3/10 on the cellphone, this is because the cellphone uses a different and much better type of speaker, than that found on a Samsung galaxy.
___Lastly, the Nokia phones all have very good cameras.
___Comment and reply what you guys think of a Nokia Lumia Icon.

-Poorly calibrated screen of average brightness

-Generally slower than other flagship phones:

Slow camera:

Anandtech gave the camera overall a "thumbs up" but pointed out that low light performance was a bit lacking:

The smartphone bar has not been moved yet. The Lumia 1020 still wins this comparison, which considering the sensor size advantage is not that surprising. However what is amazing is how the Panasonic point and shoot, which was a well-regarded camera when it came out a few years ago, is so handily beaten by the Lumia 930. We have all known the point and shoot market is declining due to the popularity of smart phones, with a smart phone camera ordinarily being good enough for most occasions, however it is pretty clear that it is more than good enough if executed well. For all of the power of the Lumia 930, there is no camera bump at all required on this phone. In low light or dim light, there is a bit too much noise in the resultant images for my liking, but my benchmark is the 1020.

Trusted Reviews' take on the speaker:

Nokia Lumia 930: Call Quality and Sound Quality
Call and speaker phone quality on the Nokia Lumia 930 is reasonable, but not outstanding. While the multi-microphone setup provides good noise cancellation to block out ambient noise at least and we suffered no issues of dropouts or signal issues, calls lacked a little clarity compared to other phones we've tested.

It’s at least a good showing from the lone loudspeaker. Despite being situated on the back of the phone, it still manages to produce loud, clear audio for music and video playback. It’s always going to be a tall order to match the warmth and richness in the front-facing HTC Boomsound speakers, but we were pleasantly surprised with what the Lumia 930 can muster up in this department.

Battery life:

With a smaller battery than other devices of a similar size, it is not surprising that the Lumia 930 can not keep up with the competition, but it was surprising just how poorly it fares in the web browsing tests. The phone would get noticably warm during the web browsing test.

That said, it's not a bad phone by any stretch of the imagination, but it's not a direct competitor to other flagships. Windows Phone is a clean, smooth OS and it's one of the best phones you can get that run it, so it's a fair choice if you have strong OS preference.

 

[Amol S.]

-Poorly calibrated screen of average brightness

-Generally slower than other flagship phones:

Slow camera:

Anandtech gave the camera overall a "thumbs up" but pointed out that low light performance was a bit lacking:




Trusted Reviews' take on the speaker:




Battery life:

That said, it's not a bad phone by any stretch of the imagination, but it's not a direct competitor to other flagships. Windows Phone is a clean, smooth OS and it's one of the best phones you can get that run it, so it's a fair choice if you have strong OS preference.

I did say it was better than the Samsung galaxy in some aspects, and you actually helped me prove it by the charts, n 50 to 65% of the charts, the Nokia Lumia Icon is better than the Samsug galaxy.
Thank you for finding sources that supports what I said. :thumbsup:

 

[Yuriman]

I did say it was better than the Samsung galaxy in some aspects, and you actually helped me prove it by the charts, n 50 to 65% of the charts, the Nokia Lumia Icon is better than the Samsug galaxy.
Thank you for finding sources that supports what I said. :thumbsup:

I'd like to point out that in some charts "lower is better", so only in one graph does it match the Galaxy S4, which is an older phone. The S5 isn't in that particular graph, which is the current generation Samsung Galaxy.

 

[sweenish]

I'm surprised that no one is at least reconciling the smoother hardware experience Windows Phone generally provides, especially over the recent galaxy phones (Note 4 excluded, I believe) due to the bloat they include. The S800 will last a lot longer, hardware-wise, on a Windows Phone than most Android sets. It's not a placebo, Windows Phone runs smoother with less hardware than Android.

Android has made great strides the last few updates, though. 5.1 is much smoother than 5.0 was.

 

[Yuriman]

You're right that hardware is far from the end of the discussion. I recently got my father a Windows Phone for its simplicity. The lack of apps and limited customization are more of a plus in his case than a minus. I'd rather avoid explaining widgets to him, and the complex settings menu available with Android handsets are arguably less friendly than on Microsoft's offerings. Hardware does factor into performance the moment you decide to browse the web though, and IE is generally slower on the same hardware than Chrome or Safari. From that perspective, Windows Phones should actually become "slow" on the web sooner than their competition.

 

[poofyhairguy]

I'm surprised that no one is at least reconciling the smoother hardware experience Windows Phone generally provides, especially over the recent galaxy phones (Note 4 excluded, I believe) due to the bloat they include.

We are nerds, we always will knock Samsung for Touchwiz. With that said, we also don't make the mistakes normals make and allow Samsung to define the entire platform.

And Samsung is learning. The Note 4 barely had skin, the S6 is even better they say.

The S800 will last a lot longer, hardware-wise, on a Windows Phone than most Android sets.

What does that even mean?

It will get OS updates longer? With the Nexus 2012 getting 5.1 I think that isn't a safe bet. I bet the Nexus 6 will get new versions of Android as long as any MS phone.

Will be able to run the newest apps longer? Maybe, but that is because of the limitation of the platform.

 

[Amol S.]

But there is a big drawback on android that windows phone is good at, if you let your phone of for a day, and you usually get more than 25 to 50 emails a day, and you have a lot of widgets, then you probably will have to wait 3 to 7 minutes before you can use the phone, while that is not the case, with the windows phone.
This is what happened with my mom Samsung Galaxy Note 10.1 2013 version. Boy did it take a long time for it to do anything after the home screen came on, you had to wait till everything loaded before anything else you do works smoothly.

 

[notposting]

I know the quality is bad, but I am talking about the volume and how loud it is compared to the volume and how loud other cellphones are disregarding sound quality.

No, I meant the volume. At least on mine (who knows, maybe this one is a dud?) it is pitiable. Pretty much has to be cranked to 25-30 to hear music at all. Not normal for me to be maxxing the volume on a device...

 

[Crono]

No, I meant the volume. At least on mine (who knows, maybe this one is a dud?) it is pitiable. Pretty much has to be cranked to 25-30 to hear music at all. Not normal for me to be maxxing the volume on a device...

It's possible it's a dud. My Icon's volume (subjectively, and same for the 1520) was louder than my M7. Clarity is worse, though, and I think the M8 is louder.

 

[ChronoReverse]

But there is a big drawback on android that windows phone is good at, if you let your phone of for a day, and you usually get more than 25 to 50 emails a day, and you have a lot of widgets, then you probably will have to wait 3 to 7 minutes before you can use the phone, while that is not the case, with the windows phone.

I don't know what's messed up about that Note you're talking about but that doesn't happen with my Galaxy S4 at all.

 

[Amol S.]

Actually another advantage of the windows phone nokia lumia icon is the fact that it is a 2 in one in the winter, if you play high phone cpu or gpu games on the cellphone, when on the subway going home, it acts like a phone and a portable hand heater.

 

[Crono]

Actually another advantage of the windows phone nokia lumia icon is the fact that it is a 2 in one in the winter, if you play high phone cpu or gpu games on the cellphone, when on the subway going home, it acts like a phone and a portable hand heater.

Plus it works with gloves. Double bonus!

 

[Amol S.]

Plus it works with gloves. Double bonus!

ya when you put it on high sensitivity it becomes very sensitive the screen.

 

[notposting]

It's possible it's a dud. My Icon's volume (subjectively, and same for the 1520) was louder than my M7. Clarity is worse, though, and I think the M8 is louder.

In my Icon bizarro land alarms are loud as shit though.

Basically every phone I've ever had, flip, slide, smart, whatever has been louder than the Icon. And I think my kids ate my headphones again *sigh*

The Icon has been buggier than my 928 from the beginning. Go to contact history and it would scroll from the furthest back...which for someone like my wife means a decade plus of emails and now a couple years of synced texts plus phone calls...wtf.

Denim has a nice crop of little annoyances, I hate when they say Verizon is testing, they ain't doing shit. They just want some money and maybe some hookers and blow. Super sensitive touch doesn't work now. Can enable it. Doesn't do anything.

If they ever tale my unlimited data it will be adios (and then probably back on a prepaid plan for a lot less, haha).

 

[Amol S.]

It only gives good sound clarity if you play a sound of a V12 engine revenging up and going.

 

[s44]

Plus it works with gloves. Double bonus!

Recent Samsungs had this first...

Anyway, I don't think WP really competes with Android or iOS flagships on any hardware-to-hardware basis. Either you want the simplified OS experience or not. If you do, the handsets themselves are good enough, but that's not going to decide it for anyone.

 

[Amol S.]

Recent Samsungs had this first...

Anyway, I don't think WP really competes with Android or iOS flagships on any hardware-to-hardware basis. Either you want the simplified OS experience or not. If you do, the handsets themselves are good enough, but that's not going to decide it for anyone.

Actually ios does not compare to WP or Android, since, their app whatever is not open:thumbsdown:. Android and WP app thing is open so any one can create an app on those phones for free. :thumbsup:

Also, Android does not run on MP3 or MP4 sounds unlike ios or WP, instead all their system sounds is a .midi or .ogg, file format, which is kinda annoying since, you can not use those file formats anywhere with good quality. Although I do have to give a point to the Samsung Galaxy Note 10.1 2013 version, that can install and run VLC (which technically means the VLC player can play 192khz .dts sound files . B\ut too bad Android without vlc can not play .wav. Meaning if you want to listen to old music, which only sounds good in .wav, since in ogg or mp3 it sounds robotic a little. You can not paly the song on any other phone other than WP.

Also, on the wp, you do not have to install antivirus, unlike in ios or android. Surprisingly, AVG tried to make and did release a antivirus app for WP, only to find out that actually, the WP would actually stop AVG when it started. A further study discovered that WP had actually White House on high alert level of security on the phone. In reality on the WP one app can not control another app or a app can not control of access system files, or else, the phone would go blank and restart. It was said, that WP has its own security where no virus they say in the study can hack the phone,unless there is a USB connection.

Also I read somewhere that if the temperature of a Samsung Galaxy S3 stays above 90degrres Fahrenheit for 10 hours, it is said a smelly D:gooey brown stuffD: comes out of the phone. D: