Nokia Lumia Icon: Perfect frame

Once again, Nokia has crafted the finest Windows Phone experience on the market. And once again, its release strategy doesn’t make a lick of sense.

The Lumia Icon is powered by one of the fastest processors available, it has a gorgeous screen, and it even packs in Nokia’s amazing PureView camera technology. And yet it’s only available on Verizon ($200 with a two-year contract), which severely limits the phone’s potential audience — something both Nokia and Microsoft desperately need to grow.

But this isn’t anything new for Nokia: The previously-released, huge, 6-inch Lumia 1520, which packs in pretty much the same hardware as the Icon, is only available on AT&T. Same for the Lumia 1020, the only Windows Phone to include Nokia’s impressive 41-megapixel PureView camera. Time and again, Nokia has delivered solid phones and then allows them to be restricted by the confusing world of carrier exclusivity.

It’s no wonder Microsoft and Nokia have had such a hard time landing a hit smartphone. Availability across all four major carriers was Samsung’s key strategic move that made the Galaxy S3 (and its followups) a success, and it’s something others, like HTC and LG, have attempted to follow. While Apple was able to make the iPhone a hit while it was only on AT&T, that was in 2007 — and it’s not a model Microsoft and Nokia can replicate today.

The good: The best Windows Phone available today

The Lumia Icon bests most other Windows Phone devices on every level. Mostly, though, that’s due to the sad lack of strong Windows Phone options on the market. Outside of Nokia, which bet its entire company on Windows Phone (and whose phone business will soon be a part of Microsoft), nobody is really working hard to develop killer devices for the platform.

The Icon is identical spec-wise to the 6-inch Lumia 1520. But while the Icon seems like a step down from that phablet, its smaller 5-inch screen actually makes it a better option in my eye. It’s easier to hold in one hand, and it can still fit in my pocket without feeling (and looking) awkward. The phone also sports a metal and matte plastic case that feels far more elegant than the 1520′s glossier plastic shell.

Though it’s slightly heavier and thicker than most smartphones today, the Icon has a reassuring heft and build quality. It feels sturdy enough to drop onto concrete without taking any major damage. (No, I didn’t have a chance to test this.)

The Icon also offers one of the fastest Windows Phone experiences I’ve seen yet. Again, that’s mostly because it’s one of the few phones running Windows Phone with a modern processor. Mostly, I was surprised by how quickly complex 3D games like Final Fantasy 3 and Asphalt 7 loaded on the phone. It felt about as fast as the iPhone 5S and newer Android phones when loading comparable games.

Nokia’s PureView camera technology is once again a highlight, though for some reason the Icon’s camera sensor is only 20 megapixels, half the resolution of the Lumia 1020′s 41 MP shooter. The Icon’s camera still produced sharp and vibrant photos, though I couldn’t crop into them as much as I could on the 1020′s camera.

Nokia was likely able to drive down costs on the phone by packing in a lower megapixel camera, but it’s strange to see the company’s current flagship device step backwards for such a core function.

Hardware

Windows Phone has grown up a lot lately. The Lumia Icon is the platform's new poster child, offering specs that would make even the most discerning of power users drool. That includes Nokia's 20-megapixel PureView camera, a 5-inch 1080p display, top-of-the-line quad-core Snapdragon processor, 32GB of internal storage, 2GB of RAM and a 2,420mAh battery, to name just a few specs. You can check out the full list below, but for now, you get the idea.

All told, it's hard to find fault with the specs, but the hardware itself is potentially... polarizing. With its square shape, sharp corners and flat sides, it's as if Nokia took the Lumia 928 and changed the material from glossy polycarbonate to aluminum on the perimeters and matte polycarbonate on the back. Nokia used this same combination of materials on the Lumia 925, but that phone had a less severe design, one marked by gentle curves. What's more, the non-removable back here bulges out slightly from the rest of the chassis. The idea was for the camera to sit flush with the device, but even so, a flat back would have made for a more streamlined look. Finally, at 5.86 ounces the Icon is a little heavy -- heavier than the 4.5-inch Lumia 1020, anyway. That said, it's still significantly lighter than the 6-inch 1520, which means it's also more comfortable to carry around.

On the other hand, the aluminum sides and polycarbonate matte back make the Icon feel reassuringly sturdy. In particular, its 5-inch frame is small enough to fit snugly in my hand, and the edges have a blunt cut that left my fingers plenty of room to grip the device. At 9.9mm thick, it's thicker than most high-end smartphones, but the arched back helps make its size less of a detractor from our enjoyment of the device. Oh, and speaking of durability, Nokia and Verizon must have focused on making the Icon as iron-clad as possible, because in addition to the metal sides, the phone rocks a Gorilla Glass 3 display. The glass itself curves slightly outward, so it's exposed a little more than a standard flat sheet; it makes sense, then, that Nokia would want the glass to be as scratch-resistant as possible. It's not shatterproof, so you still don't want to drop it face-down on concrete, but you should at least feel comfortable putting it in the same pocket as your car keys.

As an aside, although those metal sides look nice and do indeed provide some extra durability, they're also quite prone to dings and scratches. This is an issue we've experienced with the latest iPhones and the HTC One, to name but two examples. We didn't see anything show up in our time reviewing the device, but if you're going to be using the Icon for a year or two, the sides may look like the surface of the moon by the time you're done with it. It may do a good job protecting your phone from impact, but it probably won't emerge without a few battle scars.

Farther down the back, you'll see two Verizon logos next to the external speaker grille. The sound comes out loud and clear, despite its awkward placement toward the top of that sloping back cover. You'll also notice two tiny holes on the back for microphones (one near the top, one near the bottom). These make up just half of the phone's four-mic setup for directional audio recording; the other two are located on the front. And, as with most Verizon phones, you also have the option of wireless charging, thanks to an embedded Qi module.

The right side of the Icon features the typical three-button layout that Windows Phone users have become accustomed to (for novices, this includes a volume rocker, power button and two-stage shutter button). The Icon's keys stick out pretty far, but for some reason I had a difficult time pressing the camera button gently enough that I didn't cause shaking and camera blur. Ultimately, I felt more comfortable taking shots with the virtual on-screen shutter button.

The micro-USB charging socket sits along the bottom edge of the phone, while the 3.5mm headphone jack lives up top. For symmetry's sake, both ports are flanked by a pair of antennas. However, there's a nano-SIM slot on the top-left corner that renders pointless any effort to make the sides look symmetrical. The Icon's SIM slot features a small divot instead of a pinhole, so you'll need to dig out the SIM card using your fingernail. As I discovered, this makes it much more difficult to open if your nails happen to be well-trimmed.

When we saw the Lumia 1520's 6-inch, 1080p display, we couldn't wait to see how that kind of screen quality would look on a 5-inch device. Having finally gotten our wish, we're happy to say the Icon doesn't disappoint. This time Nokia went with a 1,920 x 1,080 AMOLED ClearBlack panel, with a pixel density of 441 ppi. As expected, the dark colors are darker here than on the 1520's LCD screen, while the whites are just a shade dimmer. One of the nice things about this type of display is that the darks blend in with the bezel, making the screen feel more expansive than it actually is. Color saturation is on par with the 1020's OLED display as well, but if you don't like it, Nokia offers the ability to adjust it, along with the color temperature. In addition, we could easily see the bright, 500-nit screen in direct sunlight, and the viewing angles are some of the best we've seen.

Since the Icon is a Verizon exclusive, its LTE radio runs on Verizon-compatible bands (700/AWS, to be specific). When 4G isn't available, it also supports 3G CDMA. Although we're disappointed that it doesn't feature global LTE roaming of any kind, international travelers can use it on most GSM networks around the world; it has quad-band HSPA (850/900/1900/2100) and quad-band GSM/EDGE (850/900/1800/1900). In fact, since it's unlocked, we were able to use an AT&T SIM and get an HSPA signal.

	Nokia Lumia Icon
Dimensions	136.9 x 70.9 x 9.9mm (5.39 x 2.79 x 0.39 inches)
Weight	5.86 oz (166g)
Screen size	5.0 inches
Screen resolution	1,920 x 1,080 (441 ppi)
Screen type	OLED ClearBlack; Sunlight Readability Enhancement; High Brightness Mode; Gorilla Glass 3
Battery	2,420mAh Li-Polymer(non-removable)
Internal storage	32GB
External storage	None
Rear camera	20MP Zeiss, OIS, f/2.4, wide-angle lens, AF
Front-facing cam	2MP sensor (1.2MP stills)
Video capture	1080p / 30 fps (rear); 720p (front)
NFC	Yes (with secure element on SIM)
Radios	LTE Bands 4/13 (AWS/Verizon) GSM: (850/900/1800/1900) HSPA: (850/900/1900/2100) CDMA: (850/1900) EVDO Rev A
Bluetooth	v4.0 LE
SoC	Qualcomm Snapdragon 800 (MSM8974)
CPU	2.2GHz quad-core
GPU	Adreno 330
RAM	2GB
Miscellaneous	FM radio, GPS/GLONASS, micro-USB 2.0 HS, four-mic setup
WiFi	Dual-band, 802.11a/b/g/n/ac
Wireless Charging	Yes, Qi standard
Operating system	Windows Phone 8, Update 3/Lumia Black

Software

Windows Phone 8 is now on its third major update, and the latest firmware allows the Icon to have all of the best specs on the market. Nokia took this update, bundled it with its own suite of software features and functionality and called it the "Black" update. This is the same setup that we enjoyed on the Lumia 1520, as well as a litany of older devices that also run the new software.

Aside from the obligatory Verizon apps, which are limited in number and can all be uninstalled, the Icon comes preloaded with the usual Nokia and Microsoft necessities: You'll have roughly 500 Nokia apps (slight exaggeration), a handful of Here apps for navigation, the upgraded camera app, Data Sense, a few Bing apps and so on. There's nothing out of the ordinary here, and nothing we haven't touched upon before.

One thing worth noting is that since the Icon has a 5-inch display, it qualifies as a "larger screen" and is rewarded with a third column of icons on the Start Screen, just like the 1520 has on its 6-inch display. Despite the fact that you get more screen space on the Icon than the 4.5-inch Lumia 1020, the Live Tiles are actually smaller on the Icon so you have more room for that additional column.

User interface

The Nokia Lumia Icon comes with Windows Phone 8 GDR3 (the Lumia Black edition) out of the box. The Microsoft-issued GDR3 release and the Nokia-made Black enhancements add a handful of new features headed by support for 1080p displays and the beefy Qualcomm Snapdragon 800 chipset.

That said the user interface still feels familiar if you are coming from another Windows Phone device. Yes, you can fit more Live Tiles per row on the homescreen (6 of the smallest ones, up from 4), but that turned out to be a function of the screen size rather than a Lumia Black specific feature. There are a couple of other changes, we'll get to those in a minute.

A push on the unlock button or a double tap on the screen reveals the lockscreen, which displays the current time and date and shows calendar events, emails and missed calls. Pushing the volume rocker in either direction will bring the sound switch and music controls on top of the screen.

Swiping the lockscreen up unlocks the device or you can just press and hold the camera shutter key to unlock the phone and jump straight into the camera app.

The lockscreen • Music controls on the lockscreen

There's a reasonable level of flexibility and functionality to the lockscreen - the Live Apps service allows apps to display notifications, weather, and images. You can set one app to display big notifications ("detailed status") and up to five more apps to show a less detailed quick status. There are already apps in the Store that display the battery percentage on the lockscreen via those kind of notifications.

The lockscreen wallpaper can also be controlled by apps - you can let the music player replace the lockscreen image with the album art of the currently playing track, or let one of the installed apps choose the image (e.g. Bing's beautiful background images or photos from your Facebook account).

Curiously, the Lumia Icon does not support Nokia Glance Screen. There is no word on why the feature is missing on the Verizon-exclusive device, though we are quite certain that it has nothing to do with hardware restrictions.

The Modern UI is a vertical grid of Live Tiles, which can be reordered any way you like. Almost anything can be pinned to the homescreen - apps, contacts, web pages and more. Unfortunately, the app launcher is still just an alphabetical list of all apps, no folders or icon grid. We don't think it works too well on a large display.

The home screen and main menu

Windows Phone 8 lets you resize the live tiles. Upon a tap and hold, you'll get an extra resize button, next to the unpin one. You can opt between quarter, normal and double size. If you select the smallest one though, the tile will be just a static icon (as is in the regular menu).

Resizing a tile

Most Live tiles display relevant info such as the current date, pending calendar events, missed calls, unread emails and more (third party apps do it too). The Marketplace tile displays the number of updates available, while the Pictures tile is essentially a slideshow of your photos. It's nice to have all that info always available at-a-glance. You can look at them as homescreen widgets of sorts.

WP8 can do multitasking, though not with the level of user control that Android allows. Apps not in the foreground are suspended, but the OS has ways to take over and carry out the task for them (e.g. continue playing music). If an app needs to run in the background (sat-nav clients, messengers, etc.) it can. Microsoft is expected to bring better multi-tasking with the Windows Phone 8.1 update.

The multi-tasking interface

The new feature in GDR3 is that you can "close" apps by hitting the X button. It's not as comfortable as swiping apps away, but at least now you have control over the recent apps list.

Opening the settings menu displays two sets of options: like on the start screen, you can swipe between System and Applications. System covers all the settings you can think of like sounds, color theme, Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, Accounts, etc. The Application settings let you configure each app you have on the device.

We would've liked to see some kind of quick toggles in Windows Phone 8 to spare you the need to go all the way to the settings menu to enable Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, GPS and the likes. There's a new Screen rotation lock feature, but it requires you to exit the app, find it in the settings, enable it and then get back to the app. The same goes for all the other settings, it's just too many steps for such a common task.

There is one new setting as part of the GDR3 refresh - screen rotation, where you turn on/off the automatic UI rotation.

Windows Phone 8 settings menu

Another feature we feel is missing is a place where you can see all of your notifications from various apps. Live Tiles manage to show notifications from each app to some extent, but they don't really have enough room for things like e-mail subject and such, while Android and iOS notification areas do. Microsoft has confirmed working on just such a feature and that we should see it in a future update.

The Lumia Icon comes with the Data Sense app, which shows you the amount of data you've used. Both cellular and Wi-Fi traffic is accounted for. There are different data limit types: one-time, monthly and unlimited. The first two accept custom bandwidth limit values, while the latter is applicable if you have an unlimited data plan, but would still like to track your usage. With GDR3 there's an option to prevent data usage when roaming.

Data Sense can also restrict the background data usage for all apps, provided you're near a preset data limit. This will prevent some apps from functioning properly, though.

Data Sense is useful if you're on a limited data plan

Naturally, Nokia Lumia Icon comes with a special feature for kids conveniently dubbed Kid's corner (HTC liked it well enough to put a similar feature on the One series). You can select the apps and the types of media content that goes in and password-protect it, so you can safely share your smartphone with your kids without worrying that they will mess up your settings or access inappropriate content. When activated, the Kids corner is accessible by swiping left off the lockscreen. If you've secured it, your kids won't be able to return to your standard lock and home screen without the password.

The Kid's corner

Driving Mode can be enabled automatically when the phablet connects to a specific Bluetooth device (i.e. your car's stereo). This mode mutes all notifications except calls and texts, but you can mute those too. If you do, you can set an automatic reply text.

Driving mode

Microsoft is trying to appeal to business users too - a company can create its own Hub where employees can find news, calendars and other info relevant to their work. Companies can also create their own apps that only employees can install.

Being a WP8 handset, the Nokia Lumia Icon also supports voice commands - you can dictate or have the phone read text out, you can initiate searches and so on. Unfortunately, the Windows assistant is still far behind the competition as far as recognition speed and accuracy are concerned. Microsoft is said to be working on a new virtual assistant dubbed Cortana, which should premiere WP8.1 in US English and before the end of 2014 for the rest of the world (in 44 additional languages).

Camera

High-end Lumia phones and good imaging seem to go hand-in-hand. Nokia's always excelled at mobile photography, and it's recently raised the bar with its PureView tech, which we earlier saw in the Lumia 1020's 41-megapixel camera. That camera was so impressive, in fact, that even something as stellar as the Lumia 1520's 20-megapixel shooter felt a little like a downgrade. The Lumia Icon's camera is closer to the 1520's, since it shares many of the same specs and characteristics. If that counts as cutting corners, then we can live with that.

As with the 1520, you'll get optical image stabilization, a six-element lens, an aperture of f/2.4 and a sensor size of 1/2.5 inch (much smaller than the 1020's 1/1.5 inch). It uses the same software algorithms and oversampling technology featured on the 1520. As you might expect, the experience is near-identical too. We won't go into great detail on how the PureView model works -- look no further than our Lumia 1020 review for the full explanation -- but on the Icon, you'll get a high-res image taken at 19 megapixels along with a 5MP lower-res shot, which will come in handy for uploading your photos to Instagram, Facebook or whatever service you want. (This is for shots taken in 4:3 mode; you can also snap images in 16:9 assuming you don't mind a dip in resolution.)

The best part of Nokia's photo experience is the camera app, which gives you a full suite of manual settings to help you get the perfect shot -- ISO, white balance, exposure and shutter speed can all be adjusted in real time, so you're not wasting time poking around the settings menu. And, as part of Nokia's Black update, you now have the option of getting a copy of your high-resolution photo in RAW (DNG) format. If you're limited on storage (32GB is a lot, but there's also no microSD slot), we'd recommend you switch over to the standard high-res JPEG option, since each RAW file takes up nearly 25MB of space.

Performance and battery life

Right now, at least, Qualcomm's Snapdragon 800 quad-core processor reigns supreme, which means the Icon (clocked at 2.2GHz) is among the best in its class. And while even low-end Windows Phones run well, it's still so much nicer to play graphics-intense games on a device with a top-of-the-line chip. Games like Asphalt 8 play smoothly, and we noticed that the phone saved and rendered its high-res images faster than the Lumia 1020. (In fact, it was even faster than the 1520.) In short, this is the best-performing Windows Phone we've ever used. As for synthetic tests, it scored slightly better than the 1520 on every benchmark test we ran, as you can see in the table below.

	Nokia Lumia Icon	Nokia Lumia 1520	Nokia Lumia 1020
WPBench	471	466	223
Battery rundown	2:42	3:30	2:12
SunSpider 1.0 (MS)	538	546	906.2
*AnTuTu (GPU test off)**	25,750 (23,241)	25,148 (22,275*)	11,084 (9,874*)
SunSpider: lower scores are better.

Battery life was a big question-mark for us going into this review, just because high-res screens and powerful quad-core chipsets are known to take a toll on runtime. In this case, though, none of that appears to make a difference. The Icon's 2,420mAh battery lasted through a 12-hour day that included nonstop GPS navigation, streaming music, emails and phone calls. We still had roughly 35 percent juice left over, which means you should have no problem squeezing out a full day on a charge. And with more moderate usage, you can even get through a day and a half -- not bad for a 5-inch flagship device. The only thing that gave us pause was when we were taking a steady flow of pictures and videos for testing; in one instance, the battery drained by 25 percent in an hour.

Call quality is above average, which shouldn't come as a surprise to most Verizon customers, and the volume (for both internal and speakerphone calls) is loud enough that we didn't have to crank it up to the max settings to hear comfortably. It handles movies and music quite well, and we had no Bluetooth connection issues. We were also able to quickly pinpoint our location via GPS, but we noticed that the Here Drive app sometimes failed to re-route when we went the wrong way.

Despite being fresh on the market, the Nokia Lumia Icon is hardly unfamiliar. The smartphone shares most of its innards with the Nokia Lumia 1520 phablet. They include the beefy Qualcomm Snapdragon 800 chipset, as well as the capable 20MP PureView camera with Carl Zeiss optics. Here's what else the Icon has to offer.

Main disadvantages

Mediocre battery life
Somewhat thick for a flagship
No microSD card slot
Over the top carrier branding somewhat spoils the design
Lack of support for Nokia Glance Screen
Only available for Verizon Wireless in the United States

A quick glance at the key features reveals that the Nokia Lumia Icon is almost as well-equipped as a smartphone can be these days. Last year's GDR3 update for Windows Phone 8 opened the platform to the latest available hardware, so Nokia's high-end smartphone is as good any Android powerhouse currently on the market (and not too far behind the upcoming flagship wave, either).

In addition to the beefy internals, the Nokia Lumia Icon relies on the Finnish company's traditional strengths to succeed. They include hugely capable camera, nicely spec'd display, and good looks to go with an array of exclusive and handy services.

Nokia Lumia Icon live photos

All in all, the Nokia Lumia Icon has the making of a solid high-end smartphone proposition. We are not going to waste any more time introducing the smartphone. Head over to the next page where we will kick the in-depth review off with an unboxing of the Windows Phone flagship.