From a writers mind: 920 or 820?

September the 5^th, probably one of the most important dates of 2012 (for Nokia that is), Nokia launched its second stage of the Lumia strategy with the 820 and 920. Gorgeous devices that really stood out in what was, or is, available in the market today. Cutting edge technology, and available in many different flavours, a blessing. Or is it?

Well, yes and no. As I was viewing the video of the presentation that day I was amazed at the freshly announced Lumia 920. It really looked awesome, it had the same look as my current 800 yet it improved on it in practically every way I wanted. A larger screen, a better camera, better battery life, a front facing camera and many other cool new features that really looked good. They even showed a very promising colour; Grey. That had to be mine I thought to myself, it wasn’t as depressing as the standard black yet not as outgoing as the brighter colours available.

A few weeks went past, there was some controversy surrounding the 920 with the camera, there were some premature assumptions and mostly a lot of debate went on about what the pricing would be and when it would hit the stores. All that didn’t bother me; I wanted to know where I could find some pictures of that Grey colored Lumia 920. I didn’t care how small they were, I needed to see it in real life, as I fell in love with the renders of it. Then, that glorious moment came; Engadget had snapped some pictures of the now Ashgrey ‘Unicorn’ Lumia 920.

And it was… well… disappointing, it was just a dull colour. It didn’t do the device justice I even thought it was ugly and looked like an unpainted Cyan, Red, Yellow or White version.

This made me think, what colour am I going to get now? The black one was just a little too bland and after all my 800 is already black and looks a lot like a 920. Of course, there are other colours available like a sensual Lipstick Red or a Lightning Bolt Yellow. Or maybe a Diamond White one would be the answer? Nice as all colours look, none of them really ‘wowed’ me and felt like I would plonk down a wad of cash and walk out of a store happy if I bought one. Buy it and you are stuck with the colour for a while, was the thought that ringing through my head.

Then just a few days ago it struck me, why would I want a 920? What is the real benefit it has for me over the 820? The piece de resistance is the camera, but even when I had an N8 when did I really use the camera’s performance? Not that often actually. The high definition screen perhaps? Higher is better, that is the mantra I always used to justify purchases, but looking at the screen of a Galaxy SII I couldn’t say it looked bad, not even for the near future.

Why would I buy a 920 then, I figured? Wireless charging? The 820 can do that as well. Larger in-built memory? Nice to have, but I don’t even use the full 16GB on my 800. Even if the 8GB of the 820 is filled I could just slap a SD card in it and be on my way. Going over all kinds of specs and comparing them to real world usage I had it was hard to find a real big reason to choose the 920 over the 820. But I was still torn; the 920 still seemed like the better deal.

Until now.

When the pricing was announced it became clear, the 920 feels just too expensive for my use case. The 820 seems like the better deal going purely by raw specs sheets and  pictures. One of the main things that actually drew me to the 820 is the changeable covers. Dislike the white? Just change it to black and back again. Microscopic scuffs on the back? Just slap on a new cover and be on your way again. Want something completely different, I’m counting on third parties to deliver on that end.

So, will my next phone be a Lumia 820? Chances are it will be, although I probably have never been so torn between devices as I am now. Nokia really need to send me a test unit somewhere in the coming weeks I guess.

Pretty please with a cherry on top?

Category: Nokia