iPhone 5: Five ways the Nokia Lumia 920 beats Apple's best

 

iPhone 5: Five ways the Nokia Lumia 920 beats Apple's best

 

The iPhone 5 is coming: last night Apple whipped the covers off its newly designed smartphone, slapped a release date on it and send iFans into a frenzy. But is it the bee’s knees of blowers? Maybe not: here are five ways its upcoming rival, the Windows Phone powered Nokia Lumia 920, has it beat.

Giant HD screen

Yes, the iPhone 5 marks the first time Apple has ever upped the screen size on its smartphone. And the move to a super sharp display that measures four inches diagonally rather than 3.5 will be a welcome one for many, not least because you can now fit more apps on screen at once. But the Nokia Lumia 920’s huge 4.5-inch display is one of the best we’ve ever clapped eyes on – and with a 1280×720 resolution, it’s HD too. Those with big hands struggling to hit tiny links in Safari on iOS will be delighted.

Epic camera skills

The PureView camera on the Nokia Lumia 920 has been mired in controversy over faked advertisements, but that doesn’t change the fact that all the sample images we’ve seen so far have been absolutely stunning.

The eight megapixel sensor appears to vastly out perform every rival smartphone in low light conditions, and we’re not expecting the new eight megapixel in the iPhone 5 to match it. Optical image stabilisation, achieved with a clever floating lens, also promises to deliver untouchable, unshaky video, even if you’ve been on the caffeine all day.

Bring your own storage

The Nokia Lumia 920 comes with 32GB of storage built in. But if you want to add more, that’s easy: it packs in a micro SD card slot so you can triple that space on the cheap (32GB memory cards are surprisingly cheap online now). Want an iPhone 5 with the most storage? You’ll have to pay more for it built-in. A lot more. While Apple has yet to release pricing for this model, previous iPhone models have seen big price hikes for 32GB and 64GB of space.

Location location location

Nokia’s always been a leader in GPS and location software, and Nokia Maps is now built right into Windows Phone 8. It’s fast, clear and feature packed- you can download maps in advance for countries all over the world, saving you from huge data charges when abroad. And another smart new feature lets you lift your phone up to switch to augmented reality view, so the Nokia Lumia 920 can lead you right to the door of wherever you’re headed.

Apple’s new mapping software on iOS 6 however remains to be seen. Yes, it packs in voice guidance and turn by turn navigation for effective free satnav. But based on the beta releases of iOS 6, it’s still missing a lot of the details you take for granted in Google Maps (which currently powers iPhone Maps). Fingers crossed Apple can fill in the gaps, and pronto. You can’t leave tube and train stations off the map, guys.

NFC now

Near field communication (NFC) technology is the next big thing in mobile, letting you tap to pay in stores, or even pair your phone with a Bluetooth stereo. It’s included as standard in the Nokia Lumia 920: as more services go live you’ll be able to make more and more use of it. But guess what doesn’t have NFC? That’s right: the iPhone 5. It’s widely believed that Apple is holding off until it can roll out its own payment system to get a cut of every transaction, but it looks like that will have to wait next year at least.

and one way it doesn’t….

Release date

There’s a huge question mark hanging over the Nokia Lumia 920 though: we still don’t know when it’s going on sale. Reports peg it for a November release, but that gives Apple’s iPhone 5, which goes on sale on 20 September, a huge head start.

Where do you stand? iPhone 5 or Windows Phone 8? Let’s hear your thoughts in the comments!