Nokia Lumia 928 vs HTC Windows Phone 8X
Smartphone market is a very strange market. Sometimes you cannot apply the concepts of marketing to smartphone market because of its unique nature. For instance, it is a market where the product design changes quickly and new technologies come and go sooner than anyone can anticipate. It’s difficult for the manufacturers to adopt their manufacturing plants accordingly which poses a significant threat but this may be mitigated given the process is difficult for everyone, not just one manufacturer. However, it is rewarding to have a diverse portfolio of products because then when the flagship products gets outdated, they can be rebranded into a mid-range and low end product that can still sell in the right markets. In that aspect, manufacturers can take two stands; they can either provide a cost leadership by developing the economies of scales, or they can provide a differentiation leadership. Which one is better depends on the organization, but some organizations tend to provide a mix of both, as well. Analyzing the two companies Nokia and HTC, we can see that Nokia is trying to be a cost leader by only manufacturing windows phone based smartphones while HTC has differentiation leadership with a wide range of smartphones on offer. There may be different repercussions for different situations, but naturally Nokia may face a higher risk in a market like this. In any case, let us look at these two smartphones to check whether they got what it takes to be a leader.
Nokia Lumia 928 Review
Nokia Lumia 928 is more or less the same smartphone compared to Nokia Lumia 920. It seems that Nokia has slightly changed the appearance and rebranded the Lumia 920 because Verizon wanted an exclusive smartphone from Nokia. However, the first thing we noticed was that Lumia 928 doesn’t look as good as Lumia 920; which is not a good impression. That is not to say it’s a bad smartphone, but it’s somewhat thick compared to the new smartphones and feels heavy in your hand, which might be a problem for some. It sports a AMOLED capacitive touchscreen display featuring a resolution of 1280 x 768 pixels at a pixel density of 332 ppi. The Corning Gorilla Glass 2 reinforcement protects the screen from scratches and dents. As usual, Nokia offers PureMotion HD+ and ClearBlack display enhancements, providing you with a deep black that is pleasing to the eyes. Nokia Lumia 928 comes with a Micro Sim just like the Lumia 920.
Nokia Lumia 928 is powered by 1.5GHz Krait Dual Core processor on top of Qualcomm MSM8960 Snapdragon chipset along with Adreno 225 chipset and 1GB of RAM. As you can clearly see, this is not the top configurations in the game, but for a Windows Phone, these configurations are top tier. Since the Windows Phone 8 operating system is heavily optimized for this hardware, we do see a smoothly running smartphone over the set of tasks you want to get done.
Nokia offers 3G HSDPA connectivity as well as 4G LTE connectivity that ensures you can stay connected at all times. Wi-Fi 802.11 a/b/g/n enables you to surf over the available Wi-Fi hotspots and with DLNA you can stream rich media content to your big screens. You can also set up a Wi-Fi hotspot easily to share your super-fast internet connection.
Nokia Lumia 920 was renowned for superb low light photography, and Nokia has kept the same feature in Lumia 928, as well. It is one of the best smartphones for photography and offers a range of hardware and software enhancements to ensure that your experience in photography is enjoyable. The 8MP Carl Zeiss sensor is at the center with xenon flash and optical image stabilization. The sensor size is 1/3.2” and has 1.4µm pixel size along with PureView technology. It can capture 1080p HD videos at 30 frames per second with video stabilization and stereo sound. One can also use the 1.2MP front facing camera for video conferences, as well.
The internal storage of Lumia 928 stagnates at 32GB without the option to be expanded using a microSD card, but 32GB is fairly a comfortable amount of storage. Nokia Lumia 928 comes in Black or White and offers more than 11 hours of 2G talk time with the 2000mAh non-removable battery pack.
HTC Windows Phone 8X Review
HTC has injected a vivid blue and violet color to this attractive smartphone. It also comes in Graphite Black, Flame Red and Limelight Yellow. The handset is somewhat in to the thick side of the spectrum although HTC has disguised it with the tapered edges which make others perceive it as rather a thin smartphone. It comes with a unibody chassis which we can complement due to the aesthetically appealing design. It is powered by 1.5GHz Dual Core Krait processor on top of Qualcomm MSM8960 Snapdragon S4 chipset with Adreno 225 GPU and 1GB of RAM. The handset is powered by Windows Phone 8X as indicated by the name. However, Windows Phone 8X didn’t have a completed build of the operating system just yet so we won’t be able to talk about the aspects of the OS right now. What we can guess is that the handset would have acceptable performance matrices with the high end processor it has.
One of the things we didn’t like about HTC Windows Phone 8X is its stagnating 16GB of internal storage without the option to expand it using SD card. This may well be a deal breaker for some of you out there. However, the handset comes with Beats Audio Sound Enhancement; so, a premium audio quality can be expected. It has 4.3 inch S LCD2 capacitive touchscreen display featuring a resolution of 1280 x 720 pixels at a pixel density of 342ppi. It is moderately weighted at 130g with evenly distributed weight, which feels good in your hands. Unfortunately, Window Phone 8X doesn’t feature 4G LTE connectivity which might be an issue when competing with rivals. Compensating that, HTC has offered NFC connectivity along with Wi-Fi 802.11 a/b/g/n for continuous connectivity alongside 3G HSDPA connectivity. This smartphone has 8MP camera at the back with autofocus and LED flash with the ability to capture 1080p HD videos. The front camera is 2.1MP which is impressive and HTC guarantees a wide angle view with 1080p HD video recording from the front camera, as well. The battery size is 1800mAh with which we can expect a talk time around 6 to 8 hours.
A Brief Comparison Between Nokia Lumia 928 and HTC Windows Phone 8X
• Nokia Lumia 928 is powered by 1.5GHz Krait Dual Core processor on top of Qualcomm MSM 8960 Snapdragon chipset along with Adreno 225 GPU and 1GB of RAM while HTC Windows Phone 8X is powered by 1.5GHz Krait Dual Core processor on top of Qualcomm MSM8960 Snapdragon S4 chipset with Adreno 225 GPU and 1GB of RAM.
• Both Nokia Lumia 928 and HTC Windows Phone 8X run on Windows Phone 8.
• Nokia Lumia 928 has 4.5 inches AMOLED capacitive touchscreen with PureMotion HD+ and ClearBlack display featuring a resolution of 1280 x 768 pixels at a pixel density of 332 ppi while HTC Windows Phone 8X has 4.3 inch S LCD 2 capacitive touchscreen featuring a resolution of 1280 x 720 pixels at a pixel density of 342ppi.
• Nokia Lumia 928 has 8MP camera that is capable of extreme low light photography can capture 1080p HD videos @ 30 fps while HTC Windows Phone 8X has 8MP camera that can capture 1080p HD videos at 30 fps.
• Nokia Lumia 928 is larger and heftier (133 x 68.9 mm / 10.1 mm / 162g) than HTC Windows Phone 8X (132.4 x 66.2 mm / 10.1 mm / 130g).
• Nokia Lumia 928 has 2000mAh battery while HTC Windows Phone 8X has 1800mAh battery.
Conclusion
These two smartphones feature the same operating system and hence by far offers a fair comparison. Both have the same processor over the same chipset and have similar display panels, as well. However, the display panel in Nokia Lumia 928 seems to be better given it has the Nokia DeepBlack technology to enhance the color reproduction. Nokia Lumia 928 also has a considerable advantage in terms of optics because it is renowned for low light photography. However, Nokia Lumia 928 is remarkably heavier for such a small smartphone, and that might be a worry for some of us who enjoys a light smartphone. Other than that, we don’t have any comments on both smartphones because they are more or less alike and will do a good job in serving you.